Stop Using Net Worth as a Scoreboard: The Real Way to Build Wealth | John Moriarty

Okay.

Ways people show off wealth.

Number one I'm gonna give you is real estate.

One through five.

Where do you put it on the list?

Four.

Not showing it at all.

Two.

Cars.

Five.

Watches.

Three.

That leaves private jets.

There we go.

That's your number one.

Oh, I, anybody that's got a private jet,

- Scott Leese: I'm with them.

I'll give them the clap any day.

Again, they could be the biggest douchebag in the world, but the fact is.

And I just wanna be friends with a person with fri - I don't

- Scott Leese: Yeah, I don't want the private jet.

Cause I know the finance

- Scott Leese: I want you to have a private jet so I can take advantage of it.

I want you to have one, Scott.

Yeah.

Intro Band: Lean in closer. This is your time.

Hit record on your crooked

life. What's your story?

(Hey!) Say the words out loud!

Mike & Scott gonna crack that crowd.

What's your story? (Hey!) Turn it up, let's go!

Every voice. Every scar.

Every road. What's your story?

Mike and Scott.

Let's talk.

Whoa, whoa.

Here we are.

Mike Lindstrom, my man, Scott Leese, "What's Your Story?" We're back.

We are so excited about this guest.

We have this term that we came up with, "FOMAS".

FOMAS.

Friends Of Mike And Scott.

FOMAS.

Not FOMO, FOMAS.

So what that means is friends of Mike and Scott, like our VIPs.

These are people who have come on our show before.

And Scott, you and I go, "Why the hell don't we bring them back," right?

Yeah, they've earned the right to come back.

Would you say today the guest has earned the right to come back?

I think he has.

Yeah.

What was the thing that really earned the right,

do you think, in this guest?

Probably, I'm always looking for somebody new to play golf with.

Oh, okay.

And he's willing to play golf.

As long as it's not too hot though.

Yeah, you, didn't you text him and he said, "Hey,

we're good for golf." And he goes, "Hey, man, it's like 10." Well,

To get him to play golf here in Scottsdale.

And he denied golf?

He did.

He did.

Oh, he's gonna have to answer that.

He's, he can't handle the heat, I think.

That's where he's from.

That's probably what it is.

But there's gotta be another

Midwest soft maybe.

I think for me, he's talking about a topic

that's so relevant for everybody.

Kids

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

Hopefully we're gonna get into that, like how we talk about

this topic with our kids, how we talk about it with our clients, how we talk

about it in our head, beliefs, right?

Beliefs, drive behaviors.

Yeah.

We're talking about money too.

Money.

Money.

Taboo or not?

Taboo.

So without further ado, I would say many titles

we go with this gentleman, Mr.

John Moriarty.

I would say author, friend, husband, entrepreneur, influencer.

He's getting into the influence game.

Yeah.

He also has the best hair of the three of us as well.

Yeah.

Huge supporter of the show though, by the way.

Yes.

Big keynote.

He was the first sponsor of our show, right next to NectarFlow, which is

our home base here as we sit here and record in Scottsdale, Arizona.

So without further ado, my friend, John Moriarty.

Gentlemen.

There he is.

Good to see you.

Get the applause going in the background.

There he is.

There he is.

So what, number one, what's been going on with you first,

and then let's get into your story because there's many people who have

not seen you before, but they want, they can go back to episode 32.

Yep.

32 goes into everything.

Your childhood, born and raised, family, kids.

So if you wanna hear his full life story, it's gonna be on episode 32.

But we're gonna get today more into, the business.

But what's been happening since you came on?

Since I came on, just, doing a lot of interviews after a couple

of those conversations went viral.

Couple of the

- Mike Lindstrom: I heard.

Conversations about the wine in the Vegas.

It's actually, one of our top three, I think,

most, viewed clips was your

- John Moriarty: You, when you just talk off the cuff… sometimes it works.

But family, son graduated college, started executive MBA program, daughter getting

ready for her second year of school.

Us, my wife and I trying to figure out what life's gonna be like with the kids.

Are they boomeranging back?

Are we sending them out into the workforce?

So that and just trying to build an empire and actually trying to figure

out this AI thing and how that, links into our business on the finance side.

So I've kinda went down that rabbit hole the last couple months.

It's been really exciting.

Hope we get a chance to talk about that a little bit.

So that's what I've been up to.

Okay, cool.

So there's a lot of people who maybe won't go back to episode, 32.

So let's give us the two-minute version.

Yeah.

We call it the elevator pitch of your life.

So give us a quick timeline where you're born and raised, how, and

bring us to current because we really wanna focus today on E3 Wealth,

how you built the business, what's your story around the company?

Yeah.

We did not talk about that last time.

No.

But we're gonna make sure we hit that today.

So give us the quick timeline.

Yeah.

Born and raised in St. Louis.

Same thing for my wife.

Raised our family there.

Started in the financial services business 30 years ago.

So that's the only job I've ever known.

Really not a job for me, more like just a way of life.

And, have built, our firm, E3 Consultants Group with E3

Wealth, E3 Tax, Transcend RIA.

I got a business partner down in Austin, Texas.

And, we're out talking about our book and also at the same time,

just trying to, build our firm and figure out ways to grow.

I'm doing a lot of work with entrepreneurs.

That's my passion.

And, as, Scott alluded to, play some golf on the sides.

I do play when it's hot, but I prefer non-hot, Arizona 120 degree days.

So that's me.

And that's the book right there.

If you haven't seen right in the front, check out the book.

We'll talk about promotions at the end where they can buy the book.

So Scott, I know you've, you've got a lot of questions, so

I'm gonna have to punt to you

- Scott Leese: Why?

…real quick because I know you go - you're fire-hosing it.

I'm not gonna wait on this AI topic.

We, and let me try to frame the question the right way.

One thing that I think consultants are running into, is, "Well, maybe I don't

need you anymore because I can get all the information I need from Claude or GPT

or whatever the LLM of choice is," right?

And I know a lot of consultants are really worried about the

future of their business.

Yep.

So my question to you is, are you worried at all about the future

of financial services and your consulting business because, I don't know, people are

like turning to GPT to get their answers.

Like I don't need John and his team.

I

- John Moriarty: Yeah.

…can just

- John Moriarty: So

…LLM this.

…am I worried?

No.

I'm actually excited.

And here's why.

I think the advent of AI, and obviously AI's been around for quite some time.

It's just not thrust in the forefront now with people

where they're going to it more.

And they're relying on it more in a way that they see the expert in the system.

Mm-hmm.

But I think what this does, and you guys, you and I were actually

talking about this a little bit before, Scott, is I think this heightens the

capabilities of the consultant to figure out that what I really need to do is I

need to connect with my client directly.

I need to understand them.

For me, when it comes to finance and money, I gotta understand the

client's relationship with money.

So it's more about who they are, not the system, not the process, not all these

things that I can create templates for and I can just run people through, right?

Like

- Scott Leese: Mm-hmm.

I think the business of consulting, whatever it is,

has gotten commoditized, right?

It's, I built this system and it works if you follow all these steps.

Yeah.

When it comes to money, [laughing] that's

not how things work, right?

There's so many variables that impact the results for people with money that

I think what AI is gonna do is it's gonna make people ask better questions.

It's gonna make people get a better ROI on their relationship

with their financial professional.

But I also think what it's gonna do for somebody like me is it's gonna allow me

to take all of my knowledge and build a better, final output for clients.

So I can create a higher level of analysis and proposals and strategies

and I can lay that out and I can educate it in a client-centric way.

If a client's visual, I can give them more great visuals.

I don't have to spend, 15 hours trying to create that.

I can get visuals in three minutes.

If I need somebody that likes to understand things in a very

detailed way, I can lay that out.

If they're kinesthetic, I can put the words in there that trigger them to say,

"Oh, you get me." So I love that because what it's gonna do is it's gonna free up

more of my time to spend with the client.

So it brings you back to the personalization

- John Moriarty: Yes.

Hyper personalization of everything.

Yes, because

- Scott Leese: And that client relationship.

I think it creates a level playing field for, the, the

huge firms and a firm like mine.

We can compete I can go upstream

- Scott Leese: Mm.

In a much more professional way, and then I can just turn to my

strengths, which is me building a personal relationship with you and

letting you know that I understand how you think, I understand your

relationship with money, and I can focus more in on building that relationship

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

And curating an experience that is customized.

Which is necessary because everybody's relationship

with money is totally different.

Absolutely.

We were joking earlier, Mike and I have a little bit different

parenting styles around money, let's say.

Yep.

So I'm very open with my kids, right or wrong.

They know what I earn.

If I close a deal, they'll be like, "How much was that?" And, they'll

say stuff like, "What's your net worth?" And I'll tell them, right?

And Mike was saying he had a similar conversation with his

kids, and he was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you need?"

Yeah.

Why are you asking?

What, what do you need that for?

They Google it.

That's the thing.

Yeah.

These kids go on Google.

We go to a nice high school, private school, and they can go on there and say,

"Former athletes." You can go right there.

"Hey, what's the net worth of so-and-so? "And it'll show a former

MLB or ML, but you take, the person like myself, an entrepreneur who has

a private entity who doesn't have public stats, it's not out there.

If you go and Google it, then maybe there's some records out there

that try to make a guesstimate, but your son comes home and asks

you," So, dad, what are we worth?

So that's a fair question, right?

Yeah.

So- the question is, I don't mean this from, the parenting perspective.

Yeah.

I'm, like, who's a better parent, which what you should

be doing or not doing, whatever.

I mean it in the sense of, the kids who are educated earlier

- John Moriarty: Yep.

Do you see them be more involved in the process

when you start working with them?

Do they end up with better outcomes?

Do they end up making better decisions?

Is there no correlation

Yeah, I - so

- Scott Leese: …to it whatsoever?

I - This is a great question, and I think this, this

kind of boils down to the origin of your wealth from a family standpoint.

So I look at it in generations, right?

So if you're a first generation, you've created the wealth, right?

Like your family didn't have money before

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

And now you've.

And again, it's all subjective, right?

What is rich or what is wealthy or what, sometimes it's not the amount

of money you have in a bank account, it's what the money can do for you.

But that's a mindset, right?

So for some people, I feel like the best thing you can do is you can create the

mindset for your kids to understand money.

Money should be thought of in an abundance category, not a scarcity category.

Mm-hmm.

Meaning that money is a tool, Money's not gonna buy you

happiness, but it could make that path a little easier, but you first

have to figure out what is happy.

Like what makes you happy?

'Cause we know a lot of people that have a lot of money, they're not happy.

We also know people that don't have money and they seem very happy, right?

So I think from a family perspective, educating your kids about money

and what it does, why you make it, why do you work so hard or why

do you save money a certain way?

I think that's an important conversation, but as far as like the actual specifics

and the net worth and, we have this real estate in Duke, that just depends.

To me, that depends on your ecosystem with your family and what are you

gonna do with that information?

To me, it's like

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

Well, why do you wanna know that?

My son asked, my son's in an executive MBA program right now,

and he's just, he's like a sponge.

He goes to class, he's learning things, and he comes home, and he just

peppers me with questions about things.

And instead of just giving him answers I say, "Well, why do you wanna know

that? If I give you this answer, what are you gonna do with it?"

Mm-hmm.

Because to me, just having information about money, like, knowing

your net worth, what is that gonna do?

You talk about investments, talk about stocks.

Okay, great.

They understand stocks, or why I would buy this or buy that, but what are

you gonna do with that information?

"Well, I wanna res - I, maybe I wanna buy stocks for myself, "or," Okay, let's.

" Just like I would with a client," Let's just not talk about stocks.

"It's like," what else is there?

" And before you, because you think," Oh, well, I'm young.

I wanna save.

I'll start buying stocks.

" Okay, if you buy those stocks, what are you gonna do with that money?

Is that money gonna be there for 60 years?

You're not gonna touch it?

That's one thing, but if, oh, is that money you're gonna use

because you wanna buy a car?

The timeframe might be a little off.

Yeah.

You just back it up and have that conversation.

So I try to teach kids or that second generation, just like I would

the first generation, they have the money, the kids wanna learn

about money, it's the same process.

So I think making them feel like they're adult.

Hey, this is an adult conversation.

Yeah.

Let's talk about

- Scott Leese: It's a good teaching moment.

I've had some people say, "Well, I don't want my kids to

know about money, or I don't wanna talk about. Some families don't talk about

money." I think the idea of restricting conversations about things, that's.

I don't judge, but to me, it's, I wanna have an open conversation,

but I wanna know the why.

Like,

-  Scott Leese: Yeah.

…what are you gonna do with the information when you have it?

Yeah.

That's the part.

And again, this is why I think AI is so important, because now I can go, I

can do really deep research on a lot of different topics and concepts and

I can pull them all together, but I have to have a goal or an objective.

If it's just to know things, great.

Then I'm a fun person at a cocktail party.

[laughing] Great, because I can.

I know all these things, but what does that do for me?

Yeah.

So that's where I think AI, for a lot of people, they look at it as a disruptor,

but what is it gonna disrupt and why?

If you figure that out,

I think you lean into it, even if you're in an industry that is going

to get possibly savaged by it.

Yeah.

I still think there's the potential, You gotta see what's next.

- if you're behind the curve and you're waiting, like with your kids, I'm

gonna wait to talk about money.

Okay, you can wait, but why are you waiting?

It all goes back to the why.

Yeah.

So moving from this fixed mindset around money to an abundance

mindset around money, that's actually a really hard thing for some people and

- Mike Lindstrom: Most people.

Yeah.

And probably one of the things that, I don't know, it's maybe one of the, the

biggest mistakes people make around money.

What is the number one mistake that you see people make around money?

Let's call it, the average person.

Yeah.

And then the number one mistake somebody

of the 1% wealth, let's say

- John Moriarty: Yeah.

Makes around money.

So I think the mistake or the area that kinda gets people

off track is when you look at money as a number on a piece of paper,

you look, you focus on a net worth.

Scoreboard.

Yeah, scoreboard.

You focus on the scoreboard.

And what ends up happening, I believe, for most people, they look

at that number and they, what they're always trying to judge is, "Am I

behind or ahead?" The scoreboard.

Yeah.

We'll have prospects that we talk to where people come in,

new clients, I always found it strange, but then now I've tried to kinda

turn around as they come in and say, "Well, you've seen a lot of clients

or you've worked with people like us.

How are we?

Are we doing good?

Are we doing…" [laughing] and what I always say is "Are, are you wanting me

to give you that objective information because you, you wanna know if strategies

that you're implementing are organized?

Are you just.

Are you wanting me to tell you

- Scott Leese: They want some validation maybe.

Where you are on the scoreboard."

Yeah.

And so I try to help them understand it's if that's

what you focus on, if your focus is external with money, you're always

gonna be chasing the scoreboard.

Mm.

Like there will never be enough money.

And then what the problem is when you.

And we've seen this, we have clients that are in their 70s

and 80s now, and they were.

Some of it was a generational thing, but they were always saving and they

were doing without, or not doing things, not experiencing things

because they're like, "Well, I gotta save that money just in case or for a

health or an emergency or whatever."

And then they get to a point where they built, for them, a substantial amount of

money, and they never got to enjoy it.

Mm-hmm.

And now they're trying to figure out, "Well, what do I do

with my kids?" And there are also normally some people that they didn't

have those conversations with their kids because scarcity mindset because I

- Scott Leese: Mm-hmm.

…don't wanna talk about money because with my kids,

what if they need the money and they know how much money I have,

now all of a sudden it's like

- Scott Leese: Yeah, tough conversation coming.

- John Moriarty: So

- Scott Leese: …they can come ask for it.

I think that's the thing is the scoreboard mentality, right?

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

You have to look at money as a tool.

And once people understand that, they start to factor in, "Well, as I make

money, now it's, what do I allocate it? What resources? Allocate it to lifestyle,

allocate it to emergencies, allocate it to the future, allocate it to things

that I wanna enjoy." for the 1%, I think it's the same thing, the score.

The numbers are bigger, but I feel like with the 1%, and it sounds crazy to say

they have the same mindset, they have the same scarcity mindset, but now they

go the other direction and they look at things where they say, "Well, I want this.

Like, I want my money to grow.

I wanna have all the different things.

I wanna enjoy it.

I wanna be the big shot.

I wanna you [laughing] know, I want people to look at me and say, You've arrived.

But then they also want to figure out ways, well, but I don't wanna pay taxes.

I don't, I wanna transfer the money and control it, so I don't want my kid.

So what they end up doing is they go from maybe creating wealth with abundance,

and then they shift into scarcity.

They box.

They re-box themselves.

So

- Scott Leese: interesting.

And to me, again, it just boils down to there's enough

ways with money and financial tools where if you have money, you can

create more money with less risk.

There are ways to do that.

But there's also ways that if you've created money and the purpose of that

money is to just keep doing what you've been doing, I wanna build companies.

I wanna invest.

I don't wanna sit still.

I wanna keep moving.

There's ways to do that.

And you can make your money work smarter, not harder, but that's strategy, right?

That's sitting down and having the conversation and saying,

"Well, what do you want to do?

Give me your objectives.

Here are strategies that can get you there, but there's different paths."

And I think people that don't think about money as, "Well, if I have

that money sitting over here and it's growing, well, I don't want it to take

risk, but I want it to keep growing."

It's like, "Okay, well, we need to have a conversation about what risk really

is, and also is that realistic?" "Yeah, I want, my money to be in the market when

the market's up, but I want my money to be out of the market when it's down." Okay,

well, that's a difficult thing to do.

And yeah, you think people in - the financial world get that right a lot?

No, they don't.

Most people, the smartest people in the world don't know that.

Now, they might have.

They might put their finger on the scale a few times, and they get,

their bet right, but they don't always get their bet right, right?

And you only hear about it when things go really well.

Or really bad.

Or really bad, right?

Yeah.

But it's all that stuff in the middle.

It's the daily grind of what they're doing and building things out.

So to me, when we sit down with clients, especially entrepreneurs, because I

love working with entrepreneurs because they're so different, but 80% of what

an entrepreneur does on a day-to-day basis is pretty similar, right?

That's not a glamorous life, [laughing] right?

It's the grind.

So If you know that about an entrepreneur, then you just focus on the 20% of,

what is it that gets them up every day?

What is it that they really like to do to decompress or enjoy?

And then how do you turn money into a tool that can help leverage that towards

you can do more of that or you can widen?

Maybe you wanna do that with you and your immediate family, but man, what

would it be like if you could, bring your employees or your top people into that?

Or what is it if you know, your community or

- Scott Leese: uh-huh.

I have these sets of friends that I grew

up with my entourage, right?

What could that look like if I could make them enjoy the

things that I'm doing, right?

People wanna do that, but they also wanna make sure if I do that today, I'm not

starting over 10 years from now, right?

So it's that balance and it's just constantly strategizing.

Yeah.

Go back to the, what Scott brought up about the communication.

I would love to hear three tips

That you would give parents out there about their teenagers, mostly teenagers,

the kids that understand money.

Yeah.

You said if, if you have a 15-year-old at home,

or I have two boys, you know that.

Here's three things that are absolute.

They, either they should be doing, that you should be talking about, or these

are must-have conversations you should have and have, what's your opinion?

So I'd say number one, and this isn't about just strictly money, this

would just be about, e- especially with kids these days and the younger generation

because they're all in their phone and you very seldom get to have a conversation.

So make sure that you are very pro, in getting your children to be inquisitive,

ask questions about anything, right?

To me, there's no question that's off limits.

Now, my answer to you may vary based on.

But get them to ask questions because then it becomes more of a relationship

where they know it's a safe space to ask questions because, if they

do that in their peer group, a lot of times, it's a different response.

So first thing is ask questions, especially with money be - and it's

okay if you don't have the answer, It's okay if your kid asks you,

"Well, why do you do this?" And you're like, "Well, I don't really know.

It's a good…" And maybe that helps from a family perspective.

So that would be the first thing.

Second thing would be is, I know some people try to teach kids about,

financial decisions and stuff.

Get them involved in different things, have a bank account, do different things.

I like the idea of, giving a kid a glimpse of what the real world is like.

Okay, let's open a bank account, let's put money in it, but then, the

things that we spend money on for you, it comes out of that bank account.

These are all the things that

- Scott Leese: Like, understand how much your phone bill costs or whatever.

Yeah.

Like, for example, me as an entrepreneur, me running my own business, my

kids do things for business.

They get a check.

That money goes into their bank account.

Now, they might also do other work, and that money goes into their

bank account, but then when they wanna spend money, guess what?

It's coming out of the bank account.

And multiple times, I've had to have the conversation more

with my daughter than my son.

It's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I don't wanna spend money, my money on that.

Like, can't you guys pay for it?" I'm like, " Do you realize where the money

comes from that gets, like, that's what's happening, but you don't like it when you

see your bank balance go down, do you?"

"No. ""Okay, well, [laughing] guess what? Adults don't like that either."

Yeah, we don't either.

What we gotta do?

We gotta go out and make more money.

Do we wanna spend money on those things when we have to fix something?

No, but guess what?

That's the real world.

So I think teaching them the idea of.

Everybody always wants to focus on making money.

Why don't we teach them about paying bills?

Mm.

' John Moriarty: Cause that's where they start to realize, "Ooh."

Yeah.

And then they start to get the, what a value of a dollar is, instead

of telling them stories like, "Well, when I was your age, this only cost that."

Oh, the balance of checkbook.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why don't we do it where it's like, okay,

well, here, you get to see now.

Like you go and make this at your part-time job, but now when you go and buy

these things and you see them come out and then we add it up, it's like, "Well, crap.

I didn't even.

I didn't do anything fun this month.

I spent, like, all my money.

Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it?

I'm like, "That's the real world."

So I think too, it's everybody wants to focus on the revenue side.

Let's show them the expense column, right?

That's a P&L.

[laughing]

Yeah.

You know, it's all fun on the revenue side.

Here's the expense side.

The third thing I would say is, I really feel when you talk to your

kids about their dreams or their passion, and at different ages, it all.

But, you know, if your kids play sports, it's, I'm playing all these sports.

I'm, playing competitive because I wanna play professional.

I wanna do whatever.

I always feel like having a realistic conversation with my kids about

whatever they're doing and helping them, like, hey, we're gonna help you

follow along with these dreams and things that you wanna do, but there's a

responsibility that goes with that, right?

The idea is, I wanna play all these different sports, or I wanna

dance, or I wanna horseback ride.

Whatever kids wanna do and say, okay, well, here's what that means.

And also, if we're gonna commit to something, we don't quit.

We're gonna see it through, and then If all of a sudden it's like,

I wanna, kids that are musically inclined, I'm gonna play the

violin or I'm gonna play the trump.

Okay, well, we have to go buy the violin.

We got.

Then you wa - you don't wanna do it anymore.

Okay, well, This costs this.

Now you don't want it anymore, so are we gonna sell it?

That's money that now you wanna play the trumpet or you wanna play the drums.

Okay, those things cost money too.

Just understanding that dreams aren't free, but also, there's a lot of things

that you can learn from that process.

And it shouldn't be, well, you can't follow your dreams.

It should be that dreams have a price.

Mm-hmm.

And if you're willing to pay the price, then the

dream actually becomes worth it.

And I feel like for a lot of kids, they don't feel like they can dream.

Nobody ever supports that, Like the real world for a lot of kids when they get

into real world, they feel like it sucks or it's oh, man, I gotta go to a job.

I gotta.

'Cause nobody's ever prepared them for, yeah, that's what, life is.

Isn't you just wake up and do whatever you wanna do, go hang out?

That's not what life is.

[laughing]

Yeah.

That's what you get when you're a kid because you're sheltered from

your family and we're giving you time to grow up and learn lessons and be ready.

There's nothing wrong with getting a little glimpse of that early on

and seeing like, no, it's a grind.

The people that make it, the people that you follow on social media, the people

that are out there that everybody wants to be, when they were your age, they

probably weren't doing what you're doing.

They probably weren't having near as much fun as what you were doing

because they were probably grinding.

Taylor Swift was probably sitting at home working on her craft.

She wasn't out having fun.

But for her, that might have been fun.

Yeah.

Writing songs, learning music, but that was

- Scott Leese: But she was working.

It was working.

Grinding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So to me, I think I talked about it last time, embrace the suck.

Like

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

Kids don't like things to suck.

And parents have a difficult time watching their

kids go through things that suck.

You talk.

We were talking about the snowplow,

- Mike Lindstrom: Clearing the way.

Topic.

Clearing the way.

Clearing the way.

We're all guilty of it, I think.

Yeah.

As a parent at some point in time.

But how much snowplowing are you gonna do for your kids to move

obstacles out of their way versus let them go through some of this?

It's a tough question.

Especially around money.

The snowplow thing is a concept they're talking about the media,

instead of like the helicopter parent.

Yep.

It's similar.

Like you're just cutting the path for your kid, so it's an easy path

relative to everything, money.

I just saw this the other day.

I heard the kids talking about a kid who's 17.

Oh, he's working at so-and-so.

And the way the kids were talking about the kid having a job, and he was working

like, as an attendant at our club.

It's a pretty cool job.

They were like talking about oh, he has to work because his parents don't have money.

It's kind of thing.

The implication.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

F- first of all, he has a free membership.

He has to work out for free.

Like the value of what he's getting

- John Moriarty: Yeah.

And he's working out is around a good environment.

And then it made me think, wow, it.

I wonder if my son feels that way, because he.

I don't make him work, but does he have a limiting belief around that?

Yeah.

Because to your point, it's on us.

Right.

When we were young, if you got a job, you're

like, " I got a job, man.

I got a job as an umpire.

$100 a game."

It's point.

It was a point of pride a little bit.

Yeah, I'm making money, baby.

Versus a status of oh

- Mike Lindstrom: He has to work.

It's a different thing.

Yeah.

If you come from a family that has scarcity mindset with money,

and I think our parents' generation was

- Scott Leese: They all had that.

Yeah.

And it was like me first, right?

Like I'm gonna figure it out for me and then I have kids, bigger family,

so it's like I gotta take care of.

So the scarcity was I have a limited amount of capital and I have to

spread it amongst a group of people and I gotta help them survive, right?

So now it's like with our generation, I believe the thought process is

we're gonna have an abundance mindset.

We still may have a limited amount of capital, but we're gonna

figure out how to leverage that.

We're gonna figure out how to make it work.

And I look at that, I talk about this idea of social capital,

like your network, who you know.

So what I'm trying to do now with my son, he wants to network and meet people.

And so what I'll say is, okay, I have friends, I know people, I can get you

a meeting, but that's all I'm gonna do.

So to me, it's like I'll.

From a snowplow standpoint, I'll shovel the steps, but that's it.

It's on you.

And we can debrief after it.

You can tell me how it went.

I can kinda say, "Well, hey, this is how person's connected." But

I'm not carrying that torch for you because number one, it's not my path.

Like I can't.

If I keep Plowing the snow for you, you're never gonna grind.

So I need you to grind now, but is it bad if I get him an

interview or open the door?

No, that's the whole point of building a business, creating a

successful network, is to be able to take that from the next generation.

That's why you do it.

It doesn't help to keep score if when I'm off the scoreboard, you're over.

You're done.

No, the second generation has to come in.

So for me, I don't feel like people doing things for their kids is bad.

It's really more about, okay, what's the end goal here?

I want my kids to stand up.

I want them to be more successful than me.

And not because, your parents had money, so that made it easier for you.

No, that's not, that's.

Number one, that's false.

A lot of people think that, but that's not true in most cases because, especially

with entrepreneurs, their capital is normally tied up and their business

- yeah, the kids have a better life, but the kids aren't swimming in money.

Yeah.

Like that's, there, there's a very small percentage there.

Yeah.

But there are the kids who have that mindset of, because they

get a nice car because that, and the other, the kid that's working there is

the attendant, that's taking the car and parking it and they're in the same

class or they go to the same school.

It's like, oh, well because he's working.

That kid is probably the one who will be wealthier.

Right.

Bingo.

Because he's probably making the connections with the

people that he parks the cars.

Yeah.

And there's probably a couple people that come in

and say, you're a hard worker

- Scott Leese: He's building relationships.

Rain, 120 degree heat.

Sure.

You're out here doing it.

That's the kind of kid they wanna hire.

He's got the hustle.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What, real quick, what about the don'ts?

Was your parenting out there and you're talking about what, don't do

this with your kids relative to money.

What are your don'ts?

Absolutes.

I try not to focus on the negative side of things.

I think when it comes to a don't, I think talking about the scoreboard.

I think talking about money in a way where, not that you can't share

numbers or anything, but talking about it as like a status, type thing.

If that's your thought process with money, that's your relationship, that's great.

But I, think that's a, bad way to get a kid start because then that

becomes the, oh, well, mom and dad, that's the way they think about money.

That would be my one don't.

I think with money, I've just always, with life, I've tried to have an abundance

mindset, so I never tried to think, what would be the, the, the no thing to say?

But that to me was, don't do the scoreboard.

Yeah.

Don't put it up there.

Talk on this real quick, because I know this is a deeper topic, but

I know you're exposed to some of the work that you and I've done is neuroeconomics.

Yep.

Scarcity, you're using a lot of words, scarcity, abundance, a lot

of that is a little bit of neuroeconomics.

Yes.

So give us like the quick what is it and then how you're using it

and teaching it with clients because a lot of people don't know what that is.

Yeah.

But neuroeconomics or behavioral finance is another term that's out there.

It's just, understanding people's relationship with money, how they think,

how they communicate, how they behave when money's in the decision making, process.

And for us, the easiest example I can use is the concept of loss aversion.

So people have a direction they normally go when it comes to money and talking

about loss of money, meaning that there are people that give more value or

think or put more emotion into losing money than they do when they make money.

If I make 10% on my portfolio, I like that, but also I have an expectation level

that's what my money's supposed to do.

Now, if I lose 10%, I feel it more.

I don't like that.

And so I start to worry, maybe I start to make decisions in a certain way.

So this idea of loss aversion is where people think that, my money can

only make money, it can't lose money.

Or if I'm putting money in places and it loses money, that somehow I have to make

radical decisions to change that when in actuality, making money and losing money

is part of an economic business cycle.

Like you, you just don't always make money.

So I think loss aversion is probably one of the biggest things we focus

on with people is understanding their relationship with money and saying to

them real simply, what is gonna hurt you more if you are in the market or

in an investment and you lose 10% or you're not in an investment, so you

sit it out and that investment makes 10%, which one are you gonna feel more?

And it's an interesting conversation because some

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

Because either way you go, it's not ideal, right?

Like some people

- Scott Leese: Yeah, it hurts a little bit either way.

Right.

I'm thinking about it right now and going, "Well,

they both would kinda hurt."

Me too.

Me too.

Yeah.

It's like, well, yeah, I missed out on this.

Okay.

A perfect example is I had one client one time come in, this was before

Amazon became the juggernaut that it is.

But when it was really going vertical before it just went stratospheric and

a client came in and he was basically like, "Yeah, we, been researching stuff,

talking to some people and looking at different things in our portfolio

and just really upset that we don't have certain stocks in our portfolio."

And they mentioned Amazon.

I said, "Okay, well, what are you saying?

Well, look at, look at how much it's done and, you know, and if we

would've been…" They saw some "If I'd

have put $10,000 in.

So I said, "Okay, great." I said, and I did.

I pulled up the chart for Amazon and I pulled it up and basically, I can't

remember exactly, but it was like from 2011 to 2021, Amazon stock was like this.

It was like flat.

And then it went to the roof.

So I said, "So if we would've bought it when that,

Yeah.

… John Moriarty: quote happened, that would've meant that we would've had

meetings for 10 years and you're telling me you would've been happy

that thing didn't move a muscle?

You would've been okay with it?"

Yeah.

Absolutely not.

You would've sold it, you wouldn't told me to sell it or whatever.

You would have said, why am I doing this?

And then what happens?

You sell it and then boom, it goes.

So I said, " It's great to look at that stuff and see, but the people that make

money in those types of things have a conviction or a belief that no, I

gotta be in this for the long term."

So anybody that tells you that, "Well, I made so much money when this was

here," or whatever, they were in that when somebody else was in another stock

or another company and that company was going great and they were like, "Oh, do

I sell?" And you're like, "No, I, I…" So it's the conviction and the belief.

And somebody that says, "I wanna Monday morning quarterback that decision."

Yeah.

You just have to bring reality back to it, because

that's not how money works.

And most people don't see that.

The entrepreneur, I think, understands that better than most because they're

the ones that when they get a liquidity event, everybody's like, "Oh, wow,

your company made all this money."

Yeah.

It might have taken them 25 years to get to that point.

Yeah.

And they also probably spent the first 10 years off of like a $70,000 a year

- Mike Lindstrom: Exactly.

Salary that they were paying themselves.

So it's understanding that journey to get to that point.

And again, most investors, they don't see that.

So hopefully, from a neuroeconomic perspective, you

can have that conversation.

Say, do you know what it takes to be a good investor or to make

money?" And sometimes it's patience.

Sometimes it's belief.

Sometimes it's just time.

Yeah.

Let your money work for you.

Yeah.

Blindly rate these five ways people show off money.

I'm not gonna tell you what the five are.

Okay.

You gotta place them one to five.

One to five?

Okay.

One to five.

One to five.

Five to five.

You don't know what's coming next though.

Okay.

Ready?

Ways people show off wealth, from good to bad, whatever it means to you.

Okay.

Is number one the worst

- Scott Leese: Number one is the best.

Oh, the best we

- Scott Leese: The one you think is like the coolest or the

- John Moriarty: Oh, okay.

So I'm going

- Scott Leese: okay.

I'm going like, I like this.

You like that one?

Okay.

So that's number one.

Yeah.

Highest.

You got it?

I'm listening.

Okay.

Ways people show off wealth.

Number one I'm gonna give you is real estate.

One through five.

Where do you put it on the list?

Four.

Not showing it at all.

Two.

Cars.

Five.

Watches.

Three.

That leaves private jets.

There we go.

That's your number one.

Oh, I, anybody that's got a private jet,

- Scott Leese: I'm with them.

I'll give them the clap any day.

Again, they could be the biggest douchebag in the world, but the fact is.

And I just wanna be friends with a person with fri - I don't

- Scott Leese: Yeah, I don't want the private jet.

Cause I know the finance

- Scott Leese: I want you to have a private jet so I can take advantage of it.

I want you to have one, Scott.

Yeah.

Because to me, but that, that worked out well.

- Scott Leese: You did good on that.

Yeah.

You did good.

And I put real estate down, not because I'm bagging on real estate, but I

know what it means to have real estate in different pla it's not as easy.

It's some work.

Yeah.

I have real estate in three different states.

Yeah.

It's not easy.

It's great when you're there, but at some point, very few

people, when they buy that real estate and they have multiple places, do they

end up holding onto those where like it goes to the kids and everything

else because you realize nah, I don't.

But it's nice to have when you have it, right?

You like to say, "I got this place in Vale or I got this place

down in Florida," or it's great.

But then it's like, how often are you there?

Like you, you have to put the time and energy in to actually go to those places

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

And spend your time there.

And that sometimes is difficult.

It's really difficult, actually.

Very emotional purchases in a lot of cases.

Good question.

So I have two things I wanna hit before we wrap up.

Okay.

Is number one about, E3 Wealth.

So you're not just St. Louis.

So we have some Arizona.

We have some friends from Texas.

Austin area.

Yeah.

Texas.

Talk a little bit about how that came to be and your partner

brag on him a little bit.

Yep.

And then we're gonna wanna talk about the book.

Yeah.

Joe Cartucci, my business partner, co-founder, managing partner of E3 Wealth.

I'd known Joe for many years, just being in the same financial services circle.

And then in 2013, he was looking at kinda going in a different direction.

And I just said, "Hey, what would it look like if we kinda joined up and

you kinda flew the E3 colors and, joined forces, created E3 Wealth

as a brand and an actual firm.

And then, have just been looking at ways to kinda grow that business

model, expand into different cities.

Got, between the wealth and tax side, we probably have 70 advisors, staff,

team members, and, work in basically all 50 states now with virtual and oversee

probably about 1.5 billion in assets.

We're still grinding on a daily basis, but it's been a fun journey.

And, that's actually what kinda led us to write the book.

In 2018, I made a, statement out to everybody in the firm that I was, I

wanted to switch my focus from working with individuals and families on

retirement planning, just normal financial stuff, to working with entrepreneurs.

I don't know why I did it at that point, but I was like, "I have a passion for

this. I love working with entrepreneurs, and I wanna figure this out."

Didn't have a plan, didn't have a marketing agenda.

I just said, "This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put my energy towards it." And,

since then, have kinda built out the tax firm to do more wealth and tax planning,

built out kind of a family office with business owners and entrepreneurs.

And we decided that we needed something that could encapsulate our

strategies, our mindset, like, why are we good to- work with entrepreneurs?

So that's where The Entrepreneur Playbook

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Came out of.

And I would say all the years I've known you, that's

the one thing that you've shifted my belief on massively is I don't

look at the revenue side anymore.

I don't look at that at all.

My first filter is taxes.

Mm-hmm.

Where can I do things legally, ethically

- John Moriarty: Yep.

As an entrepreneur, number one.

Yep.

I still wanna look at the top line and do all those

things, but I know that's probably a big takeaway in that book.

Any other big takeaways

- John Moriarty: Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

- Mike Lindstrom: …in here?

Yeah.

So I would say one of the things we talk about in the book is,

there's 7,000 pages in the tax code.

When you add in all the, ancillary regulatory things and explanation of

things, it's more like 70,000 pages.

And yet, most people look at the tax code as like an inhibitor,

like a gatekeeper to wealth.

They're there to make me not make money, not grow, not be abundant.

When in reality, you should look at the tax code as basically

for investors, a series of incentives to drive your behavior.

Because the tax code tells you if you put money here, four main

assets, business ownership, real estate, paper assets, commodities.

So you wanna put money into those different asset categories, the tax

code will tell you, "Well, if you invest it this way, we'll create incentives."

So what we've basically tried to do is take what we know from the wealth side

of things, now bring the tax piece and then elevate it to really more of an

educational platform to where we can.

And again, I do a lot with entrepreneurs, but The tax code is

way more beneficial for business owners and entrepreneurs because they

create more wealth in the economy.

Employees, W2 folks, there's a path there.

There's just less incentives, right?

So it's not that it's bad or you can't be wealthy or have money if you're a W2

employee, you just have less tools, right?

Less levers to pull.

So that's why we work with the entrepreneurial side because

they can then help hopefully their employees and their teams.

And it wasn't even really a labor of love because, it was just a compilation

of all these different things.

And we just had to figure out how to put it in book form.

And then myself, Joe Cartucci, and one of our CPA senior partners, Mark Schreiber,

we all co-authored the book because we felt like we needed three voices there to,

bring all of it, together and,- Love it.

Yeah.

So we're excited.

So what is E3?

The three E's are education, empower, enlighten.

So that's

- Mike Lindstrom: And the tagline is?

Think differently.

Which means what to you?

Realistically, challenge the status quo as to how

Americans are educated about money and finance related decisions.

That's our why, that's our purpose.

So when you say think differently, it's like, think differently about

money, but what does that mean?

It's challenge the status quo.

I feel like with money, when you meet somebody that you can hear them talk

about money and what they're doing, and you're just like, "She understands

what she's doing." "She doesn't have any fear." "She doesn't worry

about these things." I think that's because, they've been in The Matrix.

They figured out, [laughing] they got their own brand and neo working

for them, and all of a sudden it's yeah, I'm not gonna worry about that.

Are there things that are in my control?

Yes.

Are there things that are out of my control?

Yes.

I'm not gonna focus on my time and energy and the things that are out of my control.

I'm gonna focus.

So the tax code, whether you believe it or not, is actually in your control.

Yeah.

It's right there.

It tells you what you can do.

So work within that framework and then help hopefully mitigate the

things that are out of your control.

Love it.

Good stuff, Aman.

Yeah, he's talking about the people who talk

about money, seem super smart.

And I'm thinking, "Yeah, that's how I feel talking to John."

That's why we hang around.

I'll take that.

That's why we hang around.

That I'm trying to get him on the golf course for four or five hours straight.

I'll be there.

Yeah.

I love it.

John, first of all, thanks for coming in, all the way from St. Louis, Missouri.

We really do appreciate that.

And also, we really appreciate your belief in the show and being

a big supporter of the show.

Absolutely.

And things we've talked about off camera,

I don't think that would suck.

So thanks again, John, for coming in.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thanks everybody for joining us on another episode of

What's Your Story with Mike and Scott.

I'm Scott Lease.

This is my good friend, Mike Lindstrom.

Thanks to our guest for joining us today.

Make sure you follow them on all the social platforms.

Make sure you follow us on all the social platforms as well.

And check out whatsourstorypod.com for future episodes, past episodes,

upcoming events, along with, a way to follow our newsletter.

Big shout out to our friends at NectarFlow who host us here in studio,

and we will see you next time on What's Your Story with Mike and Scott.