Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Chicks on the Right
podcast where we talk to our friend and sponsor of
the show, Zach Abraham from Bulwart Capital Management, and we
have a very interesting topic to talk with you about today.
Apparently there are more and more states that are now
mandating or at least offering to have personal finance courses
for high school students to help them kind of get
ready to start adulting. And this is not something that
I had in school. You are around our age, and
so I'm assuming that you two didn't either. But what
do you think about this, Zach? Is this a good
time to get kids like you? Obviously this is your career.
So when did you become interested in who taught you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, great question, and generally speaking, yeah, to me, it's
all about the you know, the implementation and roll out
and obviously the curriculum. But that being said, any I
think any additional financial education is beneficial. I came to it, honestly.
So my dad also had an investment firm.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I grew up.
Speaker 3: I grew up in the industry, and I I just
remember from a well, there were two goals actually, I
was either going to be an NFL player, or I
was get to man his money.
Speaker 4: Nfling didn't work out so well.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when you're five nine two oh five,
you got to run a little bit faster than a
four eight forty Yeah, and yeah that was about his
and I and and I killed myself to get to
a four eight forty two. I mean I was that
was Hummet Green. Uh so no, so, yeah, it wasn't
in the stars as they as they'd say, and so
I probably, I mean, I figure I think i'd figured.
Speaker 2: That out at about fifteen.
Speaker 3: I was kind of looking around myself, looking around, going,
uh I played against a couple of future NFL guys
and you're kind of looking at them, going, Okay, that
looks a lot different.
Speaker 4: Yeah, uh so your dad, but your dad taught you
like you you did, you say, from an early age,
which not.
Speaker 2: Really, I mean, it wasn't.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like there was no there was no Warren
Buffett story. I was more into sports in terms of
a pastime. So I never operated a business. There were
little things that we did here and there to make
some money. I was actually always just very intrigued by
the stock market, and I don't know why. And it's
funny because when I now from where I'm at looking back,
I realized how bizarre it was, but especially for somebody
that young age. I was just mesmerized with the concept
of value, investing, investing in something that everybody had thrown
away and said is worthless. And and you know, realizing that,
wait a second, there's a substantial value here. So no,
I think that it's it's I think it is more
needed today than ever before, because I think that culture
has been taken over by you know, there's so many
ways that kids had inputs of information, right, whether it
was going down to the soda fountain and I'm now
I'm sounding really old here and I did, I'm not
old to have hung out, but you know what I mean,
there were there were these There were these environmental or
or cultural or community type touch points that you'd have
as a kid that just don't exist today. Right, Like so,
for instance, the neighborhood we just moved out of, uh
a wonderful place, but you drive through it, it's full
of families.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't see a.
Speaker 3: Kids play outside, right, And so the the information that
kids are interacting with and confronting is just is very different.
And you can see it like, for instance, nobody is
out there teaching people about compounded interest, right, We're we're
got you know this coin and that coin and mean
coins and everything is about you know, looking the part
and owning this and owning that and you know the
things that kids need to really be taught is again
all sound old, but understanding the difference between money and
cash flow, right, understanding the difference, and you have a
you have a pile of money here, but the question
you should be asking yourself is what kind of stream
of income.
Speaker 2: Can that pist?
Speaker 3: I love money generating, right, instead of thinking about nominal mounts,
thinking about generating cash flows or buying cash flows and
deep discounts, and also teaching them and anybody that is well,
I shouldn't say anybody. There's some people that skip the rules,
but like those are always exceptions. If you look at
anybody that achieves anything substantially financial, it always typically starts
with discipline, right, And what you try to do is
get those kids, and I've done it with employees and
other people in my family. Where you go, Listen, I
need you to quit seeing this as discipline and hard,
and I need you to start seeing it as your advantage. Right,
we want you to disconnect from the hard wire input
that culture's got in there telling you that you need
all these things and indebting you in the process understanding
what the credit.
Speaker 2: Bureau really is. Right, when you step back.
Speaker 3: And look at this consumer system, it's about modern usory.
It's about enslavement period, end of story. Right, your credit
score was I actually had to go back in and
open a couple additional credit lines so I could get
the best mortgage rate because I didn't have enough credit.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Right, So like but tangibly, when you talk to
your kids, like because you have three children, right, you
have three? Okay, when you talk to your kids, like,
do you how do you weave financial like all your
financial expertise into their daily lives? Like do you make
them get a checking account at a certain age? Do
you teach them about saving? Like that's because as a parent,
you know, I didn't have parents that taught me how
to do this stuff, and so I look now, I'm like, okay,
so we need to do better with our kids. Well,
we have two older kids, one is thirty five and
one's thirty and they're they're doing great, and they understand
how to save because we told them, don't make the
same mistakes that we made when we were young. So
they've learnt from our mistakes, and I think the fifteen
year old will do the same. But like from a
tangible day to day perspective, like what would you tell
a parent if they were new? How how do you,
you know, teach a kid about managing money? Should they
get a checking account at like twelve or something?
Speaker 2: How do you do that?
Speaker 1: And you should they even bother with like balancing a
checkbook or ey? Does that even matter anymore?
Speaker 4: Don't know what I mean? Right, You're right?
Speaker 2: Yah, Yeah, I'm a shamed to men. I haven't balanced checkbooks.
Speaker 4: It's been on me too, right Yeah.
Speaker 3: And my wife handles the bill paying and stuff like that.
So so I a few different answers here. I think
there's multiple different ways that you approach it, and I
don't think it's anywhere near as complicated as people think.
So with my own kids, honestly, I think the major
We actually had a conversation about it last night, and
I have a policy with them that as long as
I know that the information stays inside the house, we'll
be honest with them about anything financial.
Speaker 2: And there's two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there have been multiple times like last night where
my daughter goes, Dad, what's your net worth? And I'm going,
you know what, this is the last thing on earth
I want to tell her. You know, because it's a
business owner, you're network. Depending on how you look at it,
it can look one way or the other. But you know,
we made her that deal. And and I think that
that naturally makes the kids a little bit more engaged
because they know that they're going to get real information
and they try to synthesize it and things like that.
The other thing we've done with them is open them
investing accounts, so I think through thing called green light,
where we'll sit down and pick out box.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't do it super religiously at all.
Speaker 3: If we pop open the kid's stock accounts once a quarter,
But the whole concept was getting them to understand, you
know what I do.
Speaker 2: And like I said, the biggest thing, the biggest, number one.
Speaker 3: Thing that parents can do is point out the difference
between being in debt and owning assets. When I deal
with people, I've got clients who've got incredible levels of
financial sophistication, and I've got clients that don't and that
level of sophistication has very little correlation with their net worth. Right,
the number one correlated thing I see to our clients
with the highest networks are clients that avoided debt and
stayed out right, stayed cash rich. Right, they owned their assets,
their assets didn't own them. And there's so many different
reasons why that occurs.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: One of the biggest reasons why that's so advantageous is
when extremely good buying opportunities come along, i e.
Speaker 2: In recessions or i e. In economic problems.
Speaker 3: Because you're not levered, you can take advantage when everybody
else is just stuck like chuck because they're levered their income, right,
they're spending one hundred and twenty percent of what they make.
They're hoping they don't get a pay cuck, because they
don't how they're going to afford it that right, How
being unlevered is how you take advantage of these situations
and teaching them.
Speaker 2: Who hears all of these idio it's around you are
drowning in debt? Why to impress them? Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, but even like mock, when when I know when
your son went to college, like you have to sit
down with them and We do this with our youngest too,
more so probably than we did with the older ones.
But we sit down with them and we say, okay,
like kind of like what you say, you know, debt
and all that, but also like, this is what things cost, right.
I think a lot of kids don't even understand that. Like,
like my daughter asked me the other day, she goes,
what's a mortgage? And I had to explain that to
her and she's like, wait, so you don't actually own
your house? And I'm like, well, technically, and then we
need to get that whole discussion. But kids, if you
just if you tell them about the everyday tangible things
that are in your life. I think we've done that,
more so the youngest one, but she asks a lot
more questions and then it opens up the conversation and
then it becomes this discussion of what are you going
to be paying in rent? One day you're gonna have
to pay a power bill or you're gonna have to
pay a water bill. And she's like, you do you
have to pay for water? I mean, this is the
kind of bills right. And I know that you went
through that with your son too, Mary, when he went
off to college. It's like, here are the things you're
going to have to that actually are paid for you
right now, but you're going to eventually have to pay
for these things. And then it's you know, it's so you.
Speaker 1: Need to find a job that pays you at least
this amount. If you want a certain lifestyle, then get ready.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I had this conversation with a couple of young one
of my younger cousins and her friend, and we were
talking about the other thing too. To bring up to it,
and we were talking about with my daughter the other
night and this story I was about to tell you,
but also dating right, like who are you dating? We
were telling who you're around is the number one differentiator
of who you're going to become. Yes, And it's never
more true in your spouse. And I was explaining to
my daughter, is the money the most important thing?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No, Integrity, loving God, being a compassionate prison much more
important to us. But at the same time, I said,
you also need to be honest with yourself, meaning you've
grown up in such a way. Okay, so do not
expect that same lifestyle if you go if you go
to a guy that wants to work at middle management
at Luyte Tousch, right, like right, it's just not And
then for you to have those expectations isn't fair to
the spouse, which these dynamics cost.
Speaker 2: What we're probably over half of divorces in the count,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And and just having those anecdotal discussions and pointing out listen,
you know these these choices you're making, and whether you
understand this or not has such a big implication. And
also do you understand that you don't Everybody doesn't just
get born and slide into.
Speaker 2: A position like you're current.
Speaker 3: Right, this isn't guaranteed to you. Right, we live a
different existence. And what's funny is a lot of us
don't think we do. But if you start breaking down
like global averages, everybody listening to this podcast or probably
ninety eight ninety nine percent of you are in the
top three percent globally financially, right, yeah, yeah, and you know,
you break down the hard data, and that's going to
be where you're at. And just explaining to the kids,
like you guys said, what everything costs, what inflation.
Speaker 2: Is, right, the value of a dollar, hard work, you know,
just all these things, and.
Speaker 1: I don't think because prying yourself first.
Speaker 2: Right, bring yourself first.
Speaker 3: Yes, But the number one thing, like I just I'll
always go back to this is restraint. Do not spend
money that isn't yours to impress people that don't care about.
Speaker 4: You, right, agreed. I totally agree with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also understanding what millionaires really look like. I
tell this story one hundred percent of time, and I
had wonderful examples in my life. But you know we
currently now, we've got eighteen employees manage eight hundred million dollars.
People are like, you gotta spend money to make money.
I was rounding up all the initial clients from Bulwark
driving a two thousand and one Ford Focus Hatch back
forward or Yeah, with one hundred ninety.
Speaker 2: Thousand miles on it.
Speaker 3: Those people that say you need money, nonsense, it's a
substitution for work. Don't listen to them. Get out there,
buster your tail. The older people will actually be impressed
that you're not spending your money on that stuff because
game recognizes game right, right, and then you start attracting
the right people too.
Speaker 4: I love that advice.
Speaker 1: I love that absolutely love me, and you're going to
always have great advice and It's why it's so cool
that you do these regular seminars for folks. To the webinars,
I should say, so, how can people.
Speaker 4: Get in on that action?
Speaker 3: It is actually exceptionally easy, so you could. This is
code to Bulwark Capitalmanagement dot com. We got a prompt
that will pop up on the screen. Again, these are
free of costs. We don't twist any arms, run you
through our process. What we see are the risks out
there today as well as the opportunities. And if you're interested,
you can book appointment, talk to me or one of
our other advisors and if it works, great, you got
a client and you're not sending your money to Vanguard Blackrock.
That's another bonus, right, So yeah, I know your Risk
Radio dot com, Org Capitalmanagement dot com. Just google us
and we're not hard to find.
Speaker 4: Awesome. Thank you, Zach, Thank you ladies.
Speaker 3: Reservices offered through Trek Financial LLC n SEC Registered investment Advisor.
The opinions expressed in this program or for general informational
purposes only, and are not intended to provide specific advice
or recommendations for any individual orund any specific security. Any
references to performance of security so are thought to be
materially accurate, and actual.
Speaker 2: Performance may different. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed.
Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Track twenty four to
three zero