There are plenty of proverbs and axioms that aren’t meant to be about money, but we can easily learn a financial lesson from them anyway. We’ll show you the hidden money meanings behind some of these popular sayings...Find out more information about Brian Butler and Beyond The Pie Charts here: https://www.wealthstandardfinancial.com/Full transcript below...----more----Transcript:Marc Killian: Well it is week four here on Beyond Pie Charts, the podcast with Brian Butler. We are into our fourth episode, and we thank you so much for checking us out. Brian is President and Wealth Management Advisor at Wealth Standard Financial; serving you in the Greater Houston area. You can find him and the team online at wealthstandardfinancial.com, that's wealthstandardfinancial.com.Marc Killian: Brian's been serving families in the financial services realm for more than 20 years, and a great resource for you to tap into. If you need a little help, you got a few questions, or you know someone does, share this information with them, share this podcast with them and tell them to give Brian a call at 713-955-6007, that's 713-955-6007; that's your number to call.Marc Killian: Brian, buddy, welcome in. How are you this week?Brian Butler: I'm good, man, how are you?Marc Killian: I'm doing fantastic. I always look forward to talking you on this podcast, you're just so upbeat and happy. You're such a fun guy to talk to; I'm so glad to talk to you. Things been well in your world this past week?Brian Butler: No, they've been awesome man, I can't complain, the business is growing, the podcast is growing; so I'm really happy about that.Marc Killian: Very, very cool. Yeah, and if you did complain, who would listen? That's what I always tell my wife.Brian Butler: Yeah.Marc Killian: Yeah.Brian Butler: How does that go over?Marc Killian: Yeah, she's usually just laughs at me. But yeah, pretty good stuff. No, she's a sweetheart, but anyway, hey listen, I got a fun little show for us. So I want to change this up a little week, instead of maybe getting into some nitty gritty specifics, let's go with some saying, some proverbs, some classic stuff that we've all heard growing up.Marc Killian: Whether it's from a pastor, or grandparent, or an uncle, or whatever; we kind of all just heard these things. I got a couple of fun ones here for you, and I thought maybe we could see if we could test your brain a little bit, Brian, and see if you can extract a money lesson, if you will, from some of these things. Okay, you feel up to the challenge?Brian Butler: I'm down, man, let's do it.Marc Killian: All right, let's do it. So everybody's heard stuff like, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Break it down for us, what can we do from a financial side on that?Brian Butler: Well, the idea of this proverb is sometimes it's best to focus on what you already have, instead of worrying about trying to get more.Marc Killian: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Brian Butler: And at some point in your financial life, you should be more focused on not losing your savings instead of trying to maximize the return on your investments. And what we've seen in our business, the wealthier the client, the more conservative they are.Brian Butler: They know that they've saved a lot of money and invested well over time, so during their accumulation years in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and even their 50s, they were going gangbusters trying to make as much money as they could, because they knew they had time on their side to grow. And as they get closer to retirement, they want to start making sure that that income stream that they worked so hard for doesn't get blown up in a market downturn.Brian Butler: And being conservative and understanding what you have in that risk reward, are you more happy to keep what you have versus grow it a little bit more? Or just maintain the lifestyle that you have, protect your family with your estate planning, and not have to think about it in retirement? And so a lot of people, once they get enough money to have a great lifestyle, they're not really worried about growing as much.Marc Killian: Yeah, you know I did a different analogy with this one time, and I love how you did that. I kind of do the same thing if you're thinking about a football. We've talked about the fact that we're both football fans, and it's kind of like the victory formation. Sometimes you just got to take a knee, you don't have to gain any more yards; you got the game won, right?Brian Butler: You've seen it go wrong, it's your fault it may [inaudible 00:03:29].Marc Killian: You have, right? So, I mean you can think back to the Super Bowl a few years ago with the Seahawks when everybody in the world knew they were going to run the ball, and they threw it, they took a chance; and look what happened, they lost it so-Brian Butler: Absolutely.Marc Killian: So sometimes you got to be smart, don't try to outfox yourself.Brian Butler: Exactly.Marc Killian: So a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. All right, good job with that proverb. How about this one? "A rising tide lifts all boats."Brian Butler: Well, if the market's going to go up, and you're invested in the market, then you're going to make money.Marc Killian: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Brian Butler: The same principle is if the market goes down, you're going to lose money.Marc Killian: Right.Brian Butler: So, no matter what you think, you're probably not going to outsmart the system and make money when everybody else is losing.Marc Killian: Unless you're Warren Buffett or something, I mean, I don't know, right?Brian Butler: Well and even Warren-Marc Killian: Even Warren, that's true, that's true.Brian Butler: Sometimes when the market's down, Warren's negative.Marc Killian: That's true.Brian Butler: But the difference with Warren is he knows everything's on sale, and he has enough money-Marc Killian: Yeah.Brian Butler: To just go out and buy more things. So when the market bounces back, he makes more than everybody else.Marc Killian: Yeah.Brian Butler: And so he doesn't panic when the market tanks. And so being able to be invested in the market and understanding that it will fluctuate, no matter what, and you just have to make sure you manage to your risk tolerance. And the risk tolerance sometimes is mathematical, most times it's emotional.Brian Butler: And so how are your emotions going to be if your account drops 20%? If you don't bat an eye, well that's probably a good risk tolerance. If you're staying up all night having heart palpitations, that's definitely the wrong risk tolerance for you.Marc Killian: Yeah.Brian Butler: And age has something to do with it, but not everything. I have some clients that are 60 plus, they're very aggressive, and they understand the risk that they're taking. And I have some 20 year old clients that are very conservative, so it's been interesting to see the difference between the two generations.Marc Killian: No, I think that's a good way of looking at it. And to kind of expound on that for just a second, when we see the market go down, even for retirees, sometimes it's not the worst idea to think about buying something when it's on sale. Because you're still going to be in retirement for 20, maybe 25, maybe 30, or even 35 years, and you still got to have growth, some growth in retirement.Marc Killian: So sometimes people get into this place where they hit retirement and they want to take all risk off the table, but you still have to outpace inflation and make a little bit, depending on how long you're retired.Brian Butler: Absolutely-Marc Killian: Yeah-Brian Butler: That's true.Marc Killian: And you've got no clue how long you're going to be retired. And if you do, it makes making a plan a whole lot easier. We joke a lot of times saying, "If you can tell your advisor when you're going to pass away, they can craft you the perfect plan."Brian Butler: Yeah, absolutely.Marc Killian: But that's a little hard to figure out, and kind of morbid; so we're going to move on. How about this one? Now I am a victim of this one, the classic line my grandmother had to say to me one time, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." Because, of course, I did and I tripped, and I broke all my eggs at Easter and I was bummed. But yeah, this one's pretty classic.Brian Butler: No, it definitely is. This can apply to almost anything in life, but it's especially valuable when it comes to diversification in the financial world. Now many people in Houston, for example ... We're the energy capital of the world. We have the largest medical center in the world. So what do people here invest in? Oil and medicine. And if you go to California, what do you think they invest in?Marc Killian: Well I couldn't begin to tell you. You got me on that one. Tech, yeah-Brian Butler: Technology.Marc Killian: Yeah.Brian Butler: And now a little bit of weed.Marc Killian: Oh, yeah.Brian Butler: So, you got to watch out for them. So you invest in what you know. If you go east coast, they're financials; Wall Street.Marc Killian: Mm-hmm (affirmative), right, right.Brian Butler: That's what they know. In Houston, for example, if I own Exxon, Chevron, and Anadarko I'm diversified. No.Marc Killian: No.Brian Butler: You're all in the energy. Even though those are great companies-Marc Killian: Right.Brian Butler: All your money is tied up into one sector of a broader market.Marc Killian: Right, right.Brian Butler: And the more people understand how markets work, and the importance of diversification, we definitely know here when Enron went down, Enron affected so many other businesses here in Houston from catering to car services. It greatly affected the economy, and that was one company in energy, and the reverberations were felt all across the country. And so if you don't have something that's not related or correlated to the overall market, the importance of diversification is paramount-Marc Killian: Yeah.Brian Butler: As you grow your portfolio.Marc Killian: No, I definitely agree. And there's a lot of asset classes, folks, so there's more than just large cap, right?Brian Butler: Right, yeah.Marc Killian: So there's a lot out there, so don't put all your eggs in one basket; a classic proverb that you can easily take a financial lesson from. Last one for this podcast and that is, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Now this could be a Warren Buffett kind of thing too.Brian Butler: Absolutely. So some investments might make no sense at all for you to own and, on the other hand, that same investment could be a perfect fit for someone else. Be careful that you don't make broad generalizations about certain investments being good or bad.Brian Butler: Now this is something that we see all the time. One investment for this particular client; they love it. And the same investment for another client, they're calling me asking me, "Why do I own this?" And one is looking from a totally different perspective.Brian Butler: So if the market drops ... I have a client that when technology dipped a little bit in October, November, December, they immediately transferred in another $200,000 to their account. Now, I didn't know that money existed-Marc Killian: Oh, wow.Brian Butler: And so it came out of nowhere. And they were like, "We want to put more into this particular managed account, because we think that it's going to turn as soon as the market does." And they were right; it definitely did work out. I told them the pros and cons, but on the front end they enjoyed looking at that particular account.Brian Butler: Now I showed the same type managed account to another client, and they were just terrified that the market was going to come to a crashing halt, that Facebook was going to go out of business, and Apple was no longer going to exist. And so that particular product is the exact wrong product for that client.Brian Butler: And so, the great thing about what we do is, I don't have to product push. We're independent advisors, and I don't care what you buy, so I'm going to get the right thing for the right situation.Brian Butler: And so once clients realize that and understand that your neighbor bought this particular stock, it's totally not appropriate for you. And being able to explain that to people, it makes their minds at ease a lot of times.Marc Killian: Yeah, and you're not doing the chasing the Joneses, keeping up with the Joneses kind of thing; every situation is different. We're going to say a lot on this podcast that we talk in generalities, because we're talking to a wide audience out there.Marc Killian: And while as investors, and pre-retirees, retirees different parts of our financial life, while we share a lot of commonality, every situation truly is different. So you always want to make sure that you're having it looked at for your unique situation. Even if it's close to your neighbor, it's not going to be exactly the same, it's always going to be different, so you want to make sure you have those conversations.Marc Killian: And that's our podcast this week, another good episode here with Brian Butler, President and Wealth Management Advisor at Wealth Standard Financial. Give him a call at 713-955-6007, that's 713-955-6007; serving you here in the Greater Houston area. Brian, buddy, thanks for your time this week; I appreciate you as always.Brian Butler: Hey see you next week, man.Marc Killian: I'll talk to you next time. And folks don't forget, check us out online at wealthstandardfinancial.com. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and whatnot. Again, that wealthstandardfinancial.com. If you're on iTunes or something, just search out 'Beyond Pie Charts', you can always find it that way, as well. And we'll talk to you next time here on the podcast. Thanks for tuning in.