Khe_Rad_Reads
00:00:00.000 | Hello, everybody, it's Sam from the Financial Samurai Podcast, where I try to help you achieve
00:00:12.480 | financial freedom sooner rather than later.
00:00:15.500 | Today I have a special guest with me, Kay He, he went to Yale and he was a managing
00:00:20.720 | director at BlackRock when he decided to retire early, quit in 2015.
00:00:28.120 | So welcome to the show, Kay.
00:00:30.200 | Thanks Sam.
00:00:31.200 | Great to reconnect and pleasure to be here.
00:00:32.880 | Yeah, we've been connecting here and there for many, many years now, right?
00:00:37.440 | When did you start your whole journey post, is it 2015 after BlackRock?
00:00:42.400 | Yeah, I think I started my email newsletter, I left in May of 2015.
00:00:48.600 | And I started my email newsletter kind of six months prior to that.
00:00:52.640 | But it was very, really like hobbyist pursuit, Gmail, BCC, and I had an anonymous Twitter
00:00:59.640 | account for about a year before that, but it was kind of just a mishmash of things.
00:01:05.960 | Okay, so it's been nine years since you left.
00:01:09.880 | And I still remember when you first started, I was thinking, wow, you left BlackRock because
00:01:14.240 | I used to cover BlackRock, it was a big money management firm.
00:01:17.960 | And you had made managing director a level that I wanted to make on the sell side, but
00:01:22.360 | I could never quite get there.
00:01:24.040 | I tried for one year at the age of 34, they said, no, it's not your time.
00:01:27.640 | I was like, ah, screw it.
00:01:29.640 | I'm out of here.
00:01:30.640 | Let's figure out a way to get a service and leave because I didn't enjoy finance after
00:01:34.920 | the global financial crisis in 2008, 2009.
00:01:38.600 | How was your experience during the global financial crisis?
00:01:41.920 | It was probably one of the best things that happened to me professionally.
00:01:47.720 | And the reason why I say this is because I was old enough to get a lot of responsibilities
00:01:54.360 | from all the heads that rolled, like what they call battlefield promote.
00:01:58.640 | In the industry, basically when they lay off your boss and they ask the junior person to
00:02:02.080 | take on as much of the responsibility as possible.
00:02:05.040 | So I got some key battlefield promotes, but I was young enough that I didn't have a ton
00:02:11.800 | invested in like vested, unvested stock or just like my net worth wasn't that much.
00:02:17.160 | So I actually had, I came into a lot of cash in those like three, four years after.
00:02:24.060 | So markets were still low and I hadn't lost a ton going into it.
00:02:28.840 | And then it was just a phenomenal learning experience.
00:02:31.320 | I mean, it was trial by fire, but you know, we were investing in hedge funds.
00:02:35.000 | So I was a fund of funds analyst.
00:02:36.800 | I managed a team of research analysts and I just got a front row seat of, you know,
00:02:41.540 | you pick the biggest hedge funds that were having issues in 2008, which basically everyone.
00:02:47.160 | And I was front row seat.
00:02:48.880 | We were huge.
00:02:49.880 | We had hundreds of millions of dollars with some of these funds.
00:02:52.360 | I was talking to portfolio managers, talking to the risk managers, I was in their offices.
00:02:56.120 | And so as someone who just very intellectually curious about markets, it was crazy.
00:03:01.740 | What year did you graduate Yale and what was your career progression like after graduating?
00:03:07.080 | So I graduated Yale in 2001.
00:03:09.400 | I was a, what I say, a very bad CS major, computer science.
00:03:13.680 | So I got a bunch of C's.
00:03:15.440 | I think my average, my GPA when I graduated was a B, B minus, which was a fall from grace
00:03:21.240 | for someone who was a valedictorian in high school.
00:03:24.320 | But when you go to Yale, everyone there, literally everyone is a valedictorian from their high
00:03:28.860 | school.
00:03:29.860 | So I then didn't even think I would do banking or finance.
00:03:33.280 | I thought I was going to go work as a software engineer.
00:03:35.940 | Keep in mind, this is before Google, like the hot companies who are Microsoft, I guess
00:03:39.340 | Microsoft's hot again, and Sun Microsystems and Oracle.
00:03:43.420 | I couldn't get a job at any of those companies because I wasn't a good enough software engineer.
00:03:47.660 | And so the banks came in and they were there like, they recruited everyone.
00:03:52.140 | I mean, this was before dot-com crash or dot-com was in the process of crashing, but no one
00:03:56.900 | knew it yet.
00:03:58.300 | And they just, they didn't care if you were an English major, history major, philosophy
00:04:02.380 | major, comp sci major.
00:04:03.380 | They just like, if you can learn this job, if you have half a brain, we'll take you.
00:04:08.260 | And then I kind of started to learn about investment banking.
00:04:11.620 | I did investment banking for two years at a place called Broadview, which is now Jeffreys,
00:04:16.460 | I believe, part of their Jeffreys tech group, M&A.
00:04:19.620 | And then I was like, I hate this.
00:04:21.500 | I hate the hundred hour work weeks.
00:04:23.380 | I hate the lack of predictability of my schedule.
00:04:25.780 | It's killing my health.
00:04:27.440 | And so I got a job in this kind of very niche market at the time, which was fund of hedge
00:04:33.140 | funds.
00:04:34.140 | And that was in 2003.
00:04:36.140 | And I did that.
00:04:37.140 | I did fund of hedge funds for 12 years.
00:04:39.420 | Got it.
00:04:40.420 | Now, being a fund of fund managers, that sounds pretty attractive to me because it's like,
00:04:46.540 | okay, you just have to interview the right people who've got the good track record and
00:04:52.660 | get into those funds and hope they continuously do well, right?
00:04:56.180 | It's not like you're not picking stocks, you're picking the people.
00:04:59.980 | So if they do well, you do great.
00:05:02.040 | And if they don't do well, I guess you don't do as great.
00:05:04.540 | I mean, what is the skill set involved there in being a fund of fund manager?
00:05:08.420 | Honestly, I mean, I'm sure some of my ex-colleagues are listening to this.
00:05:14.140 | I don't think it requires much skill.
00:05:15.420 | I think it's really a business development job.
00:05:19.000 | It's a sales job.
00:05:20.000 | It's like, can you craft a narrative around why someone should invest with you?
00:05:24.080 | Can you craft a narrative around why you pick these funds?
00:05:26.580 | Obviously, you need to avoid the Bernie Madoffs and the frauds.
00:05:29.940 | Like, you invest in a fraud, you're hosed.
00:05:36.320 | There's a lot of performance chasing, right?
00:05:38.640 | But just like stocks, past performance is not indicative of future returns.
00:05:43.680 | And it's even worse at the hedge fund industry where the hedge funds grow so quickly.
00:05:48.860 | So they do really well when they have 500 million in assets under management.
00:05:54.200 | And then everyone, they get on their radar and then everyone, all the big institutions
00:05:58.360 | give them money.
00:05:59.360 | And they droop one size and then their performance drops by 50%.
00:06:02.800 | So I'll give a funny story, Sam.
00:06:04.200 | When I entered the industry in 2003, so I was 23 years old, I'm like, "This is kind
00:06:08.520 | of a BS industry."
00:06:09.520 | I'm like, "I don't think this is going to be around in 10 years."
00:06:14.020 | And so that's why I, like you, I kind of was always thinking, I'm like, "Where do I fit
00:06:19.060 | in the bigger picture of this?"
00:06:21.160 | I mean, the industry is still around.
00:06:22.880 | My ex-colleagues are still getting paid pretty well from what I hear.
00:06:26.160 | But the go-go days of the fund-to-funds industry was that like 2003 to the financial crisis
00:06:32.000 | period.
00:06:33.000 | Interesting.
00:06:34.000 | I mean, so coming from BlackRock at the time, that was a big name, right?
00:06:37.620 | So could you say, "I'm coming from BlackRock, so I got a lot of money and a lot of money
00:06:41.280 | behind.
00:06:42.280 | Therefore, you want to take my money, Stephen A. Cohen or whatever superstar fund manager
00:06:46.160 | there is?"
00:06:47.160 | I mean, you're spot on.
00:06:48.160 | Yeah.
00:06:49.160 | Okay.
00:06:50.160 | So in a way, half the battle of being a good salesperson, for example, is to have a good
00:06:54.360 | product.
00:06:55.360 | Yeah.
00:06:56.360 | Right?
00:06:57.360 | Because it almost can sell itself sometimes, right?
00:06:58.840 | Yeah.
00:06:59.840 | I think that was a big part of it.
00:07:01.120 | I think in the earlier days, the returns mattered more and the hedge fund industry was more like
00:07:06.200 | the wild west.
00:07:07.780 | So you actually had to be really careful about frauds and blow-ups and things like that,
00:07:12.440 | like kind of in the long-term capital management days.
00:07:14.760 | Oh, yeah.
00:07:15.760 | So I think in the early days, you actually were adding a lot of value because it was
00:07:19.840 | the wild west.
00:07:21.280 | I think probably after the financial crisis, the hedge fund industry really institutionalized
00:07:26.520 | by leading into it and then after.
00:07:28.680 | I mean, now you have publicly traded hedge fund, Goldman Sachs equity research rights
00:07:34.580 | coverage reports on Oxif and Oak Tree and so on.
00:07:39.720 | So it's just the industry matured.
00:07:42.320 | And so I think we were a very scrappy middleman in the early days of the industry when there
00:07:49.440 | was still a lot of alpha in the market.
00:07:51.400 | Both the hedge funds had a lot of alpha.
00:07:52.960 | So we investing in them had a lot of alpha.
00:07:55.840 | But as the market institutionalized, so much more money came in and just squeezed all of
00:08:01.160 | the juice out of the industry, which included fees, especially for middlemen like fund-to-fund.
00:08:07.120 | Got it, got it.
00:08:08.420 | And so as you're ascending the ranks, corporate ranks, what is the path, the promotion path
00:08:14.280 | at BlackRock?
00:08:15.280 | What do you start off at and then where do you end up?
00:08:17.480 | Yeah.
00:08:18.480 | So when I left, I was at a small fund-to-funds from age, let's see, 2003, so from age 23
00:08:24.840 | to 27.
00:08:26.420 | And so I just did everything, but they didn't really have titles because it was a four-person
00:08:31.120 | shop.
00:08:32.640 | When I left that fund-to-funds in 2007, I parlayed that into a VP role.
00:08:37.880 | So in 2007, when I was six years out of college, I was a VP.
00:08:44.920 | So then I joined BlackRock.
00:08:46.720 | This is where it gets crazy.
00:08:48.920 | I think one year after, this is where luck plays a role in the story.
00:08:53.140 | One year after I became a VP, so '28, BlackRock bought a fund-to-funds, a private fund-to-funds
00:08:59.300 | and merged them inside of BlackRock.
00:09:01.720 | And they did this crazy, where they had different title systems, so they kind of re-equalized
00:09:06.740 | all the titles.
00:09:08.000 | So I got a bump to director in that equalization, luck, all luck, in one year.
00:09:13.720 | Okay.
00:09:14.720 | Usually it takes like three years or something?
00:09:15.720 | Yeah.
00:09:16.720 | It probably takes three or four years.
00:09:17.720 | Okay.
00:09:18.720 | Three years probably, if you're good.
00:09:20.580 | So I got a one-year bump and already I was a young VP because I had parlayed that first
00:09:25.160 | switch from the small firm to the big firm.
00:09:27.560 | They kind of seduced me.
00:09:28.840 | That was the carrot.
00:09:29.840 | They're like, "Hey, we'll make you a VP."
00:09:31.160 | I'm like, "Sweet.
00:09:32.160 | 27-year-old VP.
00:09:33.160 | Amazing."
00:09:34.160 | Usually you're probably like 28, 29.
00:09:36.580 | Then I got the bump to director at 28 and then the financial crisis happened.
00:09:42.720 | So like I said, the best part of my career, that 2008, 2009, 2010 period.
00:09:48.360 | And at 31, I was a managing director in big part because of what they call battlefield
00:09:53.680 | promotes is they actually gutted a much more expensive layer above me.
00:09:59.360 | And they're like, "Hey, can you step up?"
00:10:01.240 | And I was like, I ran right into it.
00:10:03.080 | I'm like, "I can do this."
00:10:04.720 | And again, better to be lucky than to be smart.
00:10:07.680 | I think the year after I became MD at 31, they made a firm-wide cap, I believe, at 35
00:10:14.440 | years old.
00:10:15.440 | Wow.
00:10:16.440 | So double luck.
00:10:17.440 | I had a lot of luck in my career.
00:10:18.440 | Yeah.
00:10:19.440 | Well, I mean, obviously you were doing a good job too, but yeah, wow.
00:10:22.000 | Because I was amazed by the rise.
00:10:24.800 | And so it sounds like luck, but also strategically looking at opportunities and taking that opportunity
00:10:30.600 | and executing and taking on those new challenges is important.
00:10:34.000 | Yeah.
00:10:35.000 | But I'll add one thing.
00:10:36.000 | I never took my ass off.
00:10:38.040 | I'll give you a few examples.
00:10:43.040 | In that time period, I barely watched any TV.
00:10:45.640 | I didn't watch any movies.
00:10:47.160 | And I love reading fiction and I didn't read any fiction, but I probably read one book
00:10:50.880 | a week and they were like finance textbooks, like option theory.
00:10:56.440 | So I read more finance books in that 12-year career than many people will read in their
00:11:02.200 | entire finance careers.
00:11:04.400 | I would read research papers, things like that.
00:11:06.780 | And we could talk probably in some other conversation, I was a prolific networker.
00:11:11.160 | I would do five to seven networking meetings a week for 15 years.
00:11:16.200 | Wow.
00:11:17.200 | And so as your income grew, so you had the title, your income grew, at what age and at
00:11:22.040 | what point were you starting to think, "Well, this is no longer worth it," because you were
00:11:26.520 | still quite young.
00:11:27.520 | Yeah.
00:11:28.520 | Well, I grew up as a childhood immigrant, so my parents didn't really have a lot of
00:11:31.440 | money.
00:11:32.440 | So having money, period.
00:11:35.000 | I remember when I got my first investment banking signing bonus, it was $7,500.
00:11:39.080 | I'd never seen that amount of money in one check and I was 21 years old and that's still
00:11:47.160 | a lot of money.
00:11:48.160 | But back then, it wasn't.
00:11:49.160 | In 2001, it was an insane amount of money.
00:11:52.120 | You know, I didn't – I never was – look, I lived in New York.
00:11:57.640 | So when you live in New York, you are a big spender in that you go out to dinner, dinners
00:12:03.040 | are expensive, rents are expensive, things like that.
00:12:05.840 | But I would say that I probably lived off of my salary and I would invest 100% of my
00:12:13.640 | bonus.
00:12:15.880 | And so I don't remember.
00:12:17.240 | I think at the peak, my salary might have been like 350, maybe like towards the end
00:12:23.280 | of my MD days.
00:12:24.960 | And then in those 20s, late 20s years, they were probably like 250, 200, 175.
00:12:33.120 | But I was getting 100%, 200% bonuses at the time.
00:12:36.440 | So I would just invest everything.
00:12:38.260 | And here is something you would appreciate, Sam.
00:12:40.120 | I made my first investment in S&P 500 when I was 17 years old, a Vanguard account.
00:12:47.000 | I have been long the S&P 500 with 80% to 100% of my net worth since I was 16 years old.
00:12:53.840 | I am 45 this summer and I have never sold a share once.
00:12:57.720 | So a lot of my wealth is just compounding.
00:12:59.720 | Oh, nice.
00:13:00.960 | And so when was that inflection moment where you are like, I want to get out of here?
00:13:04.880 | Because I think most people listening are thinking, well, you are a young MD, you are
00:13:08.680 | making a lot of money.
00:13:10.920 | Why not just continue the gravy train?
00:13:13.560 | I – honestly, it was less – I mean, we could talk about that.
00:13:17.960 | I am very transparent about the numbers.
00:13:21.480 | But I think that there was a point probably like two years after I became a managing director.
00:13:27.100 | So I was 33.
00:13:28.380 | I think at that point, I had had two seven-figure paychecks.
00:13:32.720 | Like I think 1.3 and 2.3.
00:13:35.820 | Like I think those were my – I had three seven-figure paychecks in my life basically.
00:13:40.560 | So I had had one or two of those paychecks and then I was 33.
00:13:45.760 | And I looked at the guys who were 50.
00:13:48.720 | And they probably had had $10 million paychecks or seven or whatever.
00:13:55.000 | And they had incredible lives.
00:13:56.680 | Like they had houses in Sun Valley.
00:13:59.440 | They drove Porsches.
00:14:02.400 | Their kids went to these like crazy summer camps.
00:14:05.400 | Like everywhere – every time they vacation, they blew it out.
00:14:09.800 | And I was just like – I looked at that and I was like, that's cool.
00:14:13.840 | I don't want that.
00:14:17.300 | And it's not that I'm above it, but I just – my interests were very different.
00:14:20.920 | So what were my interests?
00:14:22.600 | I love surfing.
00:14:23.600 | I love being outdoors.
00:14:25.480 | I didn't have kids at the time, but I knew – I watched like they'd never saw their
00:14:29.640 | kids.
00:14:30.640 | And so I was like, I want to see my kids.
00:14:31.640 | Like it was my dream to be a dad.
00:14:34.080 | Like from like a teenager, I was like, I can't wait to be a dad.
00:14:37.520 | I just love kids.
00:14:38.520 | Oh, that's good.
00:14:39.520 | I was the oldest of like 14 cousins.
00:14:42.580 | So in some regards, I was like this like young uncle to like many of my little cousins.
00:14:47.120 | I just love being around kids and I always wanted to have a family.
00:14:50.520 | And so I'm just looking at these folks and I'm like, yeah, that could be me.
00:14:55.640 | I was like, but – I mean, I have an Acura, a 2018 Acura RDX.
00:15:01.800 | But like I was like, I don't want like a $100,000 car.
00:15:04.960 | I don't want a $10,000 watch.
00:15:07.400 | You know, the most expensive thing that I own is like all my computer equipment, which
00:15:11.160 | is basically to make my work more productive.
00:15:14.960 | You know, my surfboards are a thousand.
00:15:16.360 | I was like, there's nothing that I want, like I want to take nice trips.
00:15:19.780 | And I was like, I want time freedom.
00:15:22.880 | I want to own my time.
00:15:25.400 | And so then it became a calculus of like, how much money do I need to feel comfortable
00:15:30.960 | owning my time?
00:15:32.480 | And it's funny, you introduced me as retired.
00:15:34.120 | I work 35 hours a week.
00:15:36.380 | To my finance friends, I'm retired.
00:15:38.280 | To 98% of America, I have like a normal existence, like corporate, like I have a normal professional
00:15:45.080 | existence.
00:15:46.080 | So I was like, the math started to be like, okay, when do I cash in these time freedom
00:15:50.600 | chips?
00:15:51.600 | And what was, did you have a net worth target before you left your day job?
00:15:56.120 | I didn't.
00:15:57.120 | I mean.
00:15:58.120 | Just kind of more on a feel?
00:15:59.960 | There's definitely a number where I felt, so I'm not a fire person.
00:16:04.200 | Like I didn't, I don't want to, because I like working.
00:16:07.600 | So like it was never about, I don't even know what is like the SWR, 4% rule?
00:16:14.160 | Safe withdrawal rate.
00:16:15.160 | Yeah.
00:16:16.160 | I never cared.
00:16:17.160 | I don't even really fully understand that stuff.
00:16:19.300 | So like I never cared about that.
00:16:21.160 | For me, it was more like, how can I basically earn less money and still live a lifestyle
00:16:28.440 | that we want to live?
00:16:30.440 | And so that's kind of like what the number was.
00:16:32.720 | I guess in my mind, it was, there never really was a number.
00:16:36.880 | I left and I had 4.3.
00:16:40.640 | And so I've kind of like, it was probably like around 3 million, if I think, where I
00:16:45.160 | would feel comfortable.
00:16:47.160 | Our spending was about 200 grand a year.
00:16:49.960 | So like kind of thinking of it that way.
00:16:52.760 | And that's the thing.
00:16:53.760 | Like the problem with the SWR is that like it's, it works well when you're 60, but when
00:16:59.360 | you're 30, there's a lot of like path dependency.
00:17:03.160 | And like, I forget what shortfall risk or there's a lot of crash risk.
00:17:06.600 | So I didn't, I didn't, I never, it was interesting.
00:17:08.600 | Right.
00:17:09.600 | Got it.
00:17:10.600 | So there's a lot of shortfall risk.
00:17:11.600 | Okay.
00:17:12.600 | So you left with a net worth of about 4.3 million, is that what you said?
00:17:16.640 | Yep.
00:17:17.640 | Got it.
00:17:18.640 | And, and how is that net worth structured?
00:17:19.640 | Did you say most of it is in the S&P 500?
00:17:21.440 | Yeah.
00:17:22.440 | I mean, when I left, I probably had about a million in cash.
00:17:25.880 | Oh, okay.
00:17:26.880 | Wow.
00:17:27.880 | So, and then the rest was in, cause I didn't know what, I didn't know how I was going to
00:17:32.480 | like make money.
00:17:33.480 | Yeah.
00:17:34.480 | And that was before, I run margin now, so that was before I was living, I live off of
00:17:38.440 | margin as well.
00:17:39.440 | Wait, what does that mean?
00:17:40.440 | Living off of margin?
00:17:41.440 | Oh, I basically borrow, I fund part of my lifestyle by borrowing money against my portfolio.
00:17:46.800 | Ah, so instead of selling, right, right, right.
00:17:49.840 | Instead of liquidating or living off the dividends, it's, you borrow.
00:17:55.960 | Yeah.
00:17:56.960 | Okay.
00:17:57.960 | And what, what is that margin rate?
00:17:58.960 | Right now it's like six and a half percent, but for many, many years it was like two.
00:18:02.440 | Right.
00:18:03.440 | Ah, interesting.
00:18:04.440 | It's tied to SOFR.
00:18:05.440 | Right, right, right, right, right.
00:18:06.440 | And SOFR stands for what again?
00:18:08.640 | I don't even know.
00:18:09.840 | It's the old LIBOR.
00:18:10.840 | Yeah, yeah.
00:18:11.840 | It's the something, something, something.
00:18:12.840 | I'm with LIBOR guys.
00:18:13.840 | Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:14.840 | London Interbank.
00:18:15.840 | Yeah, right.
00:18:16.840 | Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:17.840 | So, yeah, I actually have no idea what's, I said LIBOR on TikTok the other day and all
00:18:22.080 | these kids were like, "Do you mean SOFR?"
00:18:23.520 | I was like, "Oh yeah, I guess they do mean SOFR."
00:18:25.960 | Oh, that's fascinating.
00:18:26.960 | So, yeah, I've, but at the same time, so once you left, you decided to build your newsletter.
00:18:33.520 | Tell us what the newsletter is and a business.
00:18:35.760 | Yeah.
00:18:36.760 | Yeah.
00:18:37.760 | So, I really do think I'm an accidental entrepreneur.
00:18:40.240 | So, when I left, I think we were spending about, our spending was about $15,000 a month
00:18:44.360 | when we left.
00:18:46.400 | We're living in Dumbo, Brooklyn.
00:18:48.640 | And part of me leaving, it was like, I don't want to change my lifestyle meaningfully.
00:18:54.440 | And that was the advantage in that I didn't like to buy fancy stuff.
00:18:57.840 | But we still like to live in, we like living in very nice places.
00:19:01.640 | Like I love living in big cities and so always going to be high cost of living considerations.
00:19:08.000 | When I left, I was like, okay, let's take 15, we spent 15K a month and we had one kid
00:19:13.960 | at the time, it's more now, and let's give 18 months of runway.
00:19:18.980 | So whatever 15 times 18 is to whatever 220, basically put 220K aside and basically pay
00:19:26.400 | myself a $15,000 monthly salary and figure it out.
00:19:32.160 | It was basically what I call a figure it out fund.
00:19:35.360 | And my wife was cool if that 240 or 220, God, my mental math is so bad now.
00:19:40.480 | If it went to zero, we're cool.
00:19:42.040 | She's cool.
00:19:43.040 | We have 4.3, the 4.3 goes to four, like no harm, no foul.
00:19:49.040 | And I just start doing stuff.
00:19:52.160 | And I just was doing things that I found interesting.
00:19:54.440 | Like most of what I found interesting was writing this small email newsletter.
00:19:58.600 | It had like 36 followers when I started.
00:20:02.640 | And in the newsletter, basically what I was saying, I'm like, look, I'm 35 years old.
00:20:07.600 | I've had this really successful career.
00:20:09.840 | I'm a dad now.
00:20:11.660 | I don't want that life anymore, but I'm not sure what life I do want.
00:20:17.640 | Basically I'm just confused.
00:20:19.760 | It was almost like a philosophical, like life philosophy applied to myself.
00:20:27.560 | And so I read a bunch of books, I interviewed people, I tried stuff and I would just write
00:20:31.760 | about it in my newsletter.
00:20:34.120 | And here's the thing, Sam, is that, I mean, you've been in this business long enough.
00:20:37.040 | There's not that many people like us that talk transparently about how much money they
00:20:41.960 | have, how much money they spend, what their concerns are, what their struggles are.
00:20:47.440 | And I tend to be very transparent about, I've written a post about how my wife and I talked
00:20:52.320 | about getting divorced.
00:20:54.220 | Most 40 year old men who have been successful would not just put that out into the internet.
00:21:01.440 | But I tell you, I know enough 40 year old men that if the thought of divorcing your
00:21:04.680 | wife hasn't crossed your mind, you're not human.
00:21:08.280 | That's just part of relationships.
00:21:10.800 | And so when you say things like that, people really gravitate towards you.
00:21:17.880 | They want to hear more.
00:21:20.000 | And so that was always my anchor, was just, I love writing.
00:21:23.720 | I don't write nearly as much as you, but I just love writing.
00:21:27.480 | And so I would write, and then from the writing, just all these opportunities came up.
00:21:32.200 | A media company asked me to be an entrepreneur in residence and they paid me a little stipend.
00:21:37.400 | A few Wall Street people saw, they're like, "Oh, you're doing some cool stuff.
00:21:41.280 | Can you come speak at my partner retreat?"
00:21:43.740 | And then, so I got a little bit of speaking gigs, a little bit of consulting gigs, cobbling
00:21:48.460 | it together.
00:21:49.460 | But basically every time income came in, that 18 month window extended.
00:21:54.960 | And so I'm basically still living in the extension of the 18 month window, nine years later.
00:22:00.520 | I would say that there was a big turning point, and I'll pause here, but there was a big turning
00:22:05.680 | point in about 2018, 19, COVID, was where I learned online marketing.
00:22:17.080 | And so then I started, I went through a two to three year phase when I was selling information
00:22:22.920 | products, specifically productivity courses.
00:22:26.000 | And that was a pretty lucrative business.
00:22:27.760 | I think it made over $1.6 million over a three year period.
00:22:33.240 | I had a lot of expenses, so I hired a bunch of people.
00:22:35.960 | So that wasn't profit.
00:22:37.440 | It's revenue.
00:22:38.440 | I reinvested a lot of revenue.
00:22:40.380 | So I went through that phase and then I was like, "I hate this online marketing stuff.
00:22:46.400 | It's like having a job."
00:22:47.400 | And so I kind of stopped doing that and that brings us to the season that I'm in right
00:22:51.320 | now.
00:22:52.320 | Okay.
00:22:53.320 | Well, tell us more about the season you're in.
00:22:54.320 | And the newsletter, Rad Reads, yeah?
00:22:55.840 | Yeah.
00:22:56.840 | I'm going to link to it in the show notes, but tell us what exactly is inspiring you
00:23:00.640 | and motivating you now because a lot of people who leave their day jobs of 10, 20, whatever
00:23:06.720 | years, they tend to retire to something and it seemed like you kind of figured it out.
00:23:12.880 | So what are you working on now?
00:23:14.560 | Yeah.
00:23:15.560 | So what I feel really, really lucky about is I just have an amazing portfolio of activities
00:23:23.900 | in my life.
00:23:25.040 | And some of those activities make me money and I'll start with those.
00:23:27.980 | And some of them don't make me money.
00:23:29.520 | I guess most people would call them those hobbies, but I think of them as my portfolio.
00:23:36.200 | The thing that I love most is I love thinking about the human condition, like what are insecurities?
00:23:44.080 | What do we fear?
00:23:45.080 | What do we desire?
00:23:46.760 | Why is it easy to love some people?
00:23:48.800 | Why is it hard to love people?
00:23:50.100 | Why do we beat ourselves up?
00:23:51.880 | I think I call a spade a spade.
00:23:54.360 | A lot of this would kind of fall in the lens of self-improvement type material.
00:23:59.400 | I just love thinking about that mostly because I just apply it to myself.
00:24:02.840 | I'm like, "Oh, I beat myself up a lot when I make mistakes.
00:24:06.680 | Why is that the case?
00:24:09.040 | How do you change that?"
00:24:11.160 | Or I tie so much of my self-worth to my bank account.
00:24:14.360 | When my net worth goes down by 20%, I feel 20% worse about myself.
00:24:19.080 | Why is that the case?
00:24:20.080 | What would a therapist say about this?
00:24:21.800 | What would a Greek Stoic say about this?
00:24:24.640 | What would a Hindu, what would a Buddhist say about this?
00:24:29.000 | I'm just fascinated by these questions, mostly because I just want to apply them to myself.
00:24:35.200 | My goal, and we had this conversation years ago, my goal is to be fully at peace in my
00:24:40.400 | own head.
00:24:42.560 | That's what I'm pursuing.
00:24:44.280 | I don't want to be envious.
00:24:45.280 | I don't want to judge people.
00:24:46.780 | I don't want to have resentment.
00:24:48.280 | I just want to be at peace and live my life that way.
00:24:53.200 | I just spend a lot of my time thinking about this.
00:24:56.600 | From that, I write, I post about it on social media.
00:25:01.520 | I really think of this as sharing information that I found helpful with others.
00:25:06.680 | That's a fundamental life principle that I have, is if I know something that will be
00:25:10.960 | helpful to you, like let's say you told me you're going to Mexico City for a getaway
00:25:15.960 | with your spouse.
00:25:16.960 | I'd be like, "These are my five favorite restaurants.
00:25:20.040 | Walk down this street, get a drink at this bar on the roof, and make sure you check out
00:25:24.800 | this taco stand."
00:25:25.800 | If you told me you're going to Mexico City, I would feel a deep sense of responsibility
00:25:29.860 | to communicate those ideas to you.
00:25:32.200 | Got it.
00:25:33.200 | Even if you didn't use them, I feel a real responsibility.
00:25:37.360 | My creativity is built on that sense of responsibility.
00:25:44.740 | Then I create things, and then I put them out in the world, and then I have these really
00:25:48.200 | interesting conversations on social media, on YouTube, through my email newsletter.
00:25:53.440 | It's just really fun.
00:25:54.440 | It's very, very satisfying.
00:25:56.360 | Now, I am not, because I don't play the whole fire SWR game, because I live in Manhattan
00:26:03.800 | Beach, California, one of the most expensive zip codes in Southern California, I need income.
00:26:10.000 | I don't want to burn through my principle.
00:26:11.760 | I also want to keep optionality open.
00:26:14.600 | Maybe when my kids go to college, I don't know, maybe I want to buy a house in the mountains.
00:26:18.160 | Right?
00:26:19.160 | I don't know.
00:26:20.160 | I want to keep some options open.
00:26:22.200 | I don't want to shut all these doors and start bleeding my principle down at age 44, 45.
00:26:29.600 | I find ways to make money, and I found a few interesting ways to make money.
00:26:35.400 | The one that has been the most rewarding is people read my work, and they literally come
00:26:39.400 | to me, and they say, "Can you help me live a life similar to the life that you're living?"
00:26:46.760 | I can't leave.
00:26:47.760 | I've got the golden handcuffs.
00:26:49.280 | I've got $10 million in the bank, but I'm so scared of losing it all.
00:26:54.240 | The biggest question people come to me, it's like, "I don't know what makes me come alive."
00:26:57.880 | I've spent 20 years on Wall Street.
00:27:00.040 | I kick butt on it, but I don't have hobbies.
00:27:03.760 | I don't have passions.
00:27:04.940 | I don't know what I would do if I had 10 hours of free time, and I know it's ... I mean,
00:27:11.120 | talk about 1% problems, but those 1% problems are someone's problems.
00:27:17.760 | I have two basically coaching programs.
00:27:21.480 | One is for, and we're going to talk about this term, post-achievement, post-financial
00:27:26.360 | folks.
00:27:27.360 | Post-financial, in my mind, is like you don't need to work for five years without changing
00:27:31.080 | your lifestyle, and post-achievement would be like you hit some echelon, some milestone
00:27:37.280 | of success.
00:27:38.280 | Let's say you were a partner at a law firm, you were an MD at BlackRock.
00:27:41.960 | You sold a company.
00:27:42.960 | Usually, it's actually exited founders come to me, and they come to me, and then they're
00:27:48.240 | like, "Okay."
00:27:49.240 | It's almost like they're starting their lives over.
00:27:50.840 | They're like, "I haven't paid attention to my health.
00:27:53.360 | I haven't paid attention to my hobbies.
00:27:54.840 | I haven't paid attention to my friends.
00:27:56.480 | I haven't paid attention to my spirit, my soul, nothing for 25 years.
00:28:01.200 | Help me."
00:28:02.200 | Wow.
00:28:03.200 | We do an intensive one-year, six-month to 12-year program.
00:28:06.680 | Together, we meet up.
00:28:08.240 | We talk on the phone.
00:28:09.400 | We talk on Zoom.
00:28:10.400 | I give you homework.
00:28:12.000 | This is like five to seven clients in a year.
00:28:14.680 | Oh, wow.
00:28:15.680 | It's a very high price point type work.
00:28:18.760 | Then there's another group, and I would say they are post-achievement pre-financial.
00:28:24.280 | This is kind of you when you left, me when I left.
00:28:27.240 | You're kind of in your mid-30s, early 30s, and you definitely need to work.
00:28:30.320 | You might not even have kids at that point, but you know you want to start a family.
00:28:34.800 | They're like, "What's the off-ramp on this career?"
00:28:39.040 | Because they kind of like me, they're 35, and they're looking at the managing directors
00:28:42.960 | that are 50, and they're like, "I don't want that life, but I don't know how to get from
00:28:46.000 | point A to point B, but I don't have as much pressure to leave this month, and I need the
00:28:54.000 | income too."
00:28:56.400 | That is a group program called the Next Chapter Accelerator, and we run those quarterly.
00:29:02.800 | Oh, gosh.
00:29:04.360 | That's awesome.
00:29:05.360 | It sounds like a lot of work, but that sounds awesome.
00:29:08.120 | That problem of getting off the exit ramp was my biggest problem until I figured it
00:29:13.640 | out.
00:29:14.640 | I figured it out by figuring out how to negotiate a severance package, just getting laid off.
00:29:20.840 | With the severance, you get your deferred cash, your deferred stock, a severance check,
00:29:25.520 | and you can collect unemployment benefits because you got laid off.
00:29:29.240 | Maybe you can let them know about that because that was the catalyst where I was like, "Okay."
00:29:33.680 | It's hard to leave those golden handcuffs, right?
00:29:35.880 | Yes.
00:29:36.880 | It's like one more year.
00:29:37.880 | I mean, I walked away from my deferred, so I left 900k of deferred on the table.
00:29:41.680 | I couldn't have done that even though I was dying physically.
00:29:46.680 | That could be something to think about, that severance package.
00:29:48.960 | Yes.
00:29:49.960 | That's a good point.
00:29:50.960 | Yes.
00:29:51.960 | Wow.
00:29:52.960 | Okay.
00:29:53.960 | You say it's a lot of work.
00:29:54.960 | I don't think of it as work because 98% of my marketing is that creative process that
00:30:02.280 | I described.
00:30:03.280 | I'm going to do it anyway even if I didn't get paid.
00:30:06.720 | I think this is the difference between me and a lot of "content creators" is that I
00:30:12.840 | create content because I enjoy it, and then money finds me.
00:30:17.160 | Most people do it the other way around.
00:30:18.600 | They need money, and so then they go create content so that they get more money, right?
00:30:24.880 | More clients, more sales, whatever.
00:30:27.080 | I'm like the opposite.
00:30:28.080 | I was like, "I create stuff that I love," and thankfully, from that, people will find
00:30:33.840 | ways to give you money, but dude, I'll tell you, I have five clients.
00:30:39.640 | We meet once or twice a month for 90 minutes.
00:30:42.200 | We talk on the phone from time to time.
00:30:44.360 | These group coaching programs, there are six 90-minute sessions once a quarter.
00:30:48.480 | That's all my work for the year.
00:30:51.040 | Wow.
00:30:52.040 | I mean, I create a lot.
00:30:53.040 | I write a lot, but I don't view that as work.
00:30:55.760 | Okay.
00:30:56.760 | I know your newsletter.
00:30:57.760 | I think it's in one of your newsletters.
00:30:59.120 | You highlighted an article about the grind of content creators.
00:31:04.760 | Was that in your – it was like –
00:31:06.000 | Yeah, that was mine.
00:31:07.000 | Yeah, and –
00:31:08.000 | It was a Vox article.
00:31:09.000 | Yeah, it was a Vox.
00:31:10.000 | It was like fascinating because even like very successful musicians, they're saying
00:31:13.920 | – like Nick Montgomery, he was saying something like, "I can't go in the woods and write
00:31:18.840 | my music or write a book or whatever.
00:31:20.760 | I have to always post another TikTok the very next day."
00:31:23.920 | Yeah.
00:31:24.920 | So, how much – because you have a YouTube channel now.
00:31:27.240 | How much of that pressure or how do you think about that in terms of marketing?
00:31:31.920 | You just said, yeah, you do it because you enjoy it, but there has to be some of that
00:31:35.360 | pressure, right?
00:31:36.600 | Honestly, so I've written – I mean, I would flip the question back to you in some
00:31:41.640 | regards.
00:31:42.640 | You've written three blog posts a week since 2009, right?
00:31:46.520 | Do you feel a lot of pressure to do that?
00:31:50.880 | I feel like writing to me is like breathing.
00:31:53.080 | If you can breathe forever or speaking, you can write forever.
00:31:57.880 | But I definitely have felt after the 10-year mark, because I made a commitment to write
00:32:01.840 | three posts a week for 10 years if I was going to start Financial Samurai.
00:32:04.920 | So, I did that in July 2009.
00:32:06.920 | I made – I achieved that goal in July 2019.
00:32:09.640 | So, afterwards, I was like, "Oh, I can do whatever I want because I achieved my goal."
00:32:14.080 | But I feel – I do sometimes feel the pressure to continue because I've done it for so long.
00:32:20.400 | I feel that pressure too.
00:32:22.280 | I like streaks.
00:32:25.760 | And so – and I'm very – I can be hard on myself to keep things going.
00:32:32.880 | One of my filters is like, "Is it fun?"
00:32:35.640 | And if things stop being fun, I just stop doing them.
00:32:38.680 | And I'll be honest, like writing my weekly newsletter, the blog part of it is starting
00:32:44.920 | to feel a little bit tedious.
00:32:46.960 | And so, I'm actually thinking of like I might stop.
00:32:49.480 | That being said, I make one or two TikToks a day.
00:32:52.960 | I cap it at 10 minutes.
00:32:56.280 | And I basically just answer 18 to 25-year-old's questions about working on Wall Street.
00:33:01.480 | No editing, nothing, you know, mediocre sound, whatever, no like content calendar.
00:33:08.720 | I just make two of those a day.
00:33:09.920 | I love it right now.
00:33:11.840 | And so, it's actually getting a lot of traction.
00:33:15.720 | My podcast and my YouTube channel, I have a rule like I interview a lot of authors,
00:33:22.000 | but I don't force myself to read their book before.
00:33:25.720 | So, I basically have a no prep podcast where I just get on and I just talk with the person
00:33:32.640 | like we were having coffee.
00:33:34.160 | Now, does that – I don't get 10 million views because of that format.
00:33:38.560 | But I get, you know, 1,000 views.
00:33:41.060 | And that's the thing is like if you look at my two, my lowest priced product is 7,500
00:33:46.560 | and my highest priced product is 40,000.
00:33:48.680 | Oh, wow.
00:33:49.680 | So, I don't need many clients.
00:33:53.360 | Yeah.
00:33:54.360 | Wow.
00:33:55.360 | But if a few people resonate with my podcast and my podcast, even though the numbers objectively
00:33:59.720 | are pretty bad, you know, they barely crack 1,000 downloads, every single client I've
00:34:05.440 | had this year and we're on track for a 450,000-year revenue has been like I listen to your podcast
00:34:13.320 | regularly.
00:34:14.320 | Got it.
00:34:15.320 | And when you say we, who are the we?
00:34:19.120 | I have a chief of staff.
00:34:20.120 | Got it.
00:34:21.120 | Who is a full-time employee who I give benefits and healthcare to.
00:34:24.600 | And then she manages a team of four contractors.
00:34:28.120 | I don't talk to any contractors.
00:34:29.600 | I just talk to her.
00:34:30.800 | And what do the contractors do?
00:34:35.160 | You know, like really simple stuff.
00:34:38.040 | So we'll record a podcast and then one of the contractors will go listen to the podcast
00:34:44.640 | and find, and with the help of AI, this is actually going down, but they'll find the
00:34:48.520 | five best clips.
00:34:50.480 | And there's like a very specific rule, like the first sentence has to grab you, the whole
00:34:55.600 | point has to be communicated in under 20 seconds, there should be predominantly the guest speaking
00:35:02.040 | and not K, so there's like a bunch of rules and then they find those, so that's their
00:35:06.680 | only job is to just find the clips.
00:35:09.240 | And then they pass it over to an editor and then the editor has like a style guide and
00:35:14.560 | they're like, they edit it a certain way.
00:35:16.240 | Just like make sure that you have like two B-rolls, captions look like this and they
00:35:21.280 | hand it off to a social media manager that's like, make sure we drop these clips on every
00:35:25.960 | platform.
00:35:26.960 | So I don't touch any of the social media stuff.
00:35:29.440 | I just do Twitter because it's fun.
00:35:31.640 | I like being on Twitter, although that's another one that the fun factor has plummeted in the
00:35:36.240 | past couple of years.
00:35:37.240 | So I'm thinking of like, just not, I'm not naturally pulled to it anymore.
00:35:42.520 | So that will probably phase out over time.
00:35:45.120 | And I'm feeling very pulled to TikTok because I'm actually having some incredible conversations
00:35:49.200 | with young people there who are not, by the way, my clients, the people who are asking,
00:35:54.000 | you know, how do I get an investment banking job or not?
00:35:56.040 | The people that are going to drop $40,000 on a coaching package.
00:35:59.240 | Yeah.
00:36:00.240 | Got it.
00:36:01.240 | But I just love it.
00:36:02.240 | Right.
00:36:03.240 | And their bosses.
00:36:04.240 | I've actually seen this very strange thing where these young folks ask me and then they're
00:36:07.200 | like, well, what did you do?
00:36:08.800 | They go look at my story and then they share it with like their dads or their bosses.
00:36:13.480 | They're like, I found this guy, like, look at like, he retired at this age.
00:36:17.160 | And I'm like, yeah, no, that's fascinating.
00:36:21.760 | You know, it's interesting, the creator economy is so big and I'm curious to know, because
00:36:27.000 | you went obviously to one of the top universities, you're valedictorian, then you made a lot
00:36:31.880 | of money, you left and now you're a father.
00:36:34.760 | How do you see the arc of your children going in terms of their careers and the competition
00:36:40.520 | to get into schools and all that stuff?
00:36:42.840 | Do you have really high demands for them?
00:36:45.200 | Like, what do you fear for them and what do you hope for them?
00:36:48.200 | It's a phenomenal question.
00:36:49.580 | My daughter just turned 10 and my youngest is seven.
00:36:52.720 | If I'm brutally honest, like, I feel good about their prospects just because we're going
00:36:57.320 | to, like, they're going to have access to money, some of our money.
00:37:01.480 | Like, I'm not going to spend all the money that we have.
00:37:03.680 | I'm not going to give them a big inheritance, but, you know, like, they're going to graduate
00:37:06.880 | college debt-free.
00:37:07.880 | If they want to go to grad school, they're going to graduate grad school debt-free, right?
00:37:12.700 | So I mean, right there, that is a huge, huge freaking advantage.
00:37:16.280 | You know, my youngest daughter is struggling with math and she has a tutor, right?
00:37:20.740 | So, you know, we're going to spend our money on education, which is good, which is great.
00:37:29.780 | I don't have a strong view, like, I don't want my kids to take my path.
00:37:34.300 | My path was, I mean, I told you, right, I only read textbooks and finance books up until
00:37:39.260 | age 35, right?
00:37:40.260 | Like, I just, that's a way to live and look, I'm reaping the dividends now, surfing every
00:37:47.120 | day and, you know, financial independence, quasi-financial independence.
00:37:51.280 | I don't, that's not a happy path for a lot of people, right?
00:37:57.120 | And again, it worked for me.
00:37:58.880 | It is a very happy path for me.
00:38:00.640 | I mean, I don't want to say very, but it was definitely a good path for me.
00:38:05.480 | I basically learned, it's like the things that work for me just aren't going to, some
00:38:10.300 | of them will work for others, but you know, what I would say, Sam, is like, there's just
00:38:14.100 | been a lot of like internal suffering in my own head for many, many years.
00:38:19.380 | Like I just have never been at peace, either I've always beat myself up or I was always
00:38:24.180 | envious of other people or I didn't like the way I looked or I was scared of being alone
00:38:28.300 | or I feared people would die, you know, like, just like the human condition, right?
00:38:32.940 | I think I felt that, I felt that really hard and you know, that has impacted my marriage
00:38:39.400 | and like, I'm a very emotionally closed, for as vulnerable as I am in my public platforms,
00:38:45.000 | my wife's biggest complaint about me is I'm emotionally sealed off from her.
00:38:50.280 | So it's just, I just want people to see that like, yeah, there's all these successful things
00:38:55.340 | that I did, but there were a lot of trade-offs on the other side of it that I want to be
00:38:59.680 | like, I've been an act, I've grinded my teeth, like the enamels off my teeth since I've been
00:39:05.680 | a tooth grinder, like at night, since I was eight.
00:39:10.300 | It took me eight years after leaving finance for my teeth grinding to stop, eight years.
00:39:16.660 | So that's how much the stress like lives in your body, right?
00:39:20.600 | And I'm going through therapy and going through some things that happen, like, I won't bore
00:39:25.440 | you with the details, but like, I never felt safe as a child, even though my parents were
00:39:29.060 | lower middle class, is because on my route to school, kids would get jumped.
00:39:33.480 | And I got jumped.
00:39:34.480 | Wow.
00:39:35.480 | So like, I lived in a perpetual fear of like, I'm going to get jumped on my walk to or from
00:39:41.000 | school.
00:39:42.000 | And I did get jumped three times in 18 years.
00:39:44.760 | And so that's, that messed me up.
00:39:47.080 | Like, if you're walking in a fight, a highly elevated fight or flight reflex mode for your
00:39:53.160 | entire childhood, and my parents, they're like, sorry, there's nothing, we don't have
00:39:58.200 | any money.
00:39:59.200 | There's nothing we can do.
00:40:00.200 | Like, this is just reality.
00:40:01.360 | So I'm not blaming them at all.
00:40:03.600 | But if you like that stuff sticks with you.
00:40:08.360 | Yeah.
00:40:09.360 | No, absolutely.
00:40:11.080 | And so I guess in a way, would you say that as a father, you can provide and shelter your
00:40:15.640 | children from these, this type of trauma.
00:40:18.040 | So in it of itself is a great win, a great satisfaction.
00:40:22.680 | And honestly, so the other day, one of my proudest dad moments, not proudest, but a
00:40:28.200 | proud dad moment, my 10 year old, she had saved her money, she'd bought this like nice,
00:40:33.480 | it was like this Hello Kitty lotion, like she loved she wanted the lotion, but she also
00:40:38.560 | wanted the she also wanted the can the container said Hello Kitty on it.
00:40:46.000 | And she just saved up her money, and then she dropped it and the whole thing.
00:40:51.400 | And she was this size, she's also starting to get some of the hormonal kind of emotional
00:40:57.880 | volatility.
00:40:58.880 | She was besides herself, wailing, pounding the floor.
00:41:04.200 | And you know, I think an older, less mature version of me would have been like, suck it
00:41:10.320 | up.
00:41:11.320 | You know, it's only like an $8 thing or or I could have just been like, I'll buy you
00:41:14.320 | a new one tomorrow.
00:41:15.320 | Stop crying.
00:41:16.320 | Right?
00:41:18.320 | And I was like, No, like she needs to feel like, how can I support her to feel what she's
00:41:22.120 | feeling now, which is like sadness, frustration, anger, while still knowing that I'm there
00:41:27.400 | for her to support her.
00:41:29.120 | And so I was just I just literally sat with her and held her and didn't say anything for
00:41:33.000 | like 10 minutes.
00:41:34.000 | That's wonderful.
00:41:35.080 | I didn't say like, I'll make this go away or anything.
00:41:38.480 | I'm just like, I just told her I'm here for you without using words.
00:41:44.160 | And then when she calmed down, I'm like, Hey, you know, when dad gets real upset by things,
00:41:48.080 | I do this thing called a box breath, which is like you hold it's like a way to like regulate
00:41:52.800 | your nervous system by just changing your breathing.
00:41:55.600 | Right?
00:41:56.600 | I'm like, Would you be?
00:41:57.600 | Would you be okay to do like a few blocks box press with me?
00:42:00.040 | She's like, Yeah, sure, I will.
00:42:02.400 | And she did it.
00:42:03.400 | And she you could see her just call.
00:42:04.960 | That's great.
00:42:05.960 | That's wonderful.
00:42:07.280 | And then I just gave her a kiss.
00:42:08.280 | It was at nighttime.
00:42:09.280 | I gave her a kiss.
00:42:10.280 | I'm like, Good night.
00:42:11.280 | I love you.
00:42:12.400 | And I was like, Hey, thanks for showing me that breathing technique.
00:42:14.440 | And I was like, I was like, Honestly, sweetheart, I only learned about this five years ago.
00:42:19.200 | If I had learned this at your age, my like, I would have had such a helpful tool in situations
00:42:26.120 | like this.
00:42:27.120 | Yeah.
00:42:28.120 | And then just left it.
00:42:29.120 | So like, that's what I want for my kids.
00:42:33.600 | Like I want them to know that they are taken care of and safe.
00:42:36.640 | But I don't want to remove the, I didn't like, I didn't want to be like, I'll go buy a new
00:42:40.840 | one tomorrow.
00:42:41.840 | Like, I wanted, she needed to experience that loss in that moment.
00:42:46.120 | Yeah.
00:42:47.120 | Right.
00:42:48.120 | But I wanted to know that she was there.
00:42:49.120 | And then I want to like, give her tools.
00:42:50.400 | You know, I'm a very avid meditator, I meditate 40 minutes a day for a decade.
00:42:54.560 | Oh, wow.
00:42:55.560 | Like, I want to give her these tools to find peace inside of her.
00:42:59.720 | And then I think she'll be, then she's got the foundation.
00:43:03.320 | Right.
00:43:04.320 | If she wants to go to Yale, great.
00:43:05.320 | If she wants to, I could see my daughter, my daughter already knows how to edit videos
00:43:09.280 | and use like Photoshop when she's 10, just from watching me do it.
00:43:15.360 | And I could see my daughter just like being a social media manager when she's like 15
00:43:19.320 | years old, making like 75K a year.
00:43:21.840 | And like not going to college.
00:43:23.240 | Interesting.
00:43:24.240 | She likes that stuff.
00:43:25.240 | Well, let me ask you this, because, you know, you talked about getting jumped.
00:43:29.720 | Where were you getting jumped by the way?
00:43:30.880 | What city was this?
00:43:31.880 | New York City.
00:43:33.320 | So I grew up in Stuyvesantown in the 90s.
00:43:36.080 | Okay.
00:43:37.080 | So in New York City, if you were a boy in the 90s, it didn't matter where, like you
00:43:42.440 | probably got jumped.
00:43:44.240 | Wow.
00:43:45.240 | Like at least once.
00:43:46.240 | Wow.
00:43:47.240 | And so these very interesting, tough experiences, I think helped probably drive you to succeed
00:43:56.000 | in school and make money so you had more options, correct?
00:43:59.480 | They did.
00:44:00.920 | And absolutely.
00:44:01.920 | Like, I remember getting jumped, I'm like, I'm getting the heck out of here.
00:44:05.960 | I will never put myself in this situation again.
00:44:08.400 | I would never put my family.
00:44:09.400 | And I did.
00:44:10.400 | Yeah.
00:44:11.400 | Right.
00:44:12.400 | I live in one of the safest parts of LA.
00:44:14.680 | But there's also a trade-off.
00:44:15.680 | Sure.
00:44:17.160 | And the trade-off is like my wife turning to me, she's like, "Why are you emotionally
00:44:20.920 | sealed off?
00:44:21.920 | Why am I emotionally sealed off?
00:44:22.920 | I'm learning."
00:44:23.920 | Because when I would be scared and I would go to my parents and be like, "I'm scared
00:44:29.160 | to walk to school."
00:44:30.160 | They'd be like, "Get over it."
00:44:32.960 | And I'd be like, "What can I do to make this feeling go away?"
00:44:38.720 | And then when I got older, it was alcohol.
00:44:40.960 | I was borderline alcoholic because a lot of – anytime I felt stressed, I would just
00:44:46.240 | drink.
00:44:47.240 | I was a very high-functioning alcoholic as you could tell by the results.
00:44:51.280 | But I coped hard with alcohol because anytime there was an uncomfortable feeling to feel,
00:44:57.080 | I didn't want to feel it because that little kid was like, "Shut it down.
00:45:00.000 | Shut it down.
00:45:01.000 | Shut it down."
00:45:02.000 | And that little kid can't go, you know, pounds a few stiff drinks.
00:45:05.960 | You know, when you're 21, you're like, "Oh, I don't want to feel this thing."
00:45:08.280 | Like I got a lot of things that can make this feeling go away.
00:45:12.040 | Is there any kind of concern though that providing a really comfortable, safe life for your children
00:45:18.000 | might make them less hungry?
00:45:21.200 | I used to think so, but what's hunger in service do I think that making them feel safe will
00:45:29.160 | make them not want to like have a roof over their head?
00:45:34.440 | No.
00:45:35.440 | Do I feel that not making them feel safe would make them not want to become a managing director
00:45:39.480 | of BlackRock?
00:45:40.480 | Maybe.
00:45:41.480 | I think that we confound hunger with high status.
00:45:48.080 | So right, like the hungrier you are, the more high status you can become.
00:45:53.720 | I don't disagree with that.
00:45:56.580 | But then the question is like, what does high status bring you?
00:45:59.360 | Right.
00:46:00.360 | Right.
00:46:01.360 | It's like, okay.
00:46:02.360 | Yes.
00:46:03.360 | Like will my daughter ever have the drive of Michael Jordan?
00:46:05.400 | Like no.
00:46:06.400 | But look at Michael Jordan today.
00:46:07.640 | The guy has demons.
00:46:10.200 | Like the guy is not at peace with himself.
00:46:12.360 | No?
00:46:13.360 | Okay.
00:46:14.360 | If you watch The Last Dance, he's still replaying mistakes that he made.
00:46:18.440 | Right.
00:46:19.440 | Like he's not, you know, he's not at peace with himself.
00:46:22.720 | So I think that I don't want my kids to be entitled.
00:46:29.480 | I don't want my kids to be brats.
00:46:31.520 | I don't want my kids to not be resourceful and creative.
00:46:38.720 | But I don't think that they need to get jumped to have a drive to be good at school.
00:46:44.320 | Yeah.
00:46:45.320 | Yeah.
00:46:46.320 | I play with that dilemma a lot, you know, because as you build more wealth, you're present,
00:46:52.140 | you know, you might basically be providing all the things that your parents might not
00:46:55.760 | have been able to.
00:46:57.420 | But because of that suffering or whatever it is, it's driven you to be who you are and
00:47:03.680 | to make those changes.
00:47:05.400 | And I just wonder, right?
00:47:06.400 | Because we don't know exactly the future of our children.
00:47:09.160 | So I constantly wonder.
00:47:11.720 | Yeah.
00:47:12.800 | I used to wonder that a lot.
00:47:15.840 | And look, I'll be honest.
00:47:16.840 | In my case, it was very egoic.
00:47:18.200 | I'm like, I want them to have the suffering that I had so that they can have the skills
00:47:22.580 | that I have.
00:47:23.580 | Because I think of the skills that I have are very good skills.
00:47:27.020 | But now what I'm realizing is that there's a lot of tradeoffs to a lot of the skills
00:47:31.480 | that I have.
00:47:32.480 | And I'm really starting to realize them in my mid 40s.
00:47:36.460 | You know, my incapacity to really like love myself, like so much of my self worth is still
00:47:43.220 | tied to like things that I achieve.
00:47:45.500 | Like, God, I don't want that for my kids.
00:47:48.340 | I don't want them to be in their mid 40s and still struggling to love themselves.
00:47:52.880 | Like that, I don't want.
00:47:54.580 | And if that means that they're not going to be a partner at a law firm, good, right?
00:47:57.900 | And even better, like they might find a way to love themselves and be a partner at a law
00:48:01.060 | firm.
00:48:02.060 | Right?
00:48:03.060 | Like, I think we forget that, right?
00:48:04.380 | Because folks like you and I just saw this one path of like, you know, being second guessed
00:48:09.620 | and being slighted and feeling unsafe.
00:48:12.780 | And we're like, that's the path.
00:48:14.100 | And we're like, look, there, I would say half of my clients grew up upper, upper class.
00:48:21.500 | And like, and they are exited founders and they are MDs at firms.
00:48:26.740 | Like, we only see our story because we're like, oh, we had to grind.
00:48:30.620 | Our parents didn't give us like, there's a lot of people who are really successful who
00:48:34.420 | grew up with wealthy parents.
00:48:35.580 | Yeah.
00:48:36.580 | Right.
00:48:37.580 | So, I think that, I don't think the wealth is, the wealth or not, obviously, once you
00:48:41.660 | cover Maslow's like basic needs, I don't think the wealth is the thing that is going to separate
00:48:48.340 | it.
00:48:49.340 | I do think it is, I'm using the category of like emotional resilience.
00:48:54.700 | So, like, can you be at peace with, like, can you stay with uncomfortable emotions,
00:49:04.500 | like sadness, anger, grief, nostalgia without coping?
00:49:09.200 | That's the big thing, without coping.
00:49:11.180 | I think the type A folks that listen to this podcast, they, we struggle, I'll speak for
00:49:17.660 | myself, I struggle to sit with those feelings.
00:49:20.420 | And so, I go straight to my coping mechanisms.
00:49:22.740 | For a long time, that was alcohol, work, video game, all you name, anything distracting.
00:49:28.780 | And I think that if you can sit with those uncomfortable, think about it, like if you
00:49:33.100 | could sit with those uncomfortable emotions while you're a trader and the market's melting
00:49:38.000 | down against you, like you might make some great effing decisions, right?
00:49:41.720 | Yeah.
00:49:42.720 | So, I don't think it's, I think that that is kind of the "toolkit" that I want to give
00:49:47.900 | them.
00:49:48.900 | Because then, by the way, they'll have way more clarity.
00:49:51.900 | I think a lot of people listening to this, a lot of people read my stuff, they're like,
00:49:55.700 | what is happiness?
00:49:56.700 | Like I've seen so many of these posts on fire, fat fire, it's like, I have 8 million, miserable,
00:50:03.220 | I have 10 million, dead inside, right?
00:50:06.380 | Really just solving that problem doesn't make you come alive, but I do think that if you
00:50:11.660 | give them the range to deal with the emotions, the good ones too, right?
00:50:16.060 | Managing their ego and so on, then like you're not going to have this person that's like,
00:50:20.940 | I have X million, dead inside.
00:50:22.860 | Right, right.
00:50:24.260 | No, so true.
00:50:26.140 | Okay.
00:50:27.140 | Well, if listeners want to find you and sign up for your coaching and follow your awesome
00:50:31.700 | newsletter, where can they find you?
00:50:33.260 | Thanks so much, Sam.
00:50:34.260 | It's been a real pleasure.
00:50:35.620 | So radreads.co, sign up for the newsletter that will get you all the stuff.
00:50:40.500 | And then if you just Google Kahi and I'm active on all social media platforms, the two most
00:50:47.140 | active right now are Twitter and TikTok.
00:50:50.700 | Got it.
00:50:51.700 | It's been awesome talking to you.
00:50:52.820 | I feel like we're a kindred spirit, we've gone through similar paths and I really am
00:50:57.860 | excited to see you grow and shift and evolve through the years.
00:51:02.420 | So I'm excited to see what's next and hopefully when you come to San Francisco, we can go
00:51:06.420 | grab a beer or maybe not a beer.
00:51:08.500 | I love that.
00:51:09.500 | Maybe like a tea or something.
00:51:10.500 | Yeah.
00:51:11.500 | I still drink.
00:51:12.500 | I just drink.
00:51:13.500 | I went from drinking two drinks a day to two drinks a month.
00:51:16.420 | I got it.
00:51:17.420 | Got it.
00:51:18.420 | And then you can help me – give me some workout tips as I get older too.
00:51:21.660 | All right, buddy.
00:51:22.660 | Awesome.
00:51:23.660 | All right.
00:51:24.660 | Thank you, Sam.
00:51:25.660 | Yeah, it was great talking to you.
00:51:26.660 | All right, everyone.
00:51:27.660 | If you enjoyed this podcast, I'd love a share, subscribe and a positive review.
00:51:30.740 | It helps keep me going.
00:51:32.820 | Every single episode takes hours and hours to produce.
00:51:35.700 | And if you want to keep in touch, check out the Financial Samurai newsletter at financialsamurai.com/news.
00:51:40.500 | Talk to you all later.
00:51:43.380 | [Music]
00:51:48.820 | you
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