[Ep. 379] Balancing Wealth and Well-being with Mick Heyman

Jessica 

So, first and foremost, let’s dive in. You really do have I mean, you have a lot of credentials. You’ve been in the business for over 40 years. Is that correct?

Mick 

Right, nearly.

Jessica 

Oh, wow. And I mean, I got the sense of that from reading your book and you mentioning that. I mean, you were working in the industry when like lack was a Black Monday happened to the.com Yeah, I mean, you’ve seen some things.

Mick 

Seen and suffered through a lot. I enjoy some good things.

Jessica 

Yeah, there’s always some good things after the bad things. I mean, that definitely gives you some perspective but it was it was actually really nice reading through the fact that you were able to live through those and inexperienced those like on you know, in your career, but also personally, it I mean, I think the main part of your book, which is to kind of just, you know, chill out everything kind of works out and to not freak out is really helpful having that perspective of someone who’s I’ve seen a lot like the headlines that say this is the worst time ever. And then oh, they say that again every couple years.

Mick 

And have been saying it.

Jessica 

And they keep on saying that. Exactly, exactly. So I’m curious. So you worked in a number of different roles, and you’re still working in the industry, what do you currently do, because I know before used to work, kind of on the equity side of things, you, you know, helped manage people’s portfolios you still currently do that has a role kind of evolved over your, the span of your career,

Mick 

it certainly has been a bit almost in a circle, as I started off with a very small firm working with individuals, and kind of learning from, you know, four partners who were kind of combined and very different personalities. And it was kind of fun to learn from each of them. And then over time, I loved working with individuals, but got a great job working for an institutional firm. So there we’re managing sometimes hundreds of millions, or even a billion dollars for large, either universities or corporations, unions, all kinds of different institutions. And then 1980 1981, sold the business was a partner there, and eventually traveled out here to California, and fell in love with it with my, with my young family at that point, and kind of circle back to working with individuals again. And this time I’m on my own. So kind of trying to have the all those voices of my past helping me out, managing people’s money. In San Diego here.

Jessica 

What made you want to kind of go back to your your roots and work with individuals again, especially since I don’t know, I’m guessing that if you were to stay more on the institutional side a little bit more lucrative, you know, you can only make so much money working with individuals like what made you want to go back to working one on one with people?

Mick 

I just love that I love the relationships. For me, that’s the, that’s part of the fun of the business is just working with people and seeing them, you know, kind of evolve and grow over time as I grow with them. And so some of the clients I work with, I’ve worked with for 30 years, some of them I worked with, even in the institutional years, I kind of had a few individual clients that helped start the firm. And, you know, I think I feel like I make more of a difference when I’m making working with individuals. And you know, institutions have a lot of different choices, and they’re working with consultants. And I’m not saying it’s bad business to work with them, they need help, too. But for me, the fun of life is working with people I know and can can work with over a long period of time.

Jessica 

Now the question is, is especially to since you’ve worked with some of these people for a few decades, has your advice changed over time? Or your approach changed? Or has the you know, kind of issues or struggles that these people have with or their finances their investments? Has that changed? Or has is it just kind of we’re always on the same ride? Same ups and downs, but just you know, different decade?

Mick 

Yeah, I think I think over time, when I’ve worked with most of the clients I’ve worked with, you know, some of the lessons I took into the business have been, you know, remote I’ve been reminded of and had to lean into a lot of times, because we of course over the last couple of decades have gone through a lot of turmoil at times, but the actual setting objectives, making sure people understand those objectives and what they mean, when the market might go up or go down. And getting used to that and the coaching involved in that. I think that’s been a very steady thing for me. And for them. And I think they feel comfortable, I can kind of remember, especially in 2008, when we have tremendous financial crisis going on. And people were asking me, you know, consider your clients calling you up, and are they mad or whatever, and the most of the calls I was getting back then were about me, they were worried about me being okay. And and so that’s, you know, made me feel good, like, like we were all you know, they knew that the stocks were down, it was going to be a while. So that’s kind of been the good thing is that it’s been a very steady process and kind of staying true to my, my roots.

Jessica 

And now I think the one thing that really drew me to your book, and what I really appreciated was your kind of overall approach to money and building wealth and investments. And, you know, especially since you got to experience kind of the heyday, the 80s, the 90s of you know, and there’s all those great movies that show how you know how crazy busy it was and how you can build so much money and you know, stock trading and, and things like that, you know, how did you not like kind of get caught up in the glory of it because it definitely is. I mean, it’s, we probably saw a little bit of it or I experienced a little bit of it in one way during you know, 2020 2021 When everyone was going crazy with me and stocks and crypto and envy like It just like was overwhelming, but I’m sure it was like that on the trading floor back in those times, how did you always kind of it seems like you’re your main kind of thing is you’ve got a level head, you make some good decisions, you take your, you know time you’re very patient and that is clearly paid off. And that that is like one of the things I liked about your book is, it’s very reminiscent of other books I’ve read, which is just a good reminder of these are the smart things to do. And it’s because they’re so simple, but they’re hard to implement. So I’m curious, like, how did you build that kind of resiliency and not get caught up in some of the excitement of it all?

Mick 

Well, as you’ve probably read in the book, I didn’t always avoid it. Yeah. It’s part of the, I guess, when you think about, you know, some of the lessons that I tried to write about in the book, it’s because in my experience, that’s how I learned the most by getting caught up making errors both in my life and in the markets. And you know, one of the my favorite books of all time, and investing was written about 100 years ago, called reminiscences of a stock operator. And Jesse Livermore wrote the book, I think, under a pseudo names, Edwin LeFevre, I believe, and it was about his mistakes he made in lost millions of dollars. And this is before the fortune he lost, or he made in 1929. And, sadly, the fortune he lost in the 30s, which led to his suicide, but, but here in the early 20s, he’s writing about making and losing millions. And each time he’s saying, this is a tuition fee. This is how you learn and you can either pay to learn from from your mistakes, or you’re going to keep repeating them. And so, you know, in the 80s was, you know, as I was a young guy, I was so caught up in how much money you can make in trading. And I was trying all these different things. And I’m convinced there are people who are who are truly who are good traders, who can make money trading, that it’s a full time job, and it’s not easy, but not me. You know, I proved to myself, That’s just I don’t have the mind for it. And then it took me time to kind of see one of my first clients her portfolio and working with her taught me, one of the great lessons of we used to nickname it benign neglect, which doesn’t mean do nothing. I you know, it’s probably miss named there. But seeing how doing nothing in her portfolio, because her gains were so large, and the tax capital gains rates were so high back then you couldn’t do anything. Time and time again, her portfolio was outperforming everybody’s and so did I learn that immediately? No, I had to keep kept reminding it. And it doesn’t mean do nothing. Because obviously he had Xerox back many years ago, that’s, that’s something wanted, or Blackberry more recently, there are things to change. But but most of the time, let your good stocks run, and be patient. And those things that you’ve read about, and those steps that you read are, are for real. But the trouble is our emotions. And so I had to learn how to deal with my own emotions. And that’s through the experience. And so it took a lot of time and a lot of, you know, falling down to get there.

Jessica 

I’m curious what your perspective was, especially with young people getting into the market and learning investing for the first time over the past couple years. I mean, you probably saw, okay, I’ve seen this before, and people were making the exact same mistakes. I do think people are actually learning their lessons from, you know, losing some money, you know, investing in some, you know, speculative, you know, investments or cryptocurrency and things like that, or do you think it just seems like everything is going so quickly? There’s not enough time to reflect? I don’t know what your thoughts are on that.

Mick 

I do fear that. And I do hope that you know that, you know, it’s not just my book, but there are a lot of great books out there. Gosh, the person you had on I remember her name. Is it Shannon about the no regrets?

Jessica 

Yeah, No Regret Decision by Shannon Lee Simmons.

Mick 

Yeah. Well, many people out there with with such good advice, but in the end, people are going to have to learn their lessons. But yeah, hope to at least put enough perspective in there. So that as they’re experiencing these different things that they can at least not panic too much. You know, that with young people, the fear is that they, they get advice, that is not bad advice. But if they’re not told the downside of that advice, it can if they can get scared out. For example, if you’ve got, you know, 40 years before you’re going to retire, it makes sense. You could be fully invested in stocks, and it will work out things worked out, but there can be two or three years where it’s terrible. If that’s the first two or three years thing, that first $1,000 that you put in, you’re gonna say, Well, this is stupid. I’m gonna go off and do something else. And so knowing what the downside is and And maybe for some young people, they don’t want to put all of it in, in stocks, just because they will get a, you know, for they do want to, you know, save money to put in for another time. They may want to take some risk with cryptocurrency or, or some of these meme stocks, but do it with a with a small amount. Yeah, yeah, you know, and then the, if you get lucky on some of these, imagine you got lucky and Bitcoin and you made 40 or $50,000. But then you saw it go back to your, you know, original investment or whatever it was. Yeah. So hopefully, you learned to take some off the table, you know, and we had to learn that with some clients back in the 80s, where they bought a stock they thought it was and these were experienced people. But when you have something go up, you think it’s never going to go the other direction.

Jessica 

I know why is that like, we never think it’s obviously some behavioral bias, we’d never think it’s going to go down for whatever reason, we think it’s gonna go up, I know, you shared a great story in your book about that guy who part of his portfolio, I think it was close to like, the.com bubble when he had some oil comm was an oil company. It was actually before the.com Before that, and it just skyrocketed. And he made what he had a couple 1000 or $100,000. And it went to like a million. And what happened? Oh, I think it’s gonna keep going because you just you think that the world has changed, and you struck gold, and you’re gonna keep on getting more gold?

Mick 

And then the other thing going on, as the headlines are confirming you

Jessica 

exactly. They’re like, it’s got Yeah, like, in you read the headlines, you’re like, Whoa, well, it’s, it’s great. And of course, you know, the end of the story, lost it all.

Mick 

And analysts, you know, very smart people are confirming you, they’re going on TV and say, Look at oil, and it’s gonna go up forever. And, and who would have thought back, you know, in the late 80s, when, when, when you had the early 80s, late 70s, when you had the gas lines, and no one would have predicted that oil would go down for the next 10 years, or whatever it did. And they certainly didn’t believe that that was possible. And so yeah, and the sad part of that story is once something does start going down, then you have those regrets. Yep. And it’s so hard to get out.

Jessica 

Because it’s I guess, it’s kind of admitting that you’re wrong, or there’s a failure, even though you’re like, No, no, if you get out now, you’re still gonna be ahead. But it’s hard.

Mick 

Even if it’s down 50%. That million dollars, if it’s down to 500,000, was still a ton more money than the few 1000 They got out, unfortunately, when it finally bottomed out. But yeah, there’s always that hope. And I guess that’s the other point about the market is is emotional. You know, when you look at the steps and the things you need to do to be successful, it sounds so easy. And then then something happens to trigger you. And we all get triggered by different things. But that emotion of the thing, stock goes down from 40 to 34. And you’re thinking, if I can just get it back at 37? Yep. And then it goes to 32. And it’s back to 34. And you’re thinking, I don’t know, maybe I’ll wait a little bit, and all of a sudden is 25. And you’re thinking, what have I done?

Jessica 

What’s the kind of solution like, obviously, part of it is like, we need to be less emotional, that’s something that we need to learn. But ultimately, isn’t that, you know, it shouldn’t just be about chasing those winners, you need to have a policy, you need to have some sort of system in place, or, you know, whether that’s having an advisor that you can talk to to discuss, hey, this is you know, someone on the other side, who is less emotional be like this is when we should sell or just having something if this dips by this percent, we need to sell and stick by that. But again, I know people have a hard time sticking with some of those policies that they set for themselves.

Mick 

Yeah, and I think you can, you don’t have to have a one size fits all. For example, if if you have a you know, blanket, something goes down 10%, I’m going to sell it, and then the market goes down 10%. Or guess what, you’ll lose everything so, so I tend to focus on either large positions that can hurt me or stocks that go down so much that they proven to you you don’t know what’s going on. You know, it’s one thing for a stock to go through normal wiggles that, you know, tends to do and some are more volatile than others. Apple is going to be more volatile in the video more volatile than Procter and Gamble. But each of them have their normal corrections that go along. It’s when they break those trends that I think you got to pay attention. And then at some point, you just have a Blackberry or a Xerox and you draw a line in the sand and say, there are other stocks out there. Yeah, move along. And I guess the other thing that’s worth thinking about plenty of people are using index funds. And some of my clients are too and I applaud both. I think there’s a reason that you know, for some people to have individual stocks, and others depending on their objective to have index funds. But the important thing I think If you’re an index fund investor is know what you own. You know if it’s a one thing like an s&p 500 index fund, and it’s one thing in your portfolio or one out of five, let’s say, and it starts going down, you’re not going to feel comfortable. But if you look inside the fund, which that Morningstar is a company that everybody could get ahold of, and you look at your, what’s in that company in that fund, you say, Hmm, it’s apple, it’s Microsoft. It’s Procter and Gamble. It’s Johnson and Johnson. Oh, I’m okay. Most of that finder are stocks that I know about. And so I think knowing what you own is really important. And you know, what they do? And all those other lessons that people have, but even with funds, I think it’s important to know what you’ve got. Yeah.

Jessica 

I mean, I think I talked to people all the time. Most people have no idea what they’re investing in. They’re like, I have some mutual funds, like, well, what’s inside? What kind? And what what companies are in there? They’re like, I don’t know. And that’s crazy. When you think about it. I mean, it’s not it’s not their fault, because I think a lot of people think they’re doing the right thing. And you know, it’s not everyone knows this stuff right off the bat. But, you know, you wouldn’t buy any other product without doing a little research about what’s, what’s in there.

Mick 

What’s is in here, what are the ingredients?

Jessica 

What are the ingredients in this? Right, right. Yeah,

Mick 

I’ve seen a couple of tech funds, and it’s okay, if say you don’t own any Apple or Microsoft, and you buy a tech fine, you find out they’re half the fund. Yeah, two stocks. Yeah. Wow, that’s a lot. That’s a lot. And if that’s part of your portfolio, and then that I’m not saying it doesn’t fit, it may fit perfectly. You may not own any, but if you have a lot of Apple and Microsoft, and you say I’m gonna buy a tech fund, and then you get another dose of it, you think, you know, yeah, you got to look inside?

Jessica 

Yeah, well, I see a lot of that just like, especially on Instagram, there’s some times you know, people they’re like, oh, buy these ETFs. And they’ll give a few, you know, own these three ETFs. And then then I, you know, look them up and like, do they know what they’re owning? Because those three ETFs, they have different names. They have a different number of holdings, but the same holdings. So you’re just over it’s not diversification, you’re just holding different things in different you’re holding the same thing with three different baskets, you know?

Mick 

Exactly. And and it’s a hard thing to say, because people, on the one hand, you don’t want to tell everybody, gosh, you got to do all this homework. Yeah. And, and there are people who grow up. And I actually, when I was a kid, if someone told me, I’m going to be working with investments all my life, I don’t know what it was to be a financial advisor, do they when they were a kid?

Jessica 

I guess not.

Mick 

Exactly. And so, you know, you’re telling them to do certain things. But I think what you want to emphasize is if you do these things, then you can have peace for a long time. And you don’t have to watch these 24 hour shows that are spouting off. Oh my god, we got a recession coming, oh, maybe not, you know, maybe it’s this or maybe it’s that and, and all these things that are going on 24 hours a day with the current news, you can put that to bed, if you set yourself up for the long term. I don’t think I emphasized it a lot. But I think these headlines and the day after day, stuff that’s going on is is a lot more harmful than helpful.

Jessica 

No, I agree. And I one thing I thought was interesting is you mentioned trigger. Earlier, there was a character in your book you named trigger, because you want to obviously reveal his real name. And I think there’s always those people in our lives. They’re like, Oh, I heard a really good stock pic. And they’re always wrong. And it’s like, that’s a really good representation for the media, if they are shouting from the rooftops buy this stock, or wasn’t it? Was it like creamer or whoever that guy, there’s something I saw on like, Last Week Tonight. And it’s like, every time he has a recommendation, it goes down the next couple of weeks or something like that. It’s like you’ve got to be aware that sometimes when there’s a lot of noise around something that might actually be an indication to get out.

Mick 

No question and just, you know, if you just Google the headlines at some of the peak times of the market, and some of the lows, I mean, in these are, you know what you’d say financial publications, bearings, Wall Street Journal, I’m not insulting them, they, you know, have some good qualities. But you look at the headlines at some of the peaks and the bottoms, and they’re the exact opposite. And one of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld was the, it’s called the opposite. And it’s, you know, George is saying every decision I’ve ever made is wrong. And I’m going to and then he changes and he says, I’m going to do the opposite. And he has the chicken salad instead of the something but then he goes and he admits the girl to the girl that he lives at home doesn’t have a job and he gets the girl he gets the job by doing the opposite of what we sometimes feel. And I guess the funny thing with trigger and it was in variable every time he made a big bet.

Jessica 

This guy that you worked with how did he still have a job?

Mick 

You know, I never understood how he never kept score. Yeah, little things You know, he’d say I, you know, I made I made $1 on this trade or $1 on that tray, but then he’d lose $10 On the next trade. And I don’t know how he retired. But But the other thing that I point out, because as much as that was a funny thing that we laughed about, we all have an inner trigger, we all have that emotion that can cause us to do the wrong thing. And it’s so it’s recognizing, gosh, when I’m really fearful, take a step back. And it’s the other thing is, if you have the objective that you set for yourself, as far as you know, I can take risk, you know, if I’m 50%, or 60%, or whatever that level is that you could take the risk, then when stocks decline, you can be fearful. But you can also say, you know, this is about what I expected that could happen to me, then I, then I’ve got strong hands, I can buy instead of sell, even though I’m fearful. It’s never feeling great at the bottom of the market. You’ll never say, oh, yeah, this is a great time to invest. No, you’re fearful and other headlines are bad. But if you didn’t invest too much at the top, you have the strong hands to invest at the bottom.

Jessica 

Yeah, no, I think that’s a really important thing to say is that it because people I mean, for years and years and years, I remember a while ago, man, this is probably back in 2018, or something I was doing a presentation after this young man came up to me, he’s probably in his early 20s being like, hey, I want to start investing, but I’m worried, you know, all the headlines are saying there was gonna be a big crash and recession like, is this a good time? And I just gave him like, Listen, don’t ever time the market, just get in whatever. Because it’s, you’re never gonna know, it’s a good time until it’s over. And I’m so glad I told him that. Like, actually, that was a great time. Right? If you start investing then compared to like, waiting a few years to get in. But I think yeah, it’s really important to recognize that emotionally and psychologically, it’s always gonna feel bad getting in at that right time, like people, I think, assume that, once it’s at the bottom, and now you know, by the bottom, it’s gonna feel great, I’m gonna buy so many shares. No, because the sentiment everywhere is that don’t do that, you know, the world is collapsing, everything is going to be hard. And then even just holding on to what you’re doing and continuing to, you know, buy shares of an index fund when things are going down. It feels awful.

Mick 

It absolutely does. And I do remember a client talking to me, right? It must have been a couple of years ago, when things were finally getting better with the pandemic. And he said, Gosh, when we get through this, this, you know, pandemic thing, things are gonna be really rolling, aren’t they? No, and it wasn’t predicting a down market, I was just saying, there’s always the next thing, there’s always an always, it’s just never clear sailing. And I guess the opposite is true, too, when you are feeling really good about things and generally the markets up and say you’ve got that 60% or 70%, whatever it is that you were comfortable in the market. Naturally, stocks will take that higher, it’s just math that all of a sudden that 60% becomes 65 or 70%. Just because of the market. That to me is another time not to have benign neglect, take a little off the table, get back down to your 60% People will say why are you selling now? It’s crazy. Well, and my objective is 60%. And that’s where I’m gonna get to and and if the market keeps going up after that happens, good 60% in stocks, yeah. You won’t regret that decision. Because sometimes it will go down. And that’ll allow you to balance back up.

Jessica 

I mean, if that guy with the oil stocks had, you know, recognized the importance of rebalancing your portfolio, getting back to your target setting those targets to begin with, he’d be a lot richer.

Mick 

you wouldn’t be would have taken a ton of money out, he would have sold at times that would have done, you know, he would have sold it, say 25 or 30. And the stock kept going up and but good. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. Can you sell more?

Jessica 

Yeah, I feel like yeah, people just have a really hard time actually taking their profits just like kind of at the casino, it’s hard to walk away from the table when you’re doing so well. Do you think he’s doing even better, right?

Mick 

And with stocks, you don’t have to sell your whole position? It’s just cutting back to the normal size, whatever that is that, you know, with Apple, the best thing if you bought it 10 years, five years, 20 years ago, you still want that position? Yeah. But you can cut back over time.

Jessica 

Absolutely. Now, another thing I really liked and thing is really important in your book, as you talk about kind of losing sight of like, Wait, what are we doing? So you you mentioned, you know, you and your wife and your young family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and you’re like, Oh, no. Why? Well, you know, it was just like, this is a random place to move. But hey, this is a good career opportunity. And then you’re there for a while and you sold that company and then you were still living there and then you kind of had that moment. I know there was a moment with your child that you’re like, why are we still here like I part of us like there’s the safety, the comfort the familiarity, but I think a lot of us get into make a choice that has a specific purpose, like, I’m going to move here, live there for a little bit, do this thing with my career, and then we’re going to make a different decision, maybe we move, and then you’ll lose sight of it. And 10 years go by, and you’re like, how did that happen? Tell me a little bit about that decision to move to California, which you seem very happy, you’re still there, you’re very happy with and, you know, just recognizing, you know, getting back to living instead of just plugging away, I think lots of us just plug away and don’t realize life is passing us by.

Mick 

I think that’s right. And, and my wife, and we did end up getting divorced. But at the time, she was from China. And she made the joke, you know, I didn’t move all the way from China to live in Louisville, Kentucky, all my life. And it’s nothing against Louisville is a beautiful town, very nice people, but that there really was no Chinese food. And there was no much cultural diversity and things. And we knew that was important when the when the boys were very little, it didn’t seem to matter, you’re just into your kids. But at some point, we woke up and realized through different events that it was time to at least look around, and we’ve got the freedom and we can take that risk. And I suppose trying to move that to the markets a little bit, is be willing to to look to the to the new thing, occasionally. It doesn’t mean don’t keep to your objective. But if you only you can get stale. And there’s an old objective or old saying in the market, hire a kid, they’ll be the ones that know the video before the rest of us or whatever it is, though. And so I’ve tried to keep that frame of mind being not a kid anymore. But it is a challenge for all of us because we get stuck with our same old thing. And for us it was it was just a bright light to move out here. And the kids got totally into surfing and I got into it a little bit not, they wouldn’t call me a surfer. But occasionally I can go out there and paddle around with them a little bit stumble and Bumble. And it’s you know, there’s not a lot of surfing in Louisville. So it was really a change of pace for all of us.

Jessica 

I know also, there’s a story that you shared when you were surfing and, you know, tell me a little about it was you there were some big waves, you went to a new place, there’s some really, really big waves and you’re like, This is how I die. I’m like I’ve been in those situations before, especially with water, like, this is how I die, I’m gonna drown. And you recognize that you’re like, actually, if I just like turn around and look towards the beach and the shoreline, I can make it back home. And I think that’s such a really important kind of just like representation of, again, us losing focus or getting, you know, lost in the weeds or lost in the waves just crashing over us when all we have to do is turn around and see. That’s our that’s our home that we need to just move forward. And we can get out of this.

Mick 

It’s part of also the reflecting on your life too. Because at the moment, I was just thrilled. It’s not I didn’t drown out there. I mean, nature can is rough and the market is part of it connect like that. And ironically, some weeks later a month later, that’s 2008 happened. And I felt like I was drowning again. And that point that you make of of looking to shore look into the steady thing if you kept with your objective. And yeah, it was a terrible, terrifying time. And believe me, we all felt it. We were trying to hold our clients hands, but we weren’t. My stomach was boiling through it all Mr. Mellow was not being mellow. But but you know, if you look to shore, think to your objectives and know that these things have happened before it can calm you down. But boy in the midst of it, there were these huge waves holding me down. And it was actually another fellow in the ocean that looked at me and knew what was happening and pointed toward the shore and said, Oh, yeah. And so sometimes we have to be reminded, you know, from other people or ourselves, but to reflect back at those moments in our lives when we are because, you know, the emotions that we experience we share.

Jessica 

Yeah, we I think we all have I think a lot of people forget, especially if you have a lot of experience or you’re the industry, it’s like no, we feel dumb because they’re unconscious, and they’re deep down from our ancestors from you know, Neanderthal times. You can’t get rid of them, but you can control them.

Mick 

And it is interesting when we think that we all share these things. And yet we feel so different but everyone has loves and hate and hates and broken hearts and all kinds of things that it’s gotten back i There’s a great book Sapiens that I read. And he was talking about, you know, somewhere in the caveman days, there was some snotty teenager yelling at his parents. It’s like, yeah, that doesn’t change.

Jessica 

No, no. So I’m curious when you are in those times, and I feel like we’re always in these times. Maybe there’s a few moments of peace but I even feel like in those times we’re waiting for Are the other shoe to drop? How can we have something that can be our like Northstar? Something that we can look towards when we’re in those chaotic emotional times to keep us steady again?

Mick 

For me, it has really helped to kind of lean into history a little bit. That’s so often I heard it so often in the pandemic, this has never happened before. Right?

Jessica 

Yeah. And you’re like, this is I mean, maybe this scenario, specifically, no, but there’s similar things that have happened, right?

Mick 

Like this emotion is certainly the emotion you feel when things Oh, yeah, how to control and surprises happen all the time, and they’re gonna keep happening. And so that was one of my first lessons in the business where I had to go back and collect this data back in the year from the 20s on, but instead of just writing down the numbers, I would be looking at the headlines. And if you and it was the first history, I never liked history. But here I was learning history through the headlines. And it was amazing to me that we were even, you know, of course, there’s Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination. But in between, there were numerous things that people thought, Oh, my God, you know, this, this time, it’s different. And they always say in investments, that’s those are the four most dangerous words, because it’s not different. The new paradigm, now it’s AI, of course, the Internet back in the 90s. It’s happened before and will happen again, and things pass and the market goes up and down. But in the midst of those things, you need to both reflect the the objective, you’ve said, in compasses, these potential surprises. And so that’ll help you. And so if you’re 100%, in stocks, it’s going to be really scary. But if you accepted the fact that it can go down 30 or 40%, and you lean into the fact that over time, these things pass, you’ll be okay. If you couldn’t accept that at the beginning, then, you know, if you had 60% in stocks, you think, huh, I didn’t, you know, I’m down, but I’m not down as much as I could be. Those are the things you want to try to anticipate. So there is a shoreline to look back at.

Jessica 

Yeah, well, even you mentioning AI, it’s funny that you mentioned that, that I feel like there was so much chat, and the cap a couple of years during the pandemic of you know, the the meme stocks, it’s like, oh, we’re going to take over Wall Street, you know, we’re fighting Wall Street where you know, the little guy is going to win this time and know a lot of people just lost a lot of money in stocks. And then the NFT is this, this new thing. And crickets, lots of people lost a lot of money. But now I’ve been seeing a lot of headlines, and people just kind of fear mongering this AI, they’re going to take your jobs, you know, beware and like, you know, I there were similar headlines with social media is going to take your job like, or just anything that’s new, it’s always scary. But then I feel like we forget as humans, that we’re pretty resilient people and adaptable if we want to be and so maybe we shouldn’t be afraid, we should see like, okay, maybe my job is not gonna look the same in 20 years, that’s probably a good thing. That means there’s some progress, but how can we? How can we move with these, you know, changes, that’s the only way we’re gonna survive.

Mick 

Now, that’s a great point. And when people do and, of course, things might move, be moving faster now because of technology. But people had to adjust to cars coming in, you know, imagine you’re the horse and buggy guy. And it took a while. But, you know, we’re gonna adjust to AI and all the different things. And the thing is, everyone is trying to predict what that would mean. But even back in the heyday in the 90s, and I’d say most of those stocks that were going like crazy, have have disappeared. But a lot of them have it, you know, obviously, Amazon was not just a bookstore. You know, there was time, though, you don’t have to catch these things immediately. And it’s very hard to predict who would have predicted what we’re doing right now. And, you know, back 20 years ago, and but there’s time, you can take your time and, and look at, you know, what’s stable, and what’s going to be there, you know, in 510 years, and there’s 10, and sometimes will be wrong, and you got to move away from it. But yeah, be calm and know that there is time to take advantage of these things.

Jessica 

Yeah, like instead of thinking, Oh, this is gonna take over things and everything’s gonna get worse. Where’s the opportunity there, like the fact that we’re talking, we’re in very different parts of the world right now recording a podcast, you were able to, you know, write this book, and I was able to buy it and get it in a few days. I mean, these are wonderful things and opportunities, so we shouldn’t be afraid. I always feel like it’s easy to be afraid and it’s a very natural feeling, but we can’t let that be the predominant emotion. We need to flip the script and be like, Okay, what’s the positive of this? There’s always some sort of positive with this. And again, that goes with anything to do with investing and money. It’s, it’s scary and it’s intense and it’s emotional, but there’s always there’s a good side like there’s the whole reason we’re involved. Often it is it’s like how can we make this helped me get to where I want to be in life and move for you. You live in San Diego, and you can work with clients all over the country virtually, if you want, and you can go, you know, to the beach, that sounds pretty awesome.

Mick 

It does and it does. Go but you’re right. And the same thing with you know, it’s a circular thing. But the same thing true in the markets is our in our lives, you know, things are going to change and whether it’s health or family or relationships, and we can learn from all of them and apply them to investments and some of the things in investments can can help us through some of the troubles and challenges that we face in our lives.

Jessica 

Absolutely. And yeah, really, you know, the key going back to your book, got to think more mellow about our money, right? Like I found that always being calm and patient, and taking your time letting those emotions kind of go through you but not letting them take over the situation. I’ve never regretted that. It’s never been, it’s always been a regret. We’re like, oh, that decision was based off emotion. And now I regret doing that.

Mick 

No, absolutely and and to have patience with yourself too. We’re not going to escape without making some mistakes and acting like trigger occasionally. And when that happens, be patient with yourself, learn from it and move along. Because you know, there’s there’s always the next thing and we don’t know, even from our mistakes, sometimes it leads to better thing.

Jessica 

Exactly. Well, Mike has been such a pleasure having you on the show. Where can people you know, grab a copy of your book learn more about you and potentially your services as someone wants to look to working with you. Where can they find more information.

Mick 

So the book is Amazon, Barnes and Noble or almost anywhere that you want to buy a book and define me or learn more about me at mellowyourmoney.com.