Hello, everybody, it's Sam from the Financial Samurai Podcast, where I try to help you achieve financial freedom sooner rather than later. Today I have a special guest with me, Kay He, he went to Yale and he was a managing director at BlackRock when he decided to retire early, quit in 2015.

So welcome to the show, Kay. Thanks Sam. Great to reconnect and pleasure to be here. Yeah, we've been connecting here and there for many, many years now, right? When did you start your whole journey post, is it 2015 after BlackRock? Yeah, I think I started my email newsletter, I left in May of 2015.

And I started my email newsletter kind of six months prior to that. But it was very, really like hobbyist pursuit, Gmail, BCC, and I had an anonymous Twitter account for about a year before that, but it was kind of just a mishmash of things. Okay, so it's been nine years since you left.

And I still remember when you first started, I was thinking, wow, you left BlackRock because I used to cover BlackRock, it was a big money management firm. And you had made managing director a level that I wanted to make on the sell side, but I could never quite get there.

I tried for one year at the age of 34, they said, no, it's not your time. I was like, ah, screw it. I'm out of here. Let's figure out a way to get a service and leave because I didn't enjoy finance after the global financial crisis in 2008, 2009.

How was your experience during the global financial crisis? It was probably one of the best things that happened to me professionally. And the reason why I say this is because I was old enough to get a lot of responsibilities from all the heads that rolled, like what they call battlefield promote.

In the industry, basically when they lay off your boss and they ask the junior person to take on as much of the responsibility as possible. So I got some key battlefield promotes, but I was young enough that I didn't have a ton invested in like vested, unvested stock or just like my net worth wasn't that much.

So I actually had, I came into a lot of cash in those like three, four years after. So markets were still low and I hadn't lost a ton going into it. And then it was just a phenomenal learning experience. I mean, it was trial by fire, but you know, we were investing in hedge funds.

So I was a fund of funds analyst. I managed a team of research analysts and I just got a front row seat of, you know, you pick the biggest hedge funds that were having issues in 2008, which basically everyone. And I was front row seat. We were huge. We had hundreds of millions of dollars with some of these funds.

I was talking to portfolio managers, talking to the risk managers, I was in their offices. And so as someone who just very intellectually curious about markets, it was crazy. What year did you graduate Yale and what was your career progression like after graduating? So I graduated Yale in 2001.

I was a, what I say, a very bad CS major, computer science. So I got a bunch of C's. I think my average, my GPA when I graduated was a B, B minus, which was a fall from grace for someone who was a valedictorian in high school. But when you go to Yale, everyone there, literally everyone is a valedictorian from their high school.

So I then didn't even think I would do banking or finance. I thought I was going to go work as a software engineer. Keep in mind, this is before Google, like the hot companies who are Microsoft, I guess Microsoft's hot again, and Sun Microsystems and Oracle. I couldn't get a job at any of those companies because I wasn't a good enough software engineer.

And so the banks came in and they were there like, they recruited everyone. I mean, this was before dot-com crash or dot-com was in the process of crashing, but no one knew it yet. And they just, they didn't care if you were an English major, history major, philosophy major, comp sci major.

They just like, if you can learn this job, if you have half a brain, we'll take you. And then I kind of started to learn about investment banking. I did investment banking for two years at a place called Broadview, which is now Jeffreys, I believe, part of their Jeffreys tech group, M&A.

And then I was like, I hate this. I hate the hundred hour work weeks. I hate the lack of predictability of my schedule. It's killing my health. And so I got a job in this kind of very niche market at the time, which was fund of hedge funds. And that was in 2003.

And I did that. I did fund of hedge funds for 12 years. Got it. Now, being a fund of fund managers, that sounds pretty attractive to me because it's like, okay, you just have to interview the right people who've got the good track record and get into those funds and hope they continuously do well, right?

It's not like you're not picking stocks, you're picking the people. So if they do well, you do great. And if they don't do well, I guess you don't do as great. I mean, what is the skill set involved there in being a fund of fund manager? Honestly, I mean, I'm sure some of my ex-colleagues are listening to this.

I don't think it requires much skill. I think it's really a business development job. It's a sales job. It's like, can you craft a narrative around why someone should invest with you? Can you craft a narrative around why you pick these funds? Obviously, you need to avoid the Bernie Madoffs and the frauds.

Like, you invest in a fraud, you're hosed. There's a lot of performance chasing, right? But just like stocks, past performance is not indicative of future returns. And it's even worse at the hedge fund industry where the hedge funds grow so quickly. So they do really well when they have 500 million in assets under management.

And then everyone, they get on their radar and then everyone, all the big institutions give them money. And they droop one size and then their performance drops by 50%. So I'll give a funny story, Sam. When I entered the industry in 2003, so I was 23 years old, I'm like, "This is kind of a BS industry." I'm like, "I don't think this is going to be around in 10 years." And so that's why I, like you, I kind of was always thinking, I'm like, "Where do I fit in the bigger picture of this?" I mean, the industry is still around.

My ex-colleagues are still getting paid pretty well from what I hear. But the go-go days of the fund-to-funds industry was that like 2003 to the financial crisis period. Interesting. I mean, so coming from BlackRock at the time, that was a big name, right? So could you say, "I'm coming from BlackRock, so I got a lot of money and a lot of money behind.

Therefore, you want to take my money, Stephen A. Cohen or whatever superstar fund manager there is?" I mean, you're spot on. Yeah. Okay. So in a way, half the battle of being a good salesperson, for example, is to have a good product. Yeah. Right? Because it almost can sell itself sometimes, right?

Yeah. I think that was a big part of it. I think in the earlier days, the returns mattered more and the hedge fund industry was more like the wild west. So you actually had to be really careful about frauds and blow-ups and things like that, like kind of in the long-term capital management days.

Oh, yeah. So I think in the early days, you actually were adding a lot of value because it was the wild west. I think probably after the financial crisis, the hedge fund industry really institutionalized by leading into it and then after. I mean, now you have publicly traded hedge fund, Goldman Sachs equity research rights coverage reports on Oxif and Oak Tree and so on.

So it's just the industry matured. And so I think we were a very scrappy middleman in the early days of the industry when there was still a lot of alpha in the market. Both the hedge funds had a lot of alpha. So we investing in them had a lot of alpha.

But as the market institutionalized, so much more money came in and just squeezed all of the juice out of the industry, which included fees, especially for middlemen like fund-to-fund. Got it, got it. And so as you're ascending the ranks, corporate ranks, what is the path, the promotion path at BlackRock?

What do you start off at and then where do you end up? Yeah. So when I left, I was at a small fund-to-funds from age, let's see, 2003, so from age 23 to 27. And so I just did everything, but they didn't really have titles because it was a four-person shop.

When I left that fund-to-funds in 2007, I parlayed that into a VP role. So in 2007, when I was six years out of college, I was a VP. So then I joined BlackRock. This is where it gets crazy. I think one year after, this is where luck plays a role in the story.

One year after I became a VP, so '28, BlackRock bought a fund-to-funds, a private fund-to-funds and merged them inside of BlackRock. And they did this crazy, where they had different title systems, so they kind of re-equalized all the titles. So I got a bump to director in that equalization, luck, all luck, in one year.

Okay. Usually it takes like three years or something? Yeah. It probably takes three or four years. Okay. Three years probably, if you're good. So I got a one-year bump and already I was a young VP because I had parlayed that first switch from the small firm to the big firm.

They kind of seduced me. That was the carrot. They're like, "Hey, we'll make you a VP." I'm like, "Sweet. 27-year-old VP. Amazing." Usually you're probably like 28, 29. Then I got the bump to director at 28 and then the financial crisis happened. So like I said, the best part of my career, that 2008, 2009, 2010 period.

And at 31, I was a managing director in big part because of what they call battlefield promotes is they actually gutted a much more expensive layer above me. And they're like, "Hey, can you step up?" And I was like, I ran right into it. I'm like, "I can do this." And again, better to be lucky than to be smart.

I think the year after I became MD at 31, they made a firm-wide cap, I believe, at 35 years old. Wow. So double luck. I had a lot of luck in my career. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously you were doing a good job too, but yeah, wow. Because I was amazed by the rise.

And so it sounds like luck, but also strategically looking at opportunities and taking that opportunity and executing and taking on those new challenges is important. Yeah. But I'll add one thing. I never took my ass off. I'll give you a few examples. In that time period, I barely watched any TV.

I didn't watch any movies. And I love reading fiction and I didn't read any fiction, but I probably read one book a week and they were like finance textbooks, like option theory. So I read more finance books in that 12-year career than many people will read in their entire finance careers.

I would read research papers, things like that. And we could talk probably in some other conversation, I was a prolific networker. I would do five to seven networking meetings a week for 15 years. Wow. And so as your income grew, so you had the title, your income grew, at what age and at what point were you starting to think, "Well, this is no longer worth it," because you were still quite young.

Yeah. Well, I grew up as a childhood immigrant, so my parents didn't really have a lot of money. So having money, period. I remember when I got my first investment banking signing bonus, it was $7,500. I'd never seen that amount of money in one check and I was 21 years old and that's still a lot of money.

But back then, it wasn't. In 2001, it was an insane amount of money. You know, I didn't – I never was – look, I lived in New York. So when you live in New York, you are a big spender in that you go out to dinner, dinners are expensive, rents are expensive, things like that.

But I would say that I probably lived off of my salary and I would invest 100% of my bonus. And so I don't remember. I think at the peak, my salary might have been like 350, maybe like towards the end of my MD days. And then in those 20s, late 20s years, they were probably like 250, 200, 175.

But I was getting 100%, 200% bonuses at the time. So I would just invest everything. And here is something you would appreciate, Sam. I made my first investment in S&P 500 when I was 17 years old, a Vanguard account. I have been long the S&P 500 with 80% to 100% of my net worth since I was 16 years old.

I am 45 this summer and I have never sold a share once. So a lot of my wealth is just compounding. Oh, nice. And so when was that inflection moment where you are like, I want to get out of here? Because I think most people listening are thinking, well, you are a young MD, you are making a lot of money.

Why not just continue the gravy train? I – honestly, it was less – I mean, we could talk about that. I am very transparent about the numbers. But I think that there was a point probably like two years after I became a managing director. So I was 33. I think at that point, I had had two seven-figure paychecks.

Like I think 1.3 and 2.3. Like I think those were my – I had three seven-figure paychecks in my life basically. So I had had one or two of those paychecks and then I was 33. And I looked at the guys who were 50. And they probably had had $10 million paychecks or seven or whatever.

And they had incredible lives. Like they had houses in Sun Valley. They drove Porsches. Their kids went to these like crazy summer camps. Like everywhere – every time they vacation, they blew it out. And I was just like – I looked at that and I was like, that's cool.

I don't want that. And it's not that I'm above it, but I just – my interests were very different. So what were my interests? I love surfing. I love being outdoors. I didn't have kids at the time, but I knew – I watched like they'd never saw their kids.

And so I was like, I want to see my kids. Like it was my dream to be a dad. Like from like a teenager, I was like, I can't wait to be a dad. I just love kids. Oh, that's good. I was the oldest of like 14 cousins. So in some regards, I was like this like young uncle to like many of my little cousins.

I just love being around kids and I always wanted to have a family. And so I'm just looking at these folks and I'm like, yeah, that could be me. I was like, but – I mean, I have an Acura, a 2018 Acura RDX. But like I was like, I don't want like a $100,000 car.

I don't want a $10,000 watch. You know, the most expensive thing that I own is like all my computer equipment, which is basically to make my work more productive. You know, my surfboards are a thousand. I was like, there's nothing that I want, like I want to take nice trips.

And I was like, I want time freedom. I want to own my time. And so then it became a calculus of like, how much money do I need to feel comfortable owning my time? And it's funny, you introduced me as retired. I work 35 hours a week. To my finance friends, I'm retired.

To 98% of America, I have like a normal existence, like corporate, like I have a normal professional existence. So I was like, the math started to be like, okay, when do I cash in these time freedom chips? And what was, did you have a net worth target before you left your day job?

I didn't. I mean. Just kind of more on a feel? There's definitely a number where I felt, so I'm not a fire person. Like I didn't, I don't want to, because I like working. So like it was never about, I don't even know what is like the SWR, 4% rule?

Safe withdrawal rate. Yeah. I never cared. I don't even really fully understand that stuff. So like I never cared about that. For me, it was more like, how can I basically earn less money and still live a lifestyle that we want to live? And so that's kind of like what the number was.

I guess in my mind, it was, there never really was a number. I left and I had 4.3. And so I've kind of like, it was probably like around 3 million, if I think, where I would feel comfortable. Our spending was about 200 grand a year. So like kind of thinking of it that way.

And that's the thing. Like the problem with the SWR is that like it's, it works well when you're 60, but when you're 30, there's a lot of like path dependency. And like, I forget what shortfall risk or there's a lot of crash risk. So I didn't, I didn't, I never, it was interesting.

Right. Got it. So there's a lot of shortfall risk. Okay. So you left with a net worth of about 4.3 million, is that what you said? Yep. Got it. And, and how is that net worth structured? Did you say most of it is in the S&P 500? Yeah. I mean, when I left, I probably had about a million in cash.

Oh, okay. Wow. So, and then the rest was in, cause I didn't know what, I didn't know how I was going to like make money. Yeah. And that was before, I run margin now, so that was before I was living, I live off of margin as well. Wait, what does that mean?

Living off of margin? Oh, I basically borrow, I fund part of my lifestyle by borrowing money against my portfolio. Ah, so instead of selling, right, right, right. Instead of liquidating or living off the dividends, it's, you borrow. Yeah. Okay. And what, what is that margin rate? Right now it's like six and a half percent, but for many, many years it was like two.

Right. Ah, interesting. It's tied to SOFR. Right, right, right, right, right. And SOFR stands for what again? I don't even know. It's the old LIBOR. Yeah, yeah. It's the something, something, something. I'm with LIBOR guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. London Interbank. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I actually have no idea what's, I said LIBOR on TikTok the other day and all these kids were like, "Do you mean SOFR?" I was like, "Oh yeah, I guess they do mean SOFR." Oh, that's fascinating.

So, yeah, I've, but at the same time, so once you left, you decided to build your newsletter. Tell us what the newsletter is and a business. Yeah. Yeah. So, I really do think I'm an accidental entrepreneur. So, when I left, I think we were spending about, our spending was about $15,000 a month when we left.

We're living in Dumbo, Brooklyn. And part of me leaving, it was like, I don't want to change my lifestyle meaningfully. And that was the advantage in that I didn't like to buy fancy stuff. But we still like to live in, we like living in very nice places. Like I love living in big cities and so always going to be high cost of living considerations.

When I left, I was like, okay, let's take 15, we spent 15K a month and we had one kid at the time, it's more now, and let's give 18 months of runway. So whatever 15 times 18 is to whatever 220, basically put 220K aside and basically pay myself a $15,000 monthly salary and figure it out.

It was basically what I call a figure it out fund. And my wife was cool if that 240 or 220, God, my mental math is so bad now. If it went to zero, we're cool. She's cool. We have 4.3, the 4.3 goes to four, like no harm, no foul.

And I just start doing stuff. And I just was doing things that I found interesting. Like most of what I found interesting was writing this small email newsletter. It had like 36 followers when I started. And in the newsletter, basically what I was saying, I'm like, look, I'm 35 years old.

I've had this really successful career. I'm a dad now. I don't want that life anymore, but I'm not sure what life I do want. Basically I'm just confused. It was almost like a philosophical, like life philosophy applied to myself. And so I read a bunch of books, I interviewed people, I tried stuff and I would just write about it in my newsletter.

And here's the thing, Sam, is that, I mean, you've been in this business long enough. There's not that many people like us that talk transparently about how much money they have, how much money they spend, what their concerns are, what their struggles are. And I tend to be very transparent about, I've written a post about how my wife and I talked about getting divorced.

Most 40 year old men who have been successful would not just put that out into the internet. But I tell you, I know enough 40 year old men that if the thought of divorcing your wife hasn't crossed your mind, you're not human. That's just part of relationships. And so when you say things like that, people really gravitate towards you.

They want to hear more. And so that was always my anchor, was just, I love writing. I don't write nearly as much as you, but I just love writing. And so I would write, and then from the writing, just all these opportunities came up. A media company asked me to be an entrepreneur in residence and they paid me a little stipend.

A few Wall Street people saw, they're like, "Oh, you're doing some cool stuff. Can you come speak at my partner retreat?" And then, so I got a little bit of speaking gigs, a little bit of consulting gigs, cobbling it together. But basically every time income came in, that 18 month window extended.

And so I'm basically still living in the extension of the 18 month window, nine years later. I would say that there was a big turning point, and I'll pause here, but there was a big turning point in about 2018, 19, COVID, was where I learned online marketing. And so then I started, I went through a two to three year phase when I was selling information products, specifically productivity courses.

And that was a pretty lucrative business. I think it made over $1.6 million over a three year period. I had a lot of expenses, so I hired a bunch of people. So that wasn't profit. It's revenue. I reinvested a lot of revenue. So I went through that phase and then I was like, "I hate this online marketing stuff.

It's like having a job." And so I kind of stopped doing that and that brings us to the season that I'm in right now. Okay. Well, tell us more about the season you're in. And the newsletter, Rad Reads, yeah? Yeah. I'm going to link to it in the show notes, but tell us what exactly is inspiring you and motivating you now because a lot of people who leave their day jobs of 10, 20, whatever years, they tend to retire to something and it seemed like you kind of figured it out.

So what are you working on now? Yeah. So what I feel really, really lucky about is I just have an amazing portfolio of activities in my life. And some of those activities make me money and I'll start with those. And some of them don't make me money. I guess most people would call them those hobbies, but I think of them as my portfolio.

The thing that I love most is I love thinking about the human condition, like what are insecurities? What do we fear? What do we desire? Why is it easy to love some people? Why is it hard to love people? Why do we beat ourselves up? I think I call a spade a spade.

A lot of this would kind of fall in the lens of self-improvement type material. I just love thinking about that mostly because I just apply it to myself. I'm like, "Oh, I beat myself up a lot when I make mistakes. Why is that the case? How do you change that?" Or I tie so much of my self-worth to my bank account.

When my net worth goes down by 20%, I feel 20% worse about myself. Why is that the case? What would a therapist say about this? What would a Greek Stoic say about this? What would a Hindu, what would a Buddhist say about this? I'm just fascinated by these questions, mostly because I just want to apply them to myself.

My goal, and we had this conversation years ago, my goal is to be fully at peace in my own head. That's what I'm pursuing. I don't want to be envious. I don't want to judge people. I don't want to have resentment. I just want to be at peace and live my life that way.

I just spend a lot of my time thinking about this. From that, I write, I post about it on social media. I really think of this as sharing information that I found helpful with others. That's a fundamental life principle that I have, is if I know something that will be helpful to you, like let's say you told me you're going to Mexico City for a getaway with your spouse.

I'd be like, "These are my five favorite restaurants. Walk down this street, get a drink at this bar on the roof, and make sure you check out this taco stand." If you told me you're going to Mexico City, I would feel a deep sense of responsibility to communicate those ideas to you.

Got it. Even if you didn't use them, I feel a real responsibility. My creativity is built on that sense of responsibility. Then I create things, and then I put them out in the world, and then I have these really interesting conversations on social media, on YouTube, through my email newsletter.

It's just really fun. It's very, very satisfying. Now, I am not, because I don't play the whole fire SWR game, because I live in Manhattan Beach, California, one of the most expensive zip codes in Southern California, I need income. I don't want to burn through my principle. I also want to keep optionality open.

Maybe when my kids go to college, I don't know, maybe I want to buy a house in the mountains. Right? I don't know. I want to keep some options open. I don't want to shut all these doors and start bleeding my principle down at age 44, 45. I find ways to make money, and I found a few interesting ways to make money.

The one that has been the most rewarding is people read my work, and they literally come to me, and they say, "Can you help me live a life similar to the life that you're living?" I can't leave. I've got the golden handcuffs. I've got $10 million in the bank, but I'm so scared of losing it all.

The biggest question people come to me, it's like, "I don't know what makes me come alive." I've spent 20 years on Wall Street. I kick butt on it, but I don't have hobbies. I don't have passions. I don't know what I would do if I had 10 hours of free time, and I know it's ...

I mean, talk about 1% problems, but those 1% problems are someone's problems. I have two basically coaching programs. One is for, and we're going to talk about this term, post-achievement, post-financial folks. Post-financial, in my mind, is like you don't need to work for five years without changing your lifestyle, and post-achievement would be like you hit some echelon, some milestone of success.

Let's say you were a partner at a law firm, you were an MD at BlackRock. You sold a company. Usually, it's actually exited founders come to me, and they come to me, and then they're like, "Okay." It's almost like they're starting their lives over. They're like, "I haven't paid attention to my health.

I haven't paid attention to my hobbies. I haven't paid attention to my friends. I haven't paid attention to my spirit, my soul, nothing for 25 years. Help me." Wow. We do an intensive one-year, six-month to 12-year program. Together, we meet up. We talk on the phone. We talk on Zoom.

I give you homework. This is like five to seven clients in a year. Oh, wow. It's a very high price point type work. Then there's another group, and I would say they are post-achievement pre-financial. This is kind of you when you left, me when I left. You're kind of in your mid-30s, early 30s, and you definitely need to work.

You might not even have kids at that point, but you know you want to start a family. They're like, "What's the off-ramp on this career?" Because they kind of like me, they're 35, and they're looking at the managing directors that are 50, and they're like, "I don't want that life, but I don't know how to get from point A to point B, but I don't have as much pressure to leave this month, and I need the income too." That is a group program called the Next Chapter Accelerator, and we run those quarterly.

Oh, gosh. That's awesome. It sounds like a lot of work, but that sounds awesome. That problem of getting off the exit ramp was my biggest problem until I figured it out. I figured it out by figuring out how to negotiate a severance package, just getting laid off. With the severance, you get your deferred cash, your deferred stock, a severance check, and you can collect unemployment benefits because you got laid off.

Maybe you can let them know about that because that was the catalyst where I was like, "Okay." It's hard to leave those golden handcuffs, right? Yes. It's like one more year. I mean, I walked away from my deferred, so I left 900k of deferred on the table. I couldn't have done that even though I was dying physically.

That could be something to think about, that severance package. Yes. That's a good point. Yes. Wow. Okay. You say it's a lot of work. I don't think of it as work because 98% of my marketing is that creative process that I described. I'm going to do it anyway even if I didn't get paid.

I think this is the difference between me and a lot of "content creators" is that I create content because I enjoy it, and then money finds me. Most people do it the other way around. They need money, and so then they go create content so that they get more money, right?

More clients, more sales, whatever. I'm like the opposite. I was like, "I create stuff that I love," and thankfully, from that, people will find ways to give you money, but dude, I'll tell you, I have five clients. We meet once or twice a month for 90 minutes. We talk on the phone from time to time.

These group coaching programs, there are six 90-minute sessions once a quarter. That's all my work for the year. Wow. I mean, I create a lot. I write a lot, but I don't view that as work. Okay. I know your newsletter. I think it's in one of your newsletters. You highlighted an article about the grind of content creators.

Was that in your – it was like – Yeah, that was mine. Yeah, and – It was a Vox article. Yeah, it was a Vox. It was like fascinating because even like very successful musicians, they're saying – like Nick Montgomery, he was saying something like, "I can't go in the woods and write my music or write a book or whatever.

I have to always post another TikTok the very next day." Yeah. So, how much – because you have a YouTube channel now. How much of that pressure or how do you think about that in terms of marketing? You just said, yeah, you do it because you enjoy it, but there has to be some of that pressure, right?

Honestly, so I've written – I mean, I would flip the question back to you in some regards. You've written three blog posts a week since 2009, right? Do you feel a lot of pressure to do that? I feel like writing to me is like breathing. If you can breathe forever or speaking, you can write forever.

But I definitely have felt after the 10-year mark, because I made a commitment to write three posts a week for 10 years if I was going to start Financial Samurai. So, I did that in July 2009. I made – I achieved that goal in July 2019. So, afterwards, I was like, "Oh, I can do whatever I want because I achieved my goal." But I feel – I do sometimes feel the pressure to continue because I've done it for so long.

I feel that pressure too. I like streaks. And so – and I'm very – I can be hard on myself to keep things going. One of my filters is like, "Is it fun?" And if things stop being fun, I just stop doing them. And I'll be honest, like writing my weekly newsletter, the blog part of it is starting to feel a little bit tedious.

And so, I'm actually thinking of like I might stop. That being said, I make one or two TikToks a day. I cap it at 10 minutes. And I basically just answer 18 to 25-year-old's questions about working on Wall Street. No editing, nothing, you know, mediocre sound, whatever, no like content calendar.

I just make two of those a day. I love it right now. And so, it's actually getting a lot of traction. My podcast and my YouTube channel, I have a rule like I interview a lot of authors, but I don't force myself to read their book before. So, I basically have a no prep podcast where I just get on and I just talk with the person like we were having coffee.

Now, does that – I don't get 10 million views because of that format. But I get, you know, 1,000 views. And that's the thing is like if you look at my two, my lowest priced product is 7,500 and my highest priced product is 40,000. Oh, wow. So, I don't need many clients.

Yeah. Wow. But if a few people resonate with my podcast and my podcast, even though the numbers objectively are pretty bad, you know, they barely crack 1,000 downloads, every single client I've had this year and we're on track for a 450,000-year revenue has been like I listen to your podcast regularly.

Got it. And when you say we, who are the we? I have a chief of staff. Got it. Who is a full-time employee who I give benefits and healthcare to. And then she manages a team of four contractors. I don't talk to any contractors. I just talk to her.

And what do the contractors do? You know, like really simple stuff. So we'll record a podcast and then one of the contractors will go listen to the podcast and find, and with the help of AI, this is actually going down, but they'll find the five best clips. And there's like a very specific rule, like the first sentence has to grab you, the whole point has to be communicated in under 20 seconds, there should be predominantly the guest speaking and not K, so there's like a bunch of rules and then they find those, so that's their only job is to just find the clips.

And then they pass it over to an editor and then the editor has like a style guide and they're like, they edit it a certain way. Just like make sure that you have like two B-rolls, captions look like this and they hand it off to a social media manager that's like, make sure we drop these clips on every platform.

So I don't touch any of the social media stuff. I just do Twitter because it's fun. I like being on Twitter, although that's another one that the fun factor has plummeted in the past couple of years. So I'm thinking of like, just not, I'm not naturally pulled to it anymore.

So that will probably phase out over time. And I'm feeling very pulled to TikTok because I'm actually having some incredible conversations with young people there who are not, by the way, my clients, the people who are asking, you know, how do I get an investment banking job or not?

The people that are going to drop $40,000 on a coaching package. Yeah. Got it. But I just love it. Right. And their bosses. I've actually seen this very strange thing where these young folks ask me and then they're like, well, what did you do? They go look at my story and then they share it with like their dads or their bosses.

They're like, I found this guy, like, look at like, he retired at this age. And I'm like, yeah, no, that's fascinating. You know, it's interesting, the creator economy is so big and I'm curious to know, because you went obviously to one of the top universities, you're valedictorian, then you made a lot of money, you left and now you're a father.

How do you see the arc of your children going in terms of their careers and the competition to get into schools and all that stuff? Do you have really high demands for them? Like, what do you fear for them and what do you hope for them? It's a phenomenal question.

My daughter just turned 10 and my youngest is seven. If I'm brutally honest, like, I feel good about their prospects just because we're going to, like, they're going to have access to money, some of our money. Like, I'm not going to spend all the money that we have. I'm not going to give them a big inheritance, but, you know, like, they're going to graduate college debt-free.

If they want to go to grad school, they're going to graduate grad school debt-free, right? So I mean, right there, that is a huge, huge freaking advantage. You know, my youngest daughter is struggling with math and she has a tutor, right? So, you know, we're going to spend our money on education, which is good, which is great.

I don't have a strong view, like, I don't want my kids to take my path. My path was, I mean, I told you, right, I only read textbooks and finance books up until age 35, right? Like, I just, that's a way to live and look, I'm reaping the dividends now, surfing every day and, you know, financial independence, quasi-financial independence.

I don't, that's not a happy path for a lot of people, right? And again, it worked for me. It is a very happy path for me. I mean, I don't want to say very, but it was definitely a good path for me. I basically learned, it's like the things that work for me just aren't going to, some of them will work for others, but you know, what I would say, Sam, is like, there's just been a lot of like internal suffering in my own head for many, many years.

Like I just have never been at peace, either I've always beat myself up or I was always envious of other people or I didn't like the way I looked or I was scared of being alone or I feared people would die, you know, like, just like the human condition, right?

I think I felt that, I felt that really hard and you know, that has impacted my marriage and like, I'm a very emotionally closed, for as vulnerable as I am in my public platforms, my wife's biggest complaint about me is I'm emotionally sealed off from her. So it's just, I just want people to see that like, yeah, there's all these successful things that I did, but there were a lot of trade-offs on the other side of it that I want to be like, I've been an act, I've grinded my teeth, like the enamels off my teeth since I've been a tooth grinder, like at night, since I was eight.

It took me eight years after leaving finance for my teeth grinding to stop, eight years. So that's how much the stress like lives in your body, right? And I'm going through therapy and going through some things that happen, like, I won't bore you with the details, but like, I never felt safe as a child, even though my parents were lower middle class, is because on my route to school, kids would get jumped.

And I got jumped. Wow. So like, I lived in a perpetual fear of like, I'm going to get jumped on my walk to or from school. And I did get jumped three times in 18 years. And so that's, that messed me up. Like, if you're walking in a fight, a highly elevated fight or flight reflex mode for your entire childhood, and my parents, they're like, sorry, there's nothing, we don't have any money.

There's nothing we can do. Like, this is just reality. So I'm not blaming them at all. But if you like that stuff sticks with you. Yeah. No, absolutely. And so I guess in a way, would you say that as a father, you can provide and shelter your children from these, this type of trauma.

So in it of itself is a great win, a great satisfaction. And honestly, so the other day, one of my proudest dad moments, not proudest, but a proud dad moment, my 10 year old, she had saved her money, she'd bought this like nice, it was like this Hello Kitty lotion, like she loved she wanted the lotion, but she also wanted the she also wanted the can the container said Hello Kitty on it.

And she just saved up her money, and then she dropped it and the whole thing. And she was this size, she's also starting to get some of the hormonal kind of emotional volatility. She was besides herself, wailing, pounding the floor. And you know, I think an older, less mature version of me would have been like, suck it up.

You know, it's only like an $8 thing or or I could have just been like, I'll buy you a new one tomorrow. Stop crying. Right? And I was like, No, like she needs to feel like, how can I support her to feel what she's feeling now, which is like sadness, frustration, anger, while still knowing that I'm there for her to support her.

And so I was just I just literally sat with her and held her and didn't say anything for like 10 minutes. That's wonderful. I didn't say like, I'll make this go away or anything. I'm just like, I just told her I'm here for you without using words. And then when she calmed down, I'm like, Hey, you know, when dad gets real upset by things, I do this thing called a box breath, which is like you hold it's like a way to like regulate your nervous system by just changing your breathing.

Right? I'm like, Would you be? Would you be okay to do like a few blocks box press with me? She's like, Yeah, sure, I will. And she did it. And she you could see her just call. That's great. That's wonderful. And then I just gave her a kiss. It was at nighttime.

I gave her a kiss. I'm like, Good night. I love you. And I was like, Hey, thanks for showing me that breathing technique. And I was like, I was like, Honestly, sweetheart, I only learned about this five years ago. If I had learned this at your age, my like, I would have had such a helpful tool in situations like this.

Yeah. And then just left it. So like, that's what I want for my kids. Like I want them to know that they are taken care of and safe. 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 one tomorrow.

Like, I wanted, she needed to experience that loss in that moment. Yeah. Right. But I wanted to know that she was there. And then I want to like, give her tools. You know, I'm a very avid meditator, I meditate 40 minutes a day for a decade. Oh, wow. Like, I want to give her these tools to find peace inside of her.

And then I think she'll be, then she's got the foundation. Right. If she wants to go to Yale, great. If she wants to, I could see my daughter, my daughter already knows how to edit videos and use like Photoshop when she's 10, just from watching me do it. And I could see my daughter just like being a social media manager when she's like 15 years old, making like 75K a year.

And like not going to college. Interesting. She likes that stuff. Well, let me ask you this, because, you know, you talked about getting jumped. Where were you getting jumped by the way? What city was this? New York City. So I grew up in Stuyvesantown in the 90s. Okay. So in New York City, if you were a boy in the 90s, it didn't matter where, like you probably got jumped.

Wow. Like at least once. Wow. And so these very interesting, tough experiences, I think helped probably drive you to succeed in school and make money so you had more options, correct? They did. And absolutely. Like, I remember getting jumped, I'm like, I'm getting the heck out of here. I will never put myself in this situation again.

I would never put my family. And I did. Yeah. Right. I live in one of the safest parts of LA. But there's also a trade-off. Sure. And the trade-off is like my wife turning to me, she's like, "Why are you emotionally sealed off? Why am I emotionally sealed off?

I'm learning." Because when I would be scared and I would go to my parents and be like, "I'm scared to walk to school." They'd be like, "Get over it." And I'd be like, "What can I do to make this feeling go away?" And then when I got older, it was alcohol.

I was borderline alcoholic because a lot of – anytime I felt stressed, I would just drink. I was a very high-functioning alcoholic as you could tell by the results. But I coped hard with alcohol because anytime there was an uncomfortable feeling to feel, I didn't want to feel it because that little kid was like, "Shut it down.

Shut it down. Shut it down." And that little kid can't go, you know, pounds a few stiff drinks. You know, when you're 21, you're like, "Oh, I don't want to feel this thing." Like I got a lot of things that can make this feeling go away. Is there any kind of concern though that providing a really comfortable, safe life for your children might make them less hungry?

I used to think so, but what's hunger in service do I think that making them feel safe will make them not want to like have a roof over their head? No. Do I feel that not making them feel safe would make them not want to become a managing director of BlackRock?

Maybe. I think that we confound hunger with high status. So right, like the hungrier you are, the more high status you can become. I don't disagree with that. But then the question is like, what does high status bring you? Right. Right. It's like, okay. Yes. Like will my daughter ever have the drive of Michael Jordan?

Like no. But look at Michael Jordan today. The guy has demons. Like the guy is not at peace with himself. No? Okay. If you watch The Last Dance, he's still replaying mistakes that he made. Right. Like he's not, you know, he's not at peace with himself. So I think that I don't want my kids to be entitled.

I don't want my kids to be brats. I don't want my kids to not be resourceful and creative. But I don't think that they need to get jumped to have a drive to be good at school. Yeah. Yeah. I play with that dilemma a lot, you know, because as you build more wealth, you're present, you know, you might basically be providing all the things that your parents might not have been able to.

But because of that suffering or whatever it is, it's driven you to be who you are and to make those changes. And I just wonder, right? Because we don't know exactly the future of our children. So I constantly wonder. Yeah. I used to wonder that a lot. And look, I'll be honest.

In my case, it was very egoic. I'm like, I want them to have the suffering that I had so that they can have the skills that I have. Because I think of the skills that I have are very good skills. But now what I'm realizing is that there's a lot of tradeoffs to a lot of the skills that I have.

And I'm really starting to realize them in my mid 40s. You know, my incapacity to really like love myself, like so much of my self worth is still tied to like things that I achieve. Like, God, I don't want that for my kids. I don't want them to be in their mid 40s and still struggling to love themselves.

Like that, I don't want. And if that means that they're not going to be a partner at a law firm, good, right? And even better, like they might find a way to love themselves and be a partner at a law firm. Right? Like, I think we forget that, right?

Because folks like you and I just saw this one path of like, you know, being second guessed and being slighted and feeling unsafe. And we're like, that's the path. And we're like, look, there, I would say half of my clients grew up upper, upper class. And like, and they are exited founders and they are MDs at firms.

Like, we only see our story because we're like, oh, we had to grind. Our parents didn't give us like, there's a lot of people who are really successful who grew up with wealthy parents. Yeah. Right. So, I think that, I don't think the wealth is, the wealth or not, obviously, once you cover Maslow's like basic needs, I don't think the wealth is the thing that is going to separate it.

I do think it is, I'm using the category of like emotional resilience. So, like, can you be at peace with, like, can you stay with uncomfortable emotions, like sadness, anger, grief, nostalgia without coping? That's the big thing, without coping. I think the type A folks that listen to this podcast, they, we struggle, I'll speak for myself, I struggle to sit with those feelings.

And so, I go straight to my coping mechanisms. For a long time, that was alcohol, work, video game, all you name, anything distracting. And I think that if you can sit with those uncomfortable, think about it, like if you could sit with those uncomfortable emotions while you're a trader and the market's melting down against you, like you might make some great effing decisions, right?

Yeah. So, I don't think it's, I think that that is kind of the "toolkit" that I want to give them. Because then, by the way, they'll have way more clarity. I think a lot of people listening to this, a lot of people read my stuff, they're like, what is happiness?

Like I've seen so many of these posts on fire, fat fire, it's like, I have 8 million, miserable, I have 10 million, dead inside, right? Really just solving that problem doesn't make you come alive, but I do think that if you give them the range to deal with the emotions, the good ones too, right?

Managing their ego and so on, then like you're not going to have this person that's like, I have X million, dead inside. Right, right. No, so true. Okay. Well, if listeners want to find you and sign up for your coaching and follow your awesome newsletter, where can they find you?

Thanks so much, Sam. It's been a real pleasure. So radreads.co, sign up for the newsletter that will get you all the stuff. And then if you just Google Kahi and I'm active on all social media platforms, the two most active right now are Twitter and TikTok. Got it. It's been awesome talking to you.

I feel like we're a kindred spirit, we've gone through similar paths and I really am excited to see you grow and shift and evolve through the years. So I'm excited to see what's next and hopefully when you come to San Francisco, we can go grab a beer or maybe not a beer.

I love that. Maybe like a tea or something. Yeah. I still drink. I just drink. I went from drinking two drinks a day to two drinks a month. I got it. Got it. And then you can help me – give me some workout tips as I get older too.

All right, buddy. Awesome. All right. Thank you, Sam. Yeah, it was great talking to you. All right, everyone. If you enjoyed this podcast, I'd love a share, subscribe and a positive review. It helps keep me going. Every single episode takes hours and hours to produce. And if you want to keep in touch, check out the Financial Samurai newsletter at financialsamurai.com/news.

Talk to you all later. you