Do you spend 12 years getting up getting an education in either public setting or a private setting. And then you might spend four or five more years in college, you graduate, and you spend all that time in school, and not yet. Nobody taught you money skill sets. Nobody taught you how money works, then you get a job, make more money than you probably ever made. And all of a sudden, you're may have to make decisions that you've never made before. And you make a lot of mistakes because you're on a steep learning curve about how money actually works.

So you're learning things on the fly through practical experience to making mistakes, do some things that did work, some things that didn't work, and you're reading articles that are based on pop culture finance, and I call it pop culture finance because it's what the society believes to be true when it comes to the financial services industry, which includes Wall Street mutual funds, mutual fund companies, insurance companies, And what they do is they make they oversimplify everything. And they say, Okay, if you do ABC and D, then you're going to get e. And they make it sound like it's a guaranteed thing. It's it's a, it's a, an absolute truth is unarguably, you can't even argue it. So so absolutely. It's such an absolute truth. Well, the reality is there's only one absolute truth when it comes to money.

There are no absolute truths. It's only opinions and only time will say, yeah, that was right. And that was wrong. But it's in even then, a strategy that was proved to be right over time, may not be right the second time around. So it's all about understanding opinions, and understanding information, and being able to interpret I talk about interpretation of information that you get all the time throughout this course. Because I think it's important to be able to understand, okay, this is something that I agree with when it comes to pop culture, finance, and there are things that I agree with when it comes to pop culture, pop culture, finance.

I don't agree with is that it this the gospel that it's absolute truth. And that is something that had that works every time because there's nothing that works every time. That's why a high degree of flexibility that you have to have. So one of the things I want to be able to show you is what pop culture finance says about money, so that you can go so you can decide for yourself what it is you agree with, and understand it's not a universally accepted truth. So where did all these beliefs originate? Well, they they originated from the industry, the financial services industry, and how do how does the industry make money by selling you products, you got to realize is that when you're sitting in front of an advisor, that you're in a sales situation, and for some advisors, probably most advisors, they're ethical, want to put your your best interest ahead, but then there's the group that doesn't there's the group that's money motivated.

And so a lot of these beliefs support the industry, making money and not probably not in the best interest of you as the investor. Now, there's some definite objectives of pop culture finance, you can see here on the board, and I'll just talk through a few of them. Pop Culture finance does not want you to think they just want you to, to follow these beliefs and just kind of do as they say, because if you start to think about it, then you might make decisions. If you make decisions, then you might actually take your money out of their product. And if you took their money out of your out of their product, then they don't make money. Now, I'm not trying to be cynical, or maybe I'm more cynical about it, but it's I've just seen too many times we're brokerage companies and investment.

Investment houses have ripped off people. I was talking to somebody just the other day, he brought in an annuity that someone an advisor had shown him, and that annuity was presented in such a way that it created many different or the wrong impression. So here He was getting one thing, but he was not actually getting another. This happens all the time. So you got to be you got to be aware of this and be aware of that this is a sales process. They encourage you not to pay attention to john Bogle.

The guy that I have a lot of respect for is the founder as a wall street legend. He's founded Vanguard mutual funds, I think back in the early 70s. And he was on set. I've had him on my radio show a couple of times. And he was on CNBC during the financial crisis. And he says, as the advice that he gives, is that just don't look at your statements.

Don't pay attention. Just wait till this is over with and then look at your statements. I thought that was a very, very bad advice, especially during an investment meltdown. You should be looking at your statements determining if you're taking too much risk, determine if you need to cut back on risk, and determine if you need to make changes. It's just fun. It's just fundamental when it comes to investing that you do that And then to blur the line between opinions and facts.

As the neck goes back to the Absolute Truth, they want you to believe that this really is an opinion, this is the way it works. And this is this is a fact. The and this is this is a big one right now the investment costs are one of the most important aspects of investing is real interesting. And I and I get into great detail about this on another course. But it comes down to low cost, I'll put it this way to keep it very general, it comes down to low cost investing versus higher cost investing is really what it comes down to. And their argument is, is it the higher cost investing can never outdo the lower cost investing.

So why not just do the lower cost investing? Well, the problem is, is that if you really dive deeply into that, that theory is that the lower cost of investing is taking way more risk. In most cases, then the higher cost investing. So for instance, you have they do this often argument using index funds where the the they have low cost and they just follow an index like the like the s&p 500 or something like that. And so you're starting to see more and more 401k plans populated with just index funds and dot and I got to thinking what about the conservative investor that doesn't want to take all that investment risk? What's in it for them?

And there's there's that's that active that higher cost investing is going away because the industry is making such a big deal out of low cost investing. And that's really not the that's not the point. And I get it I think it's that's very important. A course to watch and learn from because it this what they're pushing right now. Now, let me say what I'm not saying that they're wrong, that they're just I'm just saying they're just not absolute truth. They don't work all the time.

Every one i'm not saying everyone in the industry is self serving, and it's just about making money. There's a good bit that are I mean, you hear reports of, of brokerage houses doing some very unethical, unethical things. And I know a lot of great financial advisors, some are commission based, some are fee based and they take care of their clients and they do the right thing. There are good people, you just have to be able to determine who is following the pop culture out and in and who's not. You make sure that that you're that you're being taken care of and you're protecting yourself. Let's start let's talk a little bit about some of the more common pop culture beliefs.

And I got to start with the first one that just really drives me crazy is that is the saving part. And what the what they say is that the you'll see article after article, if you just save 15% then you'll be able to get to retirement and have a million dollars and you'll you'll be able to take this amount of money out is that easy. Just save 15% Well, it's a little bit more complicated in to that Yeah, you have to save money to get to get it to get an account funded. But it's about investments, how the investments do. It's about managing those investments per risk. It's about monitoring your progress and tracking your progress.

But if the everyday person that's trying to get a financial education continues to read over and over and over and over again, that all you have to do is save money, and you're good. That's not that's not the correct message. And then there's time. They they talk about you can't time the market. Let me give a definition to what that really means. Timing the market means that if you're at the top before you go back down, that you pick that top and you get out where you made the most money.

Consequently, the if you're if you've lost a lot of money, you're at the bottom and then the market starts to go back up. Then you time that bottom you get back at the right time, and you write it back up again. Well, I would agree it's tough to time at top in the time of bottom, but it is not but Timing is not you looking at your portfolio and saying, you know what I'm, I have 70% of my money invested in stock funds. I think I'm not comfortable with that and I want to only have 30% so I'm going to sell these and I'm going to put it in cash. That's called risk management, you're not trying to time the market, you're managing for risk, but they call that they lump everything any changes, remember they don't want you think they they they love all those changes into and call it market timing, which is just not accurate.

Buy and hold. Now, I could go along with buy and hold, buy and hold just just to give a definition of that. That is where you you invest for the long term, you set up a portfolio you put your money into it and you don't touch it, you buy it and you hold it no matter what the markets doing. I you know buy and hold with a with a strategy for risk can work. And so I agree with some of the the aspects of that, but they think that the only backup the problem with buy and hold is Simply this and this is what they don't really tell you is let's say that you're 20 years old. And for the next 40 years you just bought and you held well over a 40 year time period, you're probably going to do pretty good.

But you'll have gone through periods where you went up, then you lost a lot of money, then you went, you're gonna ride that roller coaster, but you probably overall did pretty good. Now what's happening I think about the psychology of this, what's happening is that that in that investor is learning that buy and hold is the preferred way to invest. And so they get to the point where they need the money and they continue to buy and hold and they get into a mark a bad market. The market goes down on them, they lose half their money, because they get they have in the back of their mind will buy and holds always work. I've got four years of experience. It says buy and hold works.

Why isn't it working now because you're taking money out and you need it. And so we saw a lot of this but in the 2000 tech bubble between 2000 2002 there's a lot of people retiring in 2000 right at the top of the market. And they they held all the way down through that declining market lost a lot of money. Mineo had to go back to work. And then the other one, invest aggressively. If you're young, they preach this all the time.

They say, you know, if you're in your 20s, you should be as aggressive as possible because you have time on your side. So in other words, if you make a lot of money, then you lose half of it, you've got time to make it back up. I always look at this way. There's two takeaways. First of all, you invest a lot of money when the risk and reward ratio looks good. And what I mean by that there's a ratio that you measure risk.

It's a low risk, high reward. That's when you want to invest. You don't want to invest when the risk level has risen this high and the potential for reward is this low. I would apply that to someone who's 20 versus someone who is 80. It's a principle I think it's important to, to follow. Having said that the millennial generation It just goes to show you that pop culture finance does not understand the the millennial generation because the millennial generation is risk averse as a whole.

They don't want to be aggressive with money. And yet, that's what they're being told to, to be to be aggressively invested because of their age. Low Cost investments. I've talked a little bit about this already. But this is a big trend in the industry right now. And a big thing that pop culture finances hitting home.

And so I would encourage you to, to really listen to and study the teaching course I did on that because I think it's important for you to know. Now, here's the thing about pop culture finance that I see all the time with people that I talk to, is that what they do? They listen to they read something, and then they go, Well, that sounds that makes sense. And you know, maybe maybe they're listening to maybe they're listening to to one of the popular stock investment shows, and one of the commentators says, you know, XYZ stock is a great stock. This is the reason why. And so you're watching and you go, Well, that makes sense.

XYZ stock. And yeah, I think I'll put some money into XYZ stock. So you're talking to a friend and the Franco's Did you invest in XYZ stock gonna go Yeah, it goes, why'd you invest into it? Well, because so and so on CNBC said it was a good deal, I couldn't really tell you that much about the company. And what you're doing is you're renting your beliefs, because you don't own them if you owned your beliefs. And this is kind of how you this is kind of how you battled pop culture, finance.

If you rent your beliefs, you're just you're just believing the same way someone else did. I would you know, I see a lot of things on the radio and I hope people challenge what I say in their own minds and in no in determine for themselves that they either agree with me or they don't disagree with me or they agree with me, with some slight different changes. they own their beliefs. That's the thing about pop culture finance, they just want you to believe certain things. And most people do go along a lot of long term investor. But I'm not real comfortable, you know, holding my money in investments when a downturn.

And but but I'm a long term investor, so I have to stay invested. They, they, they can't tell you why they believe that way. And this is a real problem, as we learn on the fly as we try to get financial education is that we're renting a lot of beliefs instead, as opposed to owning those beliefs. And, and knowing the pros and the cons of why you're in that in that investment and while you're making that decision, but it is the antidote to pop culture finance, if you go Okay, let me let me see if I agree with that. Let me see what the pros and cons are, and determine where I stand on that. And that way you make better decisions.

And I'll tell you what you can. There's a lot of things that go into making you successful long term financially and being an effective decision maker. is one of them. And the only way you can do that is by owning those boys. Something else too, about running beliefs is that everybody's got a little bit of agenda tied to their beliefs. And some of those agendas are positive and not hurtful.

But some of them are really agendas that support something that there's not not good for you. So you got to realize that as well when you're thinking about whether you own or you're in a belief, now let's talk about some things to be successful with money. And this is these, these are going to be covered thoroughly in the course, if I want to give you an idea of the things that I think that it takes to be successful with money. Some of them we've already kind of covered, have a plan B. This is what's interesting about the mutual fund industry, they've got a plan a plan A is when the market goes up. The problem is plan.

The market doesn't always go up. And I did a whole teaching course that I think you'll really benefit from I did a whole teaching course. on how the stock market really works. In fact, I would even suggest some financial advisors don't know that information, but how the markets naturally cycles, and you got to know what kind of environment that you're in at any given time. So if the market stops going up, and it starts going down and goes down a lot, you got to have a plan B, what most people do is they just say stay in Plan A, not when they need to be in a plan B, they, when they need to be in a plan B. Think for yourself that goes back to the owning your own beliefs and not renting the the police know the pros and cons and learn how to be an effective decision maker.

I think those go hand in hand, as I said, about being a decision maker, not everybody's got that skill set. And if you don't have that skill set, maybe it's something that you should work on, because you've got to make good effective, a good effective decisions when it comes to money. And that's the problem is that there's a lot of times where you need to be making decisions and you're not making decisions which Incidentally is making a decision. By the way, I was surprised in looking looking this up the the volumes of books that are written to teach effective decision making. I mean, it is it is something that not everybody is good good at doing. But making an effective decision is about knowing the pros and the cons of studying it and figuring out where you stand on it, and making sure that it fits your values in your goals.

Have a plan? I don't know what the percentage is. But I would guess that 90 something percent of America does not have a financial plan. 90% don't don't know. If they're going to retire. I've I've had people come into my office and they'll sit down very discouraged.

And they'll say to me, you know, that's what I wanted to come and see and get some counsel because I'm just never going to retire. You know, really what's what's going to keep you from retiring. I don't know. But I know I just know I'm not gonna retire. And we'll sit there we'll go through their investment. We'll go through Social Security payments, all that kind of thing, their expenses.

And I'll show them that, yes, you can retire at some point. But they don't know it because they don't have a plan. They don't know if they're ahead or behind. They just assume that that they're behind. And having a plan, if I could impress one thing on your having a plan, a game plan that shows you where you should be at the end of each year, and I talked about this on the teaching courses, but showing you where you need to be is so critical. You know, I'll give you a good example.

If I went up to somebody and I said, Why are you putting money into your 401k plan? And they'll go ruska retirement. Now specifically, why are you doing if you had a plan, you'd be able to say, Well, I'm specifically investing into my 401k plan because I want to retire at age 65. And I know that I need X amount of dollars, and I know I need to make X amount per year. And I know that I can take out this amount of money at age 65 and it will last me for this long. That's it Plan, that's a great answer.

Monitor your results. You know what the basic formula for investment Success to me is, you save money, invest money, you manage that money for risk, and you monitor your results. And this is I've already mentioned it, but this is so very important, you should know where you are at any given time, commitment to education. So very important. And that's, that's why I spent this time talking about pop culture finance so that you can know really what's, what's self serving beliefs, and what's real good financial education, understand pop culture, finance, I think we've done a decent job covering that develop the ability to interpret results. Very, very important skill set to have you got to be able to look at a result and go well, that's, that's great.

You know, I'll give you a good example. As long as you're making money in the investment account, then you're probably okay. So let's say that you're making a little money every month, and you're happy with that. But reality we made about a 2% return and you needed a 6% return so you're falling behind your goals, got to be able to interpret that. Yes, I'm making money but I'm not making enough or, or am I taking too much risk, the ability to interpret, we talked about this in the courses it's very important to finally keep emotions control, money in investments, very emotional, emotional pact process that you go through making decisions interpreting results, and you got to be able to make decisions, not through the lens of emotion, but from a, you know, used took a took a step back and really rationally looked at it, and then made a decision.

Emotion feel decision making is most of the time is going to end up being a mistake. So you always want to keep your emotions in check. And if you're if you're a person who gets emotional when it comes to money, Notice about yourself and notice stop yourself to make good rational decisions. Pop Culture, finances everywhere. They're telling you how to think they're telling you how to believe. And you've got to get to a point.

First of all, I think now you can recognize it. But you got to get to a point to where you're making your own decisions based on your own values, the support habits that support your future financial success.