Don't Retire...Graduate Life with Eric Brotman

Foreign.

This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same.

Now, here's your host CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everybody. Hey, welcome to this episode of the Note Closure show. As always, Scott Carson jacked up to be with you today and I'm excited for this special guest episode. You know, a lot of you guys out there, gals and guys are going through transitions. You're moving away from the jobs. You're trying to become full time real estate investors. That's one way that you guys are transitioning a little bit. But many of you are also transitioning into thinking about retirement or you're doing all this side hustle stuff, especially in real estate, so that you have a better retirement, a better way of life or do a lot of other things. And I'm honored to have a buddy of mine, we've been actually been trying to get him on for about a year and now we finally were able to get him on because this guy is busy. He's an ass kicker. He's kicking ass and taking names all over the place. He is the host of the Don't Retire Graduate podcast. He's been a financial advisor for quite some time, helping. He's got just under three quarters of a billion in assets under management. He's a best selling author. He is just a badass. And we are honored to have Eric Brockman join us on here on the nuclear show. Eric, what is going on, brother? How you doing today?

I'm doing great. First of all, you follow me around and just introduce me that way all the time because I, Bob Baffert, I can do that. Even my, my wife couldn't do that if she, if I asked her to. So you, if you just want to hang out and go, hey, you got to meet this guy, I'm in that, that'd be great.

So do you need me to stand in the courtroom and say, and now coming out of the shower, waiting at, you know, the Mr. Eric Bretman.

First of all, first of all, I don't want anyone seeing me right out of the shower and I don't want anyone to know what I weigh while I'm coming out of the shower. So absolutely not. Both of those out. But thank, but thanks for the idea. No, I'm doing great. This is Going to be such fun. And we have, we, we've tried to do this for, for some time and we finally got on each other's calendars and I'm not sure I'm the busy one, sir. It might be you as well, so. Good stuff.

Well, you know what? We're late. Is better than never. You know what I mean? That's the way I look at things. It's getting it done and things. We just both got back from a fun event in Atlanta, made a lot of connections, reconnected there. But you've been doing what you do for a while now. I think Today is your 21st. An anniversary for B. It is, correct?

It is, yes. Our BFG is finally old enough to drink, which is exactly what all of us almost did at lunch. And I thought better of it, but after work. Yes, I've been in practice for 31 years, but 21 years today, literally today, started this company with one full time and one part time person. Now we're 22 full time folks, 10 CFPS clients in 37 states, and we're, we are busy. It's a, it's a bit of a machine, but it's very personalized. You know, we, we represent a finite number of families all over the place. But it's, it's fun and, and it's busy and I've got great people around me. I mean, it's, it's been a journey. I just look back on the PNL statement from like oh, five and I'm like, wow, you know, I can't believe where things have gone in that, in that period of time.

Well, you know, the nice thing, speaking of period of time, I mean, doing this that had a company for 21 years, you've been through a few cycles, you've been through a few ups and a few downs and a back again. You've been to the circus and you know, been around it a few times a block. A few times? What? And with where the. We could dive deep into this, but we probably won't. But you know, where are you seeing things at right now with people and maybe just the polls? Are people nervous about what's going on? Are they excited? Do they like, oh, I haven't prepared enough? What are you kind of seeing your clientele base as far as the pulse of pop positivity or negativity on what the future holds?

Well, Scott, I got to answer that question by saying, when is this show going live? Because is it pre or post election day? Because as we sit here, the election hasn't happened yet. And I expect that right now everybody's a little nervous and uncomfortable for one reason or the other. And that's not a political statement. It's just true. I mean, there's a lot of stress this time. It just, the bombardment of advertising and messaging really does wear on you. I can't wait for it to be over. However, you know, I do think after the election, depending on the outcome, we're going to see one group of people being very enthusiastic and one group being very nervous. And I don't know that there's any merit to that from an economic or market standpoint at all. History has not proven that one party or the other does a better job with, with the stock market at all. Tax policy certainly will change one way or the other. And certain, you know, each party is trying to penalize the states that vote for the other party. In tax law, we've weaponized the tax code a little bit. That's a two way street. I, I, I think if we have a winner, if we have a defined winner and someone concedes, if someone concedes and we have a defined winner and we know the rules, we can play by them. If we have a contested election and lawsuits and there's 90 days of, of, of purgatory, then I think there'll be some, some maybe ugly, uncomfortable days during that period. But long term, it's irrelevant. It really is long term.

I, I couldn't agree more. Everybody gets all caught up in the, the hype, the negativity. If I could not ever get another text message from a political, it's being bombarded. I'm like, isn't there a law against this stuff with the spam calls and stuff like that these days? But that's why I always say, listen, it doesn't matter. I mean the most important vote really isn't the national. I mean, yes, it is who you vote for, president, vice president, stuff like that. But the biggest impact is more on the local races. That's where a lot of stuff comes in, more so than anything else. You're centers, representative, judges, local, and just getting out and doing your part makes you feel good. We voted already early to avoid some of the craziness next week. Now this episode should come out probably Monday right before the first result.

So, all right, so we, so right now someone is sitting watching us 24 hours before that happens and they already have like the seven cups of coffee jitters. They're already shaking like this, like, oh God, it's almost over. Yeah, I, I'M excited that I will not be watching television on Tuesday night. Yeah, I'm going to wake up Wednesday and it kind of like, you know, the train's going to arrive at a station and I'll find out where it went. I cannot sit and watch that by the minute. That is fool's errand to me. I can't do anything about it either way.

Amen to that. And it's just all spin there. But let's spin this a different way. Let's get back into talking more about folks here because obviously I love One of the greatest things I loved is I saw your tagline a year and a half ago. I was like, oh, I got to talk to this guy. Because I love how you come about the point of don't retire, graduate. Can you share shed a little bit of insight on kind of your thoughts behind. I know you've had that for a while, but that's a whole different mentality, I think in case of a lot of folks out there, especially in your field, it is.

And I'm shocked that when I, when I came up with it, no one had come up with it before, or at least no one had trademarked it or published anything by it because I thought it made sense. I think retirement in the traditional sense is God awful. I think it's a, I think it's a sentence. I mean, you don't go from 50 or 60 hours a week doing something ideally that you love and being connected and being involved with people and all of those things, to suddenly sitting home in your pajamas watching daytime TV or playing shuffleboard and expect that that's going to be good for you. Your brain becomes oatmeal in a matter of months and it really is unfortunate. And so I think it's important to look at, at finishing your full time work, whether you're 27 or 77 when it happens. I know a lot of your audience is probably looking to get out of the nine to five grind and make passive income in lots of ways. So this is really true for any age. This is not about turning a certain age where the government says you can have your Social Security now. It's about financial independence. And I believe that retirement is not the absence of work, but the absence of needing to work. And once you've hit financial independence, either because you've created an income stream from one one spot or another, and I know you have your favorite, but there's plenty. So whether it's, whether it's your you've created that income stream or you've built enough of a nest egg that it's throwing off enough income that you can live for the rest of your life with dignity, including inflation. You're retired as far as I'm concerned. At that moment, you have to determine how you're going to spend the next chapter, maybe the next long chapter of your adult life. What are you going to do and who are you going to be? And so if you go on to LinkedIn, I defy you to find somebody on LinkedIn to find their profile and it just says Joe Smith retired. And click on it. Be like, oh, I gotta meet Joe. I'll bet he's a ton of fun at parties. I mean, it might as well say deceased Scott.

Right?

Like, what's the point? Say you're not retired, you're a volunteer, you're a grandparent, you're a, you're, you're a hockey fan, whatever in the hell you are, you're not just retired. And so find something to do. And, and I, I've discovered over my 30 plus years at this that there are three things that the most successful retirees have in common. And when I say successful, you'll notice I didn't say wealthiest because whoever dies with the most money still dies. So it's, it's, who are the most successful retirees? The very first one is they have. And the most important one is they are absolutely debt free. Now, I, I know there's leverage and I know there's ways to use debt to make money. And there's a difference between that and credit cards and car payments. So I'm not begrudging someone who invests in a way to make money. I am saying it is especially rewarding to get to a point in your life where you don't know anybody a plug nickel. Second thing is you've taken care of yourself, you have your health. Because I know a lot of wealthy people who aren't healthy and they'd give every dollar they had just to, to feel good and take a walk or a jog, you know, so, so I think you have to take care of yourself along the way. You don'. One day and say, I think I'll be healthy. Now, in the same way you don't wake up one day and say, I think I'll be wealthy today. It's like, well, that takes years and years and years of discipline. And then the third and most important thing, hands down, is you have to have purpose. You got to have a reason to get out of bed every morning to get you fired.

Up.

It doesn't matter whether it's for money or not. If you don't need it, you might be fired up about the work you're doing in the local food bank. It does not matter what you're into, but you got to get fired up about something. So you can't wait to get up, you can't wait to be plugged in and you're still living your best life. And if it, if you happen to be doing it for a few bucks, Super. I know 80 year olds who started dog walking businesses because they wanted fresh air, they loved animals, and they felt like making a few dollars for spending money. There's nothing wrong with that. It's great.

Amen to that. That's so true that when people often leave their job and they have no purpose, no passion, they don't live around very long. I mean, it's, it's a. And that was it. They say that doctors and scientists are coming out, that the more active you are, the more challenged you are. That delays Alzheimer's, it delays Parkinson's.

Yeah.

Some of the biggest things out there. And you have a longer, more fulfilled life. But we all, we don't want to just rot, sit right there watching Married with Children or whatever you're watching.

Well, I, I mean, I get bored. I get bored in a week. And if it's not, if we're not someplace doing something I'm looking forward to, I'm bored. My wife does not want me puttering around the house. I assure you, I will be in her way. She doesn't want that. She's like, go find something to do. So unless it's a vacation where we're taking a hike or we're on a boat trip or something fun, if I'm sitting around for more than four hours, I'm looking for stuff to do. So I don't know how I would do it. I don't know how I would just suddenly not have something to wake up to. And beyond that, it's not just what to do, Scott, it's also who you are.

Yeah.

Because we have a funny thing in this country, and I've heard this, it's in the uk, it's in Australia, but it's not everywhere in the world. But it's definitely true in these countries that when somebody sells says, who are you? Tell me about yourself. The first thing we, we say is what we do for a living. Yeah, well, that is sure as hell not who I am. It's what I do for a living. And while I'm proud of that. And I do have some integration. I have work life integration because I don't think balance exists. But no, there's integration. But if that's all I am and I stop doing it, I literally don't have an identity. So it can't be. We can't let that happen to folks. It's so sad. It's sad to see people who never take the trip because they're trying to stockpile for the. And then they finally retire and they're dead in a year and never take the trip anyway, or they're not healthy enough to go or their spouse passes away. It's so sad. And so I think there's a balance between living now, having, having a great life with your, with your kids or grandkids or neighbors or friends or spouse or whatever you're. You. I don't think you should stockpile every dollar like a miser and wait for some magical time when you're going to have fun because it may not come at the same time. You can't blow every penny unless you're the federal government because then you can print money. If you're not the federal government, you can't print money. You can't just blow it all. You have to have a plan. So, you know, I've heard it said that, that you should, you should live as if you were going to die tonight. But plan is if you'd live forever. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. I don't know who said it, but it wasn't me.

Well, I'll tell you what, we'll give them credit and say that you. I've always said if you give somebody credit three times, then it's yours. You know what I mean? Well, as of today, Eric Brotman said that if you're not living, you're dying. And.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're not, if you're not moving forward, it's kind of like with a business. Yes, and it's true in the real estate business, too. In any business, if you're not growing, you're shrinking because of the, the pressures against you. And whether it's inflation, whether it's erosion of the dollar, whether it's just that, that there is there, you wind up with a scarcity mentality if you're not growing. So whatever you're doing, you want abundance, you want amplitude. It doesn't mean you have to work yourself to death. But if you're not growing, you're not moving forward. It's kind of like water. When water's in motion, it's powerful. You could power a city with a waterfall. And when it's not in motion, it starts to smell bad and attracts flies.

Exactly. I can think of a few people that are sitting around not moving that smell bad. Interactive flies.

But enough, enough about our relatives. That's fine.

So you've been doing this for 30 years. What's the passion that led you to start doing this stuff? Obviously, I mean, just being around people can see the passion coming out of your pores. What's, what really caused you to be this? What mentors maybe direct you in the direction or what happened in the past to lead you down this path, Eric?

Well, like many financial advisors, it was a total accident. I was an English major, which is a guarantee, you know, English and psychology. So that goes right into finance.

Making big bucks there, baby.

I was an English major and I was heading to law school. The plan was to do law school. And so I took a job out of college at a brokerage firm, legal department. And I fell in love with the financial portion of it, more than the legal portion of it. And, and despite having taken the LSATs and applied to law school and gotten into law school and paid $1,000 deposit to a law school 30 plus years ago, I didn't go. And it's the best thousand dollars I ever blew in my life because I don't know that many happy lawyers. I really don't. There's a few maybe, but I don't know. And so, you know, I, I fell in love with the business and the reason that I fell in love with it was because of my role in the legal department. People were calling me at a moment where they were bereaved. It was actually a very sobering job. And I would talk to people, were their advisors who said, you know, so and so's husband just died and we need to, we need to know what to do. Is she going to be okay? And how do we do this? And of course, I had done none of the planning. I was operational, I was 21 years old. And I had to tell these people, ma', am, I'm sorry you lost your husband, but his ex wife is still his beneficiary on the IRA.

Oh wow.

At 21. And they weren't real happy sometimes when that happened. And if, if you could dig somebody up and beat him to death, that would be what she'd want to do. And it's not just that, it's also, hey, I, I know you have two siblings, but Only one of them was named because they said it and forget it, and never, you know, fix the beneficiaries or there aren't any beneficiaries. So the whole thing is taxable. I'm sorry you're losing half to the government. The news was almost never good, and it's because the planning was almost never done. And I realized that. That if I could help people avoid that moment at their darkest, most traumatic time, if I could make at least that go well, then I could change somebody's life. I could help them not hit the bottom when they're. When they're in that nadir in their life. It can be the difference between not getting back up and saying, okay, I can do this. And so that really was the inspiration behind it. I considered myself. And going back to the English major, I considered myself Holden Caulfield. And I don't remember, I don't know how old you were when you read the Catcher in the Rye. My daughter's actually reading it later this year. I'm very excited to see what she thinks. But, but, but if you remember the character. And I don't mean the fact that he was depressed and drunk a lot and kind of a problem child. I mean the fact that what he dreamt up was this idea that he had to protect people. And so there's lots of ways to do that. And some people go into medicine, some go into education. I went into financial planning. And I. I didn't do it on purpose, but I couldn't be more thrilled that that's what I get to do every day.

Oh, that's so awesome. Now, when you're sitting down and meeting with your clients, especially some new ones, you know, kind of. Let's maybe. Maybe we should identify that or what's your. I, you know, what's your typical client age? You know, where are they at in their life? So we can kind of, you know, ask more educated questions about that.

Sure. I. I mean, the variety of client. Of clients we represent is. Is very, very broad. Most of our clients, if I had to paint you a picture of a typical client who shows up on our doorstep, they are sandwich generation. Now, I don't know how old a fella you are, but I suspect we're contemporaries. I think I might have a few years on you. But these are people 45 to 60 who have parents getting older they're worried about. They've got kids to educate. They're busy, and they're working 50 and 60 hours a week. They're trying to manage all of this. They want to retire before they die and they just don't know how to do any of it. And they're like, help, like, how do, like which levers do we pull? What do we handle?

Right?

And so it's kind of a throw your hands up. A lot of people get buried by those decisions and just never make them. And so, you know, we find most of our clients are multi generational families. Not exclusively, but mostly. Usually the reason to do this planning is because you love someone, there's someone you care about that you don't want to burden them. There's a lot of grandparents out there who don't want to burden their kids or grandkids. There are kids out there who want to launch so that they're not on mom and dad's payroll. I know we like to pick on the young people who think they can hang out on the couch and play Xbox all day. And I enjoy a day like that myself, don't get me wrong. But I couldn't do it for 30 years. And so I think that's pretty typical. And we don't have an asset minimum in our firm, so we don't work with only the super wealthy. We do work with some very wealthy people by definition, but we have two different programs, one of which is private wealth for people who really need that concierge level. And one of which is a financial planning for all that is really more of an entry level ability to get some good advice, some good planning, either on a subscription or flat fee basis, or on a, or on an acid basis. But it really is designed to meet people where they are and grow with them, and that's rewarding. And that's one of the reasons why we have such a diverse group. I mean, we have 10 CFPs, half under 30, which you don't see. We're very diverse. We're very diverse in all the ways that, that you check boxes for diversity. And, and we didn't do any of it on purpose. You know what I mean? Like I, I tell people, they, they're like, how did you manage to do that? No firms do that and they really don't. It's unbelievable. But I said, well, we just sort of hired great people and they're not all the same. It was the simplest thing ever. We identified great people with good work ethic, the right integrity, the right aptitude and the right hunger, and let's go get it. And it's amazing when you focus on.

Those good things, how good things happen versus trying to plug somebody into A square goal. Yeah.

Yeah. In a meritocracy, you're going to have diversity by its very nature. There's a bell curve of humanity. Some are great with. With numbers. Some are great with people. Some are great salespeople. Some are great with. With building ships and bottles, which I couldn't do. I'd break it, and it would go everywhere. Like, some. We all have different skills. Like, you remember the game Operation? Do you ever play that as a kid?

Yep. Sure did.

Yeah. Yeah. So I did aptitude testing my freshman year of high school. I went to a place called Johnson OConnor Research center, and they did two days of battery of aptitude testing for me. And it was everything from number reasoning to. To vocabulary to finger dexterity to. You name it. My lowest score by far was, in fact, tweezer dexterity. I was a 5. And to give you a sense, it was 5 out of 100. Scott. If they said. They said medicine is out, every patient would die.

So there you go. Good.

So even if I had wanted to study bio, like, I could have killed a dead cat during the dissection in biology, it was all bad. So. But. But you learn what you're. Not only what you're good at, but what you have fun with.

Yeah.

And if you can marry that, it's. It's great. And so that's who we try to hire. People who we know we're gonna not only be successful at this, but also enjoy it, because life's too short to do something for 40 or 50 years that you hate.

Well, that's the thing. I. When you were talking earlier about having debt paid off and having money to do things you want, not being rich. But I think of John Goodman from the Gambler, where he talks about having fu. Money. And no matter what that amount is. And that's one of my favorite lines of all times. And that's one of the things I tell our students. Like, listen, you got to prepare for the future. You got to be smart. What you do, and you got to have. Really. When you get to the end, you gotta start having uncomfortable questions, not only with yourself, but with your spouse and your family in a lot of cases. So you can plan accordingly.

How much.

How much of what you do is or your team does as well is kind of that family counseling? In some cases, a lot. Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. And I'm not a trained therapist. In fact, I need a trained therapist most of the time, so I'm not qualified for that. But. But so much of financial success is based on Behavior and decision making and things that are qualitative. The math problem handles itself. A computer program can do the math in four seconds. But that's not where we make our decisions and it's sure not where we make our mistakes. So, you know, they talk about the robo advisor and the, all the AI and all the things. It's not going to replace what we do for a living because this is a very human thing to understand what it's like to have to have a conversation with your, your mom that she shouldn't drive anymore is not something you're getting in an algorithm. You're just not, oh, here are the signs. Go take her keys. Everything will work out. No, that's not how it works. And that's just one example, you know, trying to explain to your kids why spending a quarter of a million dollars for an undergraduate education is crazy. It's, it's hard, especially when the Joneses are doing doesn't make it a good idea. It just means that their friends are going, why can't I? And so it's, it's a very difficult thing. It's very human, and a lot of it is behavioral. And especially you talked about the ups and downs if it. I know that the tech bubble was something when, you know, when 99 flipped over to 2000, you remember Y2K and all the grid was going to shut down and all the computers were going to stop working. We were going to live in the dark for a few years and all be eating canned cat food. Yeah, we had those conversations. It was the end of the world. And actually what it really was was a great sales technique for a lot of computer companies who made a fortune until the end of the first quarter 2000, when no one needed a computer for several years and they all went out of business. However, oh, 809 was different. 0809 was the first time that I ever saw and talked to dozens, if not hundreds of people at the time who were legitimately frightened.

Yep.

Frightened that they wouldn't be okay. And, you know, they're really only three kinds of people from an investment standpoint, and we can boil it down to three very simple things. You're either a buyer, a holder, or a seller. There are no other variables. And if you're a buyer and you have the stomach to buy when things are unfavorable, if you can, if, if you're, if you're the one buying real estate in 07, you're cannon fodder. But if you're buying it in 09, you're about to make money. And that's true for lots of things. If you're a buyer, it can be the greatest opportunity of all time. You just shouldn't stop. If you're a holder, you're going to lose years. You know, people who held in 08, 09 lost about five years. It took that long to recover. And so they're working five years longer than they might have or they're living on less than they could have because they weren't still buying, but at least they weren't selling. Some of those sellers never recovered, especially the ones who November of 08 said I'm done, I can't do it anymore. And put everything in their basement. They'll never be the same to this day. 25, you know, 15 years later, they're not the same. And, and so it's, I think the behavioral impact of it is so important. And when people would ask me, what do you think is going to happen? My answer had to be a real honest one. I have no idea. I've never seen this before either. But this is what I'm doing. This is what history tells us. History could be dead wrong. But that's what we've learned over doing this for a while and having that perspective. I know of, of the hundreds of families we represented, there were less than 5 who made really catastrophic mistakes. We couldn't stop them from making it's their money. And, and the vast majority just sort of grit their teeth. But you know, when the market was moving seven or 800 points a day and it was at 10,000, that was a big deal. And, and you know, young people don't remember that. In the same way that that interest rates the last two years, there's an entire generation who never saw an interest rate over 1%, 1 1/2 percent. So money was always cheap.

Yep. But there's also generation never saw an interest rate below 12 too. For a while there.

For a while. Yeah. Yeah.

My first ever loan, you get this. The first ever loan I did was a refinance for my parents primary. We did cash out refi because their original mortgage is still at 12% when rates were at 6.

Oh my gosh.

And my dad cried at the closing table because we basically rolled the credit card debt, all our debt into their house, dropped their interest rate, pulled some equity out of it. Their mortgage payment was less than what it was all combined.

Yeah.

And just the wave of stress being lifted.

Yeah.

That's what made me fall in love with the mortgage business. You know and we see that today, especially when we're helping clients or buying debt and then working with homeowners, stay in their house in some sort of fashion. Oh, you know, there's things I talk to people there like, why did you do this? Or why did you do that? And they're like, well, I saw it. I kept keeping up with the Joneses, you know, I didn't need to do this. I'm like, well, that's. You got to worry about the Joneses and start worrying about what you're jonesing for and what you need to get done. Right.

The house I grew up in, my folks bought it. It was 1982, I think it was at 14¾ or something. Asinine. It's like buying a house on a Visa card.

Yep.

And you know, my first home was 95. It was at seven and three quarters. And I thought I was getting a great deal.

Yeah.

Today you show somebody seven and three quarters and they think you're gouging them. But, but historically that's pretty normal. I mean, a 30 year note at 6 or 7 or 8% it was, was pretty standard stuff. And of course, you know, the tax code they keep messing with, whether you can, whether you can deduct it or not and how much of it and everything else. And, and of course, we're watching the Tax Cuts and Job act, which is going to expire in December of, of 25. And is Congress going to let it expire or are they going to extend it? And there's so many unknowns, but the reality is most of this comes down to behavior. And I heard a tax expert once who said, make good life decisions first and tax decisions second.

Yeah.

Because there are a lot of tax decisions you could make that wouldn't make your life better. I mean, we could all go, we could all go live in Puerto Rico. And there's some lovely spots in Puerto Rico I'm not disparaging. Heaven knows. However, you, you could go there and I think it's like a 4% federal tax.

It's 4% federal. Yeah. On your personal stuff, for sure. We, we explored it at one point. Yeah.

I mean, that, that's a bargain. I'm, I'm in Maryland, which means I'm a sucker, and I'm paying 8% in state income tax for the privilege of being here. And you know, I have a place at the shore which is five miles from the Delaware line. I could cut my real estate taxes by almost 80% and my income taxes by about 33%. By moving five minutes north. I haven't done it yet. I like my place, so. So I'm a sucker. You know, if I was having trouble affording it, I wouldn't have it in the first place, but.

Right.

You know, that's why you make good life decisions and you don't let the tax tail wag the financial dog, you know.

Well, it's the same way. I live in Austin, Texas. Great city, love the environment. Our property taxes in Texas are higher than most, but we don't have the state income tax. Austin is one of the most expensive. Well, it is the most expensive city in Texas. You know, we've seen property taxes go. We were just talking about this the other day. Hey, well, we need to go ahead and fight that to get that knocked down a little bit. But, you know, just because I live here and we've got a ton of equity, doesn't mean I, If I were to sell, where would I move to? Where would I be as happy? You know, the amenities we have, I got. We're looking for some land, but doesn't mean I want to move out in the middle of force like the Unabombered, you know, Hideout.

Right.

Sometimes that does has advantages. But hey, that's a different, That's a different type of podcast.

It is. That's a different, A different show. And we'd be, we'd be drinking already for that show, I think. But we shouldn't do that today.

No, but that's, that's, that's the thing that a lot of people. You know, as an ex, I was actually a financial advisor for a while when I was banking for JP Morgan Chase and worked for Smith Barney and City Financial when I first got into finance. And I always find it interesting how when people come into it, they, they just, they just don't know. They've not taken time to sit down and figure out really what they want long term in a lot of cases. And you have to kind of go through that and hold their hand through a lot of this stuff when they get rock and roll. What are the biggest. Really kind of. What are the biggest mistakes that you see people make when you're sitting down with them for the first time?

There's a number of them. One of them is any kind of revolving personal debt is you. Is uniformly a bad thing, period. Any consumer debt is by definition a bad thing. So that's number one. I think not taking advantage of employee benefits is a mistake. A lot of them are there. Some of them are free or very cheap. And People don't, don't look at them and don't use them properly. Another mistake that we'll see is, we'll see people handle a lot of their insurance decisions terribly. Buying something they don't need or over insuring something or missing something entirely. I mean there's a lot of. Nobody brags at the water cooler about their car insurance. I wouldn't think despite Flow's best efforts, nobody does that. So it's sort of a mundane check the box. Got it, move on. And sometimes there's ways to, to, to incorporate that. And that's not the most exciting example. But, but it's true. I think a lot of people are using their HSAs wrong. They're using, they're, they're, they're, they're thinking about taxes wrong. I mean you're, you're balance sheet, if your balance sheet has all 401k on it, your balance sheet is not reflective of the money you can spend. There is a mortgage on that money in the form of an ordinary income tax due either to you or to your heirs. And unless you're using all of it for charity, someone's going to take a big haircut on it. And so it's a dollar is not a dollar. A dollar in an HSA is different than a dollar in a Roth. That is different than a dollar in a traditional account. That's different than a dollar in a capital gains property or in something that can be exchanged or in real property or they're all different. So I think a lot of people are looking at it and, and the last mistake I would say, and there's, there's more, but the last mistake I would say is not really understanding what it's going to cost to retire. I mean I defy most people to take a 30 day vacation, take a 30 year vacation. It's mind numbing. And so when we say to a young couple, somebody, you know, a young couple, they're just getting started, 28 years old, maybe they've got a, their first baby on the way or something. And you start talking about the, the amount of money they'll need not only to raise a child, which we all know is mind numbing, but also what dollar figure they might predictably need after inflation 40 years from now in order to perpetuate the income they have now, which is not necessarily their high income years.

Right.

But it's just, you know, if they're making X dollars and we want that 40 years later based on inflation, that is going to be a multiple, a Big, big, big multiple. And then if you want to live on a 3 or 4% withdrawal, the number has two commas in it and it's huge. And when you show that to somebody, they think we'll never get there, right? And so sometimes people throw up their hands and say, it's too late, I can't do anything. You know, we'll see somebody 55 who says, I really haven't started yet. Is it too late? And the answer is no. Would it have been better to have started 10 or 15 or 30 years? Absolutely would have been better. But it's not too late to improve what that next chapter your life would look like. The only mistake you could make is not starting immediately. I mean, if you wait six more months, it's not going to make things better.

There was an article in USA Today that came out about a month ago talking, I think that 67 or 68% of people had given up on the ideal of retirement. They were expecting to work to the bone till the day they passed away. And that number you talk about, when people see that, it's eye popping because they've never sat down and saw that number before. But it's like an elephant. You start off at one bite at a time and not ass in first. And you put a little bit, you put the power of compound interest, you put the, the power of. The rule of 72 is one of my favorite, you know, into work for you and educate you on that. And I think obviously we have such a highly uneducated society because the fact we don't really talk about this in high schools or college unless you're taking it as your major in a lot of cases. And I think the part of that goes into this overall aspect that we talked about before, all the keeping up with Joneses. Oh man, I can't afford that. I can never get to that. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. Versus the whole. Thomas. Well, I think I can, I think I can. I know I can and go that route.

Well, well, so, so 70% or so of the United States economy is based on consumer spending. If consumers stop spending, the US economy halts. So it is not in the government's best interest to get people to stop buying things they can't afford. It's in the household's best interest to stop buying things they don't need or can't afford. On the micro level, it's obvious. On the macro level, it's problematic because we don't make anything in this country anymore. We consume everything.

Yeah.

And so if we ever stop consuming. And right now, I don't see it, because we're all. I mean, it's only getting worse in terms of what people feel like they have to have. I mean, you know, if we create one more streaming service to add to our bill, we're. We're basically inventing cable. It's very exciting. You have 17 different streaming services, and now we'll bundle them, and you. Voila, you have cable.

And then now we just ruined college football because now you can't flip back and forth. You got to log in, log out to look at a different game.

And. And you can't even find your favorite team at the time. I mean, it's. It's on some streaming service you've never heard of, and I'm not buying them all. So that. That's another sort of silly example. But the. The fact is that we're spending money. People spend money, and they don't look at it because there's so many things are dripping. They're regular. This ad's $12 a month. What do I care? Oh, it's 20amonth. What do I care? Well, if you have 18 of those and suddenly it's $700 a month, that's real money.

Yeah, it's. It's the death of a million cuts. We were. We were talking with a bar the other day on a mortgage, trying to get him back on track. And he sent over his statements, and we're evaluating. He's got 12 different. Different subscriptions to different. Only fan models. I'm like, Well, I was like, this would basically pay for half your payment. Does your wife now.

Oh, I mean, can't you just, like, you have a tournament and choose your favorite two or four? I mean, come on, man.

Or cut them all out and start your only one. So it's a cash flow.

Listen, I'll send him pictures of my feet. For 300 bucks, he could have them right now. I. I don't. Wow. Well, okay. I think you might have hit the nail on the head on that one. That this. We may have identified the problem. You remember there was a movie with Michael Keaton it called Mr. Mom Years and years and years ago.

Yes.

And there was a TV repairman who comes in. He goes, I think I found your pro. I think it was a woman, actually. She goes, I think I found your problem. And she found a boot inside the tv. I think I found your problem. You know, he was watching the game and put his Foot through it. That's probably why it's not working. That's an only fans account right there. It's a boot in your TV picture.

But it's like that across the board. Subscriptions, you see things, and groceries are up. It's the thousand dollar payment for a car these days that drives me bonkers. I, we had to go buy a new truck here last couple months ago because we totaled up mine. But mine had been paid off, you know, been paid off for 10 years. 70,000 miles. Don't drive that much. I'm looking at brand new dodge rims. Like, I'm not gonna pay 80 to 100 grand for a brand new truck. That's just stupid. You know, we found one that was used and it had a few mileage. I'm like, I saved 30 grand by buying this instead and paying cash for it, getting rid of it. You know, people just, it's all that, well, I gotta have the latest in news. I gotta have the new Tesla or I never have the new Tesla truck. Oh, now I gotta buy another truck because my Tesla truck can't tow my boat.

Right. Or you have to plug it in every three miles. Yeah, I know. You know, there are gas stations every couple miles. There are not charging stations every couple miles. I defy you to cross the country in an electric vehicle. At least not today. I'm sure somebody out there go, yeah, hold my beer. I can do that. And it'll drive itself. I, it's, you're right about the latest and greatest. And I paid 91, 500 for my first home. And my first mortgage was $563 and I think 23 cents. And I was in a panic. Like it was, I was scared to death. And you know, I remember that day. I remember that moment where you become a homeowner. And it was a, it was a two bedroom, two bath condo in a nice area. And it was close to work and was close to family. And I'm like, I can do this. And you know, a lot of times people, when they talk about real estate just as a, as a personal residence, you and I might disagree. Or maybe you're with me. I don't think the personal residence is an investment. No, I think if you're using real estate for cash flow and you're using it to build your balance sheet and to build your p. L, that's different. If you're living in it, it's a cost center. I mean, the money pit is, is real. When you have to put a roof on your house. Where you have to replace windows or do the driveway. That is not making you money.

No. Ask everybody that's in Florida or North Carolina affected by the hurricanes and having to self insure these days. That's not, it's a liability, it's not an asset.

Yes. And, and that's, that's not to talk people out of owning a home. I, I certainly enjoy owning mine and I am, I believe, 35 more payments. 35 on both homes. I timed them both so that by 2028 I will owe no one anything. And then my wife, I'm sure, will want to move because that's how life works. But I'm literally going to stroke my last check for a mortgage in 2028 for both properties, and I'll be done. And hopefully we won't go anywhere unless we move five miles north to Delaware. That could happen. That could happen.

You know, that'll do. That'll do. They have to get another 30 years there for it. Now with you, you work with a variety of people in, I think we're talking about 30. 30 different states. 27. 30 different states.

37 right now. Wow.

Yeah, that definitely takes a lot of knowledge of knowing what's going on in that state. State income taxes, property, all the things go along with it. You've, you've definitely got to have a pretty diverse knowledge of that with your team. Accepted. Or do you have specific advisors that are familiar with multiple states or one state or how does that kind of work when you're talking with people?

Our advisors in house are state agnostic, but we work real closely with the estate attorneys and with the CPAs. The CPAs of course, have to know if there's a state income tax, how to deal with it. The estate attorney has to be within that state. They're usually not barred in more than one or two states. So the, the challenge for us isn't so much understanding how each state works from a financial standpoint, it's knowing good people who can do the other work that we need to build that team. You know, if somebody in, in, you know, Maryland needs a real estate agent, I can give them 50. If somebody in Wyoming needs one, I might know one. So I need to have the right network so that I have, and all of us have enough relationships to be able to say, here are a couple of people you can talk to, or this is the person I would talk to because of your situation, you know, and that does make it a little bit more challenging. But if you have a good relationship with the other advisors, you have a good relationship with their CPA who has 300 clients in Nevada. Then you can call them and say, hey, we got a situation with one of our Nevada clients. What do you think? How should we deal with this? And you can get some of that advice from someone whose boots are on the ground. I do think that helps. Look, we have clients who are no longer in the United States. They have to be US Citizens, and they have to have a US Mailing address for us to work with them. But a lot of them are living overseas at least part of the year. And, you know, I've had to have conference calls at weird hours with, like, French attorneys. And the system is totally different outside of the U.S. i mean, it's a completely different. You talk about in the US they're really. There are really only two real systems of law. There's the community property and the non community property. And. And then there's Louisiana.

Yeah.

Which is still under Napoleonic law. They're not even English, they're French. And it's a completely different regime. And you have to know some of that stuff, but I sure don't have to know it. Well, I'm not taking any bar exams. I'm not writing any documents.

Very nice. Very nice. Well, that's. That's the thing we've always found is it's. It's good to have advisors, but having your team be cohesive and working together, because if you're just relying on one person to give you advice, that may not be accurate, because that may not be their strength, that may not be their experience. And so it's always good to have a great blended team, like just the individuals you mentioned there before. Get experts. It's kind of like that, oh, Henry Ford model of business. I don't know the answer, but I can pick up the phone and call somebody who's an expert in that niche.

Yeah. It's funny. In 1995, I started an executive dialogue group because I wanted to create a group of young professionals in all different fields, and we'd come together. And I said, if we can do this right, we'll be one or two degrees of separation from anything. We'll know everything in this room. And I said, let's just call it Mastermind. I'm so mad I didn't trademark that. Those damn things are everywhere now. I can prove I was using that in 1994 and 5. But, but, but. And that group of humans are still dear friends. We're no longer a young, young professionals group. In fact, I'm not even sure we're that professional anymore, but we are still having dinner a couple times a year and they're dear friends. But, but you know, you, you put these things together, you need to know people in these fields. It's helpful to know people at, at, in the local government, it's helpful to know people at the, in the, in the local law enforcement. In law, in medicine. It's helpful to know, you know, if I need a cardiologist all of a sudden I don't want to be in, I used to say, I don't want to be in the yellow pages. I don't want to be googling cardiologist in my zip code. Are you kidding? And really no one should do that with financial advisors either.

No, they should.

I'm an advisor in my zip code. Oh, here's one. I'll take her or him. Like that's not a good way to make a huge decision.

No, it's not. And that's, that's one of the most powerful things of being a part of a mastermind.

Yeah.

You know, you could have gotten probably good $200,000 from Tony Robbins to buy that back in the day.

Seriously. And, and you know, he won't return my call, so it's. All right.

Now, what's, what's in store for you for the next 21 years at BFG next time?

Well, I, you know, my little inside baseball here I am in the process of stepping down over the next three years as CEO, which is really exciting. It's scary. You know, this has been my baby a long time. But, but this company is going to run at least as well, if not better when it's managed by a, a team of humans. And so I'm going to be handing the reins to Lena Neville. She is incredibly talented. I've known her a very long time. She's, she is, she's highly qualified and is going to do a great job. And so my client facing activities are waning and frankly going away and my job is going to be to grow the organization and to grow our footprint and to add advisors with books of clients and to add potentially firms and geography and all of that. What's in store for the firm is we are expanding our financial wellness programs. We're working with a lot of companies to provide some education and guidance for their employees because they're not getting it. They HR is not legally allowed to do it. Their 401k provider can only tell them about their 401k. Their group insurance people can't wait to sell them more insurance and they're not getting any objective look at this. So I see that expanding. I see us doing a lot more work site type stuff, whether it's remote or on or on site. And so the organization's growing in that regard. I think my path is slightly divergent. I don't think I'll ever retire in the traditional sense. I'm graduating to a new job, which is actually right now I'm busier than I've ever been. I'm traveling a lot, I'm hustling, but I'm doing things that I really was born to do. And so right now my tank is being filled by all the activities that I'm doing. And after 30 years, it's weird to have sort of a new job and it's going to be this, this company used to have my name on the door. I was the B in BFG at one point and I remember when the name came off the door, I thought it was a good idea. I thought it was not good for our long term success to have it look like it's my practice. It sure as heck isn't. It hasn't been in a long time. But when the sign came off the building, I was out of town. They, they did it while I was out of town. It was very like an undercover, a darkness. And all the employees went out in the parking lot and took pictures of themselves laughing at the building with no longer have my name on it. That's cruel. But no, it was, it was the right thing. And so I think the next 21 years are going to be even better than the last 21. And I expect to still be here hopefully toasting, toasting everyone at the time, maybe with better bourbon than I'm drinking today.

There you go. There you go. Well, Eric, what for our listeners out there, our nationwide and international audience, what's the best way for folks to connect with you or connect with your team to get that ball rolling, help them get them on the right path.

I'm going to give you two addresses. One is our, is our financial planning firm BFG. You go to bfgfa.com that's BFG Financial Advisors. So bfgfa.com that's where you'll find out everything about what we do for, for families, individuals and companies. And I'll also throw out brotmanmedia.com which is where you'll find my publishing and writing and podcasts and online courses, many of which are, are free and available to anybody. There's a personal financial literacy course out there for kids, and he's just trying to provide some resources for the community as well.

Awesome. We'll have both those links below in the show notes, in the video notes for everybody to. So you can click on that and make sure you take advantage of all the great stuff that Eric has put together. Him and his team have done for you out there to get you on the right path and go from just being where you're at to not retiring, but graduate to the next level of wealth and living in more so than anything else there.

Amen. That. That's. You said it better than I do. You're hired.

There you go.

Yeah.

The new voice of BFG Scott Carson.

You know, everyone's trying to replace me. Not you, too. AT two. Brute. Come on, man.

There you go.

Well, hey, everybody wants my job.

There you go. Exactly. Well, hey, you're living life, having fun, kicking ass and taking names. Keep doing that, Eric. Alrighty. Thanks for coming on the show today.

Thank you. We'll have to do it again in a few years when we finally connect our calendars again.

That's right. That's right. Exactly. Well, all right, everybody. Well, hey, go out there, take some action. Reach out to Eric and his team. The best thing you do if you don't know is to find out and be in the know and plan a path to wherever you want to go. Start today. Don't give up on that dream. You can make an action. So go out, take some action, buddy, and we'll see at the top.

Sam Sa.