87 - Unveiling the Habits of the Top 1% for Financial Freedom and Human Prosperity with Wealth Dynamx's Jerry Fetta

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Jerry Fetta, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the co-founder of Wealth Dynamics and can be found at wealthdynamics.com. And Dynamics is spelled D-Y-N-A-M-X.

That's right.

Okay. Well, welcome.

Thank you, Doug. It's good to be on today.

Thank you. So give us your backstory, man. I know from studying you that you have been all over the place. You're now in Tampa, Florida, but that was— that's just your last stop on a very, very interesting journey.

Yeah. Yeah. About to move to Kansas City as well at the end of the month. My backstory, gosh. So, you know, I think for me this all started, and when I say this, you know, helping people with finances and really seeking truth in that area and providing that to people on as wide of a scale as I can, you know, it probably started for me when I was 8 years old, right? And so that summer in my life, you know, my, my, my, we lost our house, so our house got foreclosed on. Car got repoed, mom and dad got divorced. I was homeless on both sides of the family. So with my dad, we were sleeping in a tent in the woods. As an 8-year-old, I just thought we were camping, right? But, and then with my mom, we were living in a dry camper behind somebody's house. And so this was my, you know, 8-year-old summer. And I remember looking at this and as a kid, you don't have the same significance associated with the events. When you look back at it and you're like, holy cow, you know, this was, kind of an extreme, you know, summer and time in my life. So I think at that point, you know, is really when I, I saw the negative impact that money could have. And, um, you know, I started, you know, in life, you know, seeing and experiencing more and more of that. So I remember when I was 17, 18 years old, my older brother had told me, he said that the US dollar is not backed by anything. And I remember just being at this, this, this state of awe, like, why would I work my entire life trading time for basically what I considered monopoly money? And so I opted out of the money game and I was like, I'm just not going to participate. I'm not going to be involved. I'm just going to enjoy life and ignore economics. And within 18 months of that, I was homeless again. And so that was a wake-up call for me on what I've realized now is that there's no opt out of economics and finance. It drags us along kicking or screaming. And so there's really 3 options we all have, right? We can go into you know, denial, which is what most people do. That's, that's kind of middle America. And then we can go into, you know, non-participation, which is what I attempted to try, or we can go into abundance, right? And that abundance is, okay, well, if this is the game, I want to have so much abundance in this area that I don't want to have to think about it. You know, Zig Ziglar talked about, you know, money being like oxygen. And I think that's the best example I've ever heard is we don't count our breaths. We don't worry about who, inhaled more than everyone else. It's just, we just live and breathe, and that's how I think money should be. So that's kind of my backstory with finances. I got into the industry when I was 18. I got my licenses and I slowly, and anything, any real professional CEO I think has probably experienced this. You go through this evolution of learning the textbook, right? What you're supposed to think and what you're supposed to know, to then observing maybe some things that don't quite agree with the textbook. And then having to kind of confront the wisdom in that and find out, okay, well, what's the truth, right? And that's kind of where you come up with, you know, the evolution of going to what I believe a true professional in any field is someone that, you know, they've got the basics down, but they can do some crazy stuff that's not the basics anymore. And somehow it works, right? And, and that's really kind of what I've striven to do in my field of finance. And what my company does with our clients now is helping them really apply the truth about money in their lives.

But tell us about Wealth Dynamics. How did it start and what's it do?

Yeah, so Wealth Dynamics, like I said, it's kind of an evolution, right? So I started age 18. I got my insurance licenses, I got my investment licenses, and it was very traditional, right? And back then it wasn't Wealth Dynamics yet. I was working with a very large national agency. So I got my training and I got my legs underneath of me. And that was very much what I call retail financial services. We were doing a lot of retirement planning and the 401s and the life insurance. And I started to have these encounters and it wasn't often, but it was often enough that it would stop me in my tracks when it happened. I would meet with people that had means, they had money already, and certain individuals I would talk to, they were already wealthy and they had no interest in the stuff I was offering. And it was very different than what I would experience with most people, probably 9 out of 10 people, you know, they were on board and they're like, yep, I need to do this. And there were certain ones that would question me and be like, why do you offer this instead of this? Or explain, explain to me like a 5-year-old what this means. And I, and I could never make sense of those encounters. And so I started to, you know, just plant that seed, I guess, in the back of my mind. And for me, it all changed when I was 21 years old. So my mom was my first client, right? And shout out to all the supportive moms out there. I think, I think, you know, a lot of us can say our moms probably helped us out when we were just starting something. So my mom was my first client. And as we know, the retirement game is, is build the nest egg up until you're 60, right? And when you're 60, you can start to live off of that. So I had this whole plan going with my mom. And so she turned 60 and she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and passed away within 6 months. And I had just been in a, in the financial industry for a few years. I was still pretty green and I was looking at this and as a son, I was devastated.. And I was like, I never would've expected this to happen. And then as a professional, you know, in the financial trade, I was looking at this and I was like, you know, the plan, the quote unquote, the plan, it just unraveled in front of my own eyes with my own mother.

The 40-year—

we weren't trained for this.

You're talking about the 40-year plan.

The 40-year plan, you know, put it all in a 401k and, and hopefully you die before the money runs out. Right. And, and there's, there's some humor in that statement because that's kind of what people do is they sock it away and they sock it away and they defer life. And then they turn 60 and they pray to God that they don't outlive their money, right? Nobody wants to be, you know, 76 years old and looking for work again, unless you're Colonel Sanders and you make it the new thing, right? And so I looked at this and I was like, okay, so on one hand, that's the goal. In a weird way, my mom achieved the goal. She didn't outlive her money. But on the other hand, she didn't achieve the goal because she didn't live long enough to enjoy it. And I was like, this is not a winning system. And I started to put this together with those encounters that I had, which were wealthy individuals, top 1 percenters, in fact. And so I just started to research the top 1%. I was like, what do they actually do? And not the Warren Buffetts and the Elon Musks. I mean the old dead successful people, right? The biographies of the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers and the Carnegies and these really old historical figures that we can go study. And that's when Wealth Dynamics was born. I started to realize that these individuals, they didn't do the things that we're taught to do today and that the things we're taught to do today are actually very recent. Reasons. You know, in the last 40, 50 years, a lot of these things were developed. And if you look back 100, 200 years, these guys didn't do any of that stuff, right? And the stuff that they did never went out of style. It's still there, and, and people still win with it today. And so I started to really take after that with my own finances. Um, and what I noticed, Doug, was when I was a financial advisor, there was this statement we always had to tell people: past performance cannot predict the future. Right? And this is like, you write this in blood, you make sure every client knows this. And what I started to notice, which was just sheer irony, is that when I was doing the 1% stuff, I started experimenting. Past performance was indeed predicting the future. It did exactly what they said it would do, exactly when they said it would, and it was a direct cause and effect, right?

And, well, I think in the financial advisors industry, they're really talking about the stock market. You can't say I made $10 million for my clients in the last year. The government doesn't want you doing that because you guys—

Exactly.

But you're talking about investment principles, not about specific investments and investment principles.

Exactly. Exactly.

What did you learn?

So one of the main things that— and this is the first one that really caught my attention— is most of the top 1%, there's actually a graph that I saw and it shows the savings rate by wealth class and it goes back 100 years. Right? And so it shows the middle class, it shows the bottom, you know, 90%, and then it shows the top 10%, then it shows the top 1%. And so the top 1% of wealth, they actually have a track record, a very consistent track record of saving 40% of their gross income.

Wow.

40%, which is a lot. And that's pre-tax, right? So I make $100,000 pre-tax, I maybe only take home $60,000. Well, they're still going to save $40,000 like the pre-tax never happened. Right? And so that's something I noticed, and they were doing this over and over and over. And I would notice that during economic booms, this is when they were saving that much money. When recessions and depressions would happen, their savings rates would drop. And in fact, during the Great Depression, they actually went into debt.

Hmm.

And, and I looked at this and I realized, you know, they're, they're buying, they're not saving anymore. They're deploying all the capital. They're even borrowing money because Businesses went on sale, real estate went on sale, stocks went on sale, and the entire time in between, they're stacking up their dry powder.

So they're leveraging in depressions when separate assets are cheap and the risk is fairly low. And then of course, in the bullish markets, they're making money, so they're saving money.

Exactly, exactly. So that was a big one that I noticed. And then I also saw too that, you know, the majority of the net worth of the top 1% historically, I think 68% of it is in small business equity. And that doesn't necessarily always mean they were the founder, and it doesn't always necessarily mean they were the owner, but it means that they had definitely had skin in the game, right? Whether they're a C-level and they've got equity in that shape or form, or maybe they did actually start the business.

So that explains the rise of private equity firms.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Because they recognize that they can invest in small— purchase small firms or purchase interest in small firms and make a much bigger return than they can in the public markets.

And it's a lot more controllable too. If you have a really well-run, really well-managed small business, you know, it's much more maneuverable. When you make a change, it happens a lot quicker, it shows up a lot quicker. Some of these publicly traded companies, they're behemoths. So as you think about this giant ship out at sea, you know, you've got to turn a lot just to get the ship to go a little bit in a different direction. So, yeah.

Interesting. So Wealth Dynamics is about educating. When I looked at the website, it looked like you had a lot of education.

Yeah, we're very big on education. My, my vision as a, as a co-founder, as the CEO, my vision for the company and I guess for, for the world with what I do every day is I want to see a planet where the majority of wealth is owned and controlled by good people, and by good people who actually want to use that wealth to improve the freedoms and conditions of humanity across all dynamics. And so that starts with education. Money is something that I learned the hard way. You're going to encounter it whether you want to or not. There's not an option there. And so it's a lot like Zig says with oxygen. Imagine if no one ever taught you needed to breathe.

Right.

You know, or eating. No one ever told you you needed food, or they didn't say, hey, hey Doug, hey Jerry, you guys, you guys need a good 7, 8 hours of sleep every night. What if we didn't know that? Life would be unnecessarily hard. And I think that that's what happens with a lot of, you know, families, individuals, entrepreneurs, is we lack that education, right? And, and it shows up in, in, you know, kind of this mystery. One of the examples I like to give, Doug, is in 2020, a lot of us, you know, we were locked up at home and, and having kind of a tough year, the net worths of the top 1% collectively increased by $1 trillion that year.

I know, crazy.

And we were losing money. 401s were getting locked down by 30% and incomes were dropping. And so we look at this and we can see we all went through a similar event, but we had very different outcomes. And it leads one to wonder, what are they doing that everyone else doesn't know about? And that's that lack of knowledge is it's not a secret and it's not impossible. You know, if a C-average kid from Alaska can figure it out, you know, the everyday American sure as hell can, right? And that's, that's that knowledge.

What do you think the big difference was?

You know, I think the big difference was, was a lot of things. I think, you know, part of it goes back to what I said on the graphs. I think that the, the 1%ers were prepared. You know, you don't accidentally make a trillion dollars. You're getting ready for that. You know, you have reserves put away and you've got— and not just reserves to cover the bills in case I, I lose my job for 3 or 6 months, it's reserves to really take advantage of opportunities. And that really is, you know, it's a definition of wealth, is it's abundance.

Well, as you think about it, the Federal Reserve and all the central banks around the world created a huge amount of liquidity. That's what drove the stock market. I couldn't understand why is the stock market going up and, you know, we're basically all shut in and economic activity is basically stopped. And I realized it was because of the liquidity that the Fed was putting in the market, which which boosted the stock market to all-time highs. And people were making a fortune in those kinds of investments.

Yeah, yeah. And if you look at the liquidity, you know, it hit corporations in a higher proportion than it did the everyday consumer. And so we saw, you know, we can talk inflation, we saw what I would call inflation with stock prices first and with real estate prices. Right, paper assets. And, and then we saw this lag before it finally trickled into the hands of the consumer. And so then we see the inflation of the price of milk and gas and all the everyday things, because now the money had moved, finally had gone through that, that funnel, if you will, into the everyday American's hands, where now they're putting it to the things that they use. Money is like a hose— whatever you point it at, it's going to get wet. So at that point, we're pointing it at everyday goods. The inflation came into everyday goods at that point.

Right, right. Interesting. So, so what is it that— you're a pretty high-energy guy, uh, Jerry. What is it that gets you really excited and gets you out of bed in the morning?

You know, for me, um, for a while I didn't know, right? And I always thought as an entrepreneur, as an executive, I think, you know, maybe others have had this where a lot of times people tend to know, you know, they either have a chip on their shoulder or they had something happen and they're trying to prove someone wrong. There's this thing that they're That's the thing that drives them. And I was for the longest time, Doug, I was like, I don't have that. Like, I don't have this thing. And so, you know, I finally realized one day it's really two things is it's my purpose. And my purpose is the vision that I stated, right? I think that there's incredible people on this planet. Like, I am the number one believer in people. I think there's not a better investment than a human being. I mean, You can't go talk to real estate and all of a sudden it produces more. You can do that with a human being and you coach them and talk to them. All of a sudden they improve and get better right on the spot. I think that's incredible. And so my purpose is helping, and I think there's a lot of really brilliant people who are unnecessarily held back by money, and I was one of them. And if someone wasn't willing to have the right conversations with me and help me, I wouldn't be here today. And so that's a big piece of it. And then I would say the other one is, is also my, my potential. You know, life for me is like a game. And so I always want to see what, what is, what is the next thing we can do? What's the next level look like? What am I capable of? And, and just constantly, you know, moving the bar. And I think that when I, for me, when I live that way, I emanate more energy, right? And it's not something I necessarily have to flip on or off. It's just kind of always there.

Yeah, you are a pretty high-energy guy. What is it that you think that's unique about you that you bring to the table? That other people don't have?

You know, I think we all have uniquenesses. I think that, that one of mine is, um, I'm a very good problem solver. Um, and I, and I come up typically with very quick out-of-the-box solutions, you know, and that's been something that I've always been good at where, you know, someone will come to me with what seems like a very large problem and instantly I'm like, well, what if we do blah? And it's like this thing that sometimes I'm even like, how did I think of that? Right? It's, it blows me away a bit. And then the other one too is I have a very intense level of focus. And this is on, it can be on a macro scale where if I've got a goal, I'm the guy that I'm going to do the same stuff every single day for the next 5 years if that's what it takes and nothing's going to stop me. And it happens on little stuff too, or if I'm working on a project, you know, for example, you know, let's say there's someone talking to me all of a sudden, I might not even hear them speak because I'm so zoned in on what I'm doing in the moment.

I—

yep, it sounds like you may have the same.

I have that same, uh, blessing and curse. Yeah. Oh, it was so funny. I'll just tell you a quick story. We— my wife and I were on an 11-day road trip through the Pacific Northwest, and where were we? Oh, we were— our last night we were in, uh, Jackson Hole, Wyoming at a hotel, and I was sitting by the pool playing— I play jazz violin And I had my electric violin and headsets on so you don't— nobody can hear me. And I'm totally focused on what I'm doing. Finally, a guy comes up to me and taps me on the shoulder and says, whoops. And I go like this, right? That happens to you, right? Whoa. And he said, your wife, she needs to be let into your hotel room. I mean, people— I could not hear. I was totally, I was totally different zone.

It sounds—

you have that same experience, don't you?

I have that same experience. And it is, it is a blessing and a curse, right? I think it's a, it's a blessing because it's like a It's like a tunnel vision. If you decide to do something, that's right, it's getting done, right? No question about it.

Exactly right, it's getting done.

But other things won't.

That's right, the curse is other things don't get done, and you're oblivious to the world around you when you're, when you're in that zone.

Precisely.

I totally get that.

Wow.

So this show is called Listening with Leaders. Uh, as you may know, I'm a lawyer turned peacemaker, and I— one of the things I do is help help people stop fights and arguments in their lives forever by learning how to listen properly. How important have you found listening to be in your career, especially now as a founder and CEO?

You know, listening is huge. Um, and, and I love when, when you, when you told me that was, you know, a big focus of the show, because I think, you know, those that are willing and able to listen are the real solution makers in the world. So many people want to just simply be heard and validated, right? And like you mentioned with fights and conflict, usually that's because someone doesn't feel like they were acknowledged. They feel like they need to continue to push their communication out. And, you know, I remember when I was a kid, when my parents got divorced, they'd fight all the time. And it was this person's viewpoint against this person's viewpoint. And they were constantly enforcing one viewpoint on the other. And it was just this back and forth, back and forth. And it, it's kind of like, you know, tennis, except it's not tennis you wanna play. Like you're not winning the more times the ball goes back and forth. The person listening is able to just catch the ball and then the game is done, right? And I think listening is a big piece of it, but I think listening in a way where you understand the viewpoint of the other individual, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you've gotta agree with it. It doesn't necessarily mean you've gotta change your viewpoint, but you can see the world that they see. From their perspective and have empathy for that and actually understand it, and in a way where they feel understood. And I think that that is such a huge thing.

I agree with you. I mean, what I, what I teach is validate the other person, validate what they're saying, what they mean, and what they're feeling. And when you validated that, those three levels, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, they feel deeply heard. And disagreements go away. You can still disagree, but the animosity, the emotion gets de-escalated.

Yeah, yeah, extremely powerful. And I, and I think, um, as a CEO, you probably deal with a little— yeah, you, you deal with a little messiness every now and then, don't you? I do it with finances and in business too, you know. And it's, um, you know, I think as a CEO specifically, you know, when, when you're trying to get a company, you know, let's say moving along you're trying to get staff or employees, you know, pushing towards the goal of the company or achieving the mission or meeting production quotas, like the number one asset that you have is their willingness, right? And so if you lose that willingness, you don't have the support of the team anymore. You're a one-man show dragging everyone else trying to get the targets accomplished and that doesn't work. And so listening, I mean, at a very basic form, it's a form of good manners.

Well, yeah.

Right?

And if you listen correctly, that willingness to go along, another word for that is motivation, motivating people to do the work. You become the leader everyone wants to follow when people feel validated by you as a leader.

Yeah, that's the secret. It really is everywhere. I mean, I was really, when I started the company, I was big in sales, right? And I learned very quick that a sale is closed by fact-finding and listening and really understanding, not by closing. If you listen well enough, you don't have to close. You know, you move over to marketing and I found out marketing is much, much better when done by survey. You ask people what they think, you listen, then you get the feedback and you act on it. So I think there's not an area in business, you know, even finances, for example. I'll talk to couples sometimes and they're like, how do I get my spouse on the same page? And it's like, listen to them. Like they're telling you, answers to your questions. They're, you know, I want to go do this with finances and they're afraid of losing money. And so listen to that and you can then show them, hey, we actually lose less money by doing this, right? And they can actually show that person what they're looking for and whatever the plan is. So it really is multifaceted. There's not a thing that I do where listening is not more important. My dad used to say two ears, one mouth for a reason.

That's right. I know I've worked with a lot of financial advisors over the years training them how to listen, and I teach them, and my guarantee to them is that when you learn how to listen in the way that I can teach you how to listen, you'll close not just 20% of your prospects, you'll close 40 to 60% of your prospects and even more. And the secret is for the first 5 minutes of any meeting, don't say a word. Just let the other person— you can say, tell me what's going on. Well, what about this?

And—

but don't ask, just very broad open-ended questions, and then reflect back what they're saying. And the secret here is to reflect back with a you statement, not an I statement. That's the—

yeah.

Um, and when you do that, people, as we discussed, people feel validated, they feel heard, and they trust you. And you're probably the only professional that they've talked to who've taken the time to really listen to them and, and make you feel heard.

Yeah.

And it's powerful. What's really crazy to me is that listening is the— is the— it's a priceless gift that costs us nothing to give.

Yeah.

And yet so few people do it.

Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, it's crazy. And the other thing, the other thing about it is, you know, if you, if you really think about it, it takes less energy to listen It's more energy to talk. Like, I could do a 2-hour speech and I'm gonna be exhausted, or I could listen to someone for 2 hours and I'm probably not going to be exhausted. So it's a better leverage of your energy too, right?

And the same thing, the same thing with fights and arguments. You can stop a fight or argument. I loved your catch the tennis ball metaphor. That was great. And you can think about it, catch the tennis ball, stop the, stop the volley. No more energy. It's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One, one trick I, I learned too is on the listening point is, is, um, you know, and you've hit it on the head with validating. It's a form of agreement, right? Um, it's impossible to have a fight with only one terminal. It takes two. And so if I'm willing to agree, and I'm— and that obviously comes from listening, so I'm not giving empty agreement and just lip service. I really do the prior steps, and then I agree with them and say, you know what, I can totally see how you're right about that. Done. There's not an argument anymore. Wonderful.

All right, one more question. We're coming to the end of the show. What is one thing about you, Jerry, that we would not know about unless you disclose it to us? And I'm sure there are a lot of things because you've had a really—

yeah, there are a lot of things. Um, okay, so when I was, when I was, uh, early on starting my business, I was a pizza guy. And I did this for a number of years in the rural woods of Alaska, right? So I had, and I had the weird shifts, Doug. I had the 5:00 AM on Friday night shift. And I'll go ahead and tell you now, and you probably have guessed this, nothing good happens at 5:00 AM in the middle of the woods in Alaska when you're ordering and delivering pizzas. It's always weird stuff. Big bear.

So, uh, not in the winter.

In the winter, I mean the winter too, right? So I did the winter and the summer. So one winter, I actually hit a moose with my car. One of the crazy experiences in my life. I was not wearing a seatbelt. Somehow I wasn't injured. My cell phone got destroyed, right? And so I stopped the car. Obviously, the moose stopped the car is what we should properly say. So the moose stopped the car. It was in front of a trailer and there's this guy that comes out of the trailer. In Alaska, there's a lottery list for moose roadkill. So it's not like the Midwest where the deer's blown up and you can't eat it now. It's like, that's going to feed someone for a year. So there's actually a lottery list of people, and the top guy at the list gets that moose for the year. So, um, this guy comes out of his trailer with a .22, like, rifle, and he starts shooting the moose to make sure it's dead. Then he tries to hogtie it and drag it to his trailer before the state troopers can get there. The trooper shows up and catches him in the act and is like, sir, you can't steal the moose. This is someone else's moose. So they take the moose and then he comes and checks on me and he told me if the moose would have hit a centimeter low, he's like, you'd be dead today.

Wow.

And so I had that and then I called my boss at the pizza place. He's this Albanian guy. His name's Benny and he talks like this. And so he gets on the phone and from that day on he refers to me as Moose. So that's, that's a nickname I have from that story that you would probably not know about.

Well, in, in small world stories, we last week we were up in Eastern Washington and driving, we were driving back to our Airbnb. It was actually driving back from a wedding and lo and behold, this big old brown bear comes blasting outta the side of the road, smacks into the side of our car. Gigantic brown bear. It caroms off, runs off into the woods. My wife is driving our pickup truck, scares the crap out of her. And there you go. Wow.

Maybe, uh, did it dent the, did it dent the car?

Didn't do any damage to the car at all. It was going thump, thump, you know, and Well, that was a bear.

It takes off.

Ran off into the woods.

Crazy. Nature's crazy sometimes.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Yuri. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Been a great conversation.

You too, Doug. Thanks so much for having me on today.

You're welcome.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media. On social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.