Gold Medal Tips for Successful Investing – Episode #543

The Olympics give us a chance to watch world-class athletes, whose precisely planned training programs are four years in the making, go for gold. While more long-term, the strategies used by successful investors are strikingly similar. On this Dentist Money Show, Ryan, Matt, and Victoria look at the individual traits and habits that both gold medal athletes and savvy investors share.

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Matt’s wearing medals, so maybe that’s where we begin, is Matt is wearing all three medals. Or did you take, if you win all three medals, do you lay across the podium, or how do you like represent yourself? Or is it like twister, where it’s like left foot bronze, right foot silver, both hands gold? Picture that. Okay.

Victoria Ferguson:
Because he’s a winner.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, folks, we’ve got the Olympics coming up. Do you guys know when it actually starts? Because I don’t really know. What is today? July 18th, 15th, 17th, 18th. So next week.

Victoria Ferguson:
Today is the 18th.

Matt Mulcock:
starts next week, next Friday. So July 26th.

Ryan Isaac:
July 26th, the Paris 2024 games in Paris.

Victoria Ferguson:
26th through August 11th in Paris.

Matt Mulcock:
Are you guys like, are you guys big Olympic fans? Okay, cool.

Ryan Isaac:
No. But surfing’s in it now and I will watch that for sure. And I was actually just thinking, are there any other sports where it’s part of the games but it’s not held at the countryside? Like the surfing portion is held in Indonesia or

Matt Mulcock:
Well, you confused me when you said that, because you said, yeah, you said it, you said that it was doing surfing and then you said where? And I was like, that’s weird. They’re doing it completely somewhere else. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s in Tahiti. I mean, is Tahiti, this is going to expose me. I don’t claim to be that smart though. It wasn’t like, that was like French Polynesia, the Tahitian islands. I don’t know if there was some like French ownership, some connections, some ownership. Did they dominate at one point? I don’t really know. Yeah. Is there any other sport where it’s done offsite? Maybe it’s in skiing, if they like at Sochi or Salt Lake City, they would ski in town and yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Some connection to France. think so. Yeah. Probably, like when the Salt Lake Olympics were here, they weren’t just in Salt Lake. They spread it around the state, right? So like they did a lot of the stuff up in like Ogden, like north of Salt Lake. They kind of spread it around. Same state, just different cities, like wasn’t all in Salt Lake. I’d imagine that’s the case with like Paris. can’t imagine. I’m sure they’re going to be holding events kind of all over the place, but you’re talking about a completely different country area. And I think that’s relatively common when they do that. They spread the site exactly.

Ryan Isaac:
Just FYI, this is for my, this is FMI for my information. Tahiti is officially known as French Polynesia, an overseas country of the French Republic. France took possession of French Polynesia in 1880 after Tahiti became a French protectorate in 1842. But it is a, however, it’s a sovereign state with considerable autonomy. Okay, that makes a little bit sense.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, similar to the US with Puerto Rico.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, they’re like, just go over there. It just seems really far. anyway, the Olympics, favorite sport. Before we dive into it, see what I did there. But favorite sport, favorite Olympic sport that you actually might be interested in watching.

Matt Mulcock:
I mean, love, on the summer, I love the track and field. I just think it’s awesome. I just think it’s cool. It’s like, yeah. Was that insulting? are you, you like insulting me for that? I, I don’t, are you like, congratulations, Ryan?

Victoria Ferguson:
Like watch people run?

Ryan Isaac:
It seemed like a slight, it was like, are you shaming that?

Victoria Ferguson:
I guess, I don’t know, just doesn’t seem…  like women’s gymnastics, you know?

Matt Mulcock:
Here’s what I’ll say. Just, that’s a great point. I like to follow athletes in this stuff. like, for example, I’m not super into swimming at all, but when Michael Phelps was dominating, it was the most exciting stuff ever. Like controversial, but Lance Armstrong with the Tour de France. I still remember getting up, getting up early in the summer to watch Lance Armstrong. I don’t give a crap about cycling,

So I follow athletes. yeah, Simone Biles, like I’m very into gymnastics because of her and so far it looks like she’s going to dominate this year. So it was very judgy.

Victoria Ferguson:
Sorry, that was judgy on my part, but yeah, no, I will take ownership of that. That actually starts before the 26th. There’s some things that are prior to, but officially is the

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. And then basketball too, right? We have the dream team heading over.

Matt Mulcock:
The U S looks like they’ve got quite, quite the squad this year. think they’re going to probably dominate. can’t imagine them losing. Yes. There’s, there was a dry spell there, for a bit. It depends on the team they put together, but this year they’ve got, they, they kind of do this where like some years they don’t put together, like the superstars don’t come out. They’ve done this for the world cup. Like they lost the world cup, I think a couple of times now.

Ryan Isaac:
Has the US ever not taken golden basketball? okay.

Matt Mulcock:
Some of these other countries are just getting better. Like some of the, look at the NBA right now, but exactly.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, and they’re sticking around in their own countries and not coming here. so that, it’s like getting better and better. Okay, we’ve belabored that, but I am excited. I will watch some of it if it’s accessible. You know the other thing about the Olympics, it’s a little annoying. Maybe it’s because I don’t subscribe to like 10 streaming platforms, but like I’m always, every time it comes on, like where do I watch this at? It’s like subscribe to Fubu and you’re like, what? don’t, who has that dude? Like put it on Amazon Prime or NBC or something normal, you know?

Matt Mulcock:
I think a lot of the big events will be on like main channels. think NBC has a lot of stuff. So if you’ve got like a YouTube TV or just normal cable, you would be able to watch it. So, I’m curious, why are we talking about the Olympics?

Ryan Isaac:
I’m excited to for this though. You guys had a really cool idea. The idea for today is that we are going to give some, basically case study scenarios of financial decision making, and then we’re going to describe what a bronze, silver and gold metal would, would be like to achieve those or a disqualification. Like you’re kicked out of the race. And so we’re going to kind of go through those, but Victoria, you have some fun stats on Olympians, I

Matt Mulcock:
Can we give just really quick, just Victoria, a huge shout out of her outline she creates for these things. Like she’s taken us to a new level with this kind of stuff. Cause it’s just like, holy cow. Seriously. think she’s got some stats.

Ryan Isaac:
Every time I see these, just like, I’m like, is this a dissertation? Because it could pass for anything. It’s really amazing. Yeah.

Victoria Ferguson:
And then Matt actually knows what he’s doing. No, um, I guess I just brought some fun facts about it. First off, um, did you guys know that most athletes only make like 50 K a year? They don’t make very much money at all. I think it’s like sponsorships, um, or their country will give it to them, but like they really don’t make much money at

Matt Mulcock:
Well, so I say that’s not like super shocking if you think about the fact that, and this is what’s crazy is these athletes, most of them are in like normal, like for everyday life, they’re in very obscure sports. It’s like every four years.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, like I train every day to throw a big ball across the field. Yeah. Right.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, it’s like javelin or whatever, like so obscure. then they have their moment to like their few minutes of fame, which is wild, but it doesn’t shock me. And then you’ve got like, again, like the Simone Biles, the Michael Phelps, the people who transcend their sport and become superstars. But I don’t know if I’m that shocked by like a track or like a javelin, person who, what do you call a person that throws a javelin? A javelin or a javelin?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, a javelinist, a javelina. That’s an animal. That’s like a desert hog. Isn’t it? Yeah, javelinist, a javelinator.

Matt Mulcock:
I don’t know if you have like a javelinist. it is a desert hog, a javelinist. can’t. Yeah. It doesn’t shock me that they don’t make a ton of

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, but that’s cool. Think about the just like the art of chucking a spear as far as you can. That’s really cool, actually.

Victoria Ferguson:
If I could get paid 50k a year to chuck a spear once every like four years, I mean, yeah, that would be pretty rad. But along that same vein, who do you guys think is the highest paid athlete? This is referencing the last Olympics in Tokyo. Summer, summer. Was this the winter, summer in Tokyo? man. I don’t know who, did Michael Felt swim in that one? I don’t think he did. I don’t have much faith in Ryan getting this right. No.

Ryan Isaac:
No, I’m going to say it was one of the basketball players.

Matt Mulcock:
if you’re talking basketball. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you’re talking, Ooh, how to be LeBron James or, he wasn’t in Tokyo, but someone, yeah. I, I, Curry. don’t know. know Steph Curry wasn’t even in the Tokyo games. I don’t know, but it was a basketball player. Who was it? Katie. There you go. Kevin Durant.

Ryan Isaac:
We’re going to kick this off the… So wait, was that our opening ceremony? What would our opening ceremonies be? I know that should have been a little more celebratory ceremonial. That is actually kind of cool to see everyone come out from their countries and like see what they’re wearing. And it’s like the Met Gala of sports.

Victoria Ferguson:
That was our opening ceremony.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It isn’t this, I’ve heard this thing, there’s like, like Olympic hacking where people will go to other countries, and get into really, really obscure sports, like really obscure to get into the Olympics. Yeah. No, it, like there’s even more obscure than that that people will, because they’ll go to countries and they’ll get eligible.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, that’s how the Jamaican bobsled team started, right? I mean, they didn’t do that purposely to like hack it, but it was like such a like, okay, bobsledders from Jamaica and then, you you’re a Disney movie now and you’re champions. Great movie. No, it is interesting. I was actually just listening to a surf podcast about someone who was trying to qualify as the surfer from Greece and there’s not like tremendous surfing in Greece. Like it’s not something I could do. Yeah, I need to go to like some landlocked, like maybe like African country where there’s like a ton of countries and it’s in the middle and it’s landlocked and there’s no surf team and maybe I could qualify. They’re like, yeah, send that guy and then I’ll die. Yeah, somewhere there’s no surfing. Okay, event number is we’re gonna start there. We’re gonna just begin. Event number one, financial event number one. So this is one of the world’s most favorite financial events and it is the purchase of whole life insurance. And I’m just curious right off the bat, when you guys get a phone call and that just comes up, like do you, what do you feel immediately? And you’re like, hey, I’ve been thinking about this whole life, or my friends telling me about this whole life thing, what goes through your minds like immediately? Do you worry for the people? Do you get like, we gotta protect you? How does it feel when that comes

Victoria Ferguson:
I think of the meme with the dog and everything else is on fire around him and then he’s just like, this is fine. That’s immediately and I’m just like, -huh.

Matt Mulcock:
I think my view on this has changed. think over the years, not in the sense of like my opinion of the product, I think my level of like empathy for people who bring it up has increased. Like I understand why they, like I understand. Like, although I think these things, I’ve always said this, they’re sold, not bought, but I do understand like I’ve heard the pitch from people so many times. I’ve heard the talking points and I could understand a dentist kind of being like, okay. That’s like, that makes sense. Yeah. It’s just a

Ryan Isaac:
Why not? Name the points of the pitch because let’s start the story with that. This is a real story, but what were they likely to hear in the pitch when these people bought Whole Life Insurance? What did they hear?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s often the same kind of talking points, right? So you get a lot of, and a lot of it’s built around and it’s funny because this is a theme with financial products in general use, or you see this with financial influencers, you name your enemy, right? And a really common enemy in the whole set of the whole life sales pitch is the stock market. So they’ll talk a lot about like, this isn’t correlated to the stock market. We’ll talk a lot about like guaranteed returns, right? That don’t like, that again, are not correlated. So when the stock market’s going crazy or, you know, having a huge pullback, you’re not going to see that. You get a lot of, you know, be your own bank is a common thing. You have control. You can take a loan from this down the road for kids college or what, whatever you want to do. That’s a really, really common I think a really common one is again, naming the enemy of term insurance of saying, why would you pay? I think they really press on this idea that people don’t like paying for insurance. neither do we, by the way, like no one likes paying for insurance. So they really press on that and say, well, why would you throw your money down the, down the drain of paying for term that has no cash value? And they really, really press on that. I think those are the main talking points I hear all the time. I don’t know I’m missing.

Victoria Ferguson:
Tax savings with like wealth transfer, my kids, that’s another one that I hear a lot, like generational wealth type of thing.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, no downside, tax savings. The funny thing about the stock market being the enemy in some of these products, these alternative to stock market products is the companies you’re giving money to actually put money in the stock market. Yeah, like the agents of the company are like, it’s so bad, like don’t be in it, but their company puts money in the stock market to get the returns out of the product.

Victoria Ferguson:
They have to. That’s how they’re able to do this.

Ryan Isaac:
They have to. It’s like, I mean, not all of it, but yeah, for sure. Some of it. So yeah, pretty common story. Again, these are, at least this one is a real story and it’s recent. So they purchased a policy, both of them, it’s a married couple, husband and wife. They both purchased a policy for both of them. And it was for those reasons. It’s, you know, no downside. It’s guaranteed returns. It’s like wealth transfer, tax free. I can be my own bank, lend it to myself. And it was purchased about four years ago. And when you buy this stuff, when you buy this stuff, get, you’re given like projections from the salespeople in the company. And these projections are not regulated by the same governing bodies as say like, Victoria talks to her client about a portfolio. Victoria is held to a fiduciary standard and could be sued. These projections for life insurance products aren’t regulated by the same, so they’ll send projections that are showing like double digit returns, like guaranteed double digit returns, 12, 13, 14%, with no downside and tax free and all that stuff. So that was kind of the thing. And my clients, know it’s a pretty high premium and they, so let’s just round up, let’s just say, you know, it’s 15 grand a year and they’ve done it for three years, then they know that they’ve put $45 ,000 into this thing. It’s actually more than that. But they put $45 ,000 into this thing. In their minds mentally, they’re like, well, we at least have that much for sure. We don’t know if it’s grown, but it’s like double digit return. Yeah. So as I’m talking through this, like, right off the bat, the does not qualify DNQ or does not finish. Like you didn’t even qualify to even be in the, that goes to the insurance company.

The DQ is going to the salesperson here. I feel like my clients and everyone in this position is usually just, they’re trying to make decisions based on that information as best as they can. And it seems very rational. What happened after this is, you know, they bought the product, they got advice from their people and then started feeling a little bit uneasy about it. They reached out, found a new advisor, spoiler alert, it was us. Yay. And so we started going through…

Matt Mulcock:
We changed their life forever, yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
We changed their lives so they now love me more than anything. That’s not true. But I have them, okay, so one of the first things we did is we said, all right, to get the real math of what’s going on in these things, you can’t look at your statements and you can’t look at the brochures they gave you when they sold you. You have to call and order what’s called an enforced ledger or enforced illustration. That will tell you exactly what you’ve put in there and how much money is in there. And then they will show you based on the current rate of return and projections, not the sales stuff, where you’re likely to end up. So we do that, they take a look at this thing, and they see that they’ve given, again, their hypothetical 45 ,000 and they’re sitting on like 12. So immediately some alarm bells start going off for them and they’re like, that doesn’t feel good. Doesn’t feel like a good trade off. And then they start, you know, they just put their finger on the little column and they go down and they don’t hit a break even until year like 14. And this is, it’s a very common scenario. Very, very common scenario. We gave them three options. Number one was, I guess you could do nothing and just keep doing it, but they didn’t like that. So number one was call the insurance company and have them keep the cash value and then just, it’s, and then give them, they’ll, they’ll take as much life insurances and exchange never. It’s called paid up, like paid up.

You take my 12 grand. How much does that get me? Great. That’s there forever. And I’ll pay anymore. That’s one. Number two kind of a mixture, you could lower it, you know, it’s a million dollar policy, lower it to like 250, keep the premiums lower, I’ve had clients do that. Option three was don’t wait, you’re in year three, don’t wait till year 14, cut your losses, get your 12 grand, put it somewhere else. Coincidentally, they have another life event coming up that they could use cash for. They chose option three, they just cut their losses. Emotionally, that really sucks. I’ve seen people go through with cutting their losses in the six figure amounts. I’m sure you guys have seen that too. It’s like, that’s so hard to wrap your head around. They cut their losses, they got their cash. I will say gold medal to these people because they also, we did a full insurance review. How much do you really need? He had enough, she did not. So we applied for another policy, had it like enforced before they canceled. So if you’re listening to this, never, even if it’s like egregious, do not cancel your policy until you have one that’s replacing it ever.

They did that, they got their money, they’re fully insured. Now they’re way better insured. Their costs got dramatically lower and they got a little cash injection for their upcoming project. Yay to them. In my mind, gold medal, gold stars to them. And not for just doing that, but for being willing. I think this is the hardest part, for being willing to like second guess a decision you already made. What’s the bias in there? The sunk cost fallacy or the, like, yeah, like being willing to look at that and be

Matt Mulcock:
Gold medal.

Ryan Isaac:
That was not a good choice. This sucks, this hurts. We lost money by canceling this right now, but we don’t want to wait another decade. We’re going to do the best thing we can, the most efficient, cover ourselves, cut our losses, move on. Gold star to them, gold medal to them. And that’s not easy to do. Yeah, hold up the gold. Do you have the gold? I’m going to hold my seaside market hat because that’s a gold medal in my mind. Blue and gold. So anyway, that’s a pretty common story.

Victoria Ferguson:
Gold medal.

Matt Mulcock:
Booyah, gold medal, gold medal.

Ryan Isaac:
Matt, Victoria, what would you guys say? Like that was a, I think that was a gold medal response to that situation. And what would be like maybe a silver or bronze response to that situation? Like what might’ve not maybe been as healthy to do?

Victoria Ferguson:
Um, it’s funny. I just had somebody do the exact same thing. Um, they lost, uh, not that much, but I think they, um, was like 20 grand that they were like, this really sucks, but we’re so glad that we found you. And now we’re not, you know, now the premiums are lower and now we’ll use that to like propel us forward. So I also had a gold star or gold metal, the gold. don’t know. Maybe, uh, is that the people pleasing in all three of us?

Ryan Isaac:
They got a goal. Yeah, I gold stars.

Victoria Ferguson:
Everyone gets gold. This is the three of us are like, you did so good.

Ryan Isaac:
This is the wrong crowd to hand out medals. Spoiler alert, everyone’s walking away with gold. This is rec league county soccer. Everyone’s getting a medal.

Matt Mulcock:
Everyone’s everyone’s getting a gold participation trophies.

Victoria Ferguson:
Maybe a silver would be you avoided making the decision out of like, I already did all of this. Like, let’s just ignore it. You you keep paying those premiums then it just keeps going because I don’t know, I want to say the average break even for a whole life policy is like 10 years, eight to 10 years. And people don’t realize that and some people actually don’t even get any cash value for the first two to three years. I had somebody that

Ryan Isaac:
Well, how do you explain to yourself that you’re like, just gave $10 ,000 a year and how is there nothing? It doesn’t make any sense. You’re like, well, commissions were 200%.

Matt Mulcock:
So that’s what I wanted to take a quick pause on and break down a little bit of, cause this gets really confusing for people. And so like, how is this even possible? I mean, this is what happens is they preach this cash value policy compared to a term policy. And they say, well, yeah, your premiums are more because you’re building up this cash value. And it’s like theoretically, yes, but how long does it take to do that? The reason why you have such a long timeframe to actually even have that cash value build up it’s all going for the first several years to commissions and then fees to the insurance company. And oftentimes I just think about the most powerful force out there when it comes to money is incentives. So like you look at the incentive, this is probably my biggest issue with this. Like the quote unquote advisor selling you this, what is their incentive to add any more value to your life once they’ve sold you this?

Ryan Isaac:
Well, and not only that, dude, that is such a good question because when this was sold, they were underinsured. It wasn’t even enough insurance to actually adequately protect their families. So the incentive wasn’t like, I’m sure they would have sold more if they were willing to buy more, but it was so expensive that they were just like, okay, fine, yeah, just get that much. Is that how much you’ll buy? Okay, buy that much then. And even that was like, dude, that wasn’t good or helpful, you

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, and I don’t even totally, I really don’t. I don’t blame the person necessarily, meaning from a moral standpoint being like, you’re a bad person. It’s an improper incentive structure, right? It’s an incentive problem because that person, Victoria said this before many times, you’re a hammer, you’re looking for nails. That person is a whole life salesman. They’re looking for people to sell whole life to. And they have quotas, they have things they gotta meet. It’s an incentive.

Ryan Isaac:
No, it’s the system. No, just the company you work for.

Victoria Ferguson:
You guys ever done it? Sold a whole life policy? No, me either. I had my license, but I didn’t do it.

Matt Mulcock:
Sold whole life? Nah. I have sold pest control door to door, I never, I know. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That’s a DQ right there. It’s the one of the worst summers of my life.

Ryan Isaac:
Bronze I’ll bronze that I’ll bronze the heck out of

Victoria Ferguson:
Heyo! Whoa!

Ryan Isaac:
Okay, so to add to maybe a situation where there wouldn’t be a gold medal, Victoria, I what you said was really good. Someone who just ignores the problem. I would also say someone who, if they had like tried to cancel this, which was the right decision, but didn’t replace the insurance. DQ, man, don’t leave yourself uninsured.

Matt Mulcock:
I, that’s what I was going to say too. I’d give that a DQ maybe. you. Worse thing to do when you’re in a hole is to keep digging, right? It’s like you keep, you keep digging that that’s a, definition of you keep digging. It’s like you’re, you did it. You’re in the hole. Don’t, don’t make it worse by leaving yourself susceptible to not having that coverage replaced. And, and by the way, I’ve had situations for whatever reason, whatever happens in their life, the client can’t find replaceable insurance or like they can’t get approved. Yeah, it could be medical or whatever. And so in that situation, then you’ve got a real discussion of saying like, maybe we do keep this in place.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, that’s a whole different thing. A whole life policy that’s already in force and then you become medically uninsurable. I mean, that’s what it’s kind of built for. It’s built for that. You can also be traffic ticket uninsurable. I’ve learned a few times the hard way. Did you guys know that? Yeah, like I’ve had clients apply. This probably happened three times in my whole career. No, life insurance. I’ve had clients get, yes, like speeding tickets and traffic violations. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
There’s a situation where you’d want to keep that possibly.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, so sometimes when we’re like doing a little discovery on insurance or we’re like shopping around and helping them like find a broker to buy from or something, because we don’t sell it, okay? We don’t get paid for it. I’ll ask, know, like, you know, what should we be realistically looking at given medical history, ongoing medical treatment, whatever. And then also, do you have any tickets? Have you had a lot of tickets? Because that’s a thing. I’ve had people get declined over it.

Victoria Ferguson:
You guys, I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket. I’ve been telling Matt for a year. I’m trying, you know, I’m kind of driving recklessly. Well, because I want to see if I can talk my way out of it. And I haven’t had that opportunity. Yeah, I’m trying.

Matt Mulcock:
She’s trying.

Ryan Isaac:
For real? That’s the goal? That’s noble. I actually applaud that. That’s cool.

Matt Mulcock:
Hopefully no underwriters, no life insurance underwriters are listening to this show. Yeah, I don’t think

Ryan Isaac:
You hate us, you hate us. Or you’re really cool, actually. Or if you listen to this and you’re nodding your head like, yeah, totally, I’m above that, then actually, you’re cool. And maybe we’ll send some people your way that need help. I’m gonna give one last shout out really fast. We can move on to subject number two, event number two. It’s always helpful for people. When you’re looking at life insurance and you’re trying to just get a baseline for cost, my favorite website out there right now, maybe you guys know different ones. It’s term and then the numberforsale .com. You literally can just shop all the national carriers you put in your birthday, your health rating, and then it’ll just tell you by price. Every time I do that with a client, they’re always kind of like taken back about how easy and then how cheap things are. So termforsale

Matt Mulcock:
Yep. We all turn for sell .com is great. We also work with a group who specializes in, cause like you said, Ryan, we don’t sell insurance, right? We advise on it. don’t sell it. So we actually have a group that we’ve partnered with for a long time now. Shout out Mark. They’re awesome. and they specifically work with fee only advisors, that are again, that don’t take commissions or kickbacks. So, you know, if you, if you do have questions or need coverage and you want to talk to a great team, you can let us know. We’ll get you connected as

Ryan Isaac:
Maybe we’ll put you in touch. Which is always usually what ends up happening. It’s nice to see what things generally cost, but then when you need to actually get it done, transact, it’s nice to work with a human that’s been referred to you, and that’s where they come in, and it’s so great. So, totally agree, that’s awesome. Good shout out. Alright, everyone got a goal. Yay, we feel good as people pleasers. What’s the next event in our financial Olympics?

Victoria Ferguson:
Do wanna do the investments one? did so much work on it, you guys, I’m really excited. Okay, so for this one, I’m gonna spoil it. is how to earn a gold medal, in my opinion. Yes, I’m here to hand out gold stars.

Matt Mulcock:
Let’s do it. Let’s talk investing.

Victoria Ferguson:
Oh, I don’t know. Okay. Here’s, here’s the Michael Phelps stats. So he’s 39. He just had a birthday of a few weeks ago. His Zodiac is a cancer. I know that’s really important. So Zodiac is a cancer. So a little bit about him. His traits include being nurturing, sensitive, compassionate, self -protective, security seeking, loving, and displaying a ingratiating sense of humor. Just add a little bit of personality to this, right? He’s so much more than his medals and his training. let’s just add, he’s a cancer. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Ryan Isaac:
Really fast, Beijing 08, eight medals, eight golds. That was, yeah, yeah, okay. Cancer.

Matt Mulcock:
You won eight gold medals.

Victoria Ferguson:
That’s insane. Um, okay. So, so yeah, cancer more importantly, right? Um, he holds the highest number of medals in Olympic history, 23 gold, three silver, two bronze. Um, and he has 82 medals in major international long course competitions.

Ryan Isaac:
Really fast, what do think he does with the bronzers? Like, are they in like a box and he’s just, are they, like does he hate those things so much? But there is the studies on people how they feel about bronze versus silver, so anyway, yeah. Then a bronze, yeah, yeah. But I’m just imagining like the most decorated guy and he’s got like two dozen golds and then there’s like two bronzes, it’s just like, ew. Yeah, okay, yeah, interesting.

Matt Mulcock:
He just gave them away.

Victoria Ferguson:
The bronze and like a cardboard box and a shoe box. Like, I don’t need this. Yep. And then his wingspan is six and a half feet. So, you know, if Michael Phelps just like stood up and was just like, you know, longer, taller than both y ‘all. Sorry. Did I out yo six and a half? Yeah. It’s like 6 .67 feet. Like.

Matt Mulcock:
He’s barely, it would be barely taller than me, okay?

Ryan Isaac:
Six and a half feet. Yeah, Matt, you’re six, seven. You lie and say six, five all the time just to be humble, but you are six, seven. I’ll call that out publicly. And when I’ll let you, thanks for letting me borrow your Rolex the other day too. I’ll get that back to you any day. Appreciate it. Carry

Victoria Ferguson:
Just to give some stats on him and his success. But the reason why I’m bringing him into this is because his training regimen is actually very much related to good investing habits. So he’s been competitively swimming since he was like eight, I think. And he started working with his coach, Coach Bowman, I don’t know. I did a bunch of research on him today. So I’ve translated, yeah. So he would swim eight miles a day, at least six to seven days a week. So he was swimming about 50 miles every week, even on his birthday, if I made sure to include that. So he would split his training into two sessions, spending five to six hours a day in the pool, and then he would lift weights in the gym three times per week. And then they also very much talked about his recovery process. So ice, stretching, regular massages, and they talked about how much sleep was important too, and all of that. So that was the training. And then as far as diet, I don’t think I could, he can’t, I can’t even imagine. So for some context, for non -Olympic athletes, so the recommended daily intake for women is about 2 ,000 calories per day, and for men, that’s like 2 ,500 a day.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s all right. Just no cheese and no guac and you’ll keep it under there. Get chicken instead of steak.

Victoria Ferguson:
So anyways, that’s, know, 2000 for women, 2500 for men. He would have eight to 10 ,000 calories a day and he would split that in just three meals. I don’t know how you could possibly do that. And then like, despite this like enormous diet, he only weighed like 190. Well, I know.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, yeah, cause he was burning that every day by swimming 10 miles.

Ryan Isaac:
And so efficiently too, like swimming is so easy on your body. So you can just like, you know, if you have the endurance, can just do it forever and it’s like not damaging. Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s insane.

Victoria Ferguson:
But the point is he did this like every single day for decades. this, like starting from when he was really, really young and that’s just the process. And he, he’s spoken a lot about like, you know, focusing on the long -term, trusting yourself, trusting the processes and just doing the same thing every single day. And eventually you’ll be able to, to reap the benefits. one of his like famous quotes is like, believe in your abilities and trust the process. And so I very much thought that that related to investing because it is the same thing day in, day out, and you do not start reaping the benefits until like 20 years in, 30 years in, right?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I was gonna, sorry, I was gonna say I just Googled something while you were talking about the training and how many years of training versus the time. So I just Googled his shortest race would be the 50 free. And so his 50 free time is 23 .04 seconds. So to think that even just between Olympics, he’ll train like that for four years to swim for 23 seconds. And then to think about investing, like the big jumps in growth usually happen in spurts that you can never see coming and you cannot time them. Sorry if you’re going there. I was just like, my gosh. It’s all though, it’s just the grind of the boring or the times when markets are going down or the times when everyone’s like, get out, everything’s gonna explode. And then like when you’re in there and you’re the one who stayed in, you’re the one who stayed consistent. You kept the rebalanced portfolio. You kept swimming like Dory said. And Michael probably said at some point, and then like your little 23 second, 50 free time came and like you were the one who was there to reap that because they’re just, happen in spurts and you never know when, but like all of that grinding up to that time was how you got that benefit. Otherwise, you know, you just don’t. That’s so fascinating to think about the ratio of years and hours for 23 seconds of swimming. It’s crazy.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I mean, think there’s so many parallels here, but I love this analogy to investing this whole and I’ve heard interviews with him talking about what you’re alluding to Victoria of like falling in love with like the monotony of training. Like the only way you actually can have those 23 seconds Ryan, as you’re saying is to fall in love with the monotony and obviously to be a super freak as well like he is. But the other thing I’m thinking of is whether it be with investing or for dentists looking at the next dentist over or the dentist they see on Instagram or the dentist they see speaking. Yeah, or like the dentist who’s now an influencer speaking on stage or whatever. All we see as spectators of that person’s life is the 23 seconds. So it’s so easy to…

Victoria Ferguson:
The swimmer in the next lane.

Matt Mulcock:
To look at that and be like, and look at the glory that they’re receiving now and being like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. Like, and be jealous or be like, right. Feel like you’re comparing yourself to that, but you’re what you’re not seeing and is as how, as how they got there. Right. We see the result. often, I’ve said this before, like we often compare ourselves to the person finishing the marathon. Like at the finish, you’re seeing the finish line. You’re not seeing the 26 .2 or 26 .1 miles leading up to that, or all the training led up to. Anyway, I love this parallel not only to investing, but like how we approach other people in our life as well and how we’re comparing ourselves.

Ryan Isaac:
How many hours a day did you say the training was?

Victoria Ferguson:
Five to six. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
I saw a video one time, an interview he did, he said the year leading up to that big Olympics where he won eight, he trained 365 days. He did not miss a

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, if I’m just like 365 times five times four years, like 7 ,300 hours for 23 second swim. Yeah. But that’s what it took. And you’re right. Investing is not, it’s not as exciting as Michael Phelps winning gold medals.

Victoria Ferguson:
No, and I’ll explain it here because I brought some, like an example kind of calculation of how you can be the Michael Phelps of long -term investing and I’m going to show you how. No. Okay. So get this guys, you’re 30 and you’re a 30 year old dentist.

Ryan Isaac:
I seriously would give two of my children to be 30 again. The older two, because we’ve had a lot of time together,

Victoria Ferguson:
Okay, you’re a 30 year old dentist. You make say $300 ,000 a year growing at just 3 % per year. So this is really conservative, right? Because realistically, you go into practice ownership and that’s gonna skyrocket. So I went really conservative with the sample calculation. You have nothing in your retirement savings. So no IRA, no 401k, nothing. You’re just getting started. You’re contributing $3 ,000 a month from here until retirement at 65, and that’ll grow again like 3 % per year. And in retirement, you wanna spend like $20 ,000 a year. This is including inflation, this is including say 10 % per year on average over this 30, I guess 35 year time span, and then in retirement, a little bit of a return. So what you would actually need in order to keep that monthly. $20 ,000 in spending in retirement is 10 million, but you’ll actually have 13 million if you can stick with it. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Jeez, I was like cheating reading ahead as you’re talking. I’m just like, that’s just so achievable. No, it’s achievable. It’s just

Victoria Ferguson:
You reading my notes, freaking Matt does this too. Reading ahead, it is achievable, and that’s just 3 ,000 a month. That’s not considering like, you your income is likely to skyrocket at some point, and that’s not including what would happen there, right? It’s insane. It’s a 12, yeah, and we talk about a 20 % savings rate, and that’s just 12 % for 35 years.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s a 12 % savings rate, by the way, what you’re describing.

Victoria Ferguson:
You’re gonna exceed all of that. And I know that all sounds so simple. Like, I just have to do that. That is incredibly difficult to do. It is so hard to do, to sit in your seat. It’s boring.

Ryan Isaac:
Because ending with the 12 million is like getting the gold medal in that one final event, but really it’s the training. It’s like saving 12%, it’s the training. Every single year there is a reason, there are multiple reasons to bail on the stock market. There’s like so many reasons, let alone life reasons to just stop saving money. They never stop. They never ever stop.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes, it’s all the training. It’s all the process.

Matt Mulcock:
Influencers selling you courses as to why the stock market is evil.

Ryan Isaac:
There’s just never a year where you’re like, this is a good year to it. Every year there’s just multiple reasons to stop and hold money and not do anything. Yeah, every year. Whoa, that’s such a powerful example. Using numbers. Yeah. Okay. I won’t read ahead. Okay.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, there’s so many distractions. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, using numbers, but I’ll give it one more hit because this is the cost of if you stop. So this is if Michael Phelps decided to take like a week off or whatever kind of thing. I’m going overboard with this comparison and I recognize

Ryan Isaac:
Well, no, because when you look at the data, hold on, actually, I’m not gonna say anything. You’re probably gonna say this. Go ahead, all

Victoria Ferguson:
Okay, that’s sitting in your seat doing three grand a month for 35 years. That is a lot harder than you think, because life happens, there’s distractions. So I kind of want to touch on how expensive that is to miss out. Sorry, go ahead.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, just to that point, and I know you’re saying you’re taking this too far, but I really don’t think you are with this analogy. The doing the $3 ,000 a month for 35 years is the equivalent of Michael Phelps waking up every single day for four years to train, to get in the pool, to keep going. Monotony.

Victoria Ferguson:
Five to six hours in the pool, yeah. Monotony.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, monotony. How many times was he sick? Was he depressed? Did he get dumped? Was he like, had a bad day? Like, you know, his roof was leaking, like his car broke down, like how many of those? You know, yeah.

Victoria Ferguson:
Bad day. Bad meal. Yeah. yeah. So many opportunities.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. And again, how many opportunities are there to get scared, to freak out, say, I’m not seeing the results I want. That’s the other thing is this idea of like, I’m not seeing the results I want. Yeah. mean, honestly, but I think there is so that’s probably the biggest risk here is not even just the things you’re hearing online, the media, it’s you getting bogged down by saying, cause let’s be honest. The magic of compounding happens from year 21 to year 30. That’s if you look at any calculator, it’s always that last third. so how incredibly hard is it to say you’re at year 15 and you, were like, man, is this working? Is this actually working? And it’s like, you see this across the board. You see this with athletes, with actors, whatever. It’s like with financial, whatever, right before it starts to work is when people quit usually.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, yeah. And no Victoria, the example’s not over the top. I cheated and look, I was gonna say where you’re going right now and it’s not over the top because what you’re about to explain is like dead on why it’s not dramatic. It’s like exactly the case. Yeah, I love it. That’s so good, it’s so good. I almost said it and then I’m like, I’ll bet you’re gonna do that.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. I was, I was going to say if you stole my, if you stole my notes, I’m going to get triggered back to like, to like elementary school when some other like dumb kid would like take my notes or steal my answers. Cause I don’t do it. You guys, I’m going to get triggered. I was that girl.

Ryan Isaac:
Whoa. Let’s dig on this. This is some childhood stuff. Let’s dig here. What are you feeling right now? What are you feeling?

Matt Mulcock:
I’m going to do it. Okay. Go ahead. I’m going to go. Go ahead. Go

Victoria Ferguson:
Were you the guy, no I need to know, were you guys the type of guys that would like look at like, you know, some prepared girl at me and be like, can I borrow a pen or pencil and not give it back?

Matt Mulcock:
No, I mean, I feel personally victimized by you. No, I don’t know.

Ryan Isaac:
I was just kind of a, I just thought anything for a little shock value and humor and you know, I just thought it was funny and it mostly wasn’t, so.

Victoria Ferguson:
Because I was the girl with the pencil bag and I’d be too much of a people pleaser to be like, yeah, here you go. And I would remember every single person that never gave me that.

Matt Mulcock:
The Trapper Keeper.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re like that, wait, isn’t that like, no, that’s a Billy Madison where that like, it’s Steve Buscemi, isn’t it? He’s got that list of people and then like, he gets apologized to and he crosses Billy Madison. He’s like, nevermind, that’s you. You got this list. Okay, no, but it is a perfect example and is not overly dramatic because it is like, this is exact, the data says it, it’s

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. Crosses them off.

Victoria Ferguson:
You guys, I haven’t seen that movie. Okay, okay, here. Okay, good.

Matt Mulcock:
Okay, we’re not stealing your notes. We’re not stealing your notes.

Victoria Ferguson:
Okay, okay, so this is as if, you know, Michael Phelps fell off his training, but parallels to investing. So set the stage a little bit here. This data comes from Dimensional Fund Advisors who helps us with our investments. So this is looking at a 25 year time span, 1999 to 2023, and the growth of $1 ,000. So if you kept that $1 ,000, you’re not doing any more contributions. It’s just that and that thousand dollars would have turned into just under 6 ,500 bucks. Okay? So nice growth there. So if you missed just one, the best week, the one best week out of 25 years, so who the heck knows when that’s gonna be? That $6 ,500 is now only like $5 ,400. So that’s you, it’s like 16 and a half percent less. And that’s one week, you guys. That’s significant.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s point, yeah, that’s 4 % of the time, by the way, a week out of that stretch. Oh no, wait, it’s way smaller. It’s way smaller, nevermind, no, no, no, I did the math wrong. It’s way smaller, it’s tiny, it’s minuscule. I don’t even know.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, and who knows? That’s the thing with the stock market.

Matt Mulcock:
I was gonna say, it’s way smaller than 4%. One week out of 25 years.

Victoria Ferguson:
Okay, you just confirmed that you’re the guy that never gives the pencil back. Just by that alone, sorry, you added yourself. Anyways, so that’s one week and who knows out of 25 years, you’re telling me you so happen to know when the best week is gonna happen. I don’t know, like none of you know. So that’s one week. If you did that for a month, now instead of losing 16 and a half percent, that’s now 20. And that’s again, one month out of 25 years.

Matt Mulcock:
You’re saying you’ve lost 20 % of your wealth of that or that wealth.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yes. Yeah. Just by, just by not, by not going in the pool for one month, you lost 20%. And then if you stretch that to three months, that’s now 30%. You stretch that to six months, that’s now 35%. And this is 25 years we’re talking about this. That’s a long freaking time. So that’s why we say time and time again, that trying to time the market, it does not work. That I, we will squash that day in and day

Ryan Isaac:
No, well and think about, thank you, I’m so glad you did that and it’s like you can’t emphasize that point enough and then think about the amount of people who don’t stay out for a week or a month or six months, they stay out for years. I’ve met a lot of people like that along my career where they’re just like, don’t know, I’m just like gonna hang tight for a year and that turns into two or three or five and that’s just, that’s like devastating to your lifetime net worth.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, I mean, you think you’re missing six months out of a 25 year period and you lose 35 % of your

Ryan Isaac:
It feels like nothing. And who knows when that’s gonna happen. That’s such a good example. So your example of like Michael missing one week out of four years of training was probably even like too generous. That’d be like him missing like two hours out of four years really of training. It’s kind of wild. Yeah. So stay invested people. Gold medal if you do.

Matt Mulcock:
I think the hardest part of this kind of stuff where it’s like, we talk about the solutions being so simple, right? People don’t like simple solutions because it usually means, because it’s usually all around behavior, right? It’s like, exactly. is, this is, well, no, think this is the, I think this is the essence of why people are seeking out like sophisticated quote unquote, sophisticated products or strategies because it’s a way for them to look outside themselves and be like, well, I don’t really control this. It’s a strategy or this fancy thing that I can buy as opposed to just saying, no, it’s actually just jumping in the pool every day and training. That’s what it comes down

Ryan Isaac:
Well, it is nice. Yeah, it is nice if a product could replace like years of boring behavior and habits. Like that would be nice, you know, like, yeah, if that can make up for the fact that I didn’t save for a decade, that’d be great, but that’s just not really, I’m not shaming. I’m not shaming the Botox.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, like putting Botox in instead of putting sunscreen on every day? Absolutely. I’m feeling spicy, you guys.

Matt Mulcock:
I actually saw this interview as a, you really are, you are very spicy right now.

Ryan Isaac:
You are spicy. We brought up the kids cheating and stealing your pencils. So now, it’s okay.

Matt Mulcock:
I did see this as speaking of that, I saw an interview with the exercise like sports science guy who was talking about, said, man, if you, if I could bottle, if I could bottle the, the, the results you get from exercising every day and just moving your body every day, if I could bottle those like that into something to sell, he’s like, I’d be the richest person on the planet. Right. So it’s again, it’s this idea we’re looking for the results that come from just behavior changes or the results of just sticking to it. It’s like, you can get those results. It just requires you to actually change your behavior or stick to something for a long

Ryan Isaac:
Yep, that was a really good example. So much data. Thank you very much, Victoria. That was really great. That was awesome. Shout out to Michael Phelps, who listens every week.

Victoria Ferguson:
Thank you. You’re welcome.

Matt Mulcock:
I don’t know if we have, shout out Michael Phelps, friend of the show. Not really. We probably don’t have time to go through any more stories, my guess, unless we have one more, we do a follow up.

Victoria Ferguson:
Huge fan of the show.

Ryan Isaac:
Ooh, yeah. Maybe we’ll do a follow -up Olympic episode. Yeah, we’ll do a like an hour, huh? An hour went by, weird. So crazy. Yeah, no, you wanna just wrap it? Maybe do some more examples another time? It’ll be long. Yeah, it will. Okay, so what’s the conclusion here?

Matt Mulcock:
I just fear if we go through another story or two, will be two hours long.

Ryan Isaac:
What’s the conclusion? Be a gold medalist and don’t get disqualified.

Victoria Ferguson:
No, think a commonality is probably like, it’s a lot more simple than you think it is. You just have to stick with it for a really, really long time.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. If we’re talking investing in general, mean, we obviously told the story around the whole life policy as well. And there’s other stories that we have that we’ll again, maybe we’ll do a part two of this, but I think a lot of times, so like coming back to the whole life story, right. I, my takeaway from something like that, or the, again, the other stories that we had is like how personal a lot of this stuff is and where, you know, there’s just so much nuance and this is why we’ve said, we’ve say all the time, it’s like, there’s so much of it depends, right? In people’s lives, people are looking for like answers to their situation with general advice. I think the whole essence of what we were trying to go through with this, again, we didn’t have all the stories that we didn’t have time for all the stories, but again, the takeaway is just how important it is to have someone in your life, to be able to help you with the personal side of this and understand your specific situation and know that there’s not like one.

Even though we are giving out medals here, I think just realizing that there’s, your situation is so different than everyone else’s and there’s so many factors to consider with any of these types of solutions.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I think like why doesn’t Michael Phelps just train himself? I mean, he’s Michael freaking Phelps, you know, like just Dude, go just go swimming like it’s you’re Michael Phelps. You’re basically a fish. Just go swimming Isn’t that enough? But it’s like no he Still has to do the same thing that normal humans have to do which is have people around him have like accountability I’m sure he tracks meticulously with data. When you’re measuring in like tenths and hundreds of a second, like you’re measuring meticulously with data and you just have to do those things for a long, long period of time, which is our big, as humans, that’s our biggest downfall is just being able to stick to something. So I think these examples are cool to just always remember that the best of the best have help and accountability and data and they live in way more monotony than those like shining moments for sure.

Victoria Ferguson:
Yeah, god, jump scare when we listen to this back. No, I’ll close it out with a couple Michael Phelps quotes that I thought were really good. Thank you, thank you. One, be willing to sacrifice short -term pleasure for long -term success, very applicable to investing. And then this last one, I don’t know, I just really liked it. It’s a different perspective. The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Ryan Isaac:
Very appropriate, yes. It’s amazing how that works. It’s amazing. Thank you, my friends and family, Matt and Victoria, and friends and family of the show. Tens of thousands of you, friends and family, and loyal listeners, we appreciate. Thank you, dozens of people listening, tuning in every week. No, it was fun. Thanks, guys.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s dozens.

Ryan Isaac:
Someone gonna say goodbye. Was that it? Was that me saying goodbye?

Victoria Ferguson:
Bye bye.

Behavioral Finance