Craft Your Career Brand: Actionable Tips for Influence and Success (SB1672)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Stacking Benjamins Show - "Craft Your Career Brand: Actionable Tips for Influence and Success (SB1672)"

Release Date: April 21, 2025
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy and OG
Award: Named 2023 Best Personal Finance Podcast by Bankrate.com

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Introduction to Career Branding

In this episode, hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG delve into the critical topic of career branding, providing listeners with actionable strategies to enhance their professional presence and influence. The discussion is framed around Lorraine Lee's "Rave Model," which outlines key components for building an unforgettable career brand.

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The Rave Model: Building Your Career Brand

Rave Model Overview: Lorraine Lee introduces the "Rave Model," an acronym standing for Relationships, Appearances, Visibility, and Expertise. This framework serves as a guide for professionals aiming to craft a strong personal brand within their careers.

1. Relationships (R)

Building and nurturing workplace relationships is foundational to career growth. The hosts emphasize the importance of being genuine and human in interactions.

• Notable Quote:
  Doug: "It’s an investment in time and... and his knowledge base." [(12:16)]

• Key Insights:

  • Treat colleagues with respect and humanity to foster trust and collaboration.
  • Building relationships can lead to future opportunities and support within the organization.
  • Example shared about valuing a $50 discount over maintaining a valuable professional relationship.

2. Appearances (A)

How one presents themselves physically can significantly impact professional perceptions.

• Notable Quote:
  Joe Saul-Sehy: "You can control that your shirt is pressed or that your tie is tied correctly, or that you've got a haircut recently." [(31:32)]

• Key Insights:

  • Attention to detail in appearance demonstrates professionalism and care.
  • Small details, such as polished shoes or a well-fitted suit, convey that you take your role seriously.
  • Hosts share personal anecdotes about improving their professional appearance and the reactions they received.

3. Visibility (V)

Being visible within the organization ensures that one's contributions are recognized.

• Notable Quote:
  Joe Saul-Sehy: "Even if you're the best, smartest person in the room, it won't help you OG if you're not being seen." [(45:22)]

• Key Insights:

  • Participate in high-visibility projects and volunteer to present in meetings.
  • Joining employee resource groups can expand one's network beyond immediate teams.
  • Visibility is about effectively communicating your achievements and presence within the company.

4. Expertise (E)

Establishing oneself as an expert in specific areas builds credibility and authority.

• Notable Quote:
  Joe Saul-Sehy: "Turn your emotional arguments into data-driven arguments is going to go a long way." [(51:05)]

• Key Insights:

  • Focus on areas where you have a distinct advantage or specialized knowledge.
  • Providing actionable feedback and demonstrating expertise can position you as a go-to person within your organization.
  • Leveraging platforms like LinkedIn to showcase your expertise through written content and professional interactions.

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Practical Applications and Strategies

Setting Goals:

• Joe Saul-Sehy: "Try aiming for something like meeting one new person a week and see how your gains compound over time." [(13:21)]

Volunteer for Presentations:

• Overcoming fear of public speaking by gradually increasing participation in presentations to boost visibility.

Leveraging LinkedIn:

• Sharing insights and expertise on LinkedIn to engage with a broader professional network and establish authority in your field.

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Listener Q&A: Using AI for Financial Decisions

A listener named Nick from Dallas inquires about the reliability of using AI tools like ChatGPT for making portfolio decisions.

• Notable Quote:
  Doug: "It is not quite ready to make portfolio decisions because it's going to just respond to the loudest voice..." [(58:21)]

• Hosts' Perspective:

  • AI can be useful for answering specific, factual questions but lacks the nuanced understanding required for personalized financial advice.
  • Caution is advised as AI may provide confidently incorrect answers, especially in rapidly changing fields like finance.
  • Emphasis on consulting with real financial advisors for significant financial decisions.

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Trivia Segment: The First $0.01 Coin

In a fun trivia segment, Doug explores the origins of the first one-cent coin.

• Trivia Question:
  Today's trivia: In today's date in 1787, the Continental Congress authorized the first $0.01 coin. Who inspired its design, and what was its unofficial name?

• Answer:
  Doug: "The inspiration for the first $0.01 coin was Benji Franklin, hence the name 'Franklin Cent.'" [(44:58)]

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Pronunciation Debate: "Salve" vs. "Self"

The hosts engage in a humorous discussion about the correct pronunciation of the word "salve," sparked by listener interactions and social media polls.

• Notable Quote:
  Joe Saul-Sehy: "So my apology. I would like to have a heartfelt apology to everybody that was completely incensed by my use of the letter L." [(63:00)]

• Key Points:

  • Divergent opinions on whether to pronounce the "L" in "salve."
  • Listener Adam White, a PharmD professional, advocates for pronouncing it without the "L."
  • Emphasis on regional differences and personal preferences in pronunciation.

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Closing Thoughts and Takeaways

• Doug:
  "Take some advice from our career branding deep dive. Focus on honing your personal brand, and you'll find more Benjamins in that wallet of yours." [(67:16)]

• Joe Saul-Sehy:
  "Boost your financial literacy, especially inside of your career, by understanding key metrics like revenue growth, profitability, cash burn, and customer retention." [(50:21)]

• OG:
  "Be cautious when using AI for financial advice. Ensure you have the necessary knowledge to discern accurate information from potentially misleading responses." [(58:21)]

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Final Remarks

The episode wraps up with light-hearted banter and teasers for future episodes, encouraging listeners to engage via voicemail and participate in upcoming trivia and discussions.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show provides a comprehensive guide to building a strong career brand through the Rave Model. By focusing on relationships, appearances, visibility, and expertise, professionals can enhance their influence and achieve greater success in their careers. The hosts blend insightful discussions with engaging anecdotes and humor, making complex topics accessible and entertaining for listeners.

Transcript

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[Doug]

Not available in all states.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Coffee's hot. Microphones are hot. Gentlemen, you ready to go?

[OG]

I was born ready.

[Doug]

Yeah, Well, I was here before both of you, so clearly I'm chomping at the bit. I'm better person.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Virtue signaling on a Monday morning. I'm so good. On behalf of the men and women, make a podcast in Mom's face. Where are we going? I don't know. We're making podcast in mom's basement and we're raising our mugs to salute the troops like we do on every Monday morning on behalf of the men and women in mom's basement. There we go. So you got to run into it. You got to get the motor running, head out on the highway, search for adventure. Having the men and women in Mom's basement and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union. Here's a salute to the troops on this fine Monday. Thank you for keeping us safe all weekend. Let's go stack some Benjamins now, shall we?

[OG]

Stacky, stacky.

[Doug]

Thanks, everybody.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Good morning, Christopher Robin. Oh, good morning, Winnie the Pooh.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and today we're diving into your career brand. How do you put your best foot forward to score the deal, notch the raise, meet the right people, or make a good impression? You'll find a ton of tactics in the next hour. Speaking of career branding, I'll also share a TikTok minute video you can use to make your workplace meetings way more Interesting. And we'll also share a question from stacker Nick who's wondering if using AI to build your financial plan is something worth considering. And now two guys who thought AI meant aunt Irene was coming over for dinner, if you know what I mean. I don't even know what I mean. It's Joe and. Oh, Jaja. Jaja G.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I wish we knew what you mean. Half the time. I wish we had any clue what Doug means. Hey everybody, happy Monday. Welcome back to the Stacking Benjamin show. I am Joe Salsihai and this is your home for relaxed discussions about, well, some pretty deep dive money topics. And today we're tackling a career topic with my friend across the card table. Mr. OG is here. How are you, dude?

[OG]

I am multitasking like a multitasking machine.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Wait a minute. So you've got the microphone and you're doing the one. Is it on the microphone? Andrew, good coffee. Is that the multitask?

[OG]

I got emails going, oh God no. I'm doing the things with the stuff, man.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Because everybody knows I might have had too much coffee. Because everybody knows. When you're trying to build unforgettable presents, as our guest on Wednesday, Lorraine Lee is going to talk about Doug. What you do is you switch between a bunch of different tasks all the time.

[OG]

Hold on, hold on. You said we're getting presents. I can pay attention for presents. Are they like birthday quality or more like Christmas quality?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Unforgettable presents.

[OG]

Unforgettable presents.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Being present like Christmas.

[Doug]

I think I can add some clarification to the whole Pam pan thing here.

[OG]

The end is silent and you saying pan pan. That was, that was well done, Doug.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You get for people that see the movies, stepbrothers. We just did our own little stepbrothers pull right there.

[OG]

I'm just excited about presents.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, I don't.

[OG]

I never get any presents. I did get a good present last year.

[Doug]

But you have bought everything there is that could have been a present for you. So nobody can give you anything.

[OG]

It's not like somebody's buying me a new driver.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So he means first car. Doug, he doesn't mean on the golf course.

[Doug]

Exactly what he means.

[OG]

Not, not what I mean.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Tom Peters. Way back in the 1990s, management guru Tom Peters was a guy who began talking to people in middle management and young executives about brand you. And I remember how as we were transitioning out of the 30 years of the same career to people changing jobs and changing places that they work, how innovative that seemed. Brand you about not worrying about the company brand as much as you built your own brand. Well, and actually it was both right. You build your own brand to help the company, then build their brand. And I remember how shocking that was then. Well, now if you're not focused on brand, you, I think it's a huge mistake. And so does our guest on Wednesday, Lorraine Lee, who is an executive with both LinkedIn and Prezi. Now she coaches fantastic executives how to get unforgettable presence. Maybe different presence than OG thinks, but how to build your career brand. So we're doing that this week before we do our deep dive into one of Lorraine's topics, what she calls the rave model. We're going to the rave. Og, I know you're a big dancer.

[OG]

I'm going to a rave and getting presents. This is the best podcast ever.

[Doug]

It is.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's incredible. Before we go to the rave, we are going to hear from a couple of our sponsors who make sure that this is free, all this goodness. And then we're deep diving into career branding. Let's go. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. We know just how fast your life moves. You've bills to pay, mouths to feed, not a lot of free time. That's why we created an all in one banking experience that lets you keep on baking on. It can save you time and money with new lightning fast direct deposit setup and it offers checking accounts with ATM refunds and no service fees. Plus whether you've credit or not, you can build your credit score with the new ability to report on time bill payments and with personalized financial insights. On my making sense, the ability to view all your accounts in one place, custom notifications and 247 fraud protection, you can get a full picture of your finances. So if you want an all in one banking experience that lets you keep on banking on, sign up today. Learn more@navy federal.org Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission insured by NCUA Small business Owners. State Farm's there with small business insurance to fit your specific needs. Whether you're starting a new venture or growing an existing one, State Farm helps you choose the right coverage to protect what matters most. Working with a local State Farm agent helps you understand your coverage options. Offering local support to help you achieve your goals. Focus on turning your passion into a thriving business. Knowing your insurance can change as your business grows. Stay Farm here to help you succeed with your business like a good neighbor. Stay Farm is there.

[Doug]

I'm still picturing OG at a rave all hopped up on X. Can you Imagine that.

[OG]

Actually, if you know anything about me and dance clubs, picturing me would be like sitting in the corner with like a, you know, a beer just going to suck so bad. Can I go home?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You know why, Doug? It's not because of the music or the rave. It's because it's 9:15. Exactly.

[OG]

It's time to go. What are we doing? It's like at least a 30 minute Uber.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

One of the many things that Lorraine lays out that I wanted to dive into today. And you know what? I think we'll do this a little bit on Friday when we've got Sandy Smith, who's an HR professional extraordinaire, who lately online, by the way, has been telling stories about unforced errors. And I can't wait for us to hear some of her stories. But today, what I wanted to go into was this thing that Lorraine calls her rave model about growing your influence. She writes that there's lots of ways to become more influential. What matters is finding the methods and tactics that work for you. Last week with Taylor Swift, we were all about the strategies. This week we're going to actually dive into, okay, do this, do this, do this. And the R in her model stands for relationships, she says. Ross Pomerantz, the entrepreneur and content creator known to many as corporate Bro, sums up why workplace relationships are such a crucial part of building influence. I love corporate bros going to teach me about building influence, but actually Ross has a huge platform and Ross says, how are you treating everyone else? Such an important part of moving up in a company is simply how you are human with other people. And oh gee, I think this is a great place to start because you'll see people that come into a company culture. Maybe the company culture is tight knit. People enjoy working together and then you throw the one Machiavellian person in. We all know this person, right?

[OG]

That's a big word.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, we all throw the person who's like. So, Doug, did you hear about the thing that Nancy said yesterday?

[Doug]

No, what'd she say?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, it's. It's Nancy.

[OG]

When did we hire Nancy?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And why are we talking about this on our podcast?

[Doug]

Honestly, I don't believe anything she says.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Either that or the robot. Right? The corporate robot. The person who comes in and just as a, you know, 247 work, you never learn anything about the person. You don't know anything about your co worker. It feels very plastic. At 5 o'clock sharp, they're the first person to punch out. Right. How human are you? I think being seen as another human being by your co workers is a big step to beginning the relationship. Not just the relationship journey, but the. But succeeding in business journey.

[OG]

Being a normal person.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, people buy from people. I mean, I know that's a cliche, but people totally do buy from people. How many times have you not comparison shop stuff because you're like, no, no, no, I'm buying it from Nancy because Nancy takes care of me.

[OG]

Nancy's doing a lot of stuff lately.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Nancy's all over the place.

[OG]

No, I mean, this is a great example. I was in the market, you know, I said something about a new driver. I was in the market for a couple new golf clubs. And you can go to the store and they'll do all the video and all that sort of stuff and fit you with. Here's how crappy your swing is. So this is the club. You need to fix it, basically. I have a friend who also kind of runs some golf stuff. So I get this list of stuff, and I called my friend and I said, hey, here's the stuff that the guy wants to sell me. What can you do for me? And he's like, oh, I can knock 50 bucks off that. And I thought, this guy worked really hard, and I had a good conversation with him for the span of about three hours, you know, around golf. And I can see him being a resource in the future. Is it worth 50 bucks to not have that relationship? And I looked at it and said, I would rather pay the 50 extra dollars to buy from the guy who helped me so that I can, you know, have that relationship in the future if I want to leverage it again.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, the guy who saved you over $50 of misery by getting you to this point in the first place, by going, I want this thing versus, I.

[OG]

Mean, if you thought about it that way, sure, yeah, of course. I mean, it was an investment in. Investment in time and.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And his knowledge base.

[OG]

Yeah. So I paid a little bit more just to keep the relationship.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I was looking back at the millionaire next door last week, and millionaires, multimillionaires, and billionaires shop almost exclusively OG via referral. It's funny, people that try to market to these people, they think that, hey, oh, they got a billion dollars so I can pull one over on them. Well, guess what? Somebody didn't become a multi millionaire because of the fact that they're dumb and because somebody pulled the wool over their eyes. They actually are fantastic at finding value and also figuring out who the people are I can trust around me so I can make decisions quicker. And I can have velocity. And it's funny how we get these through lines, right? Alex Harosi at the beginning of the year said, be useful. Well, if I can build that relationship with the right people and be useful to them. How kickass is that? She's got four things that really help introverts. Well, help all of us, but especially introverts. Number one, she says, is set a goal.

[OG]

If.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

If you have trouble, you're in a new organization, or, heck, you're in an organization you've been in for a while and you feel like you don't have enough presence. She writes, you'll always be more successful if you can give yourself a tangible target. Try aiming for something like meeting one new person a week and see how your gains compound over time. Just set yourself, oh, gee, a goal in this area and then work to achieve it. We're going to be breaking down a lot of this stuff into systems. I was watching a video with Rory McElroy talking about how he succeeds, and he says, I can do one of two things. I can dream about winning the Masters like I just did, or I can focus on. He didn't say, like I just did. I did. I don't think we're backwards like I just did.

[Doug]

What a flex.

[OG]

He's been amazingly humble about the whole thing. Like watching the video. There was a video of him walking into the champions locker room, you know, like, literally pausing at each locker.

[Doug]

So good.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, did you see that? I was trying to explain to Cheryl, who doesn't follow golf, and this will be good for our people, our stackers, who don't follow golf as well. Did you see the group of, what, five golfers that he joined who have won every major? He is now number six, I believe.

[OG]

Right.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Three of them did it on their first try. Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus are a couple that come to mind. There was a third one, maybe Gary, Gary Player. Two others, including Tiger woods. It took three tries. It took Rory McElroy 11 tries. We were at the airport and everybody was gathered around every TV. There were so many people around all the TVs as you walk by the different, you know, restaurants in the airport. And Cheryl's like, what's going on? I'm like, oh, it's a masters in Roy McElroy. She's like, I don't know who that is. And I said, oh, he's trying to win this. She goes, oh, it's a golf tournament. I said, well, yeah, but it's the Masters, and this is the one he needs yeah. And she's like, well, why is that a big deal? And when she heard it was 11 tries, then she wanted to watch him because he kept working. But what Rory said that I thought was compelling was, I can dream about winning a golf tournament. A lot of people do. Hey, someday I'm going to win a golf tournament. He goes, but that really gets you nowhere. It's the result of your systems. You can try to rise to your goals, but you're truly going to fall to your systems. He goes, so, yeah, I want to win the Masters. I need to do this. I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this. So if you're not getting the raise, you're not getting the promotion, people are overlooking you at work. Setting a goal to go meet one new person a week and see your gains compound over time is fantastic. 2nd yeah, Doug.

[Doug]

Yeah, I just wanted to chime in a little bit because you. Before we started Talking about Rory McElroy, we were talking about your presence. If you're joining a new team, I think you talked about, you know, how do you increase your presence? What I saw as a common mistake for people in that situation, even if they weren't early in their career, people just joining a new. They get. You get a new job, and you think, I got to make a statement here. Like, I have to let them know I've got the goods, I've got the skills. They hired me for a reason. It is very easy to come out of the gate a little too strong. It's actually probably one of the most common mistakes. I can't remember if it was Jack Welch, but somebody talked about Warren Buffett. Like, spend your first six months listening and speak very rarely. And when you do, that is what will create the presence that you truly is the thing you're seeking because your words will have carry so much weight. Coming out of the gate too strong, too early is a good way to lose credibility and lose. You'll get the wrong kind of presence.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, you know, how many times have you had that happen to you? You're like, really? You just got here. You've no idea the history behind this entire project, and you're going to solve everything today.

[Doug]

You nailed it. That's exactly right, Joe, because even if you. What you said was great because you come in with all this great experience, a lot of companies say, no, we want your outside experience. You bring a lot of great perspective. The people sitting around the table probably didn't make the hiring decision and are thinking you don't know all the pain and suffering we've gone through for the last six years on this project or whatever it is. You don't have the history to be able to talk that way. So it's just nine and a half times out of ten, it's not going to work.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Listen, it's, it's funny because you can totally see the executive making that call. And you can also see the executive setting everybody up for failure in that call. Like, if you don't handle that right coming into that team, it's going to be horrible because they know you're the. The person coming in from the bullpen to solve the problem with this problem unit. Yeah. Next is join an employee resource group. ERG Join an ERG or a committee. Not. And this is the key, guys, not directly related to your job. Something that is much different than your job. This is a wonderful way to connect with people across the company you wouldn't normally encounter. When we talked to Oscar Munoz at United Airlines and we'll link to that episode, he shares a lot of stories about this very stuff he talked about. He worked in manufacturing, he worked in engineering, he worked in finance. He worked in all the different disciplines of the company. So he got to know the company from all these different people's point of view, which was incredibly helpful later at helping him. To your point, Doug, listen to what was going on. I think joining these. These organizations is a great way to get a leg up. The third one, and this is funny, Doug, because he's not going to admit this here, but this is actually OG Be a cheerleader. When people share updates in a channel, be quick to add an emoji or offer a positive comment. They'll appreciate you for being supportive. And you've gone too far.

[Doug]

I mean, come on. OG Is the basement cheerleader.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

He totally is a cheerleader.

[Doug]

You're selling this right now.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

He, you know, he's a cheerleader. That's not his public Persona, but he's 100% a cheerleader. He'll call you out of the blue and go, hey, I saw we did this.

[Doug]

He's got a whole vibe going, man. Don't ruin it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I know.

[Doug]

Don't show everybody under the blankets. Behind the curtains.

[OG]

Under the blankets. What the hell? No, I will not go camping with you, Doug.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It might not be the analogy you were looking for.

[Doug]

I've got this spacious one man pup tent for two.

[OG]

Oh, look, there's only one sleeping bag. It's cold.

[Doug]

Hold me. So, cheerleaders. Focus, Joe. Cheerleaders.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. This can go too far. There's a gentleman in our community who I know is an incredible cheerleader. But what's wild is Cheryl came to a conference that I was at and was just there for kind of the social time and met this individual. And she goes, what a slime ball. Like, he is so over the top. Clearly cheerleading to raise his own profile. That it just. Now here's the funny thing. I roll my eyes. Cheryl rolled her eyes, meeting him for 10 seconds. This dude online, whenever he posts anything online, gets hundreds of comments on his post. Hundreds of comments. So. Well, probably not for me. I don't know, man. I think being the wrong type of cheerleader can go too far. Because while tons of people like you, you know, you never know. You never know who won't.

[Doug]

It's shallow, right? It's disingenuous.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's just not so disingenuous. You're like, really? He was really nice to me for about six weeks, and I knew it was going to drop Doug. Then the request to come on the Stacking Benjamin show came. It was just so, so clear.

[Doug]

Took me like six months. Dude, get in line.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But I do know og that in your practice, you know, part of being a cheerleader is like, celebrating people's birthdays. Like, part of this. You can systematize. Yeah.

[OG]

I mean, all of that's fine. Birthdays and that sort of thing. But I think when it's. Especially when you're talking about money, if you're looking toward the future, you're more likely to kind of feel like there's kind of no end in sight. There is no. There is no end game with money. If your goal is to be financially independent, that number is dynamic. It changes. When I was 30, I remember thinking, my goodness, if I could have $3 million in the bank, that's like $10,000 a month for the rest of my life. Like, that is so much money, it's insane. I can retire as soon as I get there. And there's plenty of people who would agree with me that whatever that number is, as you get closer to it, you go, well, maybe a little more, you know, little more. A little more margin of safety, a little bit more. Maybe my lifestyle has changed a little bit. And so there's never a end goal. And that can be frustrating. That can be, you know, like, I thought I would feel differently. Charlie Mugger says, as soon as you have a hundred thousand, you're, you know, life is great. And it's like people hit that number and they go, well, I Don't feel any different today than I did yesterday when I had $99,400 and now I have $100,600. Okay. Or, as soon as I get to a million, my life will be great. And it's like, you get to a million and you go, okay. As soon as you pay off the house, your life will be great. It's like, you pay off the house. Feels awesome. It's cool. Is your life profoundly different? Probably not. Doug says it is. But I think it's important when you're looking at financial goals to think back from where you've come, because it's impossible for us to concentrate or agree with or even fantasize about those compounding multiples of growth. Right? When you sit down and do your. You grab your calculator and say, I've got this amount of money. I'm going to put in this amount every month, and it's going to grow at 8% a year. By the time I'm 60 years old, I should have blank dollars. And the compounding number is so profound, you're like, I'm not going to have $4 million. That's silly. But if you look backwards, you can start measuring what you've done. You know, if you've built financial plans or you've taken notes in your life about money, go pull up the notes from 2020. It's been five years since 2020. Weird, right? Hey, Covid was half a decade ago, in case you didn't know.

[Doug]

Stop it.

[OG]

I know. So look at your financial status or what you were. What was going on. Go pull your tax returns from 2020. Like, look at where you were in 2020 and look at where you are in 2025. That's how you can measure growth, is you have to measure it backwards. So I think it's important when you think about money goals or financial planning goals to measure backwards. But I also think it's important to recognize. Our friend Dan Sullivan says you will likely overestimate, severely overestimate what you can get done in a year and profoundly underestimate what can get done in 25 years. 25 years seems like a country mile away, but it'll be here. It's 100 quarters. So you can take your lifetime goal and break it down into a hundred increments.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You can even take that with a year and a day. I think we overestimate what we can do in a day, and we underestimate what we can do in a year.

[OG]

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's the One, you know, it's the one degree, it's the one extra pound of lifting. You know, it's the one more rep. It's like, you know, whatever sort of analogy you feel like putting out there. I've talked before about my addiction to chewing tobacco when I was in the military, and that spilled over to being out of the military. And one day I just stopped. I've said, I have never quit chewing. I'm just not doing it today. And now that's gone on for probably 15 years at this point. It's not about a lifetime of decision making. I'm just trying to make a decision today. I'm just not going to do that thing today. I'm not promising I'm never going to do it, because maybe I will, but I'm just not doing it today. So same thing with money, you know, just don't spend money today. Just save a dollar today. You don't have to save a dollar every day.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. Or in this case, with building those relationships that build careers. Right.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Just deal with the relationship today.

[OG]

Just work on one thing today. You don't have to worry about, like, how do I get promoted to senior vice president today? Today is how do I, you know, one more person.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah.

[OG]

Be nice to one person.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

How do I cheerlead for something that doesn't influence me at all and be somebody who's in their corner. It is interesting, too, when you're in those company chats, like, I know we'll see sometimes very public chats. Right. In company, whether it's teams or Slack or whatever corporate thing that you use. I think you'll want to focus on all the people that aren't commenting on what you say. Because tons of people see the thing that you did who will never, ever comment on it, but they're certainly forming an opinion of what you're saying, what you're doing in that meeting, and if you can be a cheerleader for people when it doesn't affect you. As an aside, by the way, this is also really fun for you. Oh, gee. I'm going to say a woman's name who you and I both know her name is Linda James. Linda James was the receptionist in the Southfield Ameriprise office when I was in my Ameriprise portion of my career. Do you remember Linda?

[OG]

Not at all.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, you don't know her. Okay. Linda was easily the shittiest receptionist in the entire market group. She was absolutely horrible at her job.

[OG]

It's a [e-mail].

[Doug]

Linda.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

A gentleman named Tony Whitbeck, who runs that office, had a decision to make. Do you fire somebody who clearly hates her job and isn't good at it, or do you send her for more training? And what I think was a brilliant move because it's so hard to create a new good employee, he instead sent her to Nordstrom. Training versus hiring somebody different. Linda went from the worst receptionist to easily the best receptionist. Easily within six months. I asked her, I said. I even told her the reason I said her name is because she knows I thought she was horrible. Like, she was just right. You could. You would walk into this office and you could tell she was miserable, and she made everybody else miserable because she was miserable. And then later on, every time you'd walk in, she's like, joe, how are the twins doing? Joe, what's going on with X? She always seemed to know what was going on in my life. What was cool, though, was if you stood by the. The coffee, which was right around the corner, and you watched clients come in, she knew that about everybody. And I said, what is. What the hell did they teach you, Linda? Because you're phenomenal. And this idea of cheerleading OG was the thing that she learned was that it is super fun to care about other people's lives and her job. Being a good receptionist, she thought it would be easier to get through her day by just counting the hours. You know, if she counted the hours to the end of the day, she would just get through it and live to see another day. She's like, you know what's funny? The days went by much shorter, and they were far more interesting when people came in and actually gave a damn. Like, it was. It was more fun for her. They taught her it was a better way to do your job.

[Doug]

Oh, gee, if you haven't figured it out yet, this is an intervention. We're trying to get a message through.

[OG]

I. I just need to be nicer. Start giving a damn, and my day will be better.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So there was this guy on this podcast.

[OG]

We all know him, great guy. We sent him to Nordstrom's. Training didn't work. Gotta send him to Disney training, see if that'll work.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Such a great lesson that caring about other people just makes you. Makes you better at your job. Fourth is a tough one for a lot of people. Show vulnerability. Offering up something about yourself tells people that you trust them and makes them more likely to reciprocate. It's a cheat code for developing trust in the foundation for a strong relationship. There's a Series of books. OG by this novelist, Tony Hillerman. Joe Leaphorn is a main character in the novels. There's a great series, Doug, called Dark Winds that I think you'd really, really like, which features Joe Leaphord.

[Doug]

Throwing that bait out there again, aren't you?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Look at me just poke you. Yeah, Doug doesn't like these at all. They're fantastic. Everybody but Doug just, you know, some people like them.

[Doug]

I do not.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Whatever. Oh, gee, now the intervention goes the other way. So there's this guy named Doug that doesn't know Good, good series. But Joe Leaphorn has this interesting approach. OG Again, a tactic. He knows that the teller at the bank is not allowed to give away any of the client information. Right. And not allowed to do it. But Joe knows humans. And Joe knows that if he overshares a little bit, something vulnerable about him, the person is going to want to reciprocate and they're going to be a little bit more vulnerable back. So Joe would always overshare something about his life. Then the bank teller would like him more and then he'd say, hey, has this person come in here and maybe deposited a $10,000 check? She's not allowed to tell him that. She. She tells him anyway because of what I call the Joe Leaphorn rule. But I think that if you in a relationship maybe share a little bit, maybe not about that rash, but share a little bit about you, that's going to go a long way.

[Doug]

Do you have a salve, maybe that would help me?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think it's pronounced self. Maybe we'll talk about that. Second on her list is appearances. How many times OG has showing up looking the part got you the job?

[OG]

I mean, I've been doing the same thing for damn near 30 years.

[Doug]

So he's never been on a job interview.

[OG]

I don't think. I don't think this would be a great, a great thing for me. No, I mean, I can think of something else that I do where appearance really matters. And it does. I mean, it's largely the things that you can control. And that's, I think, really what, what maybe that all encapsulates here. It's like if how you look physically is important for, you know, if you're an actor or a model or, you know, whatever it is that you do that requires you to be client facing or whatever the case may be. Right. You can control how that package looks in some way, shape or form. You can control that your shirt is pressed or that your tie is tied correctly, or that you've got a haircut recently. You know what I mean? Like, you can. It maybe seems superficial, but those are outward appearances that other people can see that you give a crap.

[Doug]

Well, if, you know, you use the word superficial, which I think is a lot of people's first reaction to that. But it says something else. It says that you can pay attention to details and that you care about things that aren't necessarily just the job.

[OG]

So I do remember if I heard this in a movie or if I learned this somewhere else, shoes, right? You can tell. Are the shoes shined? Are they polished? Well, if you're trying to shine your shoes really quickly, what do you focus on?

[Doug]

Your spit?

[OG]

The top. Right, your spit.

[Doug]

Well, it's how you do it.

[OG]

It's not how you do it, but. Okay.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Doug likes to just hatua two of those shoes, baby.

[OG]

But what's the part that most people don't pay attention to?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The heel.

[OG]

Right.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

And so again, to your point about attention to detail, you can tell pretty quickly if somebody gives half a crap or a full crap. Right. Like, are the back of your shoes as shiny as the front of your shoe? All of this, I think, is. I think more of a demonstration of you're controlling what you can control. You can't control if you go to the sales meeting and the guy says, no. Right. You can't control if you go to the meeting with your boss asking for a raise or promotion and you don't get it. But you can control how you show up to that thing. As much as you can control that stuff, the rest of it is just how it falls. You know, if you're in a position where you have to look a certain way and you don't look that way, that's kind of some of your control. If you didn't wear a nice suit and you could have, that's on you. It's not on them that they made you wear a fancy suit.

[Doug]

Yeah, I mean, we used to tell. You know, I coached a lot of youth baseball teams and other sports teams. We used to tell the kids, fail on the hard stuff. Don't fail on the easy stuff. Show up on time, put in the effort. All of that stuff is in your control. You might have to take some risks and you might fail on that, and that's okay. But don't fail at the easy stuff.

[OG]

Remember the movie, Remember the Titans?

[Doug]

Oh, it's one of my favorites.

[OG]

Yeah. Remember the scene where they're playing the tough team from Grove and they decide they're going to warm up a Little differently. And they all come out and do their little thing. Think about the intimidation factor of having that part of your life wired, right? It's like, oh, my God, if they can coordinate the stretching routine, what's their offense going to look like?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, and how many times when you've walked into a meeting, and I've been in these meetings before, and I'm sure you guys have too, you walk into a meeting and somebody's appearance intimidates you and you realize it's on purpose, it's a tactic. They actually dress that way specifically to intimidate you.

[OG]

I'll give you the complete opposite of that. Years and years and years ago, this is early in my career, trying to make center of influence connections, right? Mortgage broker, cpa, whatever. So I have this mortgage broker that I like, we're getting some work done, and he says, hey, I want you to come to this seminar that I think would be really helpful. Like, all right, cool. So I go to this thing very quickly, figure out this is an MLM deal of some kind, you know, and everybody's, you know, if you can't tell who the sucker is, it's you, you know, at the poker table. It wasn't me, because I was like, I know what's going on, but it was so staged. It seemed in my mind people were clapping. I'm like, woo. Joe's amazing. And it's like, shut up.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's gotta be staged.

[OG]

What a plant, you know? But what did it for me mostly had nothing to do with the words or any of the stuff because I had just been made fun of this personally, which was I bought a suit. I was a new financial planner. I didn't have any money. I bought a suit at JCPenney. I thought it would be a good idea to get the wrinkle free one. You know, who wants a wrinkly suit? So I got the Hagar Wrinkle free. I remember this distinctly because I was sitting in a room with two of my bosses and they were talking about custom suits and whatever. And then they. They made just a side comment of, yeah, like, not like, I'm buying Hagar Wrinkle Freeze. And they both kind of look at me like, oh, crap. And I open up the, you know, the inside of my coat and it says Hagar Wrinkle Free on the inside. And we just had a big laugh of this. Well, anyways, so I now know that Hagar Wrinkle Freeze apparently are not the creme de la creme of suits that I thought they were. I mean, for $299. Anyway, you remember, you know, if you buy a suit, sometimes it has the tag on the outside.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yes.

[OG]

And you got to cut that off. The presenter was wearing a Hagar wrinkle free with the tag on the outside he hadn't cut off yet.

[Doug]

Wow.

[OG]

And I knew watching that, I was like, this is so staged. This guy doesn't even know he's not supposed to wear a Hagar wrinkle free. And he's projecting. I drive Lamborghinis and I make millions.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I'm old money. I'm surrounded by old money. And.

[OG]

Yeah, no, you're not. No, you're not. And so that whole appearance component of it, you know, kind of collapsed for me because I knew just being exposed to those other things, like, he wasn't controlling that component of it. He could have bought $1,000 suit and would have convinced me.

[Doug]

Well, I don't know if the message you were trying to send was buy an expensive suit. I don't think so. I think it was, pay attention to the details. Cut the damn tag off. I mean, you might only be able to afford the JCPenney suit. That is fine. But just make sure that it's clean.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Again, control the control.

[OG]

Don't have the little sticker on the side that says 35 by 30. That goes all the way down the leg of your pant. You know, you got to take that sticker off.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And I'm glad you brought that up, Doug, because I think the takeaway here is super important, which is OG just pointed out two things. There are people that know about the tag on the suit. There are people that will look at the heel of your shoe. Right? People are looking at it. Some of it you're going to be able to control. Some of you can't, at the very least, show up controlling what you can inside your budget. Take care of what you can. It's amazing how often I remember showing up at the office early in my career, and there was a dude who had a lot of. Had a lot of body hair. He was just. He had just a lot of chest hair, and he would not wear a T shirt under his white shirt. He thought nobody was paying attention to that. We were all paying attention to that. Ever. You could not not pay attention to that. Like, that was huge. I thought, oh, gee.

[OG]

To your point, you wore two white T shirts under your.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I started wearing six just to make sure that all this doesn't get out there early in my career. I thought that I could save some time by just buying these shoes that I found it like, you know, cheap shoe place that were plastic, right. That just look like they were shine perfectly all the time. And I thought nobody, nobody noticed like rental tuck shoes. Oh, they totally, totally look like that. And, and I thought, this is the best. This is fantastic. Well, when those wore out, I decided, I don't remember what happened, but I decided to buy some good shoes. And, and so I bought some just floor shine shoes that go with your suit. And I remember walking in with those. I mentioned Tony Whitbeck earlier, the manager of the Southfield office. I walk in, I wasn't there OG for more than 30 seconds before Tony goes, hey, you finally got rid of those cheap ass shoes. Oh well, people don't say stuff to you when you're wearing it. They say it when you figure it out later. You know what I mean?

[OG]

Oh, no, they said it to me while I was wearing it. They said I wear the hagar wrinkle free.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, I'm sorry, that's just some love. All right. There's the R and the A. By the way, just to put a point on appearances, two things I love that Lorraine talks about. If you work outside the office, when you're in the office because you're not there very much. Super important when you actually show up face to face, whether it's a zoom meeting or if it's face to face in the office, remember those times are going to matter even more. And then second, when you're on that zoom call, think about the. Not just the background behind you, but things like I had to learn for television. Don't wear stripes. If you wear stripes, especially on a zoom call.

[OG]

Green.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, yeah. Or don't wear green.

[OG]

Then you're just like a head.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Do the virtual background and wear green. That goes over great. That's the R and the A. Relationships and appearances. We got the ve after the break. But Doug, I think we're going to take a little pause here because I think it's about time for some damn trivia. Come on.

[Doug]

Sure is, Joe. Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom. Are we at Talladega? What are you doing?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Come on.

[Doug]

No, I'm saying, hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and I was this many years old when I found out what a philatelist was. I thought he or she was, you know, someone who feltled, which just sounds gross, right? But call off the alarm. All you standing up there on the moral high ground because it turns out a philatelist is someone who, wait for it, collects stamps. Good news too, because they're collecting. They don't even have to lick them. Which is weird considering that's totally what I thought. Anyway, no, no moving from stamps to coins. I then wondered what a coin collector was called. And that's apparently a numism numismatist, which I always thought was some sort of magician. But apparently a numinist takes coins and magically tells you what they're worth. So let's talk numismatism. I nailed it. I got it. Let's talk numismatism. For today's trivia on Today's date in 1787, the Continental Congress authorized the first $0.01 coin. The guy who was the inspiration for the design is a legend in these parts. So there's the question who inspired the design? And the unofficial name of the first $0.01 piece? I'll be back right after I find out more about the buffalo nickel. I hope it's not anything like buffalo chips. I learned about those things the hard way. This episode brought to you by Progressive.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Insurance do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game, shifting over little money.

[Doug]

Here, a little there, hoping it all works out well?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

With the name your price tool from.

[Doug]

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[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help find you options within your budget. Try it [e-mail] progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law.

[Doug]

Not available in all states.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

What if I told you there was a way to help crack the case of the slugging metabolism and the disappearing results? The answer might surprise you. Every fitness journey has its unsolved mysteries. The case of the vanishing progress. The enigma of persistent cravings. The curious incident of willpower that vanishes without a trace. But there's a new breakthrough in the investigation. Smoothie King's Dark Chocolate Banana Metabolism Boost A smoothie crafted to be your partner in helping to crack these fitness cold cases. With 23 grams of protein and 12 grams of fiber, it's designed to help keep you fuller longer and to help boost your metabolism. No more mysterious disappearances of your hard earned results. Zero grams of added sugar and naturally derived caffeine work together to help rev up your metabolism.

[Doug]

And at just 320 calories, it's the.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Perfect meal replacement for anyone trying to close the case on their weight management goals. Don't let another fitness mystery go unsolved. Head to your local smoothie King to try the dark chocolate banana metabolism boost. Also available in strawberry, pineapple and mango ginger. Life is a workout.

[Doug]

Make it a good one with Smoothie King.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Individual results will vary.

[Doug]

These statements and products have not been.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Evaluated by the fda. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition.

[Doug]

Spring savings are in the air. And at Ross, where they have savings.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

On all the brands you love, from.

[OG]

The latest fashion to outdoor decor and even pet supplies. Savings are in every aisle.

[Doug]

Go to ross and save 20 to.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

60% off other retailers prices on your favorite spring finds.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm Buffalo nickel lover and guy who's always willing to share his two cents. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Today we celebrate the Continental Congress giving the green light to the creation of the first $0.01 piece. I mean, then it wasn't called the green light though, was it? It was probably just called like all clear. You can go ahead instead. Because there weren't any green lights yet. Well, I mean, there might have been, I guess, but probably not for traffic controls. I haven't. Oh, my God, what was I talking about?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Just dark highways.

[Doug]

Okay. Anyway, I've got it on good authority that the inspiration for the $0.01 piece created a lot of great innovations, but not a green light per se. So who was the inspiration for the first $0.01 coin? That would be none other than Mr. Benji Franklin, which is why they call it the Franklin scent. Oh, thank God. It isn't what I thought about his B.O. wait, what? And now here come guys who are gonna continue helping you pick up the scent on a better career. Joe and OG I love it with.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Doug stumbles over the joke he wrote.

[Doug]

I mean, sometimes I lose my train of thought.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

He thought it was so funny in the read through. And then in the real thing, he's like, I got no clue. What? Ben Franklin for the win.

[Doug]

Wait, wait. I just got it sent and sent. It just hit me. It's like the whole thing we did at the beginning with presents and presents.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yes.

[Doug]

It's all woven so tightly together. This show is so well crafted, sometimes it evades me.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So well crafted. We got to explain it to you. Gotta draw a diagram. Let's get back to unforgettable presence and making a good impression. You know, the whole. The whole reason for this discussion is because of the fact that Lorraine was passed up for promotions because she thought that if you just kept your head down, did a good job, people would notice. Which brings up the third piece of her rave. R A v E relationships appearance. The third one is visibility. Even if you're the best, smartest person in the room, it won't help you OG if you're not being seen. Unfortunately, today you got to tell people what you're doing. You have to do that now. I think we'll talk with Lorraine about this on Wednesday because this is frankly, the visibility is what it's all about. But I did want to talk a little bit today about how top managers can make this happen. And so time for a TikTok minute. This is, we're actually two TikTok minutes today because I've, I've got another one. But this is Byron Morrison, who is a guy who works with leaders to make them better. Byron has this to say for senior leaders where a lot of leaders mess up when it comes to meetings. And Doug, I'd love to get, as a guy that's been in a lot of these corporate meetings, I'd love to get your take on this.

[OG]

While running Amazon, one of Jeff Bezos rules was the most junior person in the meeting should be the first to share their thoughts and ideas. Why? Because he recognized as soon as he spoke, everyone in the room would be influenced by his opinion. But by letting junior employees talk first, it could then ensure a more open and honest discussion. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see in the first time CEOs I work with where often they think that they need to lead the room by sharing their ideas and driving the direction of the conversation. The problem with that is if you share something that goes against other people's ideas, they may be reluctant to speak up. This could make you miss a ton of valuable insights that may have shaped your ideas or completely changed your decision. And this is why the best leaders speak last.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's interesting because I can see a you're meeting running amok that way. But also I think that, I think those junior people are going to have a really tough time sharing anything if Jeff Bezos talks first.

[Doug]

Well, first of all, I disagree with the guy's accent. I mean, it's like he merged three or four different nationalities. I mean, dude, pick one. But I agree with part of that notion. I do like the idea. First of all, you've got to have the right culture to empower and make your junior people feel safe enough to share their thoughts early or first in a meeting. So make sure that you're doing what you can at any level, wherever you are in the organization, make sure you're doing what you can to create that, that space, that vibe that culture that it's open. Yeah. And, and you know, it's the old there's no dumb idea kind of thing. Well, sometimes there are, but you might have to just eat it, not laugh because the culture win is more valuable than, than anything else. But the second thing that I like about that and is critical is the leader should drive the shape of the discussion, but not by their comments by a great leader frames problems in a way that sets the discussion off in the right direction. That's what a great leader should do, is frame the challenge, frame the thing that you're trying to solve without overly influencing what the solution should be. And yeah, once you set up the table, set up the board game, as it were. See, I'm appealing to you there, Joe.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Look at that.

[Doug]

As I said that he's like what Doug? Saying something I care about. Then you sit back and you start with however you want to. Whatever your culture is, whether it's the most junior person or the newest person to the team, but not necessarily most junior, you know, however you want to do it. But frame the problem the right way. And a lot of other things take care of themselves.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's so important, I think to build that trust. And to your point, it's not something you can do overnight, Doug. I mean it is, it is something that is proven over and over and over and over and over. Lorraine has a ton of tips on how to make yourself unforgettable to executives. Speaking of executives and one of the things OG is to get comfortable with numbers and data, like being able to talk to people about, especially executives about numbers and data. And I know that for a lot of people speaking that way initially is kind of foreign. But I know if you want to get an executive's attention immediately, being able to call up, hey, here's how we're doing, you know, percent growth in this division or this xyz. Like turn your emotional arguments into data driven arguments is going to go a long way.

[OG]

Yeah, I mean the less opinion that you have with I think and I feel and the more that you can back up your decision making with real life results, the more likely it is that you'll be listened to or at least be considered.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

4 numbers. You need to learn to boost your financial literacy, especially inside of your career. Number one, revenue growth. You need to know, oh gee, what that means if you don't understand revenue growth that I think probably, I would think for most CEOs wouldn't you would be the key metric.

[OG]

Well, I mean revenue is great, but profit's better. So.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, number two on Lorraine's list is profitability. How about that?

[OG]

Yep, there you go.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Number three is cash burn. Know what that means? And then number four is customer retention. Know those four metrics and you're probably 80, 85% of the way there.

[OG]

It's a good idea.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I like that last one that she has is this. Well, before we get there, she talks about with visibility, find the right spaces. Look for those meetings that you can be in, those groups that you can be in that are high visibility. Some groups are very low visibility. They're fantastic. But you need to be in high, highly visible places. Next one, volunteer to present at meetings. The more often you can get in front of people and volunteer to present, the better off you're going to be, even if you're afraid of presenting. I've been in some corporate meetings where the person clearly was afraid to be presenting. And in 99 of those, though, the audience was so warm to that because it showed some vulnerability. And if you just focus on helping the meeting and doing your part to give to the team, I don't think you got to be the world's best speaker. You should definitely work on it, but I don't think you have to be the world's best speaker. The last thing in their model we're going to end with is expertise. And this is interesting because, Doug, you talked about people that don't listen enough and that they give their opinion too quickly. Lorraine says that when you do give your opinion, though, definitely focus on areas where you have an advantage. It's something that you're really good at where you know that you can shine, give people feedback in areas where you excel. And the more you give feedback in that one area, it establishes you a leader in that community that people want to go to, especially if it's insight to make them better at that role. So go, hey, Doug, based on my background, here's. Here's a tweak you could make that'll make you better, man. I think if you give that in private to a lot of different people, that's going to go a long way.

[Doug]

Yeah, absolutely. Now you have to establish that credibility first before you can just start acting like, well, I'm the expert in this area. Let me tell you what I think that's going to go over a lot. Like the guy, you know, that lured OG into a MLM thing, you know, as soon as people realize it, they're out, they'll check out and they won't listen to you again on almost anything. So be careful on what you project yourself as an expert as. But if you can sort of use the whole Aristotelian logos, ethos, pathos as a way over time as they're getting to know you and your team and build up some of that credibility, then then yeah, maybe you focus on an area or two where you feel like you can be that go to person.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And a place where you can establish that. Lorraine writes is LinkedIn. Start writing on LinkedIn about your one thing.

[Doug]

Nobody reads that stuff, Joe.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, I do. I think it's really good, man. I've. I've noticed a lot more people on LinkedIn than when I was there even five years ago.

[Doug]

They're starting to use it now, like Facebook. You see the people who post their vacation photos like, dude, wrong platform.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, don't do that. I don't want to see your Facebook, but I do want career advice from people that are really good at the thing. I will dive into that all day. But curating that content, you know, create your substack, whatever it might be. That's the rave model and we will draw those up on our Facebook group tomorrow so that you have all four of those and some tips in each of those areas. Also, Kevin bailey at the 201 will dive into those. Stacking benjamins.com 211 that's our newsletter that comes out every week and you will get even more links into how to create the rave that OG wants to leave at 9:15. Time for one more segment, guys. This is where we help a stacker in need from time to time. A stacker goes, you know what, I better call Saul. See? Hi. And OG and if you have a question for OG and I and Doug head to stacking benjamins.com voicemail today, let's take a question from Nick. Hey Nick. Hey Joe, Doug and og. Thanks for taking my call. My name is Nick and I live in Dallas, Texas. I was calling about what your thoughts are of using AI like ChatGPT to help you make portfolio decisions. Whether that's asking it to use the efficient frontier to build a portfolio. Asking it for stock tips. Do you find it trustworthy? Do you think the output is useful? Or do you think because it's still in its infancy that it's risky to take its advice? Thank you for taking my call and look forward to your answer. Thanks for the call, Nick. Oh, gee. We actually did a couple shows on this already about AI.

[OG]

Did we ever put it into ChatGPT?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Did we ever ask ChatGPT if it's if it's helpful, yeah.

[Doug]

Chat GPT, are you any good at your job?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yes.

[Doug]

It's time for the annual review to self assess.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We have a friend named Robert Farrington who leads the college investor. Robert rode along with us one day and his team actually did a study where they asked it a bunch of questions and oh gee, the results, if you remember that Robert and his team found they weren't good. It was very confidently wrong. A ton. Yeah.

[OG]

I mean ultimately the more that the bot, the chatbot or ChatGPT or Claude or whatever one you're using, the more that it knows about you, the more that it's going to answer the questions based on what's going, what, what it believes that you believe. So if all of your conversation with Chat GPT is about Nvidia and you go, hey, by the way, out of curiosity, how should my portfolio look at age 35 with 100 grand? It'll be like obviously Nvidia and Amazon, but you might want to diversify into Apple. And so when I put it into ChatGPT, it knows how I think about, you know, investing because it's, I've used it for different questions over the years and so for me it says, oh, you like to tilt toward small cap and value and profitable companies because you believe in the three factor model and efficient frontier and efficient market hypothesis and that sort of stuff. So you want to be a low cost passive investor and it's going to give me an asset allocation that kind of sounds like what I like. The thing that I find ChatGPT good for is answering the questions that I don't feel like looking up and googling. And what I mean by that is this, like for example, the TSP. Many people have the TSP, you know, it's a government 401k plan, right? And in the TSP there's five different funds, the C, the S, the I, the F and the G. Right. Everybody's familiar with that. That's in the tsp. But then there's also lifestyle funds, that's what they call them, basically target date funds. So you might have the Lifestyle 2040 fund or the Lifestyle 2050 fund or the Lifestyle 20, you know, whatever. What I like to do is I would say, hey, ChatGPT, what is the allocation of the Lifestyle 2050 fund broken down by S, you know, CSIF and G. And so it can give me the asset allocation like it's a fancier way to Google in my opinion. It's not quite ready to make portfolio decisions. And honestly it's not quite ready to make portfolio decisions because it's going to just respond to the loudest voice, if that makes sense.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, and that's also a problem that Robert and his team found and that I know from taking some classes on how this stuff all works, which is it's predictive modeling. It is trying to predict what the right answer would be based on the body of knowledge that's out there and especially OG in areas where the rules may be changed. Recently, I would say beware what you ask it because as an example, if the Roth IRA has had a significant change last year, 98 of the stuff that's on the Internet is from previous years and hasn't been updated yet. The new rule is not what ChatGPT is going to predict.

[OG]

It's going to predict because the loudest voice is whatever the highest search term was, you know, hasn't been replaced yet on Google of the new updated thing. Absolutely.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So the thing I've need to learn is am I asking this a thing that it can predict pretty well? And then I'm very confident asking it the question, but I'm not going to ask it for tax advice. I'm not going to ask it for.

[OG]

Speaking of tax advice, I was working through a tax problem that I was trying to solve and I was asking it, you know, these questions, right? Hey, how does you know? How would I do this? How would I do this? And it goes, oh, this is how you do it. But I know just enough about this problem that I knew that the answer was not wrong.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

No, it's wrong. Yeah.

[OG]

And I was like, well, hold on. Isn't it true that this is the answer? And it goes, you know what? You're absolutely correct. The right answer is this. Like, okay, well, you've given me two answers in the last two sentences. Which one of these is correct? And it's like, it's obviously this one. And it was a third option. And I said, okay, now I need, I need you to source it. It's like, well, there is no source available for this information. It's like, okay, I can't. I'm not going to take tax advice from, from the Internet that can't even give me the source that it got the information from.

[Doug]

It was just clearly making it up. When Kramer had the phone number for movie phone and he just started giving people fake movie times out.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Doug]

He finally is like, why don't you just tell me what movie you'd like to see?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So good. Yeah, Nick.

[OG]

So I'd be careful.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, yeah. Definitely buyer beware there. Or if it's free, free search beware.

[OG]

Even $20 a month on chat GPT. I find it helpful. I like playing around with it. But you have to have some knowledge in that area. Otherwise you're just going to go down a rabbit hole of. Of completely. Or you have the potential to go down the rabbit hole of completely incorrect information and not know the difference. Not know you know what this means. So be very, very careful. Be very, very afraid.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Thank you, Nick, for the question. If you've got a question for us, stacking benjamin.com voicemail gets you there. And we're happy to take your question too. By the way, this was question 999 to the stacking Benjamin show.

[OG]

Really?

[Doug]

Yeah, really.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Next week's question, we are going to give a special big time swag and books and we're going to Attaboy or atta girl. Yeah, somebody's getting the whole balloons like you show up. You got no idea. We're about to give them some really, really good stuff. So that's next week on Stacking Benjamin's. All right, time to wander out on the back porch. Doug, we've had some fantastic discussions. I know lately.

[Doug]

Well, the best one, I mean this is one of the best ones I can even remember Ashley deconing put one out there and it just. She put a poll out on Facebook and it just simply said there was no. This was fantastic. This shows that you were paying attention to the show. All it said was pronounce the L or do not pronounce the L. And what she was talking about was on one of our Friday episodes recently, somebody said salve. Who was that somebody? Joe, it was you.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, it was me.

[Doug]

Oh, salve. And I'm like, hold on, stop the presses.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Because it is Salve. It's 100% self.

[Doug]

And I just love that Ashley just put that poll out there.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I thought it was OG that said it though, in fairness, no, I might.

[OG]

Have said it after you to maybe backhandedly make fun of you. In fact, I probably did say that.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Fine. Okay.

[OG]

It was a little inside joke between me and Doug when I was like salve.

[Doug]

But I love that Ashley just put that out there and like 191 people voted. I think it's more than that, actually. But I mean a lot of people.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Caught this on the important stuff on the show.

[Doug]

The important stuff. This was just.

[OG]

This comes from a position of made.

[Doug]

Me feel so validated and seen.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh no, we got a letter on this topic as well.

[Doug]

And then we get a letter from somebody who's very credentialed.

[OG]

What was the vote, by the way?

[Doug]

Okay, so the vote was the outcome. The vote is that there are 34 psychos out there who think that you.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Should pronounce the L, a K, A smart people.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The silent majority there were 43.

[Doug]

You said you don't pronounce it, but then a couple of other people thought they would be cute and funny. And they put, you know, you can add your own thing to the poll. You can add your own question to the poll. Another option for an answer, I should say somebody put in, if it's Italian word, for a formal greeting, you pronounce the L. Otherwise, no, because that's just weird. And five people. So that's a. That's a vote for you don't pronounce the L. That's Five people clicked on that. And then another five people said there's danger no matter how you pronounce it. Which leads us to another discussion.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah, we'll get to that danger.

[Doug]

We'll get to that in a second. But so really, another 10 people voted for you don't pronounce the L. And a couple of other weirdos said it's salve, which. So, I mean, now we're getting carried away. But you don't pronounce the L people. So here's. Here's proof. We get a letter from a very credentialed listener. Adam White gave us all his credentials after his name. This dude knows what he's talking about. In my experience, credentialed in this area, Doug, I disagree. He's very credentialed. Listen to this letter. This dude is the shazzle on this area. In my Marion Webster, that's what the kids say these days is where he works. In my experience, this is so from Adam. In my experience, sav has been most commonly pronounced sav. And he puts sav in quotes with a short vowel sound shared by the A in apple and a very silent L. If you simply Google the pronunciation, you will find links to pronunciation guides declaring one way correct in some links and another way correct in other links. These formulations. Now he's talking about the pharmacological use of formulations. OG is dying. These formulations are not frequently used anymore, going the way of tinctures and such, albeit even less frequently used tinctures. That's a great word right there. We got to find a way to use that in a sentence. Because it is such a seldom utilized formulation. I would not be surprised if it is more frequently pronounced phonetically nowadays because people are idiots. He didn't say that part. Having said that, I have worked with a number of pharmacists from different areas of the country that pronounce common drugs very differently from other pharmacists. So this is likely just another regional question. It's not Adam. This is universally known to not pronounce the L. Adam is PharmD. I think that means he has his undergrad in pharmacology and then he has an MBA and he's the pharmacy and clinical.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Takes care of animals. Takes care of animals. Pharmacology.

[Doug]

Right. Pharmacy, clinical and operations manager for a company he doesn't want to share with us for probably smart reasons. But this guy is in the drug world and says there's no l. Well, there you go. He's a druggist.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

So my apology. I would like to have a heartfelt apology to everybody that was completely incensed by my use of the letter l.

[Doug]

But let's explore the other controversial thing that came up, which is danger.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, we had so much fun with danger. Whether there is danger.

[Doug]

Oh, gee, started this one.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

OG said there's no danger. I said, nay, nay, there's no danger. And. And so John. Doug.

[Doug]

Yeah, loyal listener John with no h. It's a silent H, just like the L. John just put a simple post up, says hashtag, team, no danger.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And then the comments flew from there, including. Including on that poll. On the poll, there's danger whether you pronounce it with an l or without an l. So we had a lot of fun with that. That was great. Love that. In fact, I got roasted a little bit on Spotify by Silent Shade, who said my angry tirade was unnecessary. Turns out it created some great discussion, which led to a Friday episode where we talked about all the danger in investing and OG had all kinds of comments about the nine different types of danger that there were in investing.

[OG]

Because you made me do it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And on that note, let's. Let's crown this off. Doug, what are our big takeaways from today's episode?

[Doug]

Well, Joe, first, take some advice from our career branding deep dive. Focus on honing your personal brand, and you'll find more Benjamins in that wallet of yours. Second, thinking about using AI for your big financial move. Remember that AI is predictive. And especially with your money, there's lots, lots of old advice AI sifts through before giving you an answer. One that might not be correct. But the big lesson, don't share today's Ben Franklin trivia. With Joe's mom. Next thing you know, she'll be sharing her favorite pennies from 1972, which are really cool. And then she'll share pennies from 1973, which are also kind of cool. But then. And this was super fun, the pennies from 1974. I keep telling you more, but we're talking 1979 upstairs in three minutes, and I'm not allowed to miss it. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and. And all the usual social media spots. Come say hello.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug]

And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Sa.

[OG]

Guys, you know that I'm a little bit of a. I don't know, the correct term. Points whore. Is that acceptable?

[Doug]

Wait, let me look it up. Yeah, yeah.

[OG]

What did the judges say?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Okay.

[Doug]

Wow.

[OG]

For credit card points, it is. So I get a letter in the mail from American Express and it says, hey, you're eligible. You're pre approved for the business plus cash card. I'm like, hell, yeah, I am. So off I go, do my little login thing, apply congratulations, you're approved with your $4,000 line of credit. I'm like, okay, not zero, but it's going to take me a while to get my, you know, to get the spend, to get the free bonus points, right? Because I don't know what the spend is. Maybe 15,000 over three months or something. Thing comes in the mail, you know, you get the envelope and you got to log in to register. It sits, you know, on my desk for a while, week. Finally, I'm like, all right, I got to get this done. So I log in to do it, and it pops up and it says, $25,000 line of credit. I'm like, oh, finally. Those idiots got to, you know, came to their senses. Came to their senses. But I notice, and when you, you know, when you log into your credit card, it shows, like, it'll say the credit card, and then it'll have the last four Digits or whatever.

[Doug]

Yep.

[OG]

And I go, well, that's not the same four digits that I have. What the heck is going on here? So I, you know, kind of click around and look at it. No, this is the business plus card for the business. It's the. It's the blue one. This is what it looks like right here. It's just a little blue guy. I'm like, nope, that's the same one. And so I started going through my stack o credit cards, which is. This is part of the stack right here.

[Doug]

Do as I say, not as I do kids.

[OG]

I mean, as long as you pay them off. But. So it turns out that I had another envelope from a year ago where I got this card a year ago.

[Doug]

Oh, man.

[OG]

And it was still in the envelope. So the reason that the one that they sent me was a $4,000 limit was because I already had one that had $25,000 limit. Anyway, so the moral of the story.

[Doug]

Here is open your mail.

[OG]

Open your mail, but, like, you know, keep track of your stuff. So I am. I'm turning over a new leaf. Just so everybody knows I'm into consolidation phase and simplifying. So just because I have three of these already, we are going to get rid of two of them.

[Doug]

Well, really going out on a limb there, eliminating two of the three blue amex's.

[OG]

Yeah, well, you know, I mean, talk.

[Doug]

About Marie condoing your.

[OG]

I have an addiction.

[Doug]

You got to get out the band saw to cut through all those cards.

[OG]

I know. Well, these are the cheap plastic ones. These aren't even the cool metal ones.

[Doug]

But the ones that all of you little people have.

[OG]

Not bad at all. Actually, the plastic ones are better. They're lighter in the wallet. You can carry more of them with you.

[Doug]

They are.

[OG]

They're like, which one of these seven do you need today?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah.

[OG]

Anyway, needless to say, I did not get the bonus points for last year's card because I didn't open it or know it existed.

[Doug]

Did the new 4000 card negate the previous 25,000 card or were they.

[OG]

No, they were the same cumulative. They, like, literally had two line items. Like, I had two. You know, when you logged in two cards, one was a $4,000 limit, one was 25. So I called Amex and I said, can you just put it together, make it 29? Like, just give me one. They're like, no, pick which one you want. I said, well, okay, obviously I know which one I want, but let me.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Think I want the 4000 because clearly I can't be trusted.

[OG]

Clearly, I can't trust it at 25.