OK, we're here with our weekly insights with Doug Walters, our Chief Investment Officer. For those of you listening who aren't familiar, Doug and his investment team are responsible for our weekly Insights article that's on our website, investstrategic.com and the article. Basically, takes a look at what's happening in the market from the from the week and our viewpoint on it at strategic.

Yeah. Yeah. And we like to tie it in to our philosophies so you can understand how we think about. The world.

Yeah. And I think for those of you who haven't read it, highly recommend it in these podcast episodes, we'll basically. Touching on it a little bit and you know covering a little bit of what Doug talked about there, but maybe expanding on different sections. And so if you want a a larger view of of Doug's insights, you can read the article every week. And so this being our first episode, Doug, I thought it might be interesting for you to kind of talk about and dive into evidence based investing. For the listeners and it's something we talk about all the time and I know you've explained it in different various content, but yeah, let's get it started with that. What is evidence based investing? Yeah.

We'll start at the the highest level, right. Evidence based investing. Is almost exactly what it sounds like. It's basing your decisions on academic research and empirical evidence, and you might think, of course, why isn't everyone doing that? But a lot of investing is much more akin to speculation, so we like to say we focus on science, not speculation. And it's not about. Don't see it about as about taking big swings. It's about trying to tilt the balance in your favor multiple times. So looking at a bunch of small opportunity. Entities to tilt that scale in your favor, and those add up to hopefully one 2% outperformance over time. And if you can get that every year, it can add up to quite a bit you're talking about, you know, millions of dollars over the course of someones investing career.

Yeah. And you know it's it's very much. Two saying, hey, we know X stock or X thing is super hot right now and we are maybe looking at it, but that shouldn't be your whole portfolio, right like? You should go like if Nvidia's way up. You're not going all in on NVIDIA cause the risk is so high that the you know there could be a.

Downside to that as well, right? Right there is there's multiple angles to answer that question. So one is diversification, of course. You know one of one piece of evidence that's proven time and time again is the importance of diversification, making sure you're not putting all of your your eggs in one basket.

Yeah. Yeah.

There is, though, an element of where you would want to own NVIDIA. There's something called momentum, right? That also is evidence stocks that go up tend to continue to go up. Again. You wouldn't want that to be your whole portfolio. You want to be diversified, but hey, momentum is something that potentially you could be including in your portfolio along with these other things. We call factors, so one you'd be really familiar with probably is value. Everyone's heard of value investing. Value is a factor momentum like we've seen in in NVIDIA is a factor. High quality is a factor. We like to have. A diversified set of factors and factors in our portfolio, these that are again evidence based proven persistent over time. Again that hopefully can add a bit of performance to your portfolio.

Right. That if we so if we took it from the viewpoint of strategic and and now our plan. We talk about the great life like we ask all of our clients like, hey, what's you know when you're retired, you close your eyes, think about day-to-day. What's your great life look like? And through the evidence based investing, we're incrementally getting them to that great life. Safely, securely, yeah.

Yeah, with with we like to say with confidence and clarity, right we are. We want to make sure that everyone knows exactly how we're thinking. You know why they own what they own. They should be able to know what it's worth today if we need to get out of it, they should be able to get out of it today. Right. So just giving them that confidence that there's there's logic, there's reasoning behind everything we do. And hopefully that logic and reasoning leads to excess performance that gets them to that great life even faster.

Yeah. And so I think we touched on it a little bit, but how does that compare to like speculative alternative?

Yeah, the way I like to think about it, it's it's based on what we know today rather than what we think might happen in the future. So anytime you're talking about forecasting, whether you're forecasting companies earnings. Or you know what the, you know, the economy is going to do over the next six months. You're talking about the future. And the way I see it, the only way you see the future is with a crystal ball and we don't happen to have one. So we like to focus on what we know today, right? We know those factors work. We know diversification works. We know that there's a lot of behavioral biases that can enter into investment decisions. We want to make sure we don't fall into those pitfalls. So it's about.

Mm-hmm.

Acting on what you know, not what you think.

Yeah. And I'm very excited for folks at home. You're going to hear over the next few episodes, and specifically later in this one. We're having Greg Medical on, we're going to dive deep into behavioral finance and talking about emotions and how they can drive our decision. So really excited about that. And for us individually, but also you know, I think that's something that affects individuals, but they can also affect companies as well and like and groups of people. And and you start getting into this herd mentality of like ohh, this is doing really well. We all should jump in on this and it's not always. The case.

Right, right, right, exactly. And you know the beauty of, you know, we actually in a way love these behavioral biases because that is how we can add value. And it is the reason why most of those factors we talked about worked whether it's value, momentum, those are based on behavioral biases. Why do momentum stocks work? Because of that herd mentality. That content, you know that follows these stocks up and up and chases them. Yeah. Well, we want to capture a bit of that herd mentality.

Yeah, I think that's great. And so I think you know one of these biases too that we will talk about with Greg, but is you know the the starting bias of of like, hey, I when I you know this something I know you want to speak about today. It's like oh when somebody first starts they think they may be really smart because they made some good plays. And they made all this money, and they did something really genius like and how that plays into the long term. And so, you know, I know this last weekly insights was really interested in covering that and so.

Yeah. Yeah. Well. Yes, we. So we talked about geniuses and how when the markets going up, everyone feels like a genius, right? You can't make a bad move. And yeah, I have to say I was one of those geniuses when I first had money to invest. This is back in the mid to late 90s, which is right about whenthe.com bubble was was taking off. And sure enough, I felt like a genius, just like everyone else in the world around me did. Didn't seem like we could make a wrong move until we could, and the market collapsed, and even an index relatively broad index like the Nas. Stick fell 80%, right? So suddenly, you know, we had eggs on our face as as these geniuses. And we found out. In fact we weren't geniuses. We were just. Following the herd and that really, you know that back then I was an engineer, hadn't quite made my transition to finance yet, but that really did shape my thinking as an investor and really started my journey towards evidence based investing didn't hurt that, you know, being an engineer. Being, you know, in science certainly also helped shape my thinking that I'd rather be, you know, I'd rather be calculating than speculating. So yeah, really interesting topic. And I think really quite timely. We've had a U.S. market driven by the magnificent 7 that just seems to go up and up.

Yeah.

We're starting to see, you know, some cracks in in that and this year, year to date, U.S. market really is flat. One of the things I would point to in terms of evidence based investing and what we've learned from those days, you know, when I was a genius. You know, is the importance of diversification and you know, there's been a lot of resistance in portfolios to be in small cap stocks which haven't performed as well to be in international emerging markets and other asset classes that have lagged these magnificent 7. In fact, we've seen a lot of portfolios. Come into our house that, you know, managed by others significant concentration in US assets we prefer and the evidence shows it should be much more diversified than that. We're starting to see that play out this year. International stocks were up 1012%, emerging market 4%, gold's up 10%. Bonds are up really the only thing not up right now is is you know US equities and I'm not saying we predicted that we didn't, but we were prepared, right.

Well, and it's always hindsight, right? Yeah, but something. Does well. You're like. See, I told you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so when thinking about this and for for folks at home that you know our our clients of ours or or looking at the market. You know, I think tying it to to that also in this world of news cycles and the Internet that a lot of times we can get hung up on what the hot commodity is in the moment, right and and you know I know like forums like Reddit and the news really drive these home to people and the GameStop years ago was a perfect example of how. This can happen, and So what would advice be for you for those folks who are who are going, oh gosh, this XYZ stock is way up like or I heard from my nephew who's on on Reddit that like this is going to be the next big. Thing like how do I handle that as just a regular? Just a regular Joe and thinking about that?

Yeah. Yeah, I think you you really have to tune it out and ignore it. And I I'd like to separate, you know, sort of two trains of thought. You know, we're trying to get people to the right life. We're trying to invest their assets for their. Retirement or goals, whatever it is, way down the road and you know we want to be deliberate. We want to seek out those advantages in the market systematically. That is very different than you know what's hot today and speculating. Yeah. And I don't discourage people if they have play money from doing that cause because it can be a lot of fun. But you really need to segregate that part of your portfolio, the play money from the portion of your portfolio that's trying to get you.

Yeah.

To that great life, that retirement, whatever it is, down the road that you're looking forward to, that needs to be a much more well thought out thought out process. Deliberate. Yeah. In our opinion, evidence based.

Right.

And you know, I would just say again, tune it out if.

You can. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. That's like you don't you don't spend your mortgage money on play, right. You don't. Yeah. Yeah. And I I think that's super interesting and and so.

Right, exactly.

Do you find like the timeline for folks should be looking out ten, 20-30 years when when I'm looking at My Portfolio for instance, like what's a, what's a good timeline that I should start looking at and going? Oh, OK, I see. I can kind of see the pattern and see what's what's happening with evidence based investing.

Yeah, I would say at a minimum you need 10 years. Think about a typical type cycle. I think over time they've proven to be about 10 years. So 10 years would be, I would say the minimum, which seems like a lot, but that's just the reality of it. Most of us, when we think about our career and investing, trying to get to that great life it is. We have more than that, right? We have 20 years. We have 30 years and for most of us, you know, it's not just that retirement date. You don't stop investing the day you hit 65. Live. Hopefully you're investing till that last day and then thinking about passing that legacy on to your kids. So investing. Can be almost, you know, have an infinite timeline. That's why we really need to think.

Long term? Well, yeah. And I think one of the the the topics that I've seen us bring up a couple of times, especially with. That is. A lot of us, when we think about retirement or like how long we're going to live, I mean, we're speculating at that point but saying like ohh, I don't know, maybe 75, maybe 80, but really you could live to 100. And so you kind of have to be prepared for that, not only for you know, for future generations, but just for yourself to to continue living that great. Life that you've designed in your.

Head right. Right. Yeah, it certainly doesn't stop at six. 25 and hopefully that's when you know the real fun starts.

Yeah, yeah. So is there any like headlines or thoughts about maybe this past week or the week coming up or or anything that you want to talk about in regards to?

That, yeah, I think that, you know, the last week and the week coming up, we've seen a lot of. A lot of market movement, a lot of market uncertainty and I would say you know the it's really important during these times not to let emotions get the better of you, most bad investment mistakes are made through emotion. So separate yourself from the news. If you can continue to think long term, continue to think patience and trust in the process, right? If we're investing evidence based process for a reason, we trust it. We believe in it. We feel like we are prepared for what? What whatever may come. We're not going to be investing based on emotion or the headline of the day, that's for sure.

Yeah, yeah. And so really encouraging folks that like if they want to check in, maybe it's more annually than day-to-day.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of lot of evidence to suggest that those that are managing their own portfolios, that the less you look at it, the better it does, yeah.

So yeah, OK. Is there anything else we want? A card. That's all. All right.

I have.

Well, thanks, Doug. And we'll, uh, we'll see you next week for for our next insights.

Alright. Thanks Jay. Have a good one.

I'm here with Greg Maricola, our very first guest on the life by Design podcast. I'm very excited about this. Greg actually works here at strategic. He's a senior advisor and partner. Greg is also certified financial planner and practice law for 20 years. Prior to coming to strategic.

I did seven years in recovery.

Yeah. So I think, uh, you know, having Greg on 1st is great. We have a, we have a wonderful topic today and you know, Greg, I think it's. Great for not only your clients, but for our audience here on the podcast. All that experience is going to come into play and and we're going to be able to hear about that. I'm. I'm really excited.

About that. This is fantastic. I'm really excited to be here. I'm thrilled that strategic is rolling this out. I think it's going to be great for our clients and. For the. The public at large.

Very excited. Yeah, I, I, me too. This is this is probably one of my favorite things I've done so far. So but yeah. So let's talk a little bit before we get into our topic today. Kind of what what guided you to the move from practicing law into becoming a financial planner?

Sure, it was a very. Not in. You know. There was number Grand Master plan in terms of how it happened. It was very organic. I was practicing law and in the course of my law practice came in contact with lots of financial planners. When I was doing a state plans for for my clients. And I was seeing the same cookie cutter approach over and over and not great follow up and not great. Kind of comprehensive planning and then I began to have a few clients in common with strategic and I saw a very different approach. It stood out. Markedly from the rest, and I liked it. It was very client focused, very proactive. Very comprehensive. UM, it was. Very similar to how I had always tried to model my law practice, it was the the first financial firm I found that had a very. Common service delivery and and. Way to treat clients so that was the first thing I think that came, you know, kind of popped in my mind was while these guys are different, then I got to know them and many of the advisors here got to know Allen and people like Mike McGraw and Aaron Evans and Francesca and. Just all great people, that was that stood out and then. Lastly, I had been practicing for 20 years. I had done a number of things throughout that time. Small firm, Big Firm started my own business. I was an in-house Council attorney to a healthcare organization, just lots of different things and. I was ready for a change. I. Wanted. A different challenge, a new challenge. I've always liked finance. It always interested me. I always kind of was was on the periphery of it, you know, in terms of things that I was doing with for my clients, so. I thought, well, it's just really. A similar vocation in the sense of it is service first client centered their well-being above all else, so very similar vocation, very similar themes, just a, you know, a different subject matter and I was ready to. Take on that challenge and it's been now over 7 years and I haven't looked back. It's been a tremendous, tremendous career shift.

Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, not to continue to talk up the company we work for here. But but before we get into our topic. But I think that's. One of the nice. Things about strategic and kind of their thoughts on hiring is hiring the right people. People. And getting them into strategic so that they can take care of folks that are clients here and and that sometimes the background may be different than financial planning, but it it's worth having those people in here because they have experiences and and thoughts and you know feelings about how people should be treated. And and so we we bring in the right people, which is I think cool and and it's cool talking to everybody here and all the different backgrounds that they have. So yeah, that was that was a little bit for me to hear. Greg's background. I hope, I hope the audience enjoys that. But yeah, the real thing. We're here to talk about and ideally, Greg and I will be talking about this over the next several episodes is understanding behavioral finance and, you know, Greg and I, before we we start recording today, we're just talking about how you know in terms of when we recorded this podcast that. It's very relevant. And so, you know, I think it's a good topic for for those at home and kind of ties in a little bit to the larger scope of what strategic and our investment team really focus on here as well. So and so, yeah, I guess I'm just going to open up Greg, because I know you're very passionate about this and what is behavioral finance.

Sure.

Well, I think at it, you know, at its most basic form, right, behavioral finance is the study of emotions and different behaviors when it comes to financial decisions and. To me, that is. At the basis of virtually everything that we do. It is very easy to. Make decisions in a vacuum, right? With no, with no external. Factors or stressors or or anything kind of weighing you down, right, but that's not how life works. That's not how. You know, people go about their day right when our average client, any investor is going to have at any point in time a number of things coming at them, right they. Both related to their finance and unrelated, and so they're going to pick up a newspaper if people still pick up newspapers anymore, they're. Going to look.

I don't know. Yeah. No, I don't, but maybe.

Think so debatable dating myself a little bit with that I still pick up a newspaper now and again. They're going to look at their phones. They're going to, they're going to log on their tablets, their computers, they're going to see all kinds of information coming at them, about the market, about politics, about what's going on in the world, about what's going on domestically. Really. And that will play on their mind. They may have something going on, a personal struggle that's going to weigh on their mind, all of these different things affect people's emotions and those emotions play into decisions. So the traditional finance theory expected utility theory. Goes off the basis that people are going to act rationally at all times. They're going to use all available information to them. They're going to sift through all that information. They're going to come to the most rational evidence based call. Proven optimal decision. That's kind of the classical decision. Classical finance model, yeah. Well, what's been proven is that is not really the case, right like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We all don't do that because a for a number of reasons and some of those are emotions. Some of those are. Personal biases that we have and fall into time constraints. All those things play into how we make decisions. So in terms of what we do for our clients and how we guide our clients, it's really important to be aware of. How emotions and external factors play into that decision making process because it will help us a. Relate to our clients better understand our clients, be able to communicate information more effectively to them. And help kind of bring them back to a more kind of level emotional ground in terms of decision making.

Yeah. And have you seen so? So from my side of the fence, you know from a marketing and and. Content creation living on the web for many years. You know, I think there's been a a marketable in in increase in clickbait fake news. And I don't mean that in any other way except for actually fake information whether it's AI generated. Or, you know the I'll. I'll be honest, I'm a huge Disney fan. So the big one that I fall for is always. Like this, this ride at Disney World is shutting down everyone's angry. And then I'm like, Oh my God, which one is it? And I click on it and it it turns out nothing. It's like a garbage can. They're taking out of like, one of the alleys. But yeah. So like, have you seen over the last seven years that you've been doing this, maybe this increase? In that sort of emotional sensitivity, because of how the Internet works, how social media works.

I have for sure. And maybe somebody who's been in this field for 2025 thirty years will say it's. Always been there. But I just feel that the onslaught of information coming at people all of the time, right, and from all different sources, all different mediums. Just phrase on their you know, emotional stability it. Leads them down paths that they don't need to go. Down. You know, and we see it in all forms, right. You know, we have some clients. I saw this on TikTok. I saw this on Fox News. I saw this on MSN. You know, MSNBC, you know, what do you think about it? We we get questions from derived. You know that had their origin from so many different sources.

This.

And and just like you say, it's impossible for people to know what's legitimate. Yeah, and we get that question a lot, too. Like people will send screenshots and snippets. Is this true? Is this legitimate? Is this, you know, is this credible? And I I just think it's increasing. Tenfold every day. And really what it what it's designed to do in some shape or form. Is, you know. Either towards ad revenue, right, I mean the click bait, that's how they sell, that's how they make their money or to get you to buy something. You know there. Was. The the saying and. A documentary about social media. If the product is free, then you are the product. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, so if you're on Instagram and it's free, if you're on TikTok and it's free, I mean, you're you're actually what's being sold? Yeah, right 100%.

Yes, 100%.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that leads us, you know, into our main topic for this episode is heuristics, right? And how that works. So maybe for those at home, which I'm assuming most won't know exactly how this ties into behavioral finance, but can you kind of explain to us what heuristics? Are and what the different types are that play on our our behaviors and our decision?

Sure. I mean it it it goes to that definition I gave before of behavioral finance or prospect theory, right, which is in contrast to that classic finance model, expected utility theory and what it is is folks are. Taking shortcuts and you know, basing decisions not on all available information and sifting through and making the most rational and optimal choice. Instead, they're. Taking mental shortcuts, which is what a heuristic is, right? It's just it's making a decision based on at limited amount of information or a perception versus you know sitting there and and taking that classical all available information, rational approach, right. So.

OK.

An example is like. There's a there's a trust heuristic we all use that probably pretty regularly, and that is making a decision based on information you got from what you perceive to be a trusted source, right. So. If you, uh, you know. If you get something out of Forbes magazine right, and it states that XYZ fund or XYZ stock. Is likely to do well this year, and there's another. Author similar article out of USA TODAY that. Says opine something different about that fund or stock. A trust heuristic would lead you to take the word of the author, the writer in Forbes because it has that financial pedigree. Yeah, right.

Hmm.

The rational old school, you know, expected utility approach would be to investigate both. See.

Which?

Author, which writer knows what they're talking about more? Which one is more credible? The trust heuristic. The shortcut? Oh, it's in Forbes. It must be true, right. That trusted source. Right. So we all use that. It could be people that we trust. It could be news sources that we perceive to be trustworthy. Those are all those mental shortcuts that we use in making financial.

Yeah, right. Decisions. Well, I think it's a lot of decisions in our. Everyday life, like I'm sure we've all you know, when you were talking about this, the first thing I was thinking about. Is like, oh, I have this. That told me some line about something and I was like, oh, and then I just took that information stored and it was like that's true now because it came from this guy that I super trust. And then you, like, you're on the Internet one day or or like looking at something. You're like, that wasn't true at all. Like, just like what was going on. But he heard it from a trusted source as well. So then he passed it on and like it's just this innate human thing that we have where these these heuristics apply, right. And there's many different ones, but that's a big one that. Yeah.

100%. Yeah, it is a big one and and that one kind of plays into or leads into herding, right, which is just following the crowd, right. That's another shortcut. If you see. Hundreds and thousands of of people going one way and doing one thing well, geez, they can't all be wrong. Yeah, right. So you follow that crowd and and and it's that herding behavior that we've seen and you know, throughout history and finance that has, you know, directly contributed to some of the bubbles that we've had.

M.

Right. And oh geez, everybody's jumping on these dot coms. I need to. I need to jump on this or I'm going to be left out of the party. That you know that doesn't. Necessarily lead to rational, well thought out decisions. It's more, hey, they're all doing it. It must be OK, let me let me follow suit.

Or or sometimes like I had heard recently about like some experiment. I don't remember the details, but the the broad strokes was. There was only one person in the experiment that wasn't in on it. Everyone else came in, they saw something and they were like ohh it's blue. When it was clearly green and then that person comes in after hearing everyone else say it was blue and was just like, Yep, it's blue. When they knew it was green. Right. And, you know, that's a simplification and like probably not exact details, but that's the idea, right. Is where. Instead of doing it because everyone doubted it and you thought that was the right answer, it almost. It's like, well, I don't want to be the one that was wrong. Like maybe I.

Messed up and I like. Well, it takes a tremendous amount of confidence, right to be the be the objector, right? I mean, it goes back to that. Old, right? The old parable or story however you want to describe it. You know the emperor with no clothes, right? The whole, you know, everybody's going along. Ohh, isn't he dressed beautifully? Isn't isn't such so such a splendid array. And you know, one kid pipes up. He doesn't have any clothes on. Right. So, I mean, think of the housing.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Market crisis in 2008, every, you know, seemingly all of these people were in on this. Phenomenon right of these collateralized mortgage products and going back to that trust heuristic, right, that's another one. Rating agencies, yeah, standard and Poors and Moodys. That's another thing that people rely on. That's a trust heuristic. That's a mental shortcut. Well, they rated at AAA. It must be amazing.

Great.

Well, that was going on then, right? All of these, all of this, the whole herd was taking part. In this uh. You know, financial product. And it was a select few that were betting against it, right? I mean, it's it's it's embodied in that Michael Lewis. Movie about about it all and it's. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and say this is. This isn't right. Yeah, right. And that's that rational. Investor. So. That's really what it comes down to, and I think that's one of the greatest values that we can provide people is. Kind of getting people to take a. Breath. In the wake of or in the face of, I should say, you know, chaos or. Noise that's coming at them, getting them to slow down. Take a breath. And look at the big picture, right. And look, you know, long term show them, you know, a a kind of a classic approach to kind of combating.

Yeah.

You know, knee jerk short term reactions is hey, let's look at what the market has done over the last 50 years, 100 years. Let's let's show what a diversified portfolio can do over that amount of time. It's been through all sorts of noise, all sorts of events. And let's get back to kind of that evidence based approach really and that. That's really, I think a big A. A big part of what we do is just being that, you know, voice of reason and you know, calming effect. If if we're doing our jobs well, I think that's what we should be and and should be providing.

Well, yeah. And I think overall and you know our listeners here are going to are going to hear, Doug. Talk about this a lot over over the next, you know, however long for the. This, but our evidence based investing and really you know, trying to equate it in my head is that like I think about it with you know this another very topical thing with all the snow we've been getting lately. If we get a little bit of a leak in our roof, I don't burn the roof down and like. Change I go. I just fix that little leak and then I'm and then my roof is still good. It was just something happened in that little one area. Right. And then. And so I'm just fixing that one shingle or or or if I have a metal roof just screwing in that one screw to make sure it's not leaking anymore. I'm not tearing the whole roof off and starting over.

That's right. That's right.

And so I think you know, it's hard because hey, for all of us, finances are very tied to our emotions and our well-being and our families well-being. So sometimes it's very difficult when you see a dip or you hear something or hear a news item, whether it's real or not real or whatever it is. It's very hard to disconnect from that. And go. Ohh no, I'm OK. I'm gonna look at this over the next 10 years. Right? Like, that's not a thing that I think day-to-day we.

Really, it doesn't come easy it it does not come easy to us and.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, that's that's really what we can provide is that see the forest kind of viewpoint, it's easy to get caught up in the trees, right? It's easy to get you know.

Hmm.

Focused on the smaller minutia or letting emotions kind of carry us away. Interestingly, you know, being completely devoid of emotion isn't necessary. Early the answer either right, a little emotion can be good in the decision making process, but what studies have shown is it's intense emotions. Intense reactions is where you can overcorrect overreact and really cause damage to your to your investments and and kind of long term goal.

Yeah. And I mean, and I think overall, if you're sitting at home and like me, you know, it takes me a little bit more to think about the market and and financial trends and all of that stuff. You know, as I'm on the marketing team. But you know, I think part of it is just thinking about. Everyday life its. And and going OK is this spoiled or is this done now because this one small thing happened? Or am I just going to tend to that one small thing and move on? And if you look at your everyday life, I'm whether it's raising your kids or, you know, whatever it may be, you go. OK. No, I'm in this for the long term. And I want them to be this like, great adult if we're talking about our kids. And just because they like through their truck today as as a 2 year old doesn't mean that, you know, that's it. It's done. And so. Right. I just I you know and I'm trying to equate that to like everyday items I I hope I'm no one feels like I'm talking down it's just that's just how I see the world and try. To like go, OK. The market, this news or this market thing's happening.

Yes.

I need to take a step back away from this and go, you know, based on what we're doing here, we got it handled. It's just. Very emotional right now, so maybe I need to step away from it and think about what that looks like for me.

And look at nutrition and. Fitness and that's that's a an area of life that I always like and and compare this to because I I think there are a lot of similarities.

Yeah.

There's there may be. Debate about which diet is the best and which way of eating is the best in all those things. But there is very little debate about the basics right in the sense of if you want to be healthy and fit, there needs to be a certain amount of movement on a weekly and daily basis in your life.

Yeah.

You need to for the most part be eating clean. Maybe your Mediterranean, maybe your pescatarian, maybe your your. More meat based, whatever the case may be, right? But it's it's single ingredient foods. Yeah, it's it's foods in moderation. You know, a good protein source, a good carb source, fruits, vegetables, avoid processed and keeping caloric intake to a, you know. Moderate. Reasonable level. There's really not a lot of. Debate about those things and. If you're on one of these plans, if you're on a if, if you are on a fitness journey and and want to be, you know, trying to get. To a goal. It is never a linear. No, no backslide path. Right. There's going to be. A day where you don't eat clean, you you might. You might have a cheap meal. You might have a celebration. There might be something where you slip.

Yeah.

If you're, you know if you grow up like me, if you grow up Italian, you eat your feelings, right you have. Yeah. Yeah. You go home.

Day. Ohh yeah yeah, yeah.

You go home and that might be the day where you eat. Half. A loaf of bread.

We're ordering pizza tonight. It's right. It's you're right.

Do you throw the baby out with the bathwater just because you had that one slip up? No. You the very next day you get back to your basics, right? You say, OK.

Alright.

Wasn't my best night. Let me get back to it. The same goes with the market and the same goes with your approach to finances. Whether it's your budget, whether it's, you know, your investments, if there's a. You know a step back. Back. There's going to be step backs. Not every you've seen it recently. Not every day has been a Green Day, right? We've seen some volatility in the market. That's part of the normal cycle. It doesn't mean that you deviate from right that rational thought out plan, right. You don't just say, oh, I'm selling it all. We had four.

Yeah.

We had four straight bad days. That's the worst thing you can do, right? So it's staying, staying calm and and kind of keeping to that long term plan. Yeah. And trying to combat your biases and kind of and and fight, you know, fight those behavioral things that pop up that might lead you to.

To a.

To a bad decision and I. This is something that I think in all areas of life that is going to be. You know, in in all career fields, I think the difference maker. Going forward is that emotional intelligence aspect of the job? Because AI is real and AI is going to change a lot of things. Yeah, but that emotional intelligent. Quotient that factor. Whether you know no matter what the field, and particularly in this one providing clients that emotional stability, providing them that voice of reason, I think that is going to be a big differentiator already is.

Yeah, I think so. And hopefully you know. This helped you kind of think about that and hopefully that gets you in the right mindset. And then for next week, we're going to come back and we're going to talk about some direct kind of pass for better decision making. While we're recognizing these biases. So I hope you guys liked the beginning of this conversation. Greg's coming back with me next week, and we're going to we're going to continue the conversation. So thanks, Greg. Thank you.

Awesome.

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