Most entrepreneurs can build pretty incredible businesses for
Speaker:themselves, for yourself, you know?
Speaker:Within your control, you could generate some really great
Speaker:revenue, have a great lifestyle and kind of do it your own way.
Speaker:But when you go to investing outside of your business or even
Speaker:adopting new technology like AI, A lot of people get tripped up or
Speaker:just approach it the wrong way.
Speaker:So today's guest, his name is Andy Tanner.
Speaker:He actually spent 14 years traveling with Robert
Speaker:Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad.
Speaker:Poor Dad.
Speaker:It's the first book that I read right before
Speaker:starting my own businesses.
Speaker:And Andy ended up teaching his nine-year-old son, how to invest at
Speaker:a level that most of us never learn.
Speaker:And this is how it's investing in other companies.
Speaker:It's also investing in your own business and approaching technology
Speaker:in a way that's really smart.
Speaker:And there's a whole process.
Speaker:Andy breaks down.
Speaker:It'll help you reinvent the way that you think of
Speaker:wealth and controlling that.
Speaker:Yeah, not only in 2025, but also beyond.
Speaker:So enjoy the episode.
Speaker:Let's get into it.
Speaker:Andy, we're rolling.
Speaker:We're finally doing this.
Speaker:I appreciate your time and being here today, man.
Speaker:I know we're going to have a blast because you think differently
Speaker:around investments in general.
Speaker:And you have some really cool insights into technology,
Speaker:the world we're all living in now, the, I guess the bullish
Speaker:side and the bearish side.
Speaker:So, uh, how are you doing today?
Speaker:My friend,
Speaker:Man, I couldn't be, uh, more grateful to, uh,
Speaker:to join your, your show.
Speaker:You do a lot of great stuff and anytime, uh, anytime
Speaker:you're invited, it's an honor.
Speaker:So, uh, appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker:Look forward to our discussion.
Speaker:Should be a great time.
Speaker:it will be, and you already just the, the, you know, the, the cover
Speaker:of you online immediately when we got introduced, I saw rich dad,
Speaker:poor dad, one of the advisors there.
Speaker:I'm just like, well.
Speaker:Robert Kiyosaki and rich dad, poor dad.
Speaker:The book got me into this whole entrepreneurship
Speaker:game in the first place.
Speaker:It was the first book I read and immediately everything shifted.
Speaker:I want to say there are 40 million copies in like 90 plus languages.
Speaker:And, you know, Robert, uh, completely changed my
Speaker:life and I always give a shout out to Kim as well.
Speaker:Uh, that advisor team, I, I traveled with them for about 14 years.
Speaker:Uh, all around the world and, you know, it was funny because
Speaker:we, we were invited to come as a team as teachers, but for
Speaker:me, it was all learning, man.
Speaker:I, I, you know, I was just sharing what I was learning as
Speaker:a student with that group and, uh, nowadays, uh, you know, I,
Speaker:I spend most of my time teaching here from my home studio.
Speaker:Uh, my wife had an illness, uh, about three years ago.
Speaker:She was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Speaker:So, uh, we're doing great.
Speaker:Uh, but that brought me home.
Speaker:My kids play high school basketball.
Speaker:So, my biggest focus right now is like, I still
Speaker:teach from my home studio.
Speaker:But I don't, uh, I don't care for the travel much anymore.
Speaker:I, I like to be a, like, like being a dad right now and a husband.
Speaker:So, that's, that's the priority.
Speaker:That's
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Has it always, was it always, I mean obviously did a lot of travel
Speaker:before, but did you always have that kind of intention for the family and
Speaker:kind of making it for your own time?
Speaker:And
Speaker:percent.
Speaker:Uh, you know, my wife and I had our, our kids a little late in life.
Speaker:Actually, we were both cancer survivors.
Speaker:I had testicular cancer as a younger man, so it took us a
Speaker:while to get the family going.
Speaker:And, uh, so it became a big priority once we finally got it here.
Speaker:Uh, but yeah, and Robert was amazing, um, because, This, I mean,
Speaker:not to go too far down this road, but, uh, he would invite my kids.
Speaker:Robert and Kim don't have kids, so he would invite my kids with me.
Speaker:So, you know, I have, our home movies are a little weird.
Speaker:You know, I've got my nine, I've got my nine year old son, you
Speaker:know, standing up on stage in Argentina, you know, diagramming
Speaker:some, you know, real estate deal for infinite returns, and, so
Speaker:my kids grew up Rich Dad, and they, uh, it's ingrained in them.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:And when, uh, when COVID hit, uh, I brought my older son
Speaker:home after eighth grade and we spent a year of homeschooling,
Speaker:nothing but financial education.
Speaker:Two years later, his younger brother wanted to do the same thing.
Speaker:So we, we attacked this thing as a family and we, we jumped in
Speaker:both feet and you know, they're, they're still in high school.
Speaker:So we'll see how that turns out.
Speaker:well, yeah, I mean, no better way to learn at such an age,
Speaker:obviously even better from your parents, your dad, you know, like
Speaker:learning the financial stuff.
Speaker:And it's obviously not, not what's really taught in school.
Speaker:So you're navigating them at this spongy age, you know, your
Speaker:Ah, it's so good for the relationship, too.
Speaker:You know, it's just, we, we just get, we were always good
Speaker:buddies, but even better.
Speaker:So it was great.
Speaker:I mean, this is a great way to start because you're obviously
Speaker:priming your kids with this awesome financial knowledge and hands on
Speaker:experience and all that stuff.
Speaker:So a lot of business owners, you know, mainly that's
Speaker:entrepreneurs, business owners listening, you know, we're, we're
Speaker:really good typically at making the money in our businesses.
Speaker:But I feel like a lot of us, and this is why I bring folks
Speaker:like yourself onto the show.
Speaker:I'm like, okay, so how do we, yeah, Expand from that and have
Speaker:this financial knowledge of you know, how do we You know
Speaker:leverage things like what what you do in stock markets and all
Speaker:these other financial Vehicles, but like where do we start?
Speaker:Like how how would you advise someone who is
Speaker:rocking with their business?
Speaker:They're feeling pretty good Or maybe they just want to expand
Speaker:and don't know where to go Yeah,
Speaker:there's a saying that the ultra wealthy, you know, you make your
Speaker:money in business and then you take your profits and you compound by
Speaker:investing, you know, you acquire assets, you know, businesses
Speaker:generate cash, but they don't expand ownership unless you're investing.
Speaker:And you know, the thing I tell my, my sons and the thing I
Speaker:believe, especially now with AI.
Speaker:I think business ownership and asset ownership is, is really
Speaker:important simply because otherwise you're going to compete against AI.
Speaker:So if you don't expand, you know, what, what we're doing,
Speaker:uh, it's going to be tough.
Speaker:It's going to be really tough to, to keep up and battle with that
Speaker:AI if you don't expand ownership.
Speaker:And I think stocks are a great way to do that because it's
Speaker:not just finding, you know, NVIDIA and, You know, doubling
Speaker:your money on a chip maker, you know, people who, you know, sell
Speaker:food, people who, raw materials.
Speaker:Everyone will benefit from AI.
Speaker:So I'd rather own it than compete against it.
Speaker:And just as the tech boom of the 90s, you know, blew up
Speaker:the market, there's potential for AI to do that again.
Speaker:It's that big.
Speaker:So, you know, I, I've told my sons, I said, any white
Speaker:collar, you know, job or career you might enjoy, great.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:But you're going to be competing against computers now in a way that
Speaker:is exponentially un, you know, it's growing in a way we can't predict.
Speaker:Owning it is probably better than competing against it, in my opinion.
Speaker:I don't know if I'm right, but it makes sense to me.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:you know, like maybe let's break that down and,
Speaker:Yeah, I,
Speaker:yeah, let's do that.
Speaker:I, uh, I agree with Warren Buffett.
Speaker:Um, most people, if we were to turn on CNBC right now, those people
Speaker:aren't interested in owning stocks.
Speaker:They're interested in trading stocks.
Speaker:And it's price, price, price, price, price all day long.
Speaker:Nothing but what's up, what's down, bear, bear, bear, bull, bull, bull.
Speaker:They are always making predictions where, if you read Warren Buffett's
Speaker:letters, you know, he had a great one to the shareholders about
Speaker:three years ago where he said, the most important metric, and
Speaker:you know this as a business owner, it's your operational cash flow.
Speaker:In other words, how much money do you make from the business?
Speaker:So, the nursery rhyme, I guess, or the Apesoft's fable level
Speaker:of this is a golden goose.
Speaker:Nobody bought a golden goose to say, I think the price of this
Speaker:goose might go up next week and I can sell it for a quick buck.
Speaker:Every single child can understand that the operational cash flow,
Speaker:which is the eggs that it would lay, that allows you to compound.
Speaker:True compounding really has a reinvestment element.
Speaker:for listening.
Speaker:So if I have a business and I'm compounding, I'm buying
Speaker:a share of another business.
Speaker:Real estate syndications are the same thing, aren't they?
Speaker:Um, you have a group of people that, what a beautiful word, share.
Speaker:And, and, so when I look at stocks, I don't think about a piece of paper
Speaker:that goes up and down in value.
Speaker:I think about, you know, myself in my garage trying to build an iPhone.
Speaker:And failing or trying to try to come up with a vaccine and
Speaker:failing or trying to do quantum computing like Google and failing.
Speaker:And yet these entrepreneurs will share the value that they give
Speaker:to other people with me if I'll share a little money with them
Speaker:and buy a share of that pizza and sharing that operational cash flow.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:It's, it's built into the word.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:It's the share and.
Speaker:a beautiful word.
Speaker:The fact, the fact Steve Jobs would share his genius with me, with the
Speaker:likes of a guy like me, and he put me in my garage to build an iPhone,
Speaker:I'm not coming out alive, I'd starve in there, I'd never get out, so.
Speaker:It's a, it's a great lever of, a great way to lever other people's
Speaker:genius and, When I think about stocks, if you want to start where
Speaker:to start, think about net producing.
Speaker:When I brought my son home, we went for home school,
Speaker:one of the first lessons.
Speaker:We went to the gas station, filled up the car.
Speaker:It's like a hundred bucks or whatever it was.
Speaker:Then I took him home after that consumption.
Speaker:And I showed him on my American Express statement how much
Speaker:fuel we put in the air.
Speaker:You know, how much fuel we put into the sky.
Speaker:And it was, it was a good number.
Speaker:I said, this is going to basketball practice and,
Speaker:you know, going around.
Speaker:But then I took out my broker statement side by side and I said,
Speaker:you know, we own some Exxon Mobil.
Speaker:And we have dividends and we write a lot of options on that.
Speaker:And not the capital gain, not the price move, but simply the
Speaker:dividends of being a fuel producer.
Speaker:An energy producer far outweighed consumption.
Speaker:And I said, so stocks are a way to become a net producer where
Speaker:I'm producing more in the world.
Speaker:that I'm consuming.
Speaker:Then we did it with our AT& T bill and our, our Apple phones and we
Speaker:just went through all these areas of things where we had consumption,
Speaker:but we also were participating in the production on all the stocks
Speaker:I owned and it was, it's a, it's a way to become a net, a producer.
Speaker:That's a real great way to, to build wealth.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:And that's, and that is kind of like Warren Buffett, I guess.
Speaker:You know, it's like, okay, well, you're gonna, you're investing
Speaker:in the things, you know, right.
Speaker:The things that you're using that, you know, there's demand for in the
Speaker:I mean.
Speaker:Warren Buffett is, is a genius.
Speaker:I wouldn't pretend that he's not, but I think his genius
Speaker:overshadows something more important, which is his temperament.
Speaker:If you looked at the stocks he owns, they're not the best ones,
Speaker:um, in terms of price, uh, but they have what he calls a moat,
Speaker:you know, um, Coca Cola, he often 2 billion drinks a day.
Speaker:And uh, so I went out and bought some, you know, this is okay,
Speaker:I want to be a part of that.
Speaker:And it, you just, the cola wars proved it, you know,
Speaker:Pepsi tried, no one's going to take down that castle, right?
Speaker:And so, I don't think about risk in terms of stock price movement.
Speaker:I think about terms of risk in the moat.
Speaker:You know, if you took that Coca Cola company, you know, started in 1886.
Speaker:Okay, what's it survived in, in that 150 years?
Speaker:Um, you know, World War One, World War Two, uh, plagues, uh,
Speaker:9 11, uh, global financial crisis of 2008, recently a pandemic.
Speaker:You can't kill it.
Speaker:You just can't kill it.
Speaker:And so that's where I see the risk management in just,
Speaker:they're not going anywhere.
Speaker:You know, it's, it's solid and they always bounce back up.
Speaker:You know, if, if you had a chance to buy, you'd always
Speaker:want to buy it the worst times.
Speaker:hmm.
Speaker:Well, and that's the overall rule, right?
Speaker:It is yeah, yeah Mm
Speaker:So we're talking about kind of these, these long lasting
Speaker:companies like Coca Cola.
Speaker:And then you already mentioned NVIDIA, you know, has had some
Speaker:pretty steep movements already.
Speaker:Insane.
Speaker:And of course, they're leading the whole AI thing.
Speaker:So, you know, I'm curious of there's, I guess,
Speaker:two ways to look at it.
Speaker:I'm sure there's more, but like, how do you look at the
Speaker:stocks that you're looking at?
Speaker:You know, or the, or the shares, let's call them.
Speaker:And then you mentioned dividends too.
Speaker:So I know
Speaker:Yeah, and you you asked a great question.
Speaker:How's the person get started?
Speaker:So, you know this having done so much business when you embark on
Speaker:a venture of business ownership You know the entrepreneur Or
Speaker:you embark, uh, as an investor.
Speaker:What you're really doing, whether you know it or
Speaker:not, is you're starting a personal development program.
Speaker:You're embarking in personal development.
Speaker:Uh, your weaknesses, at least it was for me, are rooted out
Speaker:very quickly and they are put on display for the whole world to see.
Speaker:And so when you, if you really want to start investing or
Speaker:entrepreneurship, uh, You're going to learn things like
Speaker:an improved temperament.
Speaker:You're going to learn way like discipline, you know,
Speaker:keeping an even keel your temperament, which is hard for me.
Speaker:Cause I was an emotional guy.
Speaker:I would get really excited or panic.
Speaker:You know, it was really tough for me to overcome, uh, is to
Speaker:just become an even keel guy who, uh, who has discipline, who has
Speaker:consistency and most important.
Speaker:And it's why I'm an education advocates.
Speaker:Why I'm in the business is, is to learn four important.
Speaker:Uh, financial education, uh, curriculum.
Speaker:If you go to school, you know what's there.
Speaker:Biology, and science, and literature, and
Speaker:art, and mathematics.
Speaker:You know, the STEM stuff, history, all that's there.
Speaker:But there's four things that if you can learn, In financial
Speaker:education, you're well on your way to becoming an entrepreneur or
Speaker:an investor and they are thus Um, the first one's called fundamental
Speaker:analysis where There's just certain fundamental fundamental things
Speaker:that business should do whether it's your business and when you're
Speaker:going to buy It has to do with the financial statement and you
Speaker:should look at that financial statement There's just got to be a
Speaker:certain amount of growth Criteria.
Speaker:And that's how you, you know, any entity anywhere in the world,
Speaker:you look at assets, liabilities, income, expenses, statement of
Speaker:cash flows, you know there's health there or sickness there.
Speaker:You look at the financial state of the U.
Speaker:S., very, very sick.
Speaker:Uh, you look at a financial statement like Joe, you know,
Speaker:probably pretty healthy.
Speaker:And so
Speaker:at least.
Speaker:for sure.
Speaker:They're not hard to beat.
Speaker:It's not a high bar, but, but, uh, you know, and so fundamental
Speaker:analysis, the ability to analyze the business and say, Hey, this
Speaker:is good business as of today.
Speaker:Now tomorrow, who knows?
Speaker:That's where that moat comes in.
Speaker:It's like, yeah, it's probably gonna stick around.
Speaker:The second one.
Speaker:Especially if you're going to be an option trader is,
Speaker:is technical analysis and that's your price movement.
Speaker:That's your study of the emotions of the market.
Speaker:You know, the, the company's one thing, but the buyers
Speaker:and sellers are another.
Speaker:And that's just information gathering.
Speaker:But the third pillar is cash flow.
Speaker:How do I position myself within this information to have a profit?
Speaker:And then finally is the most important one, risk management.
Speaker:That's where my team is just crackerjack, man.
Speaker:They're awesome.
Speaker:You know, I've got guys that are professional risk managers, Series
Speaker:4 Option Principals, and they, uh, You know, guys like that, they help
Speaker:you deal with the sudden change.
Speaker:And the insurance of when the unforeseen happens.
Speaker:Every single thing you find in, as an investor, will fall
Speaker:within one of those four.
Speaker:It's either a fundamental issue, a technical issue, a cash flow
Speaker:issue, a risk management issue.
Speaker:And if people can learn those, that's where I would start.
Speaker:Is with temperament, discipline, learn the four pillars.
Speaker:And then you can have a foundation to invest.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:I just think of, you know, we talked about AI already and how, well,
Speaker:there's no real temperament with AI.
Speaker:It's purely, you know, it's logic and it's, it is what it is.
Speaker:And, um, you know, I'm curious of what you think would be the, I
Speaker:guess the most difficult of these four to deal with, you know, um,
Speaker:and because you had the temperament thing, uh, you know, emotional.
Speaker:I feel like a lot of people are emotional when
Speaker:it comes to this stuff.
Speaker:I think it depends on the person.
Speaker:Uh, you know, the engineers, uh, seem to have a good temperament,
Speaker:but they're actually more afraid than you think, because they, they
Speaker:overanalyze, you know, they're terrified of some type of mistake.
Speaker:I think the most, I don't know if it's the most difficult,
Speaker:but the most important one, if you, have great risk
Speaker:management, then that gives you the ability to move forward
Speaker:because you know you'll be okay.
Speaker:Um, if, if I, you know, if I have a seatbelt, if I have a helmet,
Speaker:you know, whatever it is, if I drive my car, the more safety
Speaker:mechanisms I have around me, more confidence I have to invest.
Speaker:I think that risk management is the most important one.
Speaker:Uh, once you get that down, it takes away the fear, frankly.
Speaker:And, and, you know, as an entrepreneur, I would imagine
Speaker:there's, are there certain, let's talk about risk management,
Speaker:you know, as someone with a business, are there some,
Speaker:you It's fundamentals there that you would recommend.
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:Robert Kiyosaki, I was upset that I didn't see how obvious this was,
Speaker:but I remember this like it was yesterday, he had a flip chart out
Speaker:and he wrote, he wrote this, he says risk is related to control.
Speaker:Um, the more control you have, the less risk, the less control you
Speaker:have, more risk and no control, well that would be gambling.
Speaker:Uh, we have no, you know, where round and round it goes, where it
Speaker:stops, we don't know, we can't say.
Speaker:And so, in a business, I think part of the, part of what brings
Speaker:controls is you want to have good standard operation procedures
Speaker:where You kind of remove, maybe not the human element, they still
Speaker:have to follow those procedures.
Speaker:But you want to McDonaldize things as much as you can.
Speaker:You want to have systems in place, legal in place, great
Speaker:communications in place.
Speaker:You know, those are the, the fundamentals.
Speaker:Um, You know, inside of a, of a, of a business triangle.
Speaker:Leadership is important.
Speaker:That's a fundamental.
Speaker:Having a mission, uh, is really important.
Speaker:Having a team really reduces risk if you have a great team.
Speaker:So those are some of the things I think as an entrepreneur
Speaker:you can think about.
Speaker:Probably the least important one is your product.
Speaker:Um, but if you have great systems, Great standard operating
Speaker:procedures, great legal, great communication, and, you
Speaker:know, some stable cash flow.
Speaker:You know, you're controlling a lot, you know.
Speaker:I don't know if you can get total control, but the more control you
Speaker:have, the less risk you'll have.
Speaker:That's the basic principle.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:the idea of having solid systems, I mean, that any business at any level
Speaker:should have great solid systems, even if it's just you and yourself,
Speaker:but like that can carry into so many different projects or investing,
Speaker:you know, even if it's outside of your own business, there's still
Speaker:systems and, you know, you need that support when you go anywhere.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:if, if you have a business.
Speaker:You, you have to know your, uh, your key performance indicators
Speaker:and monitor those, and if something needs to be tweaked, you get a
Speaker:system to address, you know, what that is, and you, you tweak your
Speaker:system or improve your system, but, you know, key performance
Speaker:indicators are fundamental analysis.
Speaker:You know, it, it really is how your business is running.
Speaker:And, uh, as you analyze business as an investor, there are
Speaker:key performance indicators, especially valuation indicators.
Speaker:And even as you're on your own, your own business, you
Speaker:want to have KPIs in hand,
Speaker:Are there, so when it comes to fundamental analysis, just
Speaker:to understand some, you know, for, for folks listening here,
Speaker:and I want to obviously send them down to more resources
Speaker:after this too, to go deeper.
Speaker:What are some of those KPIs that you would recommend really
Speaker:understanding and studying on the fundamental side?
Speaker:uh, as an investor or business owner,
Speaker:Uh, I was thinking investor, but you know, in business owner, I
Speaker:don't know if you, if you want to cover a little bit of those.
Speaker:Let's talk a little bit about investor.
Speaker:That's probably the easiest one if you were a beginner
Speaker:and you just want to start to invest There's a couple of
Speaker:books you could read there's there's one that's really hard.
Speaker:I don't recommend it It's about this thick.
Speaker:It's called Securities Analysis.
Speaker:It's by Benjamin Graham, who is Warren Buffett's mentor.
Speaker:And it's doorstop, man.
Speaker:I mean, you, you, you, you got a robber coming into your
Speaker:house, just throw that book in the, in the hallway and
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:it'll stop any door.
Speaker:Um, the other one is a better one, a little easier to read,
Speaker:called The Intelligent Investor, also by Benjamin Graham.
Speaker:That's more of a book on temperament than on securities analysis.
Speaker:But it does talk about two metrics that really help you see value.
Speaker:Market knows this, um, it's earnings and growth.
Speaker:Uh, if a company is earning money consistently, what does that prove?
Speaker:Well, number one, it proves that people want the product or service.
Speaker:So that's really important.
Speaker:We have proof of concept.
Speaker:And number two, it means they're operating in the
Speaker:time being at efficiencies to where there's a profit there.
Speaker:So it proves efficiency and it proves people want the stuff.
Speaker:Uh, growth means that it's headed in the right direction.
Speaker:More and more people are liking it.
Speaker:So those are pretty basic fundamentals, you know,
Speaker:earnings and growth.
Speaker:And we have all types of.
Speaker:Valuation, EBITDA, you know, enterprise value, EV over EBITDA
Speaker:is a metric that is a lot like price earnings and peg ratios
Speaker:are price earnings in the growth.
Speaker:And so those, those little ratios are important.
Speaker:Understanding the work that is done is really important.
Speaker:Do they do great work and are they efficient in the work they do?
Speaker:And if you, if you do that, You can have the confidence
Speaker:to scale in at a small amount.
Speaker:You don't have to buy the whole company by a few shares.
Speaker:Um, first shares I bought about 10 shares of a stock
Speaker:that was 16 my first time just to see if it would work.
Speaker:So 160 was my first investment.
Speaker:You know, just see if the button would really give me
Speaker:checks out and Yeah.
Speaker:Uhhuh
Speaker:So yeah, um, you know, on the, on the business side,
Speaker:if you own your own business.
Speaker:Those KPIs are very similar.
Speaker:You know, can we grow?
Speaker:Can we scale?
Speaker:That's a big buzzword now.
Speaker:Scaling up, that's a big buzzword.
Speaker:Which means growth, you know, that's all it
Speaker:same thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:fancy word.
Speaker:But it's essentially the same.
Speaker:Now when, when you own a business yourself, you're going to have more
Speaker:nitty gritty and more hands in it.
Speaker:Nice thing about investing and buying a business, Buffett
Speaker:doesn't mess with the management.
Speaker:He doesn't micromanage.
Speaker:When you're buying a stock, you get to buy the management.
Speaker:They come with it, included.
Speaker:It's turnkey.
Speaker:Uh, batteries included, right?
Speaker:Uh, you have the management team in place.
Speaker:Warren Buffett said this.
Speaker:Uh, I hope I don't destroy this quote, but he said, uh,
Speaker:The ultimate irony of the investment business is that an
Speaker:obstetrician can deliver babies better than the husband or wife.
Speaker:And if you take dentists as a whole, they can fill teeth
Speaker:or pull teeth better than the patients try to do it themselves.
Speaker:But in the investment world, somebody who believes in American
Speaker:business and will seek out the lowest way to participate in
Speaker:business and do it consistently will achieve results that exceed
Speaker:those, uh, of the Wall Street professionals, the group, in
Speaker:fact, it's the only industry you can think of where the.
Speaker:Professionals efforts subtract value from what
Speaker:the layman could do himself.
Speaker:I think the key in that quote that I picked out is the
Speaker:lowest way to participate
Speaker:Uh, and that's stock ownership.
Speaker:You don't show up to the work You don't drive your car to the office.
Speaker:You have the management built in They're they're the ones checking
Speaker:the kpis and managing all this stuff And you simply participate by
Speaker:receiving a dividend Maybe you sell some options for you know, increased
Speaker:cash flow and compounding power You Uh, but it really is about ownership
Speaker:and it's a, you know, you play Monopoly and you just buy the board.
Speaker:And I always tell my family in the family trust, I tell my sons,
Speaker:I go, you fricking better never sell our real estate ever because
Speaker:if you can acquire a piece of land on the earth, there's only so much
Speaker:earth, you keep it in your family.
Speaker:You don't give it up.
Speaker:Well, it's the same with American business.
Speaker:If you can acquire some shares.
Speaker:Of our gross domestic product and the work that's being done.
Speaker:Why would you ever want to relinquish that ownership of
Speaker:those shares of the, of the GDP?
Speaker:I mean, Warren Buffett's got 5 percent of the S& P now.
Speaker:It's about how big he is.
Speaker:And, and that's what one man can do.
Speaker:Uh, and so ownership is more important than working.
Speaker:I think work for ownership, not for paychecks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Work to
Speaker:that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I mean, we can build that into us, you know, what
Speaker:we do as business owners.
Speaker:You know, I've had really smart folks like Roland Frasier, uh,
Speaker:who's been on this podcast and he's, you know, he's got, I don't
Speaker:know, 30 plus businesses, but, you know, he's not technically, uh,
Speaker:yeah, he's not on the, you're not going to find him on an org chart.
Speaker:That's what he always says, you know, and.
Speaker:That's one strategy, you know, he has ownership equity and things
Speaker:But in the way that you're saying through shares and the stock market.
Speaker:Well, there you go You can kind of do something similar,
Speaker:you know, you're not Operating anything you're you're doing
Speaker:your own analysis on your side
Speaker:The, epiphany that escapes and it, it having done this for
Speaker:30 years, it, it is such, um, it's an enigma to me that, that
Speaker:people think about the risk.
Speaker:They think it's almost entirely that I'm scared that the stock
Speaker:market will crash or that the value of my shares will go down,
Speaker:that the price will go down.
Speaker:That's not it.
Speaker:Warren Buffett said it.
Speaker:Operation, operating earnings is what you're concerned about.
Speaker:Who cares what the price of the goose is, it's whether or not it
Speaker:will continue to lay the eggs.
Speaker:And if the goose is a hundred dollars and it's laying,
Speaker:you know, a ten dollar egg a month, You, you, you're fine.
Speaker:You're going to get your money back.
Speaker:You're fine.
Speaker:It's in, and if the price, I mean, imagine Buffett, about
Speaker:half his wealth is in companies that are not for sale, like
Speaker:Fruit of the Loom, Dairy Queen, Geico, Duracell Batteries.
Speaker:Geico Insurance, all these companies that have no price.
Speaker:Um, they're not for sale on the market.
Speaker:They're not listed.
Speaker:And so, you know, like, the prices of my homes don't fluctuate.
Speaker:Because they're not for sale.
Speaker:The prices of my stocks don't fluctuate.
Speaker:Mine don't because they're not for sale.
Speaker:That, that stock market only matters to me if I want to give up the
Speaker:golden eggs that the goose delivers.
Speaker:And I just don't see the point in doing it if, if I can, if the
Speaker:option market is there and I can sell premium and if the dividends
Speaker:are there and you get a double digit return off those two efforts, the
Speaker:hell do you care what this price is?
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that, that enigma, it blows my mind.
Speaker:If you turn on CNBC, not one person talking about product
Speaker:that I guarantee you turn it on right now, they'll be
Speaker:talking about a damn price.
Speaker:They will.
Speaker:And it's just not how it's done.
Speaker:It's just not how it works.
Speaker:So, dividends and options, are those the two things?
Speaker:I mean, that's the, that's the cash flow, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, there's There's only six things you can do.
Speaker:You can buy a stock, sell a stock, buy a put, sell a
Speaker:put, buy a call, sell a call.
Speaker:Now the combinations of those get really exciting.
Speaker:There's a lot of combinations of those we can learn.
Speaker:But all wealth building is, is learning to conduct, conduct
Speaker:a transaction intelligently.
Speaker:It's all it is.
Speaker:And, and that's what financial education boils down to,
Speaker:is how do I conduct these transactions in a way that is
Speaker:going to, uh, Produce cash flow.
Speaker:Well, you're exactly right people poo poo dividends and It's crazy.
Speaker:They think a dividend is never gonna move Inflation makes
Speaker:prices go up makes the cost go up, but it also makes the The
Speaker:the cash flow go up the gap between the two Warren Buffett
Speaker:bought coca cola at three dollars and twenty five cents a share.
Speaker:That's his cost basis I think it's a two dollar dividend
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:that thing's paying for itself every 18 months or whatever, time
Speaker:after time, and the compounding, when you're compounding it
Speaker:at 50%, that's astronomical.
Speaker:So it's, it's not what the dividend is today, it's what the dividend
Speaker:will be tomorrow and 10 years from now, and hopefully people can think
Speaker:dynastically, you know, legacy, to where when I die, hopefully
Speaker:my kids have been educated well enough that they can, you know,
Speaker:Become stewards of, of the dynasty and pass it on to their children.
Speaker:Hopefully.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Hopefully that's a great, great goal and legacy.
Speaker:It's well, you know, on that point, because I keep going back to, I
Speaker:love the fact that you educate your children and you know, like, that's
Speaker:what I've, I have a five year old and a 12 month old at this time.
Speaker:And
Speaker:you're in the hot, you're, you're in the beautiful sweet spot.
Speaker:I
Speaker:mean, Santa Claus and
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:and, I mean,
Speaker:already questioning Santa at five, which I'm like too young.
Speaker:Come on.
Speaker:ha, good for
Speaker:But the, what I'm thinking here is that, you know, they're at
Speaker:such an impressionable time and, um, it like, what are some of
Speaker:these things you mentioned, uh, real estate, you know, like don't
Speaker:sell the real estate, you know, that's yours and all these assets.
Speaker:Um, What are some some things that you just think that we should all
Speaker:know that kind of like you taught your children at this young age so
Speaker:well, I gotta give a plug to some Rich Dad.
Speaker:They have a game, uh, called the Cash Flow Game.
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:And we started playing that game before they could do math.
Speaker:Mom and dad were the auditors, so we did the math.
Speaker:But they just needed to understand the arrows, the
Speaker:direction of cash flow patterns.
Speaker:And so the game was number one.
Speaker:Number two is we would take them with us.
Speaker:Uh, when we do real estate.
Speaker:And we started buying stocks very young.
Speaker:First thing I just said, what would be a fun company to own?
Speaker:And one of them chose, uh, Disney.
Speaker:So we went on a business trip to check on how
Speaker:the operation was going.
Speaker:And we stood in line.
Speaker:Uh, for many hours bonding as a family as we stand in line, uh,
Speaker:lot of demand right?
Speaker:Yeah, and they look around like, man, we're doing well.
Speaker:This is good stuff.
Speaker:My other son, I hate McDonald's.
Speaker:I can't stand their food, but kids like it.
Speaker:So he bought McDonald's and he walks in like he owns the place,
Speaker:you know, when he's seven.
Speaker:And that idea of ownership at a young age that you could
Speaker:own these incredible companies was very natural to them.
Speaker:In the real estate, once they had a little lemonade stand money,
Speaker:you know, not much, when we would do a syndication, we would, Uh,
Speaker:let them pool some of our money.
Speaker:That's probably co mingling of funds that I'll get arrested for,
Speaker:but I think a few bucks chipped in by the kid, uh, that we keep
Speaker:track of on the side is okay.
Speaker:And so they, they understood this stuff, and then also, they were
Speaker:just blessed to hang out with, like, one of my son's favorite guys is,
Speaker:I don't know if you're familiar with Than Merrill, he's, you know,
Speaker:you know
Speaker:here in San Diego.
Speaker:Yeah, so Than is one of my dearest friends and, and, you know,
Speaker:he texts my son all the time, you know, telling him to push
Speaker:it because Than's an athlete.
Speaker:My kids are athletes and, uh, and so hanging out with, with guys like
Speaker:Than, you know, they understood.
Speaker:I remember Than was pitching a, a syndication.
Speaker:They have a, like 2.
Speaker:2 billion fund, I think now.
Speaker:That's a lot of, a lot of money.
Speaker:Assets under management for a guy fans age but but We watch those
Speaker:things together and I said son, what do you take from fans pitch?
Speaker:He goes Sponsorship equity.
Speaker:I says, you know, that's it.
Speaker:He said I like the sponsorship equity so yeah, just involving
Speaker:them and and they have their own
Speaker:What we call they have their own brokerage accounts and
Speaker:so those are the things we do
Speaker:with your kids, you've involved them.
Speaker:You know, let them know.
Speaker:Um, we make a sacred pact.
Speaker:We don't talk about, You know, our cash flow net worth with
Speaker:other people, but they're involved in the stocks.
Speaker:They're involved in the, you know, they, they buy, uh, silver.
Speaker:They have little silver coins.
Speaker:They don't have a lot of gold, but they have silver and
Speaker:you just let them make some mistakes, you know, let them,
Speaker:It's a game.
Speaker:You know, it's, it, it truly is.
Speaker:And learning the rules early, like you said, the cash flow game.
Speaker:That's one I haven't played.
Speaker:I've seen before though, so I'll, I'll be picking that up.
Speaker:it is, it is, when, when we're in, when we would travel to Australia,
Speaker:or Argentina, or Paraguay, or Rome, all these places, and my kids,
Speaker:Robert would call them up on stage, and they'd dissect what really
Speaker:appeared to be pretty complex stuff.
Speaker:Go to a book signing and everyone wants my kids to sign the books, you
Speaker:know, they're one in the morning.
Speaker:They're keeling over and They said we want to be rich not famous dad.
Speaker:I go bingo.
Speaker:That's a big lesson.
Speaker:You learn right there Don't be famous be rich But but what
Speaker:was interesting is all of that people would say how'd you
Speaker:kids learn all this and I says listen All kids are geniuses.
Speaker:My kids aren't any different.
Speaker:They're not magic.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:There's nothing special about them.
Speaker:They're, they're just kids.
Speaker:But the financial education, they didn't ascend to a great height.
Speaker:The education was brought down to them.
Speaker:That's the secret of a great teacher is we didn't try to push them up.
Speaker:We brought the education down to within their grasp.
Speaker:And that's what the cashflow game does is it, uh, it is so good.
Speaker:So many lessons and that's why they could get on stage and
Speaker:understand those cashflow patterns.
Speaker:Cause it was ingrained in them since they were very little,
Speaker:like before they could do math.
Speaker:I'm, I'm picking that up for, for them and for me just
Speaker:Yeah, pick up the cash.
Speaker:Five years old, she won't maybe do the math yet.
Speaker:Well, you and your wife can do that.
Speaker:And we would have, and it's a long game, like Monopoly takes
Speaker:nine hours to play, right?
Speaker:Same with the cash flow.
Speaker:So we, we just had a little hiding place under a lamp
Speaker:table is where we'd put it.
Speaker:And we just put the game under and we'd pick it up where we left off.
Speaker:So 45 minutes, they can, they have an attention span for 45 minutes.
Speaker:Ha ha ha.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, what I'm thinking, Andy is like, so we've talked
Speaker:about AI before and I think of, AI is such a great way to
Speaker:distill information and make it actionable and to learn rapidly.
Speaker:And like you mentioned, um, you know, the books earlier,
Speaker:like the thing I do is like, I love to use things like chat.
Speaker:GPT is a tool to, you know, if I have the actual resource,
Speaker:maybe upload it, or it obviously has a lot of knowledge.
Speaker:Are you using AI yourself or your team in ways to enhance, or maybe,
Speaker:you know, do some of the process that we're talking about here?
Speaker:You know, the more I use chat GTP, the less impressed I am
Speaker:with it, and the more I realize how far it really has to go.
Speaker:It's true.
Speaker:Anyone experienced in sales or rhetoric and understand the
Speaker:difference between a rhetorical context and a veridical one
Speaker:Understands that that version of AI has been programmed rhetorically
Speaker:not veridically I would never use it to trade in a million years.
Speaker:I wouldn't trust the data It's really really good at saying.
Speaker:Hey, here's This spreadsheet reorganize it for me or it's
Speaker:really, really good at saying, well, semi good at saying,
Speaker:here's this math problem.
Speaker:Go do it for me or write this blog, but the the inaccuracy
Speaker:is, is a really big flaw because it's, it's, it's taking.
Speaker:from the world of knowledge, which is highly rhetorical with an agenda
Speaker:trying to convince someone, and as a result, accuracy is sacrificed.
Speaker:So there's certainly something to, I mean, we've been
Speaker:trading with, what is AI?
Speaker:It's a buzzword for more advanced algorithms than we had before.
Speaker:That's all it is.
Speaker:We don't have general AI yet.
Speaker:We're way far away from that.
Speaker:We're just getting really good at algorithms that
Speaker:can do a lot of tasks.
Speaker:Um, trading, most of it's been done by computer for the last decade.
Speaker:I'd say 90 plus percent of the New York Stock Exchange
Speaker:is just Set it and forget it.
Speaker:And they're just trading high frequency fiber optic, you know, and
Speaker:read flashboys and you get a, you
Speaker:Oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker:So, you know, do I use AI?
Speaker:I don't use it hardly at all with my trading.
Speaker:I might use it for, it's going to tell you what's past, you know,
Speaker:what's the five great stocks that will make me rich, you
Speaker:know, tell me what the future is.
Speaker:AI can't predict the future.
Speaker:It'll tell you what the past was or what now is.
Speaker:Well.
Speaker:You know, NVIDIA has been good.
Speaker:Well, that doesn't mean anything about the future.
Speaker:So, we're a long ways of replacing education with AI.
Speaker:People want that because they're lazy.
Speaker:Don't get all get on a rant if we go down this road.
Speaker:We have a culture of advice, is what we have.
Speaker:That's why Wall Street's rich, it's called Assets Under Management.
Speaker:Why do they have Assets Under Management?
Speaker:Because people don't know how to do it themselves.
Speaker:So they wax rich, insanely rich.
Speaker:That's why 401Ks are so awful.
Speaker:Is they wax rich with mediocre results.
Speaker:playing off people's ignorance, pretending, very much pretending,
Speaker:that they can predict the future better than you can.
Speaker:I'll go back to Buffett's statement, they subtract value from what the
Speaker:layman can do himself, for sure.
Speaker:It's the only industry we can think of like that.
Speaker:Um, it's, it's terrible.
Speaker:So, education is where it's at.
Speaker:Advice is for people who are lazy and don't want to go to work.
Speaker:I, really, what they're asking for free money.
Speaker:Andy, give me a stock pick.
Speaker:What they're really saying is give me money for free that
Speaker:I don't have to work for.
Speaker:I just got to push a button.
Speaker:That's lazy.
Speaker:It's not, it's not how wealth is, is built.
Speaker:It's built by education, not the culture of advice.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And I'm happy I asked that and I
Speaker:That's a long winded, you put a nickel in me, you
Speaker:know, it's terrible, you
Speaker:that's great.
Speaker:20 answer on a 10 cent question.
Speaker:I don't know It's
Speaker:in terms of resources and going deeper, like let's because there's a
Speaker:lot here and you tease the 401k, you know, just how that's such an awful
Speaker:machine that you wrote a book about.
Speaker:It's actually right behind your head there.
Speaker:So what are some resources folks?
Speaker:Can people people can go down a little deeper with you?
Speaker:And also though, you do some, some, um, workshops pretty often that
Speaker:maybe we can invite folks to it too.
Speaker:first edition of Form of Chaos, which is this old vintage one,
Speaker:you know, the publishers ten years later asked me to write a
Speaker:new one, so I just finished it.
Speaker:So don't go out and get this one, it's ten years old, but the
Speaker:new one's coming out, and you know, whenever those guys, my
Speaker:part's done, I've written it, so it's all in their hands now.
Speaker:So however long that takes.
Speaker:I would just say briefly, You know, if people really
Speaker:understood, uh, the, the origins of the 401k, where it came
Speaker:from, they'd be flabbergasted.
Speaker:There was no point was there a group of smart women, smart men
Speaker:that got together, think tank or brain trust that said, let's
Speaker:figure out a great way to retire.
Speaker:This is not like an engineered machine.
Speaker:It's more like the evolution of a beast, like an organism
Speaker:that evolved across time.
Speaker:And, uh, and so I won't go into that history, but I didn't put it in this
Speaker:book for fear people would be bored.
Speaker:And then when I showed the publishers the real history,
Speaker:they said, Oh, you're a moron for not putting this in here.
Speaker:But it was basically, uh, you know, a 30 or 40 year evolution to
Speaker:where, uh, it was off label use.
Speaker:The, the original 401k section was 800 words.
Speaker:And the guy who wrote it said, was a guy named Richard Stanger,
Speaker:who's still around today, much older, but but Barbara Conable,
Speaker:late Barbara Conable from New York, Congressman, got Craft in or Kodak
Speaker:in his ear and Xerox in his ear saying, Hey, we want a loophole,
Speaker:uh, for our rich executive bonuses.
Speaker:You know, Carter, President Carter was failing in his presidency.
Speaker:He's got Iran and, you know, gas prices trying to do
Speaker:tax reform to do something.
Speaker:And, uh, these guys saw an opportunity.
Speaker:So they go to this congressman and he hires this young lawyer
Speaker:right out of Temple University, 20, 20 something young guy says,
Speaker:write this, this, uh, Well, I was interviewing Richard, you know, I
Speaker:was talking to him on my podcast and he said, Andy, we, we put
Speaker:this to the, you know, Conable was on the House Ways and Means
Speaker:Committee, he was the chairman.
Speaker:And they put it to the, uh, the IRS and also the Congressional
Speaker:Budget Office and the Treasury and all of them have to run
Speaker:analysis on it to say, what will the impact be to, the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:government.
Speaker:How much money are we going to lose by deferring this?
Speaker:And they came back, I about fell out of my chair when he said
Speaker:this, they came back and their analysis said if they enact this
Speaker:law, the difference to the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:budget will be less than a million dollars.
Speaker:There's 11 trillion dollars in 401ks just in the United States today.
Speaker:Wow,
Speaker:So, Conable goes 20 years later, he writes this book
Speaker:called Congress and the Tax Law.
Speaker:So all his speeches he gave, no mention of 401k in it,
Speaker:even once, not even once.
Speaker:And he's at a party, and Barbara Conable's at this party, and his
Speaker:colleagues come up and say, Hey, congratulations, you've been
Speaker:nominated for Man of the Century.
Speaker:Because you invented the 401k and Barbara Combs says, I did what?
Speaker:Uh, what's a 401k?
Speaker:He had no idea.
Speaker:For 20 years it was growing.
Speaker:Calls up the Ways and Means Committee and says, Do
Speaker:I have anything to 401k?
Speaker:And they say, Yeah, you sponsored the legislation.
Speaker:He said, I'd forgotten it completely.
Speaker:It was a favor to my buddies.
Speaker:At Xerox and Kodak.
Speaker:So, uh, it sat there for two years from 78 to 80.
Speaker:And a guy named Ted Benna, who was a consultant, uh, was working
Speaker:with a bank that wanted to get these big bonuses for them.
Speaker:And they had this legislation called ERISA that had frozen the law.
Speaker:And he found that little loophole and he said, What if we gave
Speaker:them bait, an employee match, And, uh, the employer match was
Speaker:born, and next thing you know, people gave up their pensions.
Speaker:If, if you look at a pension, uh, it's a function of the financial
Speaker:statement on the cash flow side.
Speaker:Income expenses.
Speaker:Never touch the assets or liabilities.
Speaker:It was a cash flow issue.
Speaker:Lifetime income.
Speaker:Pension.
Speaker:The people didn't have the financial education to see that
Speaker:when pensions were replaced by a 401k, that it became a balance
Speaker:sheet issue, a net worth issue.
Speaker:And now it's basically an hourglass that's gonna out, you
Speaker:have to outlast your retirement for the hourglass shrink.
Speaker:So, it's a horrible deal.
Speaker:I won't even talk about how much Wall Street makes on this.
Speaker:Um, they make the lion share the money.
Speaker:They make more money than the 401k guys do through compounding costs.
Speaker:It's a bad deal.
Speaker:So, you don't need to buy the book, but, but, uh, You know,
Speaker:it's, it's just something you should investigate of
Speaker:whether it's really worth it.
Speaker:And that bait is food that conceals a hook.
Speaker:So even though that employer match looks like money and smells like
Speaker:money, tastes like money, there is a hook inside of that bait
Speaker:that is not seen by most people.
Speaker:And if you really do the math on it, there's a real question
Speaker:about whether it's even worth it if you do the long term math.
Speaker:Which I've done so, um, so yeah, resources, people can find me.
Speaker:We could take people, you know, I founded the Cashflow
Speaker:Academy not because I was beating Warren Buffett in an
Speaker:investing contest 20 years ago.
Speaker:Uh, I founded the Cashflow Academy because people had said, Andy,
Speaker:you have a talent for making stuff pretty simple and pretty plain.
Speaker:And so since then, uh, we've been very blessed.
Speaker:You know, about a third of our students are outside the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:Uh, 170 countries now we're in.
Speaker:And, uh, we're very blessed to teach people as far as they
Speaker:want to go with investing.
Speaker:If they just want a little bit of knowledge, we
Speaker:can give them a little.
Speaker:If they really want to become a full fledged stud option
Speaker:trader, we can do that too.
Speaker:you know, if you, if you'd like more information, uh, we
Speaker:can give you a little link.
Speaker:It's the cashflowacademy.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:You know, T H E.
Speaker:the cashflowacademy.
Speaker:com And then just put a forward slash in there
Speaker:and then put in hustle.
Speaker:We thought that'd be appropriate So the cashflowacademy.
Speaker:com forward slash hustle and we've got a fun ebook.
Speaker:It's free And it'll tell you a little bit about uh a little bit
Speaker:about that fundamental analysis and getting out of the rat race
Speaker:So it's a great place for someone just to start if they just want to
Speaker:do something for free and and uh learn more about financial education
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Andy.
Speaker:I appreciate you so much, man.
Speaker:I love the way that you educate the pace and the style.
Speaker:And I, I.
Speaker:Your kids are lucky for one for learning for so young,
Speaker:I don't know if they'd agree.
Speaker:I don't know if they'd agree with that.
Speaker:they'll look back and thank you guarantee.
Speaker:we get along pretty well, we
Speaker:it sounds like it.
Speaker:So appreciate you.
Speaker:We'll be chatting soon.
Speaker:And, uh, thank you very much.
Speaker:Oh, Joe, I had a great time and, uh, hope people found
Speaker:value in our conversation.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:Absolutely.