← THE Bitcoin Podcast
THE Bitcoin Podcast
HOW TO BUILD (& KEEP) GENERATIONAL WEALTH WITH BITCOIN | Morgen Rochard (THE Bitcoin Podcast)
01:45:28
Loading summary
Transcript136 lines
- [00:00]
Morgan Richard
This is a very common pitfall in the bitcoin community, is that you over accumulate. And what I mean by over accumulation is not good, right? Over accumulation in bitcoiners minds is like, I have more bitcoin. Everything's going to be awesome. Bitcoin's inevitable. It's going to a million dollars. I'm going to be fine. I'm going to retire. I'm going to flip off my boss. Everything's going to be cool. No, what actually happens with over accumulation is that you've now levered up and now you don't have cash flow to pay for things and you're usually selling at the worst possible time. So over accumulation generally leads to less bitcoin that people have in their pockets rather than more bitcoin. I do think it's inevitable. I think where people get tripped up is when, right? So inevitable could be in 200 years, right? Inevitable could be next week. Inevitable could be like in three years from now, right? There's such a wide array of when this thing could happen. I do think it's inevitable, right, because it's a, it's a, it's a better money than anything else that's out there, right? And so people are going to gravitate to the best money that there is. And so people are already gravitating to the best money that there is. These things take time, right? If, if we really think bitcoin is inevitable and it hasn't happened today, then how can you be late? Right? Like it's one of those things where it's like, of course you're early because it's not like it hasn't actually happened yet. So you're still early.
- [01:21]
Walker
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs. My name is Walker and this is the bitcoin podcast. The bitcoin time chain is 885-5314 and the value of one bitcoin is still one bitcoin. Today my guest is Morgan Richard. Morgan is a financial planner. She's also a hardcore bitcoiner and has been advising her clients to save in bitcoin for years. Let's just say she is not your average financial advisor.
- [01:47]
Pierre Rochard
I think this conversation is going to.
- [01:49]
Walker
Be really helpful for new bitcoiners, but also for well seasoned bitcoiners alike because it has a ton of practical advice on things you can do now and in the future to make sure you and your family are set up for life and for the generations to come. We dug deep into a bunch of Topics including bitcoin's volatility and how to manage it. Common mistakes seasoned bitcoiners and new bitcoiners make. How to make sure you do not get liquidated. Keeping fiat emergency funds. Why? Counterintuitively, you can end up having less bitcoin in the long run. If you're all in on bitcoin right now, Risk tolerance and ability, raise, raising kids and inheritance planning. How to maximize your bitcoin savings, how to build generational wealth and keep it, how to orange pill your wife and a whole lot more. Before we dive in, do me a favor and subscribe to the bitcoin podcast wherever you're listening. And make sure to check out this show on YouTube or rumble as well. Just search Walker America and if you find this show valuable, consider giving value back by giving it a zap on Noster or. Or a boost on Fountain. You can find me on Noer@primal.net Walker and this podcast@primal.netcoin without further ado, let's get into this bitcoin talk with Morgan Richard.
- [03:11]
Pierre Rochard
Okay.
- [03:12]
Morgan Richard
Okay.
- [03:13]
Walker
Welcome.
- [03:13]
Pierre Rochard
Thanks so much for coming on here.
- [03:15]
Walker
Stoked to talk to you.
- [03:16]
Morgan Richard
Same here. Thanks for having me on.
- [03:19]
Pierre Rochard
It's a perfect day to do it. I think we've got bitcoin. Last I checked, it was like 86 or $87,000, which I think if you'd told me when I was, I only got into Bitcoin in 2020, 2021. It hasn't been that long. But if you told me then that we'd be crashing down to these levels, I think I would think you were touched in the head or something. But this is the reality that we're living with now and people are still freaking out about it. But how are you doing?
- [03:49]
Walker
How are you managing all of this bitcoin volatility that we see?
- [03:53]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I love that question. So I feel like people are very impatient in the bitcoin community is one of the things that I tend to notice. And then actually people get very patient. So what happens is that we have some kind of run up that happens, right? And everyone gets really, really excited and they think it's like the run up, it's the end of the dollar. Like bitcoin's going to be the next global reserve currency. This is what's happening. It's going to go up five. It's in the bag, you know, and. And then like if that doesn't happen all of a sudden, like all the impatience, all the anxiety about it, everything about, you know, oh, I thought I was retiring this time or I was never gonna have to work again, or I was gonna work by choice or whatever, or we were gonna put a new, you know, wing on our home or whatever people want to do, right? All that gets like thrown in the trash and they're, you know, people are down the dumps and it's like, no, we just had a 10% correction. Like, it's, it's okay, guys. Like, it's gonna be okay. And so I see this time again time again, both on Twitter and also sometimes on my clients. Even, like, people can get really impatient or people can live in the future. So, like, they're kind of waiting for this, you know, this big run up to happen because, you know, people have all their price targets. They've got like, some people have that 250 number in mind, or they've got 500,000 in mind, or a lot of people have, you know, million dollars a coin, we're gonna moon. And it's like, well, it's inevitable. We're already living in this world where we're at a million doll, because of course that's gonna happen. So I don't need to change my spending habits. I don't need to change really anything about what I'm doing, because I'm already living in bitcoin world where it's a million dollars a coin. And so this impatience sort of sets in. And then the second you see bitcoin crashing to these 85, $86,000 numbers, even though they're insane relative to where we were five years ago, people are kind of, you know, you get antsy. And so I would say that, like, it's okay bitcoiners, like, you just gotta wait it out. Like, let's, let's like use that long time preference, you know, that low time preference that we all say that we have and be thinking a little bit more long term and not be so worried about, about these little blips that happen in the market. And if anything, if you're saving properly and you're doing all the things that you can do, things like this are an opportunity rather than a stressor.
- [06:07]
Pierre Rochard
I mean, amen to that. It's one of those things where I think, especially speaking from my own experience, I haven't been. Basically, this is a first kind of full cycle for me going through this experience. And so like, you know, I remember when bitcoin was crashing down to like 16k in 2022. And that was like, honestly, like, that was hard because I'd been Buying all the way up to the top. But at the same time, I was like you. I had to shift my mindset and be like, okay, I have a huge opportunity now. I didn't think I was going to be able to buy bitcoin this cheap anymore. Wow, okay, let me try and scrimp and save and, you know, make some sacrifices now so that, you know, once. Once things start running back up again, I don't feel that, like, oh, no, I missed out. It's like, I can go into that confidently saying, like, yep, I saved as much as I could. I cut here and there to try and stack more sats. But it's still tough when you see, you know, you see those fiat numbers. And I think it's interesting too, because a lot of bitcoiners. And I'll lump myself in there with this, too. I try to think in bitcoin terms, right? Like, am I increasing my bitcoin stack? Not just is the fiat number going up because that's a terrible measuring stick, but am I increasing the amount of bitcoin day over day that I own through my DCAs? Or if I feel a little feisty and do a smash buy? But we still are so drawn to that fiat number. And I think it's fascinating. It's like, can we just not break ourselves out of this fiat mindset? Or is it. Is it just natural, maybe?
- [07:37]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I mean, we're immersed in it, right? I mean, it's thousands and thousands of years of dealing with different types of currencies and so forth, right? Different regimes of who uses what currency over time. Like, it's ingrained in our mindset. Obviously, fiat is like a newer version of all of these things that we've had throughout history. But, like, you don't really. You can't kind of remove somebody from their environment so easily, even though, like, I do feel like it's. If we do remove ourselves from that environment, if we are thinking about things from bitcoin terms rather than from fiat terms, then a lot of things actually change. And you're not thinking so much about all the fiat rewards that you can get as a result of holding your bitcoin. But more about, okay, this is the bitcoin stack that I have and how can I preserve it? And what's the. Like, how can I be the best steward of this stack rather than, like, trying to think, okay, if I, you know, now that rules have all changed and I'm going to spend my bitcoin, I can spend, you know, 8%, 12%, 15% a year because bitcoin returns are wild. They're crazy. And then you end up with like, you know, a sliver of a coin that you're leaving to the next generation. So, I mean, it's, it's, I think it always comes back to what people's goals are and about what they're trying to accomplish, for sure. And that's why like, personal finance exists. It's like this little micro world within this macro world where people can focus on what they can control. People can, can think about what their environment is, who's important to them, what they want to accomplish in this life and how money ties into that, and then use Bitcoin to help them do those things.
- [09:08]
Pierre Rochard
I mean, that's, I like the idea of there's a part of your life that you can control and the part that you can't. You know, it's the, it's a very stoic way of looking at it. Like focus on the things that are within your control and everything else. Like there's nothing you can do about it. You can, you can look at it.
- [09:23]
Walker
You can be aware of it, but.
- [09:26]
Pierre Rochard
There'S no point in stressing over it.
- [09:27]
Walker
Because there's literally nothing you're going to change.
- [09:29]
Pierre Rochard
Why not focus on what you actually do? Have control over what is within your sphere of influence, rather than bemoaning all the things that are completely outside of that, you know, outside of your own control. And okay, I have, I have so many things I want to get into with you today, but before I get too deep and forget, can you just give us a quick kind of intro of who are you? How did you get here today and what kind of informs this perspective that you have on, on Bitcoin, on personal finance? What brought you here?
- [09:58]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, sure. So I have been working in finance since 2008. I got my first job actually as a coffee girl on the floor of the American Stock Exchange. And that's literally what I did. I got, I got guys who screamed in a pit coffee and, and I memorized their coffee order because they literally ordered the same thing like every day. Like every day. And they were like, oh, she's like a little smart, you know, like, maybe we should promote her. And so I got promoted, you know, and I studied for the series seven and I worked there for a while. I worked there for a couple years. And you know, and I don't mean this to offend anybody in any way. Women in general are nurturing people. Like that's just who we are by our Nature. And that's who I am, certainly. And so I just found that trading equity options in a pit with a bunch of screaming men wasn't really what my life's purpose was supposed to be. And I didn't really feel like I had a life's purpose, to be honest. And it didn't feel like. Like I was using those nurturing aspects of my soul. And so I left and took a job in wealth management. I worked for two large wirehouses. I was at Merrill lynch for a while, and then I was at. I was at ubs. And then I, in the midst of all this, took lots of financial exams, did all the things that I was supposed to do, and then started my own firm with the hopes of being like. At the time, Pierre and I were already dating. Pierre Rochard's my husband. And my hope was basically that I would start this business, we would get married, we would have kids, and my business would be well established before I had children. So that it wasn't so wild trying to start a business and also have children. It turns out that anytime you start a business, it's wild. It doesn't actually matter. And also, when you have children, it's wild. So it really also doesn't matter. I probably could have done all those things at the same time. That's kind of how I ended up where I am now, where my. I moved closer and closer to what I consider to be really a nurturing profession. So, like, I think when people think of financial advisors and financial planning, they don't think of, you know, people who are nurturing. They think of, like, these stodgy men in suits who are trying to sell them garbage, which there are a lot of those out there. So that's fair that that's what people think of. That's not how I think of it. I think of personal finance as being, like, a way for me to help people achieve what they want to achieve in life and bring out the best in them. Just, like, how I would do anything in my life. I want to help others. And so. And I. And I like money. You know, who doesn't? And I'm a curious person, maybe nosy, some would say. I love looking through pay stubs and seeing what kind of insurance people have. You know, like, I find that stuff really kind of fascinating. And so that's how I ended up being a financial planner. My firm is now 11 years old. In the midst of that, though, I met Pierre, and I had already heard about Bitcoin. Prior to meeting Pierre, I've Always been a libertarian. My dad's a Ron Paul supporter. Like, I kind of. We grew up, you know, voting for Ross Perot, like, that kind of a thing. So I was always kind of weird. It's not that odd that I would end up thinking bitcoin was interesting. So when Pierre brought it up, I found it interesting. Like, I was like, oh, yeah, I remember reading about that thing. And so it didn't totally click for me, though, I'll be honest. It took me a few years to, like, really be like, okay, actually, yeah, like, I get what this is. I think this is gonna be really important, and I think I need to start advising clients on it. And at the time, there was like, no. There was no, like, no guidance, no anything. Like, you didn't. You were like, I don't know what I could be doing. My compliance consultant was like, absolutely not. Like, if somebody brings it up, maybe you could say something about it if somebody asks you, but do not bring it up. And I'm like, okay. I felt kind of shackled, you know, because, I mean, we've been in bitcoin. Pierre's been in since 2012, I want to say. And I've known about. Like, I've been around since 2013 now. So it was really hard starting my business in 2014 and being like, can't tell people about bitcoin. Okay, what are we going to talk about? So people started asking, though, in 2016, which is kind of fascinating. I had a couple of clients interested in it and got clients involved holding their own coins and actually storing it properly. And then in 2017, with that run up, there were a lot more questions. In 2018, people definitely were interested. And then after that, I was just like, you know, I'm just gonna start bringing it up. Like, I felt like I'd waited long enough, like, there wasn't any more guidance. And I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna start talking to people about it. So, like, technically, I've been advising on it since 2016, but I would say 2018 is when I actually started, like, really talking to people about it. And by 2020, I was like, look, if you don't have it in your portfolio, like, we're making you have it. And so anyone who we couldn't get to, like, basically own their own, like, basically buy bitcoin outright, we started using GBTC for them, just so they had some kind of exposure. We had pushback. Like, there were clients who were like, I don't want this in my portfolio. Like, why Are you trying to put, like, you know, drug money in my portfolio? Like, are you nuts? Like, I'm starting to rethink your life choices type of thing, you know? And so for some people, like, we sold, like, I couldn't convince them. And for most people, though, they held on. So with the exception of two clients, we were able to get really everyone holding something. And then from then on, we were like, just in this place of, okay, well, you have some gbtc, like, how can we get you bitcoin outright? You know? And now I would say majority of my clients, they own. They have their own keys. I actually, at this point, don't have sort of regular clients coming in. I have, like, bitcoiners coming in who are like, we need financial planning. We, like, I got as far as I can get. And now, like, this is significant wealth. I'm not exactly sure what to do with it. I need some help here. And we're navigating, like, more complex, like, complicated financial planning, like, problems at this point, which. It's a. It's. I mean, it's. It's a dream. Like, this is exactly what I always hoped that I would have. Would be working with, like, amazing families who have similar mindsets, who. Who really just want to do the right thing.
- [15:45]
Pierre Rochard
I mean, I think that's so cool that. Well, let me start off with this. I think financial planners, financial advisors get a really bad rap because especially within the bitcoin world, like, how many stories you've probably heard more than I have about bitcoiners who went to their financial planner and brought up bitcoin and basically got fed the standard line of, well, that's a Ponzi scheme. It's too volatile. We wouldn't recommend it, you know, or if they're part of some larger structure, like, we actually don't. Our policy is not to advise on that. We would advise against it. Like, this is what you hear time and time again, and then contrast that with you. You're coming at this and saying, no, I was telling my clients, you need to have this in your portfolio. And I'm assuming that those clients all but those two are pretty darn happy that they have had it in their portfolio over the past five, six, seven years, as they've seen. I mean, I assume it's become a much larger part of their portfolio, even if they didn't increase their stack size just because of the price appreciation. So it's like, this is. I mean, how do you see it all? A shift in the financial planning industry at Large, where it's starting to be a tide change that this is becoming more, you know, now that the Larry Finks of the world are putting their stamp of approval on it, are more financial advisors and planners willing to actually say, oh yeah, you should actually have, you know, a 2% allocation or whatever? Or is it still kind of like a taboo subject within your industry?
- [17:11]
Morgan Richard
It's a little of both. I'll be honest. I think it depends what firm you work for, what your world, like, what the advisor's worldview is like. I was sort of surprised by this. I assume that, you know, financial advisors who are millennials like me, who start their own firms because we're like, we don't like what's going on in this industry. We want to do our own thing. We're going to make the world a better place. And they go out and they start their own firms and then they're like, and now we're going to be a boglehead and we're not going to change from that. Like I've looked at the evidence over the last hundred plus years and it just says buy the s and P 500 and a diversified, you know, and a diversified other countries or whatever based on a market cap weighted thing and add a little bit of bonds if you need it. And you just hold that for a really long period of time and I'll show you all the periods over the last, you know, 70 years or whatever where the market went down, but it recovers, don't worry. And you'll just, you know, you'll get a long term return of 7% in real terms or whatever it is. And there's a lot of those out there and they just refuse to hear evidence otherwise that this time it actually is different. And the reason why is because they've been pitched all of this propaganda about why it's never been different. And so unfortunately it's, you know, it's like a bell curve. Like there isn't anything, right? There's going to be people who are going to be on one side of it who are like, you know, don't trust anything. Don't trust the system. Start your own firm. Put your tinfoil hat on. You know, I mean like I'm a little crazy, right? Like that's how I'm here. And so like, I'll be honest, right? Like you have to be a little wild to like go out there and do this. And then there's going to be on the other side who are just, they're going to be anti bitcoin no matter what. Because, because like, you know, they are entrenched in the fiat system. They don't really understand what money is, they're not willing to learn what it is and they're just staunchly opposed. And then there's going to be all the people in the middle who are like what? You know, it kind of depends where I get my news from, whatever it is. Right. And that's kind of, I see what's going on in the industry. The unfortunate thing also that's been going on in the industry like anything else is that these, you know, cryptocurrency people with their, you know, s coins and whatever they want to, you know, they have more capital slushing around because they pre mined or whatever it is and they can tell a different story to these financial advisors who love a good story and who are now, you know, interested in the how the next wave of technology because we already missed the bitcoin wave and bitcoin's obsolete, quote unquote. And so therefore, you know, we need to have, I don't know, whatever coin it is, I mean Trump coin or whatever, you know, I don't know, meme coin.
- [19:39]
Pierre Rochard
Just insert any number of the millions that are out there now.
- [19:43]
Morgan Richard
It's insane. Yeah. And so financial advisor coin, like this sounds great. So you know, it's going to change the world. And so I feel like there's, there's a mix going on for sure. It's not being aided by the fact that there are very few bitcoin financial advisors out there. And the one like there aren't a lot of us, we're as vocal as we can be. But I would say we're probably more vocal in bitcoin communities just because like we're looking to get clients, we're looking to help clients who actually want our help and need our help. We're not necessarily looking to change the industry. That said though, like I'm speaking at AICPA which is a conference first for CPAs in June of this year with another financial planner who is a bitcoiner as well. And so like some of the, some things are changing, right? Like people are more interested in the topic and they want to hear about it, but they're not as educated as you would hope that they would be at this point given that bitcoin's been around for as long as it has been. And also that like it really has been rubber stamped like you said, by all these people. Like BlackRock has a giant ETF, right? It's never been easier to help somebody allocate, even though, you know, obviously we'd rather them hold their own coins. But I mean, financial advisors aren't really going to do that. Right. We need to be sort of reasonable about what our expectations for them are as well. So I do think things are changing. I think that things go slower than everyone in the bitcoin community hopes.
- [20:58]
Pierre Rochard
Well, I mean, I think that is definitely always the case. Kind of back to where we started with just the low time preference versus high time preference. I mean, this is a slight digression, but I think, I'm curious of your opinion. Do you think that, quote, bitcoin is inevitable? Like do you see this as an inevitability? Whether we want to get into what hyper bitcoinization means? However you take this question, do you think bitcoin is inevitable?
- [21:25]
Morgan Richard
I do actually. I do think it's inevitable. I think where people get tripped up is when. Right. So inevitable could be in 200 years, right? Inevitable could be next week. Inevitable could be like, you know, in three years from now. Right. There's such a wide array of when this thing could happen. I do think it's inevitable. Right. Because what it's a, it's a, it's a better money than anything else that's out there, right. And so people are going to gravitate to the best money that there is. And so people are already gravitating to the best money that there is. These things take time, these processes take time. There's human emotions involved in all of these, which is why we have these crazy cycles where all of a sudden people are, you know, they're fomoing in, they're even leveraging up and then, you know, people are getting called out and then, you know, it cascades down and so forth and people are out and then people come back in. Right? There's all of that that's going to go on. I think that often people look to like the institutional investor to be like rational, but they're also just a bunch of human beings as well. Right. And so they're not making perfect decisions all the time. And so the inevitability of bitcoin if we' you know, relying on these people to make perfect decisions. Like I think that it's, it's short sighted of bitcoiners to assume that, that everybody will make a perfect decision all the time very quickly and that this will move in the direction that bitcoiners hope it's going to move very quickly. That said, though, I've been called pessimistic and bearish as a result of that. And you know, that's probably fair. Like, I, I think that I do tend to think things are actually going to take longer than they actually do. And if you had asked me, you know, in 2013 if Bitcoin would be at 100k in 2025, I would have probably laughed at that because I would have thought there's no way. That's silly. And Pierre and I even argued about this early on in our relationship because I was like, if you really think that, then like, why aren't you just leveraging up like crazy? Like it doesn't make sense why you're not doing it and why he's not. Why you don't do that. Right? Is because it's irrational to think that like your thesis is going to play out really quickly. Right? And so. But no, I mean, I do think that over time people will come in and people will stay. Right? People come in, some people leave. There's a base layer of people that stay even though like whatever's going on in the price and this continues to go on and adoption will continue. And then at some point there will be more than, let's say El Salvador using bitcoin. Right. There are going to be other governments that adopt it. Theoretically, our government, I mean, is going to adopt it. There are states already saying that they're going to have a strategic bitcoin reserve. Like I see this headed where, you know, you probably can do some de minimis spending in bitcoin without actually having to pay taxes on it. Right. That would be like kind of the first place where people be like, oh, maybe we can start using this. Amazing, right? Yeah. And so like as, like as rules and regulations change as more people get involved then, yeah, like this, this train's already left the station and just I don't know how long it's going to take to get to the next one.
- [24:09]
Walker
It continues to blow my mind that there are bitcoiners out there who are not yet on noster. Seriously, what are you doing? Just like you shouldn't need to ask permission to use your money, you shouldn't need to ask permission to speak freely or have control of your own account. But that is exactly what you are doing. If you are still trusting centralized social media platforms, you may have seen several high profile bitcoiners and friends of mine like Lawrence Leopard and Lynn Alden more recently get their X accounts hacked and then struggle to work with X support to get those accounts back. Where did they go to give people updates? They went to Noster. On Noster, you can't be censored, you can't be banned, and you can't be deboosted for saying words that Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk don't like. And honestly, the vibes are just better on Noster. Pl Nostr has bitcoin payments built in. So when you post a meme, a spicy hot take, or just a photo of your steak, people will zap you bitcoin to show you they like it and find your content valuable. And if you are a content creator, you can start monetizing your work immediately on Nostr, unlike on X, YouTube or literally any other centralized platform where you have to hit engagement thresholds and then kyc yourself.
- [25:19]
Pierre Rochard
You can find me on Nostr by.
- [25:20]
Walker
Going to primal.netwalker and you can find this podcast on Nostr@primal.net Titcoin Primal also has a built in bitcoin wallet so you can literally get zapped by people for your posts. Then go use those sats to buy a coffee or do whatever you want all from the same app. Search for Primal in the app store, go to primal.net or choose any of the hundreds of other Nostr apps that are out there, because you can freely switch between any of them anytime you want. So come join the largest bitcoin circular economy in the world and start zapping sats on Nostr.
- [25:59]
Pierre Rochard
I think that that's fair. It's. We're really bad at predicting things. I think like humans, we like to think we're good at it. And especially those that, you know, like to draw lines on charts and everything and think you know where it's going and when it's going there. And most of the time you're wrong. And if you're right, you probably just got a little lucky because there are. It's like, it's funny to me to see bitcoiners think they know exactly where the market is going to go, when those same bitcoiners will also tell you that the, you know, well, the market, as the Austrian school would tell you, is made up of, you know, infinite subjective choices happening all the time and nobody can possibly predict it. But by the way, I know exactly where it's going. But just in this case of bitcoin.
- [26:37]
Walker
It'S like, no, you don't.
- [26:39]
Pierre Rochard
You have no idea what's going to happen. You may know broadly where you think it's going directionally. Like I think it's going up and.
- [26:44]
Walker
To the right in fiat terms.
- [26:46]
Pierre Rochard
And I think fiat is going, you know, down in bitcoin terms.
- [26:50]
Morgan Richard
Yeah.
- [26:50]
Pierre Rochard
What it does in the short term is. I have no idea. But, you know, people like to. It's. You know, what do they say? TA is like astrology for men, which is. I. I always love that. I think it's. I think that's. That's a fair critique of a lot of TA that is out there. But I'm. One other thing I wanted to kind of, like, before we even dive deeper still, is bitcoin versus crypto. Like, do you have clients. You've had a lot of bitcoin clients, obviously, for a while. Have you had some of them start to come in and, you know, ask you about these different altcoins to say, you know, oh, my friend told me about, you know, insert. I don't even want to name them. Insert X altcoin. Is this something I should get into? How do you talk to your clients about that? If and when they do ask, what do you. How do you kind of set the stage for them to show the difference?
- [27:38]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I want to give credit to my clients where credit is due. Most of my clients do not. They don't. Which is amazing. The clients who do have very small positions relative to their bitcoin position. And so it's one of those things where it's like, I'm 99% Bitcoin, Morgan. Like, stop bothering me. You know, like, I just want to hold this other thing, like, who? You don't even care. Like, you're not involved. You know, it's like, okay, okay, all right, okay. You know, it's. It's the people that have more than that, who I've also seen when they talk to me, maybe it's like the vibe I give off or what? But, like, it's almost like, I'm sorry, I have these. Like, what should I do with it? You know, it's kind of embarrassing that I have these. Like, what should I do with them? Like, you should sell those. And they're like, well, you know, should I straddle tax here? Then we're talking about strategy. Like, how are we getting rid of these things? So, for instance, like, I have one client who came in, like, had a large position in something else. Right. It was not appropriate given their situation. And the reason why it's not appropriate to have large positions in these, you know, other currencies is because these other currencies are wildly unpredictable, generally don't deliver on what they say they're going to Deliver on. They're usually pump and dump schemes at best. Sometimes they're outright Ponzi schemes at worst. And a lot of the times the creator of the coin will delay, delay, delay, delay and nothing will ever come to fruition. So to have a large portion of your net worth in something like this, as a prudent financial advisor, I just see this as. It doesn't make sense. When a person is like, I want to retire, I want to start a business, I want to fund my kids college, I want to make sure that my ill parents get their medical care. You're like, and you want to hold this coin? Why? You know what I mean? Like after you hear all this person, these like their goals, it doesn't align with what they're, what's actually in their portfolio. So it's a very easy decision when you explain it like that rather than like, I think that you made bad decisions and I think that the coin you chose is retarded. Right. Like, that's not how we have the conversation. Right. Then what we say is like, this is what you have going on in your life. These are the things that you say are important to you and these are the assets that match that. Right. And therefore holding this and the large proportion that you have doesn't make sense. And when you frame it like that, right. Then, yeah, the client's like, oh, you're right, of course. Okay, how do we figure this out? And so for like this one client where she had a large position, Right. We're just selling in two different tax years. Right. That way, like, we're not going to voice this huge burden on her just because she came in, she came in towards the end of the year. It wasn't a big difference to sell some in November and sell some in January. Right. And it splits up the taxes. And there are ways to manage these kinds of things without like just making somebody feel bad about the decisions that we make. We all make mistakes. And so I just feel like if we can navigate that in a way that helps somebody actually make the right decision, that that's going to lead to the best outcome.
- [30:22]
Pierre Rochard
Yeah. The more antagonistic approach may seem more fun and instantly gratifying, but probably that's not the most constructive way to go about it. So I'm curious because I think a lot of bitcoiners right now, regardless of, you know, if you got in like, you know, earlier, like, you know yourself, Pierre, a lot of bitcoiners, you've kind of gotten used to these market cycles a little bit as much as anyone can, I guess, Because I think we all still struggle to, like, fully grasp what's happening with bitcoin at any given time. It's like we. Okay, we know that it's immutable. Right. We know there's 21 million. Yeah. But it's still just kind of almost this alien technology that, like, we just are. Are trying to wrap our heads around the full implications. But. But for folks that are even newer, like, we're minting new bitcoiners every day. Right. You're getting new Bitcoiners in 2025. What kind of advice do you have for people who are maybe just starting out on this journey, who are looking at this and saying, okay, you know, hopefully they're not messing around with altcoins. You know, we've. I think you gave a pretty good rationale for why that's not a good idea. But, you know, how. How should they start thinking about this? How should they start structuring their lives around. I don't want to say around bitcoin, but I should say incorporating bitcoin accumulation.
- [31:35]
Walker
Into the structure of their lives.
- [31:37]
Pierre Rochard
How do you go about that when you're just starting and you feel like maybe even still. Even with a big, nice, tasty dip today, you still feel like. I think, as a lot of people do, you've missed the boat.
- [31:49]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I love that question. I think it does tie into us talking about inevitability, because. Right. If. If we really think bitcoin is inevitable and it hasn't happened today, then how can you be late? Right. Like, it's one of those things where it's like, of course you're early, because it's not like it hasn't actually happened yet. So you're still early. But, you know, that doesn't sometimes help people when they're starting out on their journeys, because. Right. You're still, like, a little bit timid about it. You're not sure how much bitcoin you should own. You're not all in. Right. Like, you're not a seasoned bitcoiner who's like, I'm 100% Bitcoin, and no matter what, you know, that Rochard lady tells me on Twitter that I should have a fiat emergency fund. I think she's off a rocker. And I'm just going to not only own 100% Bitcoin, but also borrow my credit card to own bitcoin. Right. I've seen these cases. So I think that you can enter this kind of environment with a little bit of Rationality and a little bit of reason and also looking at your own situation. And like we were talking about, finance is deeply personal, right? That's what's kind of amazing about this, like, this small part of finance, you know, there's all that other finance that, you know, that we can't control, right? But there's this one part of finance that you can control, and it's your personal finances. And they're not a science, they're an art. And the reason why is because every person is going to have different things that are important to them. They're gonna have. They're gonna have kids or they're not gonna have kids. They're gonna have aging parents or like, they've maybe they've already lost their parents, right? Maybe they're in a retirement portion of their life or maybe they're just starting out, right? Whoever you are, on whatever spectrum, like from old, young, new, not new, right? Like, everyone's going to have their own story that they want, that they want to tell and things that they want to achieve. And all of these things generally require money, right? Because we live in a society that's, thank God, not communist, and where we need to trade value for value, right? In which case money weaves into every aspect of somebody's life. And so it always starts with. Starting with what you actually want to accomplish rather than bitcoin is the next best thing, you know, And I need to be 100% in Bitcoin because, like, what else am I going to buy, you know? Like, I. I feel like I hear that a lot without people actually being like, what do I want? What do I need? What would make my life most fulfilling? What would help my spouse, my kids, my parents, whoever, right? Whoever's important to me in my life, how can I help my community, right? Like, all of these things are going to tie into how much bitcoin is actually appropriate for somebody to hold. And for some people, yeah, that might just be 100%, right? Like, I don't know. There are people out there where they come in and I'm like, like, yeah, okay, sure, whatever. That's fine for your situation. And there are other people where they come in and I'm like, well, you're literally about to go start a business. Do you think it's a good idea to have zero cash, like, and just hope for the best, right? In which case, like, on a day like today, right, if person's already started a business, they ran out of cash and now, you know, they could have sold at 100k and had extra cash lying around to actually run their business. Now they're selling at a 15% haircut. Right. And so I think that people really need to take, take all of their personal aspects in, like keep all of that in mind when they're actually going out and buying bitcoin. And that'll also help with managing the volatility. Right? Because if you have very long term goals, nothing is coming up on the, on the short term horizon, then yeah, you can stack pretty aggressively because you don't have any short term needs that need to be met. If you're like, if your income is meeting that, then you're not using and you're not using your assets to live on, then yeah, you're fine, good, go for it. Right. But if that's not your situation, then yeah, you need to be a little bit more prudent about how you manage what you're stacking and so that you don't end up in situations where volatility drives your financial plan.
- [35:21]
Pierre Rochard
I mean, yeah, especially not bitcoin's fiat volatility, which would be a pretty wild ride for any financial plan. I'm curious because just you mentioned people kind of levering up on credit. You mentioned fiat emergency fund and can you talk about that, expand on that a little bit more and maybe just what other kind of bits of advice you'd give or maybe a better way to put it is common pitfalls that you see, like where people get into a situation that's not ideal, even though you know they're stacking in the hardest money that's ever existed. But you still find yourself in a rough position because maybe there are a few steps that you could have taken that you chose not to.
- [36:02]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I love that question. So I think like for most people, right, if they're buying bitcoin, it's because they're in an accumulation stage in their life. So let's focus on those people rather than the people who are in the retirement spending. If you're in an accumulation space, the first thing you need to do to be able to accumulate anything is to have more money coming in than what's going out. And I know it sounds so basic. It's like, how could I possibly need to tell you that you have income coming in and you have expenses and then what's left over is what you can accumulate. But yet, like time and time again, for whatever reason, it's very difficult for people to see that they need to worry about not only what's coming in, but also what's going out before they start buying bitcoin. And so what I often see happen, this is a very common pitfall in the bitcoin community, is that you over accumulate. And what I mean by over accumulation is not good, right? Over accumulation in bitcoiners minds is like, I have more bitcoin. Everything's going to be awesome. Bitcoin's inevitable. It's going to a million dollars. I'm going to be fine, I'm going to retire, I'm going to flip off my boss. Everything's going to be cool. No, what actually happens with over accumulation is that you've now levered up and now you don't have cash flow to pay for things and you're usually selling at the worst possible time. So over accumulation generally leads to less bitcoin that people have in their pockets rather than more bitcoin. And so, yeah, there's going to be people, of course, that somehow get the timing right by the grace of God, and they're able to, for whatever reason, lever up and get in at the right time and get out at the right time, and they end up with more than they otherwise would have. That's a very small percentage of people. That's like less than 1% of people. They get the timing right. Because it's not just the timing on the way in that you have to get right, it's also the timing on the way out that you have to get right. And people are notoriously bad at both. So it's like you have to have both right in order to do it. And so I tell this to people all the time, is like, create a cash surplus, right? And once you have that cash surplus, if you don't need that money for other things, then yeah, go buy bitcoin. But if you also don't have any kind of emergency reserve, then. And you might also end up in this situation where all of a sudden your hot water heater floods your house and insurance only covers a portion of it or whatever it is, and you have to replace the hot water heater and you have to replace all this stuff and you weren't expecting $15,000 and now you're selling your bitcoin at the worst possible time, Right? I feel like people don't really think of these things and what they think is like, oh, I'll just borrow against my bitcoin. And it's like, okay, but now you have to go like in the midst of an emergency, go find a lender, probably give them your private keys, because the lenders where you don't have to give them or your private keys are mostly business businesses that are taking business loans at this point. So like that lending markets not really that mature yet, so I wouldn't rely on it. Or they're like, I'm just gonna put it on my credit card. And now you've got, right this situation where you've got credit card debt and you have over accumulation of bitcoin quote unquote, and you have no cash and you're now paying off, you know, a credit card loan at 30% or more, whatever it is, especially in this interest rate environment. And so I just, I feel like we, you know, one small thing like little mistakes, they start to add up and you end, you can end up in a really, really bad situation if you don't stop yourself early.
- [39:02]
Pierre Rochard
I think, I mean that's, it's great advice because I'm pretty sure, myself included and probably everybody who will listen to this has probably been in the situation where, you know, like the, the dip keeps like you, you get to a point where you, you don't even have the fiat to keep buying the dip.
- [39:16]
Morgan Richard
Dip.
- [39:16]
Pierre Rochard
Like you're like, shoot, like I, I somehow the dip keeps dipping. And I, but like I, I'm out of fiat. Like I'm, you know, there's no more, I can allocate. Like I have, you know, other bills that I need to pay and things like that's okay, I guess I'm not, I'm getting halfway down this dip, but I don't get the tastiest part of the bottom, which is like. And then you're kind of kicking yourself like, why, you know, why did I do that? You try to zoom out and think, well, okay, again to your point, you know, bitcoin's inevitable. Like, like if I just wait, you know, long enough, I'll, I'll be good. You know, I'll get back in the black. Fiat's going to zero anyway. Like I'm going to change my unit of account to bitcoin. But still, you would rather, you know, anyone would rather accumulate more bitcoin than accumulate less bitcoin. And I think what you said about over accumulating, actually the more likely situation there being ending up with less bitcoin than with more is kind of fascinating and maybe a little bit counterintuitive on its face, but it, it makes perfect sense. It's like when, if you're going to get force liquidated basically, and I'm not talking like a margin call or something, I'm not talking about that. I'm saying like, if you are forced to liquidate part of your stack for an emergency, because happens when it rains, it pours, it all tends to come at once. And it also tends to come around the time that bitcoin just happens to be taking a dump. Right. And so, you know, it's like all of this, this confluence of things comes together and now all of a sudden you're in a forced liquidation scenario, which you don't want to be. If you're going to sell some of your bitcoin, you want that to be on your terms, on your timeline. And you know, it's, it's not a very desirable situation to kind of have your, you know, to be backed into a corner, basically. It's so. Yeah, I, I appreciate that advice a lot. And I'm, I'm curious also. So, you know, you mentioned emergency stashes. Do you have just like getting into nitty gritty a little bit. Do you have like a percentage of people's, how do you do that? Do you do it like a percentage of their net worth? Do you do it as just like, okay, this is a generally good number for most people. If you're, you know, have a young family, if you own a house, things like that, how do you, how do you even go about deciding? Like, okay, because I'm sure there are people wondering, like, okay, how much dirty fiat do I actually need to keep.
- [41:18]
Walker
On hand for it to be prudent?
- [41:20]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, for sure. So there's a lot of things that actually play into emergency fund. I mean, you can make it really simple and you can just say, I want to have three to six months worth of cash. Right. That's what most financial advisors are going to tell you. I think if anything, you could be a little more aggressive with your emergency fund by like cherry picking what you actually need to put in your emergency fund. I like to do this for bitcoiners because bitcoiners don't like to hold fiat. And so like, if you don't want to take the standard three to six months advice, fine. Okay. Do you own a house? Right. If you do own a house, then like, is it an old house, is it a new house? Like, you probably need to have some sort of reserve of generally 1 to 3% of the home purchase in emergency funds for when things come up. That's general. That's generally what I recommend. For a newer house, we're usually airing more on the 1% side. For an older house, on the 3% side of like the total home value. We look at how, like how stable is somebody's income, right? If somebody has like a very stable income, they've been working for, you know, same company for a really long time, they're really well respected, they're high up in there, they're always going to get their regular paycheck, right. It's very unlikely that they're laid off. That person doesn't need, need six months worth of emergency reserve as much as maybe somebody who's freelancing. Right. Should probably err more on the six month side and so you can maybe err more on like one month's worth of expenses plus the home, plus, you know, maybe if you will have some old cars, you might want to have some extra cash lying around if you need to have things fixed. Right. I think that you could sort of look line by line about what, what would be appropriate or what wouldn't be. In general though, also, like, are you the kind of person who, if you lost your job, you can kind of take all the fat out of your budget really easily? If so, you can have less in your like, at least less than your emergency fund. If you're not the kind of person where like you go to the grocery store, you never look at a price. Right. Your kids ask for markers, you always buy them for them. Right. Like, you know, I'm using silly examples, but it's like if you just literally never think about it, then yeah, you should probably err on having more months worth of expenses rather than just drilling down into what's fixed in my budget that I can't change and putting that aside. And so I think that you can get kind of more specific if you want to or you could just kind of blanket, say, okay, three to six months. Months is probably enough if, if my income's stable, three is fine. If it's not, six is probably a better number.
- [43:26]
Pierre Rochard
Yeah, yeah. I mean that's the thing. A lot of it comes down to like peace of mind too, right? Like the situation that no bitcoiner wants to find themselves in is again, in a forced liquidation situation. Like you've been working so hard, you've been trying to stack sats and, and stay humble, you know, while you're doing it. And here you are getting forced to go out and sell some because, you know, life happens and things happen and it's unexpected and you cannot predict the future. So it's like, okay, as much as none of us want to hold on to dirty fiat, like, okay, it does still have its uses in taking care of some especially, you know, short term unexpected problems.
- [44:03]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, for sure. And having that dirty fiat around, right. Is going to enable you to have a better and safer bitcoin stack, right at the end of the day. Like if you have this emergency fund, which. Yeah, if you put that emergency fund into Bitcoin in 2020, right. Like, okay, your emergency fund would be somewhere. Right. Okay, fine, I get that. I have an emergency fund. I've done the numbers, right. It hurts. I totally understand. That said though, right, when I've actually needed that money, it's been there for me. And you know, God knows we've had our fair share of emergencies over the last five years, right. That we've been able to dip into it, replenish it and we're still stacking and everything's fine. Right. And so at the end of the day, not how to sell anything. Right. That's what we're going for here, is that you allocate appropriately, you don't have to sell and that it actually is what it's supposed to be, which is a long term savings technology. If you're over allocating, it's not a long term savings technology for you at that point because you're pulling money out of it in a short term way, using it to fund short term expenses, short term things that are happening. Everyone has uncertainty in their lives and it's what plays into people's risk tolerance. And so people who are more willing to have a lot of bitcoin, right, and very little emergency fund generally have a higher risk tolerance because they're willing to take a risk that these uncertainties aren't going to happen to them. But at the end of the day, and I don't know if you're religious, but it's up to God whether or not these things actually play out. And so you can have a year where maybe one really bad thing happens and that's it and everything's fine, or maybe it's not bad because it's one really bad thing or you have a bunch of really little bad things that happen to you and you're just constantly taking from your emergency fund. Because I didn't expect this and I didn't expect that and I didn't expect this. And so I don't know what's going to happen to anyone in any given period of time. I wish I had a crystal ball. I would do so many amazing things in this world if I knew what the future was going to be. But that's not who Anybody is. And so the only thing that we can do is plan for things that are going to be unexpected to happen and have appropriate resources set aside for that.
- [46:02]
Pierre Rochard
I think your point about risk tolerance is in the fact that everybody's profile for that is different is so important because, like, if, like I am, I am married, have been for a while, we have our first child. Now even, you know, if I look back, like if I was a, I mean, I wish I started stacking when I was a single man so that I could, you know, have brought more of that in. But. Okay, you know, hindsight's always 20 20, right. But my point is my risk tolerance as a, a single guy was far, far higher than as a married man. And now, I mean, exponentially higher than now that I have a kid. Because that, like, that just completely changes the paradigm in a, like a way that I don't think anybody understands until they're in it. And then you're in it and you're like, wow, okay, light switches on, ripped out of the wall, never turning off. This is how I proceed.
- [46:50]
Walker
Now I have a whole different view of time preference.
- [46:53]
Pierre Rochard
I've honestly found. Like, like I'm really, it's not just theoretical thinking about like leaving something to the future generations. It's like, no, he's sitting right there. That's, that's the future. Like, he, he's here. He, like I'm, I'm seeing him grow. This is not theoretical anymore. This is very real.
- [47:09]
Morgan Richard
Yeah.
- [47:09]
Pierre Rochard
And I'm curious because I know I've got people of kind of all ages, shockingly, like from zoomers to like boomers. I don't know if I have anyone from the greatest generation who listens to this show, but quite a wide range. But the majority of the people that do are in typically the like 30 to 45 year old range. So I think a lot of these people do have kids or at least are in the process of starting a family or thinking about starting a family, want kids. I would love if you could speak a little bit specifically to the parents or to the hopeful parents, the parents that are going to be coming soon, about how, again, because that's a different risk profile, it's a different level of risk tolerance. It's a different type of planning. What kind of advice do you have for those parents or soon to be parents in terms of setting? Not just, it's not just about setting yourself up, it's about setting your kids up, making sure that you have real long term stability. How does bitcoin factor into that. And how do you sort of walk through those situations with people?
- [48:09]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, there's so many facets to your question. So I want to start.
- [48:12]
Pierre Rochard
I apologize for that.
- [48:13]
Morgan Richard
No, no, it's totally fine. I want to start with actually what risk tolerance is, because we didn't. We sort of delved into it. But risk tolerance actually has made up of, like, a bunch of different things. So people normally, when they think of risk tolerance, they think of, like, you know, I'm willing to go bungee jumping. You know, like, I'm willing to bet it all on black. Right? Like, that would be really high willingness to take risk. Whereas somebody who's like, I stuff all my cash in the mattress, you know, like that. That's low willingness to take risk. There's also the ability to take risk, which is, I think, where. What you're touching on here with parenting, right? So prior to you becoming a parent or prior to even being married. Right. You had a much higher risk tolerance because your ability to take risk was higher. And that's because you were single. You didn't have a wife to worry about. You didn't have a child to take care of. You probably weren't so concerned. Let's say, if you lost your job, like, you probably could eat whatever was out there. You know, you can have peanuts, nuts for dinner for five nights and not worry. Right. Like, I don't know what you would eat, but I'm just probably meat or something. But peanuts are good, though.
- [49:13]
Pierre Rochard
I do enjoy peanuts. Yeah.
- [49:15]
Morgan Richard
Just thinking of a cheap food. Meat is not one of them. And so, you know what I mean? Like, you can adjust your behaviors a little bit better while you're looking to go find another job, whereas when you've got a wife and children. Right. You can't necessarily do that. Right. I don't know how interested Carla will be in you coming home and saying, okay, I don't have any income, not willing to sell my bitcoin, so, like, we're just gonna feed everybody peanuts for the next three weeks until I can find income. And I think that she'd probably, like, think it was a joke, you know? And so. Right. Like, ability is more than that, though, right. It's like, it's your family situation. It's also like, how stable your income is, which we sort of touched on what your net worth is. Right. Somebody with a really high net worth. Right. Elon Musk can take a lot more risk than, like, you know, somebody who is incredibly Credit card deck just because, like, it doesn't really matter. If he puts a million dollars in bitcoin, right? It's like, it's, it's not. It's such an insignificant portion of his net worth. He probably won't even notice that he did that. Right? And so I think that that's why also people are like, go Elon, try to buy, you know, try to orange fill Elon to get him to do it so he can move the market. So yeah, so there's this willingness and ability and they kind of play in together, right? And people always look at willingness and they don't like to look at ability. And then when ability kind of strikes them in the face because it's unavoidable. Like I have a wife and a child that are staring at me like my has obviously changed right now. All of a sudden you're like, well, what is my, you know, what is my risk tolerance? Like what is risk tolerance at all? Like, what, what's happened? You know, I have like my whole life, my worldview has changed, you know, and so we kind of have almost like an existential crisis when these kinds of things, like, they don't match up anymore, right? And so I actually, I like to err more on the side of ability, which is really hard for people because people with either really high or really low willingness, they don't like to look at ability. And actually especially people with low willingness. People with low willingness are like, I don't want to do that. Like, everything in my body is telling me that's the wrong thing to do. My intuition is saying, stop. Why are you putting me in risky stuff, you know? And you're like, but literally like you pay your bills every single month. You're saving 30% of your income, right? Like you have not basically not a financial care of the world, but you're literally like stuffing cash somewhere. Like, why are you doing that? You know, like we can you make a 12 month emergency reserve that'll make you feel better and then we can stack 100%, you know what I mean? Like, there are situations where like, and it's so hard for somebody with low willingness to move. I think it's also really high for somebody with high willingness to end up like being confronted with the fact that they actually have lower ability than their willingness is. And so again, it always comes back to like what your goals are, who's in your family, what you're trying to accomplish. And at the end of the day, if that means that like, like you sacrifice cagr, as people like to say, I feel like I hear this kegger thing thrown around all the time. They're like, what portfolio should I have so that I have the same cagr as bitcoin? It's like, no, like, you're thinking about this all wrong. Like, what portfolio should you have that matches who you are as a person? Like, that's the portfolio that you should have. And that's the portfolio that's going to help you sleep at night. That's the portfolio that's going to make sure that, like, your children have food on the table, that your wife doesn't have to eat peanuts every single day, that, like, you can actually pay for the hot water heater when something happens to it. Right. Like, that's the portfolio that you need to have. And yeah, maybe that does mean that you own a little more dirty fiat than you wanted to own. But, like, if you all sleep well at night and everyone's well provided for, then that's the right portfolio to have.
- [52:31]
Pierre Rochard
Yeah, I think that's genuinely. Like, you can't. What's the thing? Like, you can't put a price on peace of mind. And like, granted, if you're getting into bitcoin, especially if you got in early, like, you certainly sacrificed a lot of.
- [52:45]
Walker
Peace of mind and you turned out to be right.
- [52:48]
Pierre Rochard
Right. You turned out to be like, extremely as, as right as you can be about this thing. If you went really all in early on this. I always think about, you know, American Hodl, you know, he has the story about him, you know, riding his moped around all the, you know, it's, it's, it's a great story, but it's, it's also impressive because, like, he also had the, he talked about this with his wife. He didn't just go and do this like, he, he, he talked through it with her. Like they, you know, this was a, he said, this is what I think we need to do. Got the buy in. I, you know, would he have done it anyway? Maybe. But point is, at least he did get that buy in and he turned out to be extremely, extremely right. That all that cutting, all that kind of, you know, maybe difficulty in the short term led to a much greater outcome in the long term. But for a lot of people getting in now, I also feel like the, the current, let's say, monetary situation in the world, like the, it feels like things are starting to break a little bit. The cracks are starting to show. I think a lot of people feel more heightened uncertainty now than they did, you know, maybe certainly before COVID maybe even during COVID like, that was kind of this, I think, like, breaking point for people where, I mean, we printed ungodly amounts of money, like just insane. And a lot of stuff broke and kind of got patched over. And that's what Fiat is really good at, right? Is kind of kicking that can down the road. We'll just print more money to solve the next thing. But the problem is each bubble gets bigger each time. You don't have that painful return to reality, that reversion to the mean. It's going to be worse the next time. Time. And then the next time when you kick the can down the road again to the future generations, which is just, honestly, I think so immoral and rather despicable that this is, you know, this is what people are doing to our money. It's mortgaging our children's future so they can have a, you know, a cushy present that's maybe something we can get into after. Because I just find it abhorrent ultimately. But you had a really great post recently, tweet, post on X that was how to make your child a millionaire. And I'll just read it because I liked this one a lot. And it was how to make your child a millionaire. One, at birth, invest $1,000 in Bitcoin. Two, by age 21, they'll still have a million SATs. You can leave it alone in cold storage. By age 50, the dollar will collapse. This is how generational wealth is built. I thought this was a brilliant tweet. Can you unpack this a little bit more? Because I think this was a little tongue in cheek, but it's also, I think, very good advice. So where is the tongue in cheek part of this? Where is the kind of serious like, no, you should actually do this.
- [55:35]
Morgan Richard
Yeah. Okay. So this tweet started because I see financial advisors post these things all the time where they're like, you know, like, when your child is born, buy $1,000 worth of the S&P 500, invest $100 every single month into the S&P 500. And then your child, by the time they're 50, they'll be, you know, they'll have $2 million or whatever it is. And you're like, okay, okay, sure. You know, assuming that for whatever reason, you put it in an actual, like, trust for that child and you didn't actually use it for anything for that child over that period of time. And you were like, I only want you to have this for, you know, your. When you're retired. I guess that. Sure, that makes Sense, So that's kind of where the tweet came from. And so, yeah, in some ways it is tongue in cheek. And also like the dollar collapsing in 50 years. I mean, like, I don't know, we could be 50 years, it could be 200 years, it could be tomorrow. It's really hard to know. So especially with everything going on, you know, I don't really know. And so, but at the end of the day, right, if we're thinking about things in bitcoin terms, then, well, when I posted it, if you bought $1,000 worth of Bitcoin, you got 0.01 Bitcoin, right? Which is a million SATs. And so if you want to make your child a millionaire, quote unquote, right, if they have a million sats, then they're a millionaire. And they're a millionaire whether, no matter what the price of bitcoin is and no matter what the dollar does. And I think that we can talk about all this planning and fiat terms because we live in this FIAT world, right? And that's why we need this fiat reserve and that's why we need to make sure that we can put food on our table for the next generation. But at the end of the day, the amount of bitcoin that we have is the value that matters. That's why we're all doing this work, because eventually we all want to live in this bitcoin world. And whether or not you and me get to live in that bitcoin world or our children get to live in that, or their children get to live in that, right? Like your best guess is as good as mine, right? I don't really know when that's going to be. But the whole point is that we're moving the ball forward and that we're focusing on the bitcoin stack that we have and not everything else that's going on in the FIAT world, I think.
- [57:30]
Pierre Rochard
It'S honestly, it's a very nice balance that you're able to kind of make here between, okay, yes, acknowledge the usefulness of fiat, especially when covering unexpected things that come up, but try to think about the long term in bitcoin. And so if I'm, if I'm kind of reading the way you break this down, it's really bitcoin is that long term view. But yes, we're still in a fiat world. You're still going to need some fiat. You don't want to have to scramble and sell your long term future value storage for some short term unexpected problem is that kind of how you break it down. Like, okay, this is the, this is the high time preference fiat that I'm going to be needing for now. This is the low time preference Bitcoin.
- [58:13]
Walker
That I am going to do everything.
- [58:14]
Pierre Rochard
I can not to touch.
- [58:16]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I really like how you broke that down. I definitely, that's, that's how like how I work and how I do financial planning is like, we think about what's short term and what's long term and we try to just optimize based on that and what we think is going to happen. Right. We don't know everything. And that's why you do end up with these fiat reserves. We also might have expected short term expenses that would come up, in which case you would still need fiat for those expected short term expenses. Right. And so the asset allocation, which I hate using that term because Bitcoin is savings, but it is technically it's a currency allocation, I guess between fiat versus Bitcoin, right? It's going to matter based on what you have going on. But also I know people who, they're like, well, I want to do everything in Bitcoin because I'm a bitcoiner, so I'm just going to do everything in Bitcoin. And you're like, okay, but now you've created an extreme accounting burden on yourself and you're really annoying the crap out of your accountant if you have one. And if you don't have one, then you're probably misfiling something because like, you know, if you don't have a second eye on these things and you're doing a lot of Bitcoin transactions because you're going in and out of Bitcoin to Fiat or, you know, or worse. Like you're not actually keeping track of all of this stuff, but the IRS is because, you know, everybody gets our data all the time. And so now you're just like, it kind of reminds me of, and I hate to use this as an example, but like the bitbuy thing that just happens, happen. Bybit, sorry, I'm like kind of an out, like, okay, so in Bybit, right? Like they had this like crazy hack where people weren't checking, you know, they weren't checking the address because you can't check the address on like the device to be able to move it or whatever, right? And so it's like, it's so complicated that we can't even get an address on the device anymore. And so we were making all these mistakes and now we're just going to send A bunch of money to North Korea. It's like, okay, you can do that in your bitcoin life. You can, like, obviously you're not. It's not that bad, right? We're not, like, hopefully. I mean, yeah, but like, you can overcomplicate your life and you can make it as hard as you want it to be, or you can under complicate your life and you can just say, you know what? I just have to use fiat right now because I live in a fiat world, unfortunately. This is the world I live in. Right. I'm doing everything I can by stacking and maybe having a thing like the bitcoin podcast where I get the word out and I'm orange peeling my nephew or whatever it is. Right. So that I can live in this bitcoin bitcoin world that I don't currently live in. Right. There are other things that you could do besides like, overcomplicating your accounting life.
- [60:30]
Pierre Rochard
Yeah, no, it's. It's definitely true. I mean, and again, I think this is one of those things where I admire people who are very much trying to fully live on a bitcoin standard, like, not use fiat use, you know, buying, you know, using things like bit refill or things like that when they need to do something in the fiat world. I think it's also a lot maybe easier to do when you don't have kids yet. Yeah. Just because from. I am still a very new father. Like, it's only been a little over a year, and I find that the amount of time that I have and the amount of additional complexity I am willing to add into my life is they are both very small in terms of how much more I want to add in there. And so it's like, you know, and again, to everyone, you know, to each their own, do whatever you want to do. I try to very much use bitcoin as my unit of account from a high level in terms of. That's how I'm thinking about. You know, I feel like you get to a switch when you're a bitcoiner where you're no longer looking at something as the price tag is in fiat. Like, and it's just, that's the price tag. It's how many dollars does it cost? It's like you're automatically doing that, you know, rough conversion in your brain to say, this is how much bitcoin I am not buying when I decide to buy. Whatever this may be. Maybe it's a necessity, maybe it's a frivolity, whatever it Might be, but you're doing that, you know, that mental calculation just without even thinking about it. And I think it's a good way to approach things because you start to realize that you can cut a lot of fat out of your life. And so that's one thing we haven't touched on yet that I know you've been very vocal about and I think is useful for people is, okay, you know, as you mentioned before, it's not just money coming in, it's the money going out you also need to think about.
- [62:11]
Walker
And so how do you talk to clients?
- [62:12]
Pierre Rochard
How do you talk to people in general about just. Just trying to minimize the money going out? Like, and how can you, you know, because you don't need to live in a cardboard box. You don't need to eat ramen noodles every night. You don't need to make every sacrifice you can just to stack more sets.
- [62:27]
Walker
Like you want to live.
- [62:28]
Pierre Rochard
So how do you balance still living a good life, especially if you have a family, and making sure that you provide a good life for that family with still maximizing the accumulation of this beautiful finite money that is called bitcoin.
- [62:41]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I love how you put that, because I get this question from people all the time where they're like, how do I optimize everything in my financial life? And I'm like, well, you buy a tiny home, you buy a bicycle, you eat ramen, like, you don't have kids. Like, is that the life you want to live? Like, they're like, no, no. But like, how do I optimize? I'm like, I just told you how to optimize your financial life. So, yeah, no, it's obviously, it's a balance, right? Like, anything it's going to depend on, like, like, what's going to be important to one family versus another, right? If one family is like, you know what? We're really religious family, we think it's really important that our kids get religious instruction, right? And therefore, we're. We're willing to spend for our four kids, you know, 80 grand a year on private school, right? Like, some people are going to make that commitment. Other people are going to look at that and be like, are you crazy? 80 grand a year on, like, what? Are you insane? Like, like, how. Why? What are you doing? You know, so. And I think that, like, each are going to make their choices. The problem is when people are like, I'm going to pay for a private school. I'm going to have a nice house. I'm going to have a pool in my backyard, I'm going to have really nice cars. And not only am I going to have a nice car, but my wife needs to have a nice car too, right? And like, the list goes on and on and on. They're like, well, I deserve it. I work really hard and I make a lot of money and then all the money's gone, right? And so I feel like people need to have priorities about what's important to them, right? And I think really easy actually for people to make those priorities. But the problem is that acting on. On those priorities in the moment is really, really difficult, right? Because, like, let's say you really like cars, right? But like, you and your wife talked about it, and it really is more important to send them to private school, right? And so you've talked about it, but then, you know, your car breaks and you go to the. You go to the store or the shop, I don't know what you call it, the lot. And you go and you look and you're like, well, that BMW looks amazing, right? Like, I would love to have that car. And then for whatever reason, somehow you're driving off the lot with it, right? And now you've committed to very expensive private school and also an extremely expensive car that is probably, you know, what most people pay for their mortgage, right? So I feel like people need to prioritize and it's really, really hard for them because, like, if school is important, maybe car is not. If school is important, then maybe house is not. If house is important, then school is not right. If car is important, then maybe school and house are not right? Or maybe no pool. Or maybe like, like, if organic food is really important, then like, maybe activities for your children aren't as important, right? Like dollar for dollar, you have to make these decisions all the time. But what happens is that, like, you can think about this, but then acting on it is really hard to do. And so I. The best advice that I have for people, like, is generally that they need to think in the mindset of somebody who's a saver. It's like, how. And it's not like, you know, shouting affirmations into the mirror or whatever. It kind of sounds a little bit like that. But like, there are people who are savers, right? Just by definition, like the way that they operate, they. They just like they look at prices, they're very conscious, right? They're not just like randomly spending money on stuff. Like, these people are generally very successful at saving money, and in fact, they're generally so successful at saving Money that they have trouble spending money later. And they usually end up with estates, which then their third generation completely spends the smithereens, right? Because they didn't actually pass the value of saving on. And so there's. That's like a whole other conversation. But then there's the other side. There's the spenders, right, who like, no matter what they do, it's like the money just slips through their fingers. They accumulate so much in their home. They're constantly complaining. And I'm guilty of this, of like complaining about all this stuff in our house. But, like, we're still buying more stuff. And I'm like, but why am I buying, you know, like, I have like all this stuff to clean. I'm spending all this money on this stuff that I'm yelling about that I need to clean, right? And so, like, I'm not saying I'm a saint here and that I'm like this over saver here, but like, and everyone's got their things, right? And so, but like, again, the priorities, right? If you're the kind of person, you know, you're a spender, like, you need to think, like, how can I make myself into more of a saver? And it's not going to happen overnight, but it's going to be making, like, better decisions every single day, like evaluating do I really need the name brand ketchup or versus, like the not, you know, like, I don't know, I'm just giving you examples here. But like, people can make little decisions which will ultimately snowball into becoming bigger decisions. And I feel like financial advisors get a lot of flack for this, right? There's like the coffee conversation where people are like, oh, you know, stop buying your coffee out and making it home. And like, yeah, it's stupid, right? You save a thousand bucks a year, whatever. But it's not that you're saving a thousand dollars. It's that you're consciously making a decision to do something differently. And that when you change your behavior, you might change your behavior in other places too. I think that that's what's often lost. It's not the thousand dollars that you're gonna save on that cost coffee, right? Or the fact that you're gonna be spending a lot more time cleaning the coffee pot at home, right? It's. It's that you're willing to do something differently. And if your situation is not such. Where you feel like you're saving enough or you're accumulating enough or whatever it is, then something needs to change. And you need to look deep and hard and find out what that thing is and what will be the easiest thing to change first so that you can make future changes that are harder later.
- [67:28]
Pierre Rochard
Yeah, I think that's great advice. I'm curious, are there any, are there any, like, specific, just for you, personally specific, let's say sacrifices or cuts that you made that like, you thought you maybe weren't going to be able to live without? And then it's like, oh, actually this, this was okay. Like, is there, is there something in your, your own lives where you, you know, made one of those cuts? Maybe it wasn't popular at the time, but it ended up, you know, okay. We're, we're, we're better now for, like, it didn't actually matter as much as I thought it did.
- [67:56]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, we have absolute garbage cars. I'm the first person to tell anybody that. I mean, we literally drive two hunks of junk. I mean, like, I actually had to push our car up a hill, like, with my kids.
- [68:06]
Pierre Rochard
Oh, my God.
- [68:07]
Morgan Richard
Like, it's an actual hunk of junk, you know. And so I've gotten a lot of complaints from my family about the fact that we need a new car on both sides, both my side and Pierre's side, about the fact that we're still driving this, like, little literal garbage on the road. It's safe enough though, that our kids can be in it. It's like, I'm not concerned about the safety, so please don't call cps guess. But yeah, so, like, things like that. We bought a smaller house than we otherwise should, like, would have and should have for our family size. I think that these are, like, in my mind making the major changes, I think is easier for somebody like me than going to the grocery store and worrying about every single line item. Like, I didn't want to have to do that. And so we bought some. We bought less house than we can afford. We bought way, like. I mean, our cars are. Yeah. Like, there's nothing else to really say about them. I'm also, I try to be mindful about like, like kids clothing. Like, I feel like you can. I've got three kids and like, they're amazing and they're so cute. You want to dress them in, like, all the things. You know, I'm like, especially as a woman, I'm like, I want to buy like, cute dresses for my daughters. And like, we should match. We should get matching headbands. But, like, we don't because. Because we take all the hand me downs for My sister. It's like, stuff like that where you're like, they're gonna stain it anyways, you know, for their everyday clothes. Like, if you need a nice outfit for something, fine. But, like, for the most part, we try to keep that stuff under control so that I don't have to worry about the other things. Because I actually am the kind of person where when I go to the grocery store, I absolutely hate looking at prices. I do not want to do that. I want to buy what my family will eat that's healthy, that is not poisoning them. And I'm not going to worry that it's $2 more than the other thing. I'm just not going to do that. But again, these are personal sacrifices that we made in order to have that. It wasn't like, okay, I'm going to buy a million and a half dollar house, and I'm also going to, you know, not worry at the grocery store. And now I'm gonna go into debt.
- [69:57]
Pierre Rochard
Yeah. On the kid's clothing piece. The other point about that is they just grow out of them so fast.
- [70:02]
Morgan Richard
That's the thing. Oh, I like that, too.
- [70:03]
Pierre Rochard
Oh, it's absurd. It's like, okay, well, that fit for two days. And our little guy's really growing fast, too, so he's. Yeah, there was a lot of clothes that just. They. They just never fit him. And we were like, oh, yeah, well, great. Glad we got these. That's. Guess we need to have another one just so we can get some use out of them. Hopefully the next one's small. Like, fingers crossed.
- [70:23]
Morgan Richard
Also, what happens too, is like, you're in the wrong seasons. Because I was like, oh, well, you know, I've got two girls, so, like, certainly she'll wear all the things that my other one wore. And it's like, nope. She was born in May, and my first daughter was born in January, and seasons just don't match. Eventually they will. Right. Like, where I was headed there. But yeah, it's kind of funny how it is. And, like, the shoes thing just kills me because, like, their feet grow so fast, but you also don't want them to have deformed feet. So you're like, I feel like I have. Have to spend money on, like, nice shoes for them so that their feet are fine and that they go walk appropriately. And they also don't wear them a lot because they take them off and run around outside. But they need to be, like, looking like civilized children in public. Sometimes they need you. You know, it's a hard. It's hard.
- [71:04]
Pierre Rochard
I'm a big like no shoe maximalist. And it appears that a couple times we've tried to put shoes on our son. He's just like, he just rips them right off. And I'm like, good, good. You keep ripping off those shoes. Like we'll get you a pair of real loose fitted fitting leather moccasins that will, you know, allow your feet not to get too crunched in there. But I know I, I digress in, into, into shoe, shoe theory. But you know, one of the, the things that I wanted to come back to because you mentioned just like the, the generational side, you know, that third generation, what's the, the old adage? It's like the first generation earns it, this, the second one, you know, spends it and the third one like, I don't know, sets it on fire or something. I'm not saying it correctly but, but something to that effect. Like you build up this generational wealth in one generation. Usually the next generation maybe maintains it or, but doesn't really grow it. They probably start spending it and then it's like the third generation kind of, you know, for lack of a better expression, like pisses it away. And, and, and especially if there's like a, you know, a family business or something involved there. That's typically how these things tend to go. There's a reason there's stereotypes for them. But I feel like a lot of bitcoiners run the risk of getting into that type of situation because all the work they're doing now, they're trying to build this generational wealth, right? They're thinking about their, their children, their grandchildren maybe they're thinking about their great, great, great grandchildren. They're thinking they're going to build this, this dynasty, right? But once you leave this earth, you don't have any control over that again. So you know, do you talk to clients about kind of that long, long term planning like, especially if you are, are building up this generational bitcoin wealth if, you know, the dollar does collapse in 50 years and wow, those, you know, you are really a, you're a SAT millionaire and that's all people care about. With those thousand sats that you got, how do you think about that long, long term, that kind of estate planning, that real generational transfer type of planning?
- [72:55]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I love this question. I want to start this question. I want to talk about generational planning for sure, but I want to give people like a quick snippet since you know, most people listening to this probably don't have multi generational wealth yet, even though they probably will if they are stacking appropriately and doing everything they need to do. But in the meantime, you do need an estate plan, right? You need something especially you have kids, like have a guardianship on file. Make sure that like legally everyone knows who's going to take your child should something happen to you and your wife, right? Like, these are kind of basic planning, making sure you have some sort of trust for the benefit of minor children, where if you die, there's a testamentary trust that's created for the benefit of that child. You pick a trustee who you know can actually like be good with money, which for a lot of families that's hard. And then like provide for that child, put stipulations into the trust of what actually can be, like, what the money can be used for. All of these things are going to help. Like if, God forbid, something happens in the short term, where both you and your spouse, something happens, right? And it's the worst possible outcome that at least your children are provided for. I feel like, like time and time again, this is a huge mistake that bitcoiners make because they're like $'s gonna collapse. Don't care about the legal system. Wife knows where the hardware wallet is. Whatever, it's outside the purview of the government. It doesn't matter. Like she'll just take the hardware wallet and everything will be fine. My kids don't even have Social Security numbers. And you're like, oh my gosh, like, what is happening here? You know, like, get your kids. So like do basic planning, right? Like there's a reason why these things exist and we don't have to throw the bathwater out like the baby out with the bathwater, right? As they say, right? Of the bathwater is bad, right? Some of it is very, you know, soapy and terrible and has like your gunk all over it, right? But some of it is actually there, like to wash the baby originally, right? And so let's keep those things. And estate planning is one of those things. I would say doing basic estate planning to start will at least get you a relationship with an attorney so that if you are stacking, now this attorney knows you and now this attorney can be the person that you talk to when you know your stack all of a sudden, sudden goes from a million dollars to $10 million, right? Maybe you don't have an estate planning problem at that point because estate tax limits and things are super high. But now from 10 million to 40 million, right? Like all of a sudden the numbers are starting to get in territory where you're like, gosh, like I really don't. And is the dollar going to collapse at this point? Right. I don't know. Right. In the meantime, do planning where planning is due, all estate planning aside, that's actually not the thing that determines whether or not the third generation is going to spend all of your money. So the thing that determines that is are you able to effectively communicate your values to the next generation and effectively communicate them so well that your children effectively communicate that to their children and effectively communicate that to their children and so forth. That's how multi generational wealth exists. These families that have big names that we know about, they, we know about their names because that was done, not because they put these crazy trust stipulations and they, they doled out tiny amounts of income to their children to preserve wealth over time. I think that the average person thinks that like, that these trust fund babies, that's what they live on or whatever, and that they have some sort of income and some do. Right. But that's not how you're going to end up with the child who's unable to communicate values to the next generation. Right. That's how you end up with a child who remains a child for their whole life. And as you know, as a parent, that's the last thing you want for your child. Right. The last thing you want for your child is that when you're gone, they are incapable of doing anything. And so some of the problems with trust planning is that if the parent is so more concerned about the money than the child, then. Right. You're not going to effectively communicate the values to the child. You're going to effectively communicate the stipulations to the trust. And that's not effective. It's effective for the first generation, it's not effective for the second, the third, the fourth and so forth. Right. I'm sorry, this. You can. The first generation after that.
- [76:40]
Pierre Rochard
Yeah, I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [76:42]
Morgan Richard
And so there are ways to do that. Right. Like at the beginning, what you wanna do is you wanna just create resilience in your child. Right. You don't wanna do everything for your child. Even though, like, I'm guilty of this, obviously, like I want my kids to leave the house so we can get somewhere on time. Right. Am I gonna put their shoes on? Yeah. Right. If we don't have anywhere to be, can they sit there putting their shoes on for 30 minutes? Yeah. We're gonna miss outside time. I love outside Time as much as the next guy, right? Like, I'm gonna be a little upset and annoyed and probably feeling impatient, but at the end of the day, right? Did they get their shoes and socks on? Right. These are sort of things that, I know it sounds silly that you think like, oh, well, this person's going to be a financier because, you know, mom at age 3 had them put their own shoes on. But it starts there, right? It starts with giving them basic responsibilities around the house. Making sure that they set the table, they clear the table, they put their clothing in the hamper. Right? Like, they actually have to clean up their toys and put them in the right bins, not just shove them behind the couch or under a bed. Right? Like, these are things that give your kids actual skills. Prioritize. Maybe if they go to school, right? And they come home with homework, maybe prioritize some of the house things over the homework, right? Because like, school at the end of the day, like, don't let school get in the way of your children's education, right? Even if you're home, if you're homeschooling or if you're not. Right. Like, it could really get in the way of teaching your kids basic life skills. They're not going to learn anything about money in school. Like, hands down, they're just not. Like, they're not going to learn anything about how to do laundry. They're not going to learn how to cook an egg. Right. They're not going to learn any of these things. So if you want your children to have basic skills and be able to survive in an environment without you, where they're not calling you all the time being like, my kid has a fever. What medication do I give them? My child stubbed their toe, what do I do? My door and my car won't open, right? Like, you don't want that, right. You want your kid to actually be able to do the things that they need to do. And so I feel like this is often lost because we're like, you know, as parents, we have a lot of responsibilities and we're constantly running around trying to do the right thing for our child. Children. So this is not me making fun of parents by any stretch of the imagination. And also, I'm guilty of some of these things. So I'm not saying that I'm perfect by any regard in any of this stuff. But I also, like, it's. It's kind of the same thing with bitcoin. Like, do you have a long term focus on your children or A short term focus, right? Sometimes you're gonna have a short term focus because you need to get your child somewhere and therefore whatever you need to do to get your child to that place is what you're going to do, right? And then every other time, right. Maybe we can have a little longer term focus on like what's important, like a resilient child, like a well adjusted child, a child who can deal with a wide range of emotions. A child who like has some street smarts, right? Who isn't just book smart, who can use their intuition to sort of to gauge what's going on in the world. A child who's helpful, right, doesn't only think about themselves, but who thinks about other people. And like, that's really hard for children, right? I mean, it's really hard for basically anybody until they become a parent to think about anything besides inside themselves. So like, I think like teaching children to be kind to others and to look for kindness that they can do in different places, right? These are all going to create somebody who has values. And then as they're getting older, if you couple on top of that, like we have family meetings where we talk about our family values, where we discuss maybe budgets for things, right? You don't have to like reveal to your kids your net worth and all your bitcoin and what you're spending on every single thing, right? But maybe you can reveal something small like, like this is the family's entertainment budget. How should we spend it? This is what, like we have, you know, we have the opportunity to go on a vacation this year. Like we have this amount of money that we can spend. We were thinking about these two places, right? Like maybe narrow it down so your kid's not like, you know, throwing some crazy place out there, right? Which do you think would be better? Or like you already picked the place, maybe they can help pick some of the activities within, like the structure of a budget, right? So that they're thinking, thinking like, you know, resources aren't infinite here. And I think that this is especially hard for parents who actually do have the infinite resources, right? Like if you're in a position where you've been stacking bitcoin for a really long time and now you really do have all the money to spend and you can just, you know, do whatever, right? It doesn't mean you should, because if you do that with your kids, they're not actually going to learn anything. They're going to grow up like that term, the silver spoon in their mouth, right? Like, and we have so many examples of this through history. Like, I think of particularly, like, the Persian Empire comes to mind because it's like they were scrappy, right? And then, like, they established themselves, and then they were just totally decadent and ridiculous to the point where, like, you know, they became basically irrelevant, right? And so, like, that's not what people want for their families. At the end of the day, you don't want to be scrappy and then there and then irrelevant, right? Like, you want to make a difference. That's why we're here. We're here to make the world a better place. So, like, figure out how you can do that and pass that on to the next generation.
- [81:06]
Pierre Rochard
Amen. It's really like trying to. At a local family level, trying to break out of the cycle of, you know, strong men create good times, good times, create weak men and create hard times. Like, you kind of want to see if you can, okay, maybe we won't stop that for all of society, but can we stop that in our own family unit, in this locus of our own control that we actually have some say over what happens? Like, how can we instill those values that you create, you know, know, another generation of strong men and women, like, that's. That's the. That's the goal, right? And hopefully teach them well enough and help them to learn well enough that they are inquisitive and have the same desire to do that for their own offspring down the line. I. I think that's honestly, like, it's really great advice. And especially the part about not trying not to do everything for your kids because I. I now get the temptation, right? And our little guys just kind of walking now. Now, you know, he's not. Not. He's babbling a lot, not really speaking yet. But I'm like, once he. Once he starts really being able to ask for things, like, okay, then.
- [82:06]
Walker
Then.
- [82:07]
Pierre Rochard
Then you really got to be kind of careful with how you deal with that.
- [82:10]
Walker
Right.
- [82:10]
Pierre Rochard
You know, you can't give them everything because then they'll think that they can.
- [82:13]
Walker
Get everything without working for it.
- [82:15]
Pierre Rochard
And it's like, that's the. I think that's going to be the trap that is easy to fall into for a lot of Bitcoiners is like, the kids won't necessarily know how much you sacrifice Christ, how hard you worked, you know, the different choices that you made to be able to give them the life that you're giving them and that they are accustomed to unless you show them and continue to embody that. And I think that's the. That, you know, that's the rub right there.
- [82:39]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, for sure. And, like, to add one more thing about being a parent, like, of course you're gonna do everything better than your child. You know, like, you're an adult, and they're a tiny human. Like, yeah, it's way easier for you to just do it. Right? Like, the reason why I bake with my kids is not because they're actually gonna help me. Of course, I call them mommy's little helper. And it's so good. I couldn't make this cake without you. Right? Like, no, I could have made this cake ten hundred years ago if I didn't have you here. Right. Like, that's not why we do it together. And also, it's gonna taste better if I do it on my own. Right. Cause I'm actually gonna measure properly. It's not why we do it, though, Right? You do it so you can give them skills and that they can eventually do it as well as you can. And it's the same thing with finances. And I feel like a lot of people, because they feel uneasy about their own financial skills, right? They're like, well, how can I possibly teach that to the next generation? It's like, okay, if you're feeling uneasy, like, find some time. I know it's limited when you are a parent, but find some time to build some confidence, to figure out how you can. Like, how you can embody that so that your child understands that. Because if you feel unconfident about it, children sense that, and they're, of course, going to feel that lack of confidence. Confidence as well.
- [83:46]
Pierre Rochard
Yeah. No, well said. I. I want to switch gears a tiny bit because I wanted. I think this is a. The way that you break things down, I think is really helpful for. For bitcoiners. I think it's also extremely helpful for people who are coming into. You know, maybe they've just started looking at bitcoin because the Larry Finks of the world have started talking about it. They're starting to think, h. Maybe this is something I've been ignoring for years because the mainstream media kept telling me it was dead again and again, and it's a Ponzi scheme and all these other things. Now I'm starting to pay attention to it, or. Or maybe I'm still on the fence about it. But, you know, we've addressed a lot kind of the bitcoiners in the room, let's say, and I know a lot of your clients are now coming in as bitcoiners but, you know, not all of your clients were always that way.
- [84:30]
Walker
So how do you talk to people.
- [84:31]
Pierre Rochard
Whether they be clients, you know, friends, family, whatever it may be, people in general who are not yet. They're still no coiners, or I should say they're pre coded. Pre coiner is a more inclusive term. Perhaps it's, they're, you know, they're not no coiners, they're just, they're just pre coiners. They're not there yet. How do you talk to people about really the, what Bitcoin kind of means to you, what it can, you know, mean for the family, for the individual. How do you actually start with that? When somebody is coming with all of this, let's say, intellectual baggage from the fiat world, all these misconceptions, thanks in no small part to the media, how do you begin to show them? Like this is something that needs to be a foundational part of how you set your life up going forward?
- [85:16]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, that's a really great question. Well, it does start with whether or not that person has an open mind. Because as we know, if somebody's mind is closed off, it doesn't matter what you say to them. You can throw a hundred million facts at them, you can show them proof, you could literally bring evidence of all sorts, certain kinds, right? And if people don't want to hear it, they will make up whatever story in their mind to tell them that you are not correct. And so what I say, when people ask me about that with, in regards to orange peeling, I, I always say that if somebody has their mind closed, you're wasting your time. Like, just move on. Because the only thing that's going to happen from that is you're going to shout into a void, you're going to get angry and you're going to leave not having changed anyone's mind and also feeling kind of sorry for yourself that you spent your time that way, right. Even if you don't admit that. And so, and, and I've been there, right? Like I've actually done that, right. And that's how I've come to the conclusion that somebody with their mind closed, don't even bother. Somebody with their mind open, though, is a completely different story, right? And so from there you have to gauge, okay, what is this person's level of understanding of just the monetary system, right? Is it nothing? In which case, like, we kind of have to start with the basics of what is money and why we use it and why, you know, why it became something that was part of. Let's say governments helping people use money, right. And so forth versus like individuals having their own money, barter versus right. Coins and so forth. Do you need to go that far back for some people or could you just, you know, kind of start with where we are of like, hey, we live in an age where government's diluting you out of your money. It's very obvious. You go to the store, you have to pay $10 for eggs, right? I feel like it's actually a lot easier of a story right now of like, just go to the store. Didn't you used to spend $100 and now you spend $200 on the same thing? That box of pasta you bought has 3/4 less than it used to have in it. Right? Like, you know, I mean, just things like that where it's like, it's obvious to people like something is going on. Like you said earlier that there was a shift after all this money was printed during COVID And so I feel like a lot more people's minds are open as a result of that and that you can actually engage in like real conversation with somebody and at least having them understand why they would want to have long term savings and what long term savings is. Because we've never had anything like long term satisfaction savings before versus just having short term savings and investments. Because people think that investment is synonymous with long term savings and it simply is not. Investments are exactly what they sound, right? You're either buying a bond or stock. Right. Or some sort of alternative investment that packages up bonds and stocks in a different way with some sort of derivative element to it. And you're taking a risk not only in, let's say, the company, but also the type of instrument that it is. Right? So if it's a stock, you're taking a risk that the money that you're giving to this company, right. That they're not only going to grow their revenues and that they're going to make sure that their expenses don't get too bloated and that they're going to like have net income and they're not going to dilute your stock out. Right? There's all sorts of things. And that you also have counterparty risk because you store it at a custodian, right? There's all these extra things that happen when you an investment instrument versus just owning money. And people don't think about that because they don't think about any of those things. Right? They just said, oh, somebody said buy the s and P500. So that's my Savings account, right. And people also don't think about this in terms of their money, right? Because the second we store our money in the bank, right, all of a sudden we also have a whole slew of risks because the bank is lending our money out, right? And like our money's not really our money anymore. It's actually a receivable and it might not actually be there if they send made too many bad loans. Right. There's a whole other thing. And so again, like, you have to gauge the amount of information that you could throw at somebody when you're having these conversations to help them get on their way. And for some people, right, like a little bit of information is going to be enough for them to be like, you know, I'm going to go and buy a little bit of bitcoin. And that's generally where it starts. Like, I feel like people sometimes feel defeated because they're like, well, I said all of this and then they didn't, you know, transfer 100% of their wealth into bitcoin. Like, no, no, no. Like they need time. Like, let them just go and buy some and see how it works and feel good about it. And then like generally the price, like, especially when the price goes up, people are like, oh, I should have bought more of that. Right. Like, people are very affected by the price. I think is the other thing telling people in a bare market to buy bitcoin, even though it is the right time for people to buy bitcoin is actually like, it's counterintuitive, but it's usually the wrong time to tell people to buy bitcoin even though, like from a fiduciary standpoint it's the right time. So that's my long way of telling you that. I guess it depends.
- [89:30]
Walker
Yeah, no, it's, it's.
- [89:32]
Pierre Rochard
I, I agree with you. And it's, it's something where I think bitcoiners again, seem to have, have some short term memory loss because it's easy.
- [89:39]
Walker
For us to forget.
- [89:40]
Pierre Rochard
And I'll include myself in this. I try to lead with empathy with people when I'm, I'm talking to them because they're people that I care about and I'm, why am I telling them about bitcoin? Because I believe it is something that is going to help them and help them have a better life like that. That's why I'm not trying to, I'm not selling them in altcoin, you know. No, I'm, I'm just telling them to save in bitcoin. But we often forget that, like we were all in that place at one point. Nobody except Satoshi. Like nobody was there right from the start. Right? You got into it at some point either because maybe you listened to a podcast, maybe you talked to a friend, maybe you saw somebody on bitcoin, Twitter, doesn't matter. But you didn't go most. Maybe I shouldn't say, I should say the vast majority of people did not go all in gung ho balls to the wall from the instant that they heard about bitcoin. If you did amazing, congratulations, you are a unicorn.
- [90:36]
Walker
Most of us did not.
- [90:38]
Pierre Rochard
And so it's important to remember that, I think when we're having these conversations with people, especially loved ones, because you don't want there to somehow, you know, to sour the mood, to have there be bad blood. You also don't want to avoid a small conflict just for the sake of avoiding conflict when you know this is something that can really help them. So it's like, it's kind of trying to balance that thing. Like, hey, I love you. You know, I'm not a complete idiot. This is a thing that I really care about. Let's talk about this. And one of the things I always do is just like, what questions do you have? Like, what. Don't.
- [91:08]
Walker
What.
- [91:08]
Pierre Rochard
What's difficult to understand about this because you often find that they ask really just kind of like a lot of very boiler point questions that basically any bitcoiner who has spent a little bit of time researching can answer pretty comfortably. But if you try to just pound them with all the information, you know, well, let's go back to the Song Dynasty and, and for, you know, it's like that, that doesn't always go over super well. Like you, you have to, you know, let, let them talk a little bit more, let them work through some of their own problems. But you know, we're at this point where, yeah, bitcoin has dipped today, but it's still at a, you know, what seems like a ridiculously high number for.
- [91:44]
Walker
A lot of people.
- [91:45]
Pierre Rochard
That's.
- [91:45]
Walker
That's a lot of money.
- [91:46]
Pierre Rochard
But it's like, yeah, you know, know, you can still get. Well now to your earlier example from your, your tweet. You can get over a thousand sat. Over over a million sats. Excuse me, For a thousand bucks. So like, wow, you can, you can be over a SAT millionaire now with a pretty decent price tag. So that's a, that's a good thing.
- [92:04]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, definitely. I think I couldn't agree with you more. I think especially with loved ones. And I particularly, what comes to mind is when spouses just don't agree. Like, I get, you know, I get people reaching out to me all the time being like, well, how do I have, like, how, how do I get my wife to think about this the way you do, you know? And it's like, okay, first of all, you shouldn't compare your wife to me at all, right? Like, you know, like at all. Second of all, like, how are you communicating with your wife? And then, you know, you hear the whole thing. Well, I like, you know, basically beat her over the head with bitcoin every single night. And you're like, do you think that, that, that's like if somebody did that to you with something that you didn't want to hear about, like, whatever it is, you know, just like pick a topic that your wife talks about quite a lot that you hate, you know, and then she, every day was like, ding, ding. You know, like, the curtains, I need to change the curtains, I need to change the curtains. And you're just like, I want to, I never want to change the curtains. In fact, I'm going to rip them down and we're never going to have curtains. Like, I'm like, that's what people are going to, that's what people do when you, like, berate them. So like, would you have a conversation, you know, with somebody? Like, if you're married to this person, you obviously love them, you're obviously on the same team as them. Like, you want to do, like, you want to spend your life together. Like, that's why you got married, right? If that's not how you feel, then maybe you shouldn't have made that decision, right? And now you have other things that you need to work out. But presumably, right, you're married because you love each other and you want to have a life together for a long period of time. And so like, again, like, bitcoin is a long term asset. Like, there's not a rush. Like, you can take your time talking, like, and listening to your wife's concerns and hearing her questions. You don't have to like beat her into having. And I, and I use that, like, obviously, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do not actually hurt your wife in any way. Yeah, please. But you know, like, you can, you can have real conversations with your spouse and hear what is why they don't want to do it, right? Because at the end of the day, right, like, think she'll thank me later is what I hear a lot. And I don't know, maybe she won't right? Like, maybe she'll just be so miserable. Even though you have a lot of wealth, like, sometimes money's not everything, right? And I feel like we get lost in that, in the bitcoin world because we're like, well, we want to stack as much as possible because we know what we own, and we want to have as much as we can because we're going to be quadrillionaires. We're going to do whatever we want. You know, we're never gonna have to worry about money again. But it's like, is that really what your life is all about? Like, you know, like, how much money do people really need? You know, does everybody need to have a private jet to feel happy? Or, like, are we in this weird, fiat mindset where we just need more, more, more, more, more, and we think that that's actually what's going to make us happy, when really, at the end of the day, what really does make us happy is connections with others and, you know, like, meaningful things. Helping. Helping others, changing the world, like, speaking about truths, right? These are all things that people can actually connect on and feel good about and feel like their life is being lived with meaning and purpose, not just, you know, I own all the things, things. And I could take a trip whenever I want, and, you know, my wife will thank me later.
- [95:02]
Pierre Rochard
Amen to that. And I think I would echo that, that that's something that bitcoiners, especially the. Where it's like, you know, you. You know, you don't need to. It's like, right now, I just won't own anything. I won't allow myself to have any enjoyment in life because I'm just stacking as hard as I can, and I'm, you know, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna delay the gratification forever. And then once I get there, I'm gonna do something or I'm gonna buy all the. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I'm gonna do something. And it's like, people forget that, like, when it comes down to it, nobody actually wants money like you.
- [95:32]
Walker
You don't want money.
- [95:34]
Pierre Rochard
You want what money gets you, right? It's like you want what you can exchange that money for. Whether that be, you know, the more freedom over your time, Whether that be.
- [95:44]
Walker
More freedom over where you live, more.
- [95:46]
Pierre Rochard
Freedom in how you, you know, interact with your family, whatever it may be. You want what money can afford you, but you don't actually want the money. Like, the money is a tool, and I Think people get kind of lost in the Lost in translation a little bit there sometimes. Between that digital monetary world of bitcoin and the real world of, like, the point of your life is not to accumulate as much money as possible. The point of your life is to.
- [96:10]
Walker
Live it and as you said, build.
- [96:12]
Pierre Rochard
Connections and take care of your loved ones and make amazing memories and do things that bring you joy and that.
- [96:18]
Walker
Bring value to the world.
- [96:19]
Pierre Rochard
Hopefully money is a tool to help you do that. But it's not the end all be all in and of itself. And I think people. It's very easy to get lost in that. But it's something that I think. I'm glad you brought it up because it's. It bears repeating again and again for people. Like, it's okay to live your life. And in fact, that's what you should be doing. And if you can do that, you know, in a way that's not less stressful because you have yourself and your family set up, well, great.
- [96:44]
Walker
You should strive for that.
- [96:46]
Pierre Rochard
But, like, don't sacrifice your life at the expense of just blind accumulation. If that makes sense.
- [96:54]
Morgan Richard
Totally. I couldn't agree more. There's a saying, and I don't. I wish I could remember who said it. It's not mine, so I don't want to take credit that money makes you more of who you are. And it's. I think that people often think, well, when I have X amount of dollars or X amount of bitcoin, I'm gonna be, you know, I'm gonna finally be who I'm supposed to be because I'll have the money to do all the things that I want to do. And that's generally not what people see, right? Like if, like what we were talking about earlier, those values aren't there. If, like, the. You haven't quite figured out what gives your life meaning and purpose, if you haven't really, you know, made those connections with your family or started a family or whatever, right? Like, whatever will actually make your life what it's supposed to be. If you haven't done all those things and then you get extremely well funded, you're just going to be more of the person that you already were or already are, right? And so, like, we. We need to focus on how we can grow as human beings, right? Not just how we can grow our bitcoin stack. Because, like, otherwise, what does. Like, what are we doing this all for, right? It's all, like, the whole reason why we're here is for personal growth. And the only person that you can change is yourself, right? And if you spend time changing yourself, and I don't mean it in the way of like, you know, the eat, pray, love, like, way of like, me, me, me. Everything's about me, right? I don't mean it like that. I mean like personal growth so that you can go and bring the best of you to the world, right? Not so that, like you can personally grow and, you know, do yoga and think about yourself all day, right? That's, that's not what I mean here. And, and in fact, if that's what you're doing and then you get more money, you're only gonna do more of that, right? And so, and that's fine. If that's the life you want to live, fine. But I don't think, like, I wouldn't call that a meaningful life, and I don't think that even a person who did that would call that a meaningful life. And there's thousands and thousands of stories of people on their deathbed. And when people ask them what they regret, it's never that they spent more time working on themselves so their whole life could be more about me, me, me, me, me. It's never that they wish that they had made more money. It's never that they wish they took more meetings at work, right? It's always, I should have spent more time with my spouse, I should have spent more time with my kids, I should have saved more so that I could have been a stay at home grandparent, right? Like, you hear all these stories or I always wanted to help my community in this way or another, but instead I didn't. And so the things that are important we often set aside because of the things that are shiny. And we can stop this now, right? The way we stop this is we think about our lives and we think about what's actually important to us. And we think about, okay, what would we regret if we were in that situation? And I actually, one of the life planning questions that I really like, like, it's one of my favorite things to ask clients. We do these life planning sessions and they take place over three different meetings. And in the second meeting, I think the most profound question is, imagine like you had five to 10 years left to live. You got this, you know, horrible news from your doctor. You have this terminal illness and you would have five to 10 years left to live. Like, you go home from that and you think, how, like, how can I change my life? What would I do differently? How, like, what would change? And clients answer, right? And they take a Lot of time to answer these things and we discuss it and then like we use that really as a jumping off point for how we can make changes in their financial plan. And the reason I like this question is not because people are gonna die in five to 10 years, some people are, obviously, but because every time period in your life is basically that, right? Like you have five to ten years with young kids, right? You have five to ten years when they're adolescent kids. You have five to ten years when they're in their college age and they're getting married and they're doing those things, right? Like you have five to 10 years at the beginning of your working career. You have another five to 10 years where you're starting to. Right. There's all sorts of these five to ten year periods of time where this is happening to you right now. You don't have a terminal illness, but that five to ten year period is going to end because that's just a phase in your life and that's how it is. So how are you going to make the most of the next five to 10 years, which is long term thinking, right. Like we have a hard time thinking, taking beyond maybe six months. Right. For most people. And so even though five to 10 years is not, it's not like the 40 year plan, this is not multi generational wealth though. But you can make significant changes in your life if you think about, okay, how can I really prioritize what's important in the next five to 10 years so that like, I'm doing what I need to be doing here?
- [100:59]
Pierre Rochard
I honestly love that question and the framing of it. I think that's, it makes me want to go hang out with my, my kid right now. And I think that's like, that's a really beautiful way to phrase that. And I, I, I don't know if we can top that after this. And I've already kept you quite a long time, Morgan, but I just want to thank you. This was really enjoyable. I think people are going to get a ton of value out of this. Where do you want to send people if they're, you know, let's say that they're interested in bringing on a bitcoin financial planner like yourself. Where can they find you? Where can they get more information, let them know where to go?
- [101:36]
Morgan Richard
Yeah, I wanted to thank you as well, Walker. This is really, I had a great time as well, and I really felt like we had enough time to actually deeply discuss things where sometimes podcasts can be rushed. So thank you for that.
- [101:47]
Pierre Rochard
I Hate rushing. And I knew that you were going to have a lot to dig into, and I was excited for it.
- [101:52]
Morgan Richard
So thank you for that. You can find me at Twitter. I'm Organ with an E. Rochard. My parents spelled my name wrong. I know. You can also find my financial planning firm, which is Origin wealth advisors. It's originwa.com I also do Bitcoin consulting@moneyowners.com and Pierre and I have a podcast. It's called Bitcoin for Advisors. We try to get those out monthly. We just recorded one, but I don't know if we released it. So Pierre's. That's his job. So if you want to send hate mail, send it that way. And yeah, if I'm not the right fit, there's other bitcoin financial advisors out there. We have the Bitcoin Financial Advisors Network. I'm one of, I think, eight on there there. So, you know, if it's. I'm, no offense. I just want people to get the help they need. So please, like, if you think like, okay, if she's a little nuts, but, like, maybe somebody else on there can actually help me, please go there. We'd rather you get the help than nothing at all.
- [102:44]
Pierre Rochard
So, yeah, that's. That's awesome. And really, I want to thank you for coming on here. I think that this kind of. This, these kind of discussions are really important because it's really easy for people to get, and that's where their attention goes usually is to the. The Ngu Moon boy Hopium price talks. And it's like, that's all well and good, but that doesn't actually help you change anything about how your life is going. And that's why I, you know, like, a lot of that is.
- [103:12]
Walker
And I'm drawn into it as well.
- [103:13]
Pierre Rochard
It's. It's always, you know, enjoyable. It's, you know, intoxicating to get that hit of hopium. Right. But these are the conversations I think that are really valuable for people because I hope that somebody, you know, listening to this, either talks to you or decides to make some small changes in their life and realizes that those small changes snowball and it can lead to something a lot better. So I want to thank you again, Morgan. This was a blast having you here. We'll have to do this again because I know I have more questions and I'm sure you're the person to answer them.
- [103:41]
Morgan Richard
I'd be happy to come on again. Thanks so much. And yeah, like you, I hope that even if nobody becomes a client or anything like that. That's definitely not why I go on these things. If anybody makes one change, I'd be like, thank God I did it. I did something good. So if you do make a change as a result of this podcast, be sure to let me know in six months.
- [103:57]
Pierre Rochard
I I, I'm going to remind people to to hit you up. But thank you so much. Now I think we'll both probably go and spend some time with our families. So cheers to you. Best to your family and thanks again for your time.
- [104:10]
Morgan Richard
You too.
- [104:17]
Walker
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of the Bitcoin Podcast. If you are a Bitcoin only company interested in sponsoring the Bitcoin podcast, head to bitcoin podcast.net Sponsor or send an email to hello@bitcoin podcast.net if you are enjoying the Bitcoin Podcast and find it valuable, give it a boost on Fountain a five star review wherever you're listening. Or better yet, share this show with your network so more people can learn about bitcoin. Or don't. Bitcoin doesn't care, but I sure do appreciate it. You can grab links in the show Notes to watch or list this show wherever you get your podcasts. Or go to bitcoin podcast.net podcast and you'll also find the links to Follow me and the show on Noster and on X. Bitcoin is scarce. There will only ever be 21 million. But Bitcoin podcasts are a abundant so thank you for spending your scarce time to listen to the Bitcoin Podcast.
- [105:14]
Pierre Rochard
Until next time, stay free.