This is Dan Thompson and welcome to our Wise Money Tools podcast, it’s great to have you with us. I’m really looking forward to doing these podcasts. We have a lot of good stuff planned and I think you’re going to get a lot from them and hopefully enjoy them in the process. I’ve been doing videos for many years, and I think these podcasts is going to be a lot of fun, and extremely informative for you. We have already started off with a bang and thank all those who subscribed and left a review for us, and if you have a second, we’d sure appreciate all the positive reviews. I thought I’d take a minute and give you bit of background about me so you can get sense of what this podcast is all about. I’ve been a financial advisor for 32, going on 33 years. What I want to do is share with you some of the things I’ve learned over these past 3 decades, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I want the podcast to be a resource where we talk about a wide variety of topics. We’ll talk about all sorts of ideas, strategies, what works, what doesn’t work, maybe some shortcuts, and for sure things to keep you out of financial trouble. In this episode, I thought it would be good to lay the ground work, and talk about the mission or goal of these podcasts. One our last episode I shared with you our Wise Money Tools 6 core beliefs that will bring the best chance of financial success to you. So, let me tell you a bit about myself and how I got into this business in the first place. I grew up in Modesto, California, which is in the San Joaquin valley. Lots of grapes and almonds. Back when I was a young buck, Modesto was a great place to grow up. It was safe, we could go all over town and never feel like we were in the wrong side of town. I loved the long hot summers and spent a lot of time at the lake waterskiing with my friends. Throughout my teenage years, I was a laborer. I worked for a construction company and a landscape company. Two of my best friend’s dads owned the businesses, so I got to work alongside them each day. I worked more with my friend Scott and his Dad’s landscaping business. If digging trenches, putting in sprinklers, putting in sod and plants seems like hard work – we hardly noticed, it was actually kind of fun. Mostly because you’re with your best friend, working hard, then playing hard. I pretty much worked for minimum wage, maybe .25 cents or .50 cents more depending on the job. Back then that was a whopping 2.50 per hour. I think my best year I got up to 4 bucks an hour. I remember if I wanted to go to the movies, it cost me an hour’s work, and as hard as I worked, the movie better be a good one. Modesto gets really hot in the summer, so we’d get up early and start at 5:00 am when it was still dark, then we’d be done by 2:00 in the afternoon before it got too hot, and off to the lake we’d go. We’d ski until dark, get back home, cook up some burgers, about fall asleep as the sun went down, and then do it all again the next day. My parents weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination. At best, they were just above the poverty level, maybe the lowest of the middle class. I didn’t notice too much I guess, I just thought it was life. What I did know is my dad was a hard worker, but there was no way he could buy things for me. If I wanted new basketball shoes, a waterski, or snow skis, or even some new clothes, that was all on me. There wasn’t any money to help me out, so I had to learn at a young age, like 12 years old, to save if I wanted something or make do with what I had. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I’m actually grateful that I leaned to work at a young age. Even though my dad wasn’t in the wealthy class, he was part of a church and community where he had some wealthy friends. When I was about 16 my Dad went with a very wealthy friend of his, named Dave, to the Bay Area, which was about an hour’s drive – well depending on traffic. My dad invited me to ride along. I pretty much just sat there and listened to them laugh and talk. They started talking about money and Dave was saying that one thing that always worked for him was to live on a lot less money than he made. Seemed reasonable, right? He went on to say, “if I make $30,000 in a month, and can live on $1500, I get to save or invest the difference.” I remember thinking, wow, $30,000 in one month! Now remember if I worked 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, I’d make about 500 bucks in a month. This guy made $30,000. That might as well be a million to me. They then talked about how he invested in real estate and the stock market. Then I thought, well if a guy like Dave calls a stockbroker to invest his money, then that broker must be even smarter than Dave. It’s in that backseat at 16 years old that I was determined to be a stockbroker. Years later, I didn’t quite hit the floor of the NY Stock Exchange, but I landed with a financial planning firm, where I was able to buy and sell stocks as part of my job. My mom died of cancer in 1985, she was only 46 years old. At the time, my wife and I had one young son and we thought it would be nice to be near at least one set of grandparents, so we moved to where my wife was born and raised, Boise, ID. I wasn’t sure a California grown kid could adapt to Idaho, but I thought I’d give it go and see how we liked it. I was really concerned about giving up waterskiing. I was relieved to know that Boise has some hot summers too and our waterski season goes from March to October, and in some years, I put on the dry suit and can go even ski to Thanksgiving. I don’t want to say too much, but Boise is a great place to live with all kinds of things to do. But we’re trying to keep it a secret even though they estimate about 4000 people a month move in from out of state, mostly from you know where…. that’s right…California. We’ve been here ever since and I don’t have a day where I regret moving here, it’s been a great place to raise a family and stay busy in all kinds of activities and my wife loves the four seasons. I picked up one other interest that is fast becoming my favorite thing to do, and that’s to ride snow bikes. What you do is you convert a dirt bike to a snow bike by putting on a snowmobile like track on the back and a ski on the front and man, you can go ride up and down the mountains, through the trees, going just about anywhere you want to go. It is amazing what you can do and how much fun they are, so now I look forward to the winters. Okay enough about Idaho – suffice it to say, we love it here. Well, back to the point of the story. All I wanted to do in life was, work with money, investments, and help people make money on their money. Now let’s fast forward. After many years implementing and going down the financial planning and the wall street way of doing things, I came to the realization that a lot of what I was being taught to do - really doesn’t work. You’ve heard that Wall Street is a rigged system or a giant casino, and that can be true for sure. It’s also full of brokers and advisors who for some reason can’t get out of the box. Most of them are entrenched in Wall Street education, and never took a step back and looked at the process objectively. It became frustrating to me to watch year after year advisors and firms doing the same things over and over again, and no one seemed to see that we were all on a treadmill at best. You know, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some very wealthy families, medical professionals, and business owners over the past 32 years. It became very obvious that no one I knew actually became rich or wealthy because they worked with a financial planner. Now let me clarify that statement. Most, if not all, made their money elsewhere, then worked with a financial advisor to invest their money. It made me think way back in the day when I heard my Dad’s friend Dave say essentially the same thing. He made his money in areas outside of Wall Street, then would invest some of that money into stocks and real estate. I’ve often said, there’s no such thing as a mutual fund millionaire. What I mean by that is that people don’t get wealthy by buying mutual funds. There are millionaires who buy mutual funds, but they didn’t build their wealth, solely because they bought mutual funds. I’m sad to report that the financial advisors out there, who do things the wall street way do very little to build upon the wealth one has already acquired. This is what was hard for me to watch and I knew there had to be a better way. It’s these “better ways” that we’re going to talk about on this podcast. Things such as, how do you create wealth, how do you continue to build wealth, how do you protect wealth, how do you pass it along, why Wall Street and most financial advisors often times do very little to improve upon your situation, and why you should take a more active role in your finances and investments? Just to name a few - there are so many others, and we’re going to break them down step by step in these podcasts. I want to empower you to take more control of your financial future and the best way to do that is with knowledge. We like to say - Knowledge, Wisdom, Power at Wise Money Tools. As you gain knowledge, you’ll have the wisdom to make good decisions, and when you make good decisions, it gives you power over your money, and when you have the power, you control the ship. Should be exciting! So that’s my story. Here we are, almost 33 years later, with tons of experience and I’ve literally talked to thousands of people over the years, and I’m ready to pass on as much as I can to you. I want you to make very few, if any, mistakes and again control your financial destiny! Remember you can download our core beliefs at our website, wisemoneytools.com Get a copy and see if they can help you with your path towards financial freedom. Our first conversation and the topic of our next few podcasts is going to revolve around the wealth tree. It’s a concept that me and my boys came up with years ago and have been teaching to others. I think it will help bring perspective to this whole financial planning stuff. I want to make it easy, the easier it is, the more you understand, the better chance of you taking the lead when it comes to your financial decisions. So, stay on board and let’s see how your wealth tree is doing. Once again, thanks for joining us and as a reminder, these podcasts are for your education and entertainment only and should not be taken as investment advice. If you have any questions, send them to [email protected] and I’ll do my best to answer them just as quick as I can. We may use your questions on a future podcast as well. And if you have topic you’d like to hear discussed let us know that too. Make sure you subscribe and don’t miss an episode! Go have yourself a great week, take care!
