Michael Secreta (4:34)

Foreign.

Vince Chen (4:42)

Welcome to our show. Let's start with your journey, your money journey, your life journey and your career journey.

Michael Secreta (4:51)

And looking at my journey to where I am today with the mission of trying to help over a million individuals and their advisors. There's really three key segments to it and the overriding theme in each of those segments is an extension of the Robert Frost poem of taking the road less traveled. I guess I took the road that wasn't completed and the parts that were completed had some potholes and other damage to it. And so the first part of my journey to how I got here today was the developmental years, my childhood. I had lots of mentors and guidance and muses from people both alive and dead. Had two great grandfathers who were very successful businessmen, one who came over from Eastern Europe, civil engineer. So he did build roads actually and made his fortune and went back to the old country, which was unusual. And then another great grandfather who was in banking and finance and extremely wealthy and unfortunately was killed when his bank was robbed. Back the Bonnie and Clyde days with that. But my childhood, my neighborhood neighbors, my parents, kind of what came out of that was not I can't do this, I'm not able, how can I possibly do this? It was more why can't I do it? And would sit around with some neighbors at our beach club in the south shore of Long island and I would listen to their stories because I always had that curiosity. And in those stories and just observations I saw that these were people. Yes, they had the money, but they had the balance and they had the joy and fun in their lives. They had a range of interests that besides being CEO of a bank, they also had a jazz that they orchestrated music and performed even in College, making sure I took not just the business courses, the finance, accounting, but also taking philosophy, having a history major. And there's a lot that people don't understand about history in terms of the value of it because it's not just remembering regurgitating dates and locations and activities, but what led to it, what really caused it. With history you have the advantage of that time so that you can have now the revisionist with a more accurate view of that history. So I applied all this to that which took me to my second stage. And that was the kind of the learner's permit as someone told me at my beach club. And that is going out there working for companies. When I started I had two job offers. One was with a brokerage firm and being a stockbroker, the other was an investment management firm. Brokerage firm paid more. But I didn't see the same growth and development and didn't like the whole at the time brokerage model. So I took the lower paying job and was very successful with that. Again because I didn't know I was too young. We had this mutual fund that was started to take advantage of foreign tax credits for US based companies. We started cold and you know, had all these companies interested but no one wanted to be first. And so I'm doing a cold call to a treasurer of a large corporation in the northeast. He hung up the phone on me and I called him back. I said, you just made a big mistake. Totally took him off guard. I said, Yeah, I understand. 9 out of 10 times person calling you doesn't have anything really unique and that's not going to really help you. Well this time It's I'm that one out of 10. And so he was like, okay, go on. And he not only was one of the larger investors in the fund, but he was the first one. So everyone else was standing around the pool waiting for someone to jump in. He's the one that jumped in. Then everyone else jumped into the pool. So I had this ability through looking at the human element of sales, the human element of working with financial advisors, getting sub advisory work with large mutual fund companies and other institutions. That human element, I quickly realized was make it about them, not about their company, but what do they want in life. And everyone wants more money, they want balance or time and they want more joy or social wealth. And so trying to show that to them. This big discovery, incorporating this into all these programs and huge success with this, but total fights every step of the way because I was the change agent and by me being successful in implementing this change in the eyes of these people that were there for years and years. I made them look like failures, that they couldn't do it and this non insurance guy had to do it. And and after a while I got tired of working at these different companies, doing wonderful things for them, for their financial professionals that we sold to for their clients, but always being sniped at. And so I just got tired of always fighting that fight and actually having a target. The more successful I was, the more I helped my companies, the bigger the target was. So then decided to go into the third stage and that is having consulting business and going out there and working with different financial companies. It's really funny as an employee they swipe at you, they don't want to listen to you question everything you say. As a consultant all of a sudden now they listened and they want to do what you have, everything based on what the three key things people want and taken into account it's money, balance and joy. And taken into account their emotions and just human nature. And so many times I saw people that oh it's all logical, it's no, it's not logical and I could talk more about that later but it's about human nature, it's about people's individual needs. So that has led me up to where I am right now.

Vince Chen (12:28)

Your book is called Money, Balance and Joy. Let's start with a all time favorite queen questioned in what ways and to what extent that money can buy happiness.

Michael Secreta (12:50)

Sure, money buys happiness when it's part of this three part ecosystem and that three part ecosystem working in harmony, working holistically. And the three parts of money, monetary wealth, second is time wealth and the third is the social wealth or the happiness or joy. So we all know the stories of people, all they do is work. And the thing is, especially my generation, the boomer generation, had a lot of people like that. But the thing I learned from the greatest generation, my parents generation was no, you had to have that balance, you had to have that joy, you had to have that range of personality and not just be the single mindedness focused. So money per se doesn't buy happiness. You can't go to the happiness store but it helps you. You can hire someone to do the cleaning, mowing the lawn, different painting, hire, buy pre made food or go to restaurants versus cooking everything from scratch. So that can buy you the time then the joy that comes from it. You can get involved with volunteer work, being part of the community. But the great thing is each helps the other so that the people who are very successful, the time part helps them make more money. The joy part helps them make more money. So it's this wonderful merry go round, if you will. You have to have that range, you have to have all that, your life, because otherwise it's just not a joyful life. Why bother?

Vince Chen (14:42)

Tell us about your value systems in managing personal wealth. I believe you call this the total wealth concept.

Michael Secreta (14:53)

When I was at this big insurance company, my boss was just this tightly wound person who, after you knew him for 10 minutes, this is not a guy that really was fully enjoying life and that the old school of, oh, work is work. I put in the hours, I do the work, I really don't like it, or I tense up and stress out about it, then I go home and then I could have fulfillment. If you look at some of the great people out there, they are much more broad doing activities. They start with not I want to make money, but I want to help people. I want to change the world. Steve Jobs, I want to change the world. That's what he wanted to do. It wasn't, oh, I want to be rich. Now, the money part, of course, comes with it. But when you look at some of those leaders, you look at Elon Musk, who will, at the drop of a hat with flooding in North Carolina, say, hey, I'll reassign my satellites to help with communications. He's not doing that for the money. He's not doing that for the publicity. He's doing that to be a good citizen, to help people. So it's just a much more enjoyable life. It's not nine to five of misery, clock out and then have joy. But why can't you have that joy? Why can't you have that fulfillment and meaning in your job as well? If you could do that, you're going to be better at your job, better able to help people. You'll be better for your faith and really enjoy yourself. And one of the things I saw with a lot of financial advisors was they were holding the golf club really tight. They didn't take into account they became advisors because they love math or they love investments. And the advisors that I worked well with were the ones that became advisors because they love their clients. They love how they could go from having somebody be a total stranger to. To a great friend, client and great friend within months. And the kind of the rush you get when you realize that your client trusts you. So these are all the things with me, my upbringing, that this is how people should work and that holistic wealth or the total wealth with everything. It's so simple. Things that really help are simple.

Vince Chen (17:38)

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Michael Secreta (20:05)

Why are they unhappy? They don't necessarily have to be unhappy, but they are unhappy because we have Wall street, we have advertising. Look at what's been going on with inflation. So we have this huge cumulative inflation. The American population went from like 40% living from paycheck to 70%. And do you really see anything from Wall street, from the politicians, from the financial media? Just about what a devastating effect this is having on people and just the psychological and emotional effect. So these people feel like no one knows them, no one appreciates or understands what they're going through. I did a cartoon on Instagram yesterday making fun of this, how you're supposed to be happy. And somebody commented, I thought I was the only one that felt this way of being alone. People not understanding what I'm going through, that loneliness, that feeling that, oh, I'm doing something wrong. Because why the financial media, they're that top 10% Wall street, the top 10% inflation hasn't impacted them on an emotional level. It's an inconvenience. But it, it said damaged their lives. And soon we're seeing it now with the employment number. Soon there's going to be more and more layoffs, especially in the tech area and in other areas. And it's not the lack of money, it's that I don't have, it's my fault, it's something I'm doing wrong. Look at all these other people, all right, I made a poor choice on becoming a coder, whatever it might be. And oh, I wish I can go back. Coulda, woulda, shoulda is an awful feeling to have. Instead of just looking forward and saying, all right, this is the lot I have right now. Let me just figure out a way. Take inflation for example. With that I have the three Es, how you perceive. So you're looking at it and saying, okay, this is actually an opportunity where there's crisis, there's opportunity for me to improve my life, get me to focus on what am I wasting money on, what should I do differently? Should I have a side job, what have you, what things can I do? Instead of sending my kid to a private college, doing an in state college where it's either free or very low cost, then coming up with the conceiving ideas of how am I going to implement all these changes and then the creativity of that and doing that now so this person is going to be happier. So they still don't have the mighty solar getting killed by inflation, but they are now taking control. Most stress, most depression comes with people feel that they don't have control of what's going on around them. So now let's give them control. Now, you don't see any of this anywhere. You don't see articles on this. You don't see Wall street saying, you know what? We're going to donate and create a program to help people like Elon Musk, donating satellites for whatever, helping Ukraine, helping flood victims from in North Carolina. Wall street doesn't do that. And so that's why it's a little complicated answer. It's a simple question. But when we lose control, we stress we're unhappy. Money helps us have control. In the absence of money, we need to find other ways to get that control so that we're happier, we're not frozen, that we're actually moving forward. Don't let a good crisis go to waste.

Vince Chen (24:41)

According to your approach, there are three types of change. Why does does change matter in managing personal wealth?

Michael Secreta (24:54)

It's everything. It changes everything. That's why the first chapter of my book is called Zen and the Art of Change. The greatest misunderstanding with Wall street and the financial media is that they don't understand that the three E's of investing are emotions. And so it's the same with change. So we, we have to have this Zen like state of calm. First of all, don't have that state. We're going to be holding that golf club too tight and we're not going to get much distance swing. But there's always so much time and there's always so much emotional energy to changing. You want to focus, have that laser focus if you will on the changes you should make and ignore the ones you can't change. So your personality, you're going to try to change your personality now. It's just not going to happen. Work with your personality. Don't waste time trying to change your personality. Then there's the change that you can and should make. And then there's the one that also trips up. A lot of people waste that emotional capital and that is change you can do. But don't waste your time on it because it's like triage. You look at the old MASH TV show, mash actual hospitals in Korea. You couldn't care for every soldier that came in injured. So you had to say, this one I could save, but it's going to take three hours. And in that time I could have saved six other soldiers and if I do this person, save them, then those six soldiers are going to die. It's that triage. You need to look at it and say, yeah, I can do that, but it's going to take too long. It's going to take too much emotional capital to do it. So now we have this smaller focused types of change that we can and should do and then set about doing that. And too many times we try to change our outlook, change our view. I've done some work with the whole ESG movement. The criticism I have of it is too many times they're trying to change people's minds, change their view. No, what you first do is you change people's actions and then by changing your actions, getting up earlier, doing, allocating certain time, reading certain books, hiring somebody to be your accountability partner and to generate ideas, you want to do that. And then through those changes, your outlook's going to change your perception of things. Its actions change thoughts. You can't change your thoughts very easily without doing that.

Vince Chen (28:10)

In our next episode, part two of our interview, Michael will take on Wall street the financial media and financial influencers, pointing out how they often miss the emotional side of financial planning. From risk tolerance survey that don't even account for real life emotions and behavior to the misleading advice all over social media, Michael gives a refreshing and honest opinion. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show, Leave us top rated reviews, check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.

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