← The Stacking Benjamins Show
The Stacking Benjamins Show
How to Make Better Decisions Using Math (with Ted Dintersmith) SB1715
01:26:45
Loading summary
Transcript158 lines
- [00:01]
Jack Welch
The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu Jack WelchMBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chev and has many campuses including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.
- [00:30]
Ted Dintersmith
Mama. Papa. Mi cuerpo crece a un ridmo alarmante. Il arropa que me comprenora. Me quedara muy pe quena muy pronto. Pero subillo Tina que su fr? La moda. Conos precious. Vajos de la vuelta clases de Amazon. Amazon. Gazta menos son riemas.
- [00:45]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Where's the kaboom?
- [00:46]
Ted Dintersmith
There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom.
- [00:55]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and. Ever been at a party and had someone tell you their high school math class was lit? No, not unless your teacher was smoking hot. We're gonna help you change your tune. Stackers with a. Well, I mean, that would change things a little bit, wouldn't it? We're gonna help you change your tune with a guy who will teach us what math you need in your life and its economist, Ted Dintersmith. And we'll also answer a question from a stacker who wonders about the differences between independent and bank financial advisors. Ever wonder what's going on? Across the desk, OG Will share details from the advisor's point of view. I know, I know. I'm getting to it.
- [01:51]
OG
Relax.
- [01:52]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Of course, I'll share some incredible trivia as well. And now, two guys who know that in personal finance, compound interest beats compound fractures every time. It's Joe and. Oh, Juju.
- [02:06]
OG
Jj, I can't think of much that doesn't beat a compound fracture. Not just compound interest.
- [02:16]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Yeah, it's replaced root canals as the suckiest thing.
- [02:22]
OG
The new root canal is a compound fracture. Hey, everybody. Happy Wednesday. Welcome to the show that helps you control the controllable with your money. And roll your eyes or maybe laugh a little.
- [02:32]
Doug
What?
- [02:32]
OG
You can't. It's the Stacky Benjamin Show. Super happy you're here. And that noise is the man stretching out. Mr. OG is all limbered up and ready to roll.
- [02:43]
Doug
Ready to go. Yep. Yeah. Just kind of roll it out. Unique New York.
- [02:49]
OG
Unique New York. The reason OG's got to be on his best behavior is because the Ted Dinter Smith is here today. And by the way, while you might not know Ted's name, first of all, the fact that it's somebody who thinks that we need to make math more fun, not, not that it can be more fun or haha, let's make it before. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. We can truly have better outcomes if you just approach math from place where it doesn't seem like this doom and gloom.
- [03:20]
Doug
Math is place, everybody knows that.
- [03:23]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Or Sydney Sweeney could be your math teacher. I mean you could go either way to get it to be fun.
- [03:27]
OG
What's up with Doug today? And by the way, I know canceled. Yes. And I know we've got some great math teachers in the audience that I would love, by the way, to do a follow up episode to this episode. Let's talk about this Doug on the back porch a little bit. Shout out to our math teachers, who I'd love to hear from about people making math fun and some of the things that you do so that our stackers can design a curriculum for themsel around better math, which is what we're doing today. And that's all led by our Wednesday mentor. This week is Ted Dinter Smith. While you might not know that name, you're going to find out here in a few minutes that Ted T. Smith is beyond passionate, maybe, well, about everything. But let's do a little name dropping. In 2018 he partnered with this guy named Sir Ken Robinson. And if you're like, oh sir, that name sounds familiar, but I can't place it. Doug, do you know who Sir Ken Robinson is?
- [04:20]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Well, I think that's the full name of Ken from Barbie and Ken.
- [04:23]
OG
It's swinging a miss, but very close. Just a bit outside as Bob Euphor Euchre.
- [04:31]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Bob Euker was the great Michigan announcer from the 70s and 80s. Bob Euchre was the great baseball announcer.
- [04:38]
OG
Bob Euchre said that. Yes, but it's because Sir Ken, who sadly passed away in 2020, has the most watched TED Talk of all time. Ted and Ken partnered to make schools better. Ken's TED Talk, which has over 23 million views, was do Schools kill creativity? And Ted Dinter Smith is on this crusade with Sir Ken at the time and now by himself to finally and hopefully revolutionize education programs. And to our delight, he's focused his energy now on math and he is bringing that energy to the basement. I can't wait. As a guy who is an economist and a guy who's also worked in venture capital. His career was in both. He is a strong believer that if we just change the way we teach math and we teach ourselves math. So here to help us create a curriculum for ourselves to focus on math that matters, here comes Ted Dinter Smith, this week's basement mentor. Right after we hear from a couple of sponsors to make sure we can keep on keeping on. And you don't pay a dime for any of this goodness. We're going to hear from them. And then the Ted Dinter Smith joins us. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal can help you find and finance the right vehicle with ease. With Navy Federal's car buying Service, powered by TrueCar, you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory, compare models, and you could get an amazing rate when you finance with Navy federal. Visit navy federal.org truecar to learn more. Navy Federal Credit Union, our members are the mission. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA credit and collateral subject to approval. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? Well, with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company seniority skills. Wait, did I say job title yet? Get started today and see how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started at LinkedIn.com results. Terms and conditions apply. And I'm super happy this gentleman is coming down the stairs to mom's basement. Have a seat, Ted. Ted Dendersmith is here. How are you, man?
- [07:07]
Ted Dintersmith
I'm great. I love being in your basement. You know, no better place.
- [07:10]
OG
And you know, every guest that comes down here after they say that, they think about how creepy that sounds. And yet here we are.
- [07:18]
Ted Dintersmith
Well, I'm not creeped out yet.
- [07:20]
OG
Well, let's see if we can change that. No, that's a. That's a scary thing. All right, I want to start here. Let's use a parable one of us created. And for all the stackers out there, it wasn't me who created this parable. But let's say that you, stacker, you're the U.S. representative to the UN and people ask, obviously the U.S. representative, Ted, for help all the time. But in this case, lead us on this story. Somebody comes up and asks our stacker, who's the UN Rep, for help.
- [07:51]
Ted Dintersmith
I wrote a book A few years ago with Tony Wagner, and we opened it with what if schools taught kids how to ride bicycles? And we had kids studying things like how do you spell derailer? And taking an SAT bicycle test. And it just took off. People were doing videos showing schools teaching kids how to ride a bike. And the key point was they never get on a bike and learn to ride it. They're studying all this stuff that's peripherally involved with bike riding, the ratio of gears, a whole set of esoterica that has nothing to do with riding a bike. For this, having been at the U.N. representing the U.S. i thought it would be interesting to talk about a nation, a fictitious nation, obviously, that had developed a really thoughtful Driver Curriculum Program 80, 90, 100 years ago, back when cars were primitive and if you broke down miles from anywhere, you might die. And so there are a whole set of things that you had to learn, like how do you clean a carburetor, how do you send smoke signals to say you're in trouble? You know, a bunch of things that back then were essential, but today they're laughable. Cars don't even have carburetors anymore, so of course we don't need to. Being able to take apart and repair a carburetor in 2025, I thought, wouldn't it be interesting? And so this fictitious country is complaining because they say many of our young adults don't learn how to drive. If they can't drive, they're economically impaired, they hate being in driver training schools. Come over, take a look, make some recommendations and tell us what you think. And so I lay out their obsolete driver training curriculum and. And there are studies that back it up.
- [09:28]
OG
You do a couple things really well with this analogy. One of the pieces I like about this parable, Ted, is that they have professors teaching about obsolete equipment that nobody uses anymore. As you mentioned earlier, they have basically PhD programs in obsolete stuff around driver's education. The smoke signals I think you mentioned earlier is a great, is a great analogy. They also are funding tons of scientific research to show how our test scores in obsolete activities that kids could participate in can become higher. They're worried about these test scores.
- [10:08]
Ted Dintersmith
Exactly. So the metaphor here is the kids drill and drill and drill to take this multiple choice driving exam that requires them to answer crazy questions about a carburetor. And then their statisticians and their PhDs in ivory tower institutions come back and say, aha, there's a correlation between driver training scores and those who do actually get a driver's license and how safe and responsible a driver they are. I observe in that parable is that there is a correlation, modest, actually, in some ways discrediting. But if you're a diligent student, you're probably going to pay more attention to traffic safety rules. And, and so, yes, somebody who's more diligently pursuing a curriculum probably is a more diligent driver. It's not learning the constituent elements of a carburetor that leads to safe driving. They both can be attributed to an underlying cause and that it turns out irrelevant in stagnation. Nobody cares about that because it's fictitious. But over and over we get studies that will assert, ah, here's the key to success in some way, shape or form. We've done the analysis. There's this correlation. I find few adults know what a correlation is. Almost no one knows how to interpret the number. And often they just say there's statistics behind it. It must be true. What I do is to draw people out to start thinking critically about that. Is this really causal? Is it just a fluke correlation? Is there a shared underlying cause? When somebody tosses a number out, what does that mean? Does it actually affirm their assertion? Or could it be discrediting, but they're, they're using that number to convince you it's actually a ferment?
- [11:47]
OG
What I love to end this story to kick off our discussion is that your character makes a bunch of recommendations to Stagnatia about. Listen, we need to revamp the way that we teach this. It doesn't make sense. You're teaching this obsolete stuff. And of course Stagnatia comes back with, no, no, no, no, we're going to get more. I think it's something like we're going to get more professionals and more data, more statistics to keep going.
- [12:13]
Ted Dintersmith
That is, we trust our studies, not you.
- [12:16]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Right.
- [12:17]
OG
And what's funny is, Stackers is really what Ted's getting at here is how we teach math and about how we are teaching all of these things in high schools across America and schools across America that we truly don't use, and we're teaching it in this rote way. In fact, Ted, you had this problem with, I believe, with your son, right? In some classes with your son.
- [12:40]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah. Start with an example. And it's bordering on math. That has math in it. But it's a true story, which is he was in fourth grade and came home one day and said, we're studying simple machines. So we made this dash out to Home depot and for 20 bucks, you can buy everything you need to play around with simple machines. So we set up our own jury rig simple machines lab and did. We had a lot of fun with that. Him, our son and his younger sister. And one of the things we did as a challenge is we said, could we design something so we can lift a cinder block with our little finger? And tried a bunch of different things and eventually came up with a multi pulley system where you could lift it. And I got done with that as we were going upstairs and I said to them, you know, with this you could lift your school's basketball coach, who's a very large guy. And we just laughed. And about a week later he came home from school and he's a very even keeled kid, even as adult, same thing. And he looked really down. And I said, hey, what's wrong? Why so down today? And he said, this was exactly what he said. He said, I guess I'm no good at science. I failed my exam on simple machines. So I said, hey, can I take a look? And I had no idea this would happen, right? But one of the questions was multiple choice. What simple machine would you use to lift a grown man? And at A, B, C and D. And he had circled pulley and actually sketched out a design and he had a big red x on it, -17 with an emphatic arrow pointing to leverage. I said, whoa. I wasn't even going to bicker about the fact that you also need a stepladder for a 50 pound kid to lift a 250 pound man with a lever. But I asked the teacher, would you mind meeting. I'd love to talk to you about this. And I said to her, wouldn't it have been more interesting to challenge these kids with something more like what simple machine or simple machines could you use to lift a grown man? Come up with as many designs as you possibly can, which is what engineers do in the real world. I said, that's expansive, that's creative. That would really show if they understand simple machines. She had the best of intentions. I love teachers, but they're sort of tied into curriculum. And she said, no, we taught this in class. We told kids what the right answer was. That's what they need to do on their test. They need to produce the answer they were taught. The wheel started turning in my brain. If that's what we do to kids year in and year out over the 12, 14, 16, 18 years they spend in school, what kind of adult do you produce that gets at the core mission I've had for the last dozen years, which is aligning priorities in school to the requirements for fulfilling careers and informed, responsible citizenship. My conclusion is that school is not only doing good things, it's actually doing damaging things. I think math, in many ways, is a poster child for failed priorities because we teach a body of obsolete math that was useful before computers. People did pursue interesting careers because they could do these road procedures by hand, without error, quickly. That's not true anymore. Yet it stays in place. And for every kid that comes out of it thinking they're a great math kid, 10 kids come out thinking they're in some ways deficient. And they spend thousands of hours on math that no adult uses. The computers do perfectly. And I think it's not just a mistake. I think it's borderline criminal. So I said, darn, I'm writing a book about this.
- [16:03]
OG
I love that story. Only because your son learns all the wrong things. I guess I'm bad at science. When he's got this graphic of a simple machine that you and him created together and all this joy is immediately erased like a balloon. Like a balloon being popped.
- [16:21]
Ted Dintersmith
You know, I'm sure somebody listening has been to more schools in the last 10 years than I have, maybe several. But I've been to close to 500 schools over the last 10 years. I've been to a lot of schools and I observed a lot of classrooms, and I've talked to a lot of kids and teachers. It's not a narrow, isolated example. This is what we do in school. We teach kids what's going to be on the test, not what's important to learn.
- [16:44]
OG
I can't fix schools. In one episode of Stacking Benjamin's I can vote. I can show the world your documentary. I can participate in the process of changing schools. But we can create a curriculum of better math at home. Right now. Let's do that a little bit. If I'm teaching myself or I'm teaching my friends, or I'm teaching kids math and I'm a money nerd. Let's start, Ted, if you don't mind, with maybe some consumer math, like grocery store and family budget math, what are some of the key concepts that maybe I need to know that aren't taught enough at home?
- [17:22]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, I could have picked any of my chapters at random and run that on this question because it's a great way to start. So I'll pick my second real chapter, which is on prediction. Everybody needs to be able to predict things in a relatively informed way, whether you're planning your own personal budget or your family's budget, whether you're in a small business and your assignment is to figure out what next year's revenue looks like, what next year's costs look like, whether you're making investments. Prediction runs everywhere. Medical diagnoses I've got to predict under different options I may pursue, what the outcomes will be. So it's not a little thing. It's a great big thing, comma, never taught in school. These are important things that define your life, yet you never got to them in school. And the reason is that prediction's ambiguous, it's creative, it's interesting. There are a lot of ways to predict things. If you don't mind, let me elaborate. The chapter starts with something that's been done by middle school or elementary school kids. And I do that intentionally to make the point. If the reader takes the book seriously and middle school kids can do it, you can do it, right? You can learn how to predict in a more informed, interesting way, in a way that sheds insight and perspective on what your own situation is. I'll give you an example. The kids are grappling with how to predict the world's population. And to be brief on it, they start by doing something simple. They just take a ruler and they take some recent data points and they take the clear ruler and sort of fiddle around until it looks like it covers the data points and then just use that edge of the ruler to predict out decades into the future. That's a good, interesting way to predict. And that's sort of a steady as she goes prediction. But then some of these kids, I'm not making this up, this isn't me, this is seventh and eighth grade kids. They said, well, let's test that. Let's go back to data around 1900 and around 1800. And what they found is that ruler, when you looked at data points a century ago or two centuries ago, way undershot where population is, which led them to think, are there other curves or forms that might be better at predicting? And they noodle around and noodle around and said, what if a compound growth curve is a better fit? We all know compound interest, or we should, which is exponential growth, a different fancy math term for it. As they play around with that, they were very resourceful with a little bit of prompting from their teacher and went to Excel. They put in a whole bunch of data points. They tried it with a line or steady as she goes. That was underestimating by a lot of. They then tried with a curve which is actually quite accurate. And it gave them the annual or decade long growth rates of the world's population. Well, let's turn that into a person's or a family's home situation. If you were trying to project what you need for retirement or what your financial situation look next year look like next year or five years from now, you'd want to look back at your data and start predicting, well, some of your expenses, like let's say how much you spend annually on food. That might well go forward on a steady as she goes basis. So let's say I'll just make up some numbers. You know, it was 25, 30, 35 over the last five, three years. It might be 40, 45, you know, like, like that just might be linear or steady as she goes.
- [20:33]
OG
Yeah.
- [20:34]
Ted Dintersmith
Where it gets really interesting, right, is if your financial situation today includes a significant amount of debt or if your financial situation includes a significant investment portfolio. Well, debt and portfolios, investment portfolios generally grow exponentially, not linear. And so you might be really fooled. For instance, if you just took the last few data points and extrapolated with a line, if you're actually sitting on $5000 of credit card debt, because that $5000 of credit card debt won't be 5500 and that's 6000 and 6500, that will grow exponentially, that will compound and that can sink you. And then when you start to think about prediction, you are able to play around with things, which I think is where the ultimate power comes from in understanding the ideas. And you might say, okay, I looked at my food budget, maybe I should look at how many times a week I'm eating out at a restaurant versus eating at home and what those cost differences are. Okay, I've been eating out on average twice a week, maybe using Postmates or GrubHub or something one day a week or Postmates. What if I shifted that and went to the grocery store and ate food I prepared at home once or twice a week, incremental shift, what would that do? If I use that savings to pay off my credit card debt, how would that play out over a five year period? And you know, well, that's what a really informed financial planner would do. But today the power I think is if you know the ideas, if you know what questions to ask, and you're willing to wade in on using AI. I mean, AI is incredibly good in getting better by the day at the math mechanics. But it depends on you to know the ideas and to know which things to push and prod and Poke on and what questions to ask. It's up to you to say, h, what if I shifted away from eating out more to eating home, could save $40 a week and put that towards paying down my credit card debt. How would that play out over a five year period? Well that's, that's real insight, right? That's total perspective on your financial situation. And the same thing holds for a business, small business, larger business, whole range of things. But it all boils down to having a good handle of what it means to predict the future based on past data, but interpreting that data in a nuanced way.
- [22:50]
OG
It's fabulous. Just you have your hands so much more on the trigger with what seem like short term decisions that have this long term impact. Just because you understand prediction, I'm even thinking about on a daily basis. I mean one of my favorite texts, Ted, is Sun Tzu, the Art of War. And I'm thinking that armed with prediction and a chapter you before that on probability, when I go into a negotiation or a discussion, if I've done a little bit of back of the envelope because I'm conversant with the concepts, the mathematical concepts of both prediction and probability, and, and I go in as an example with a boss and I'm trying to get them to give me a raise or I'm trying to get them to change a project that I'm working on. If I know prediction and probability, those two things, I'm much more likely to put together a logical argument that's going to make a huge difference in my life and maybe the life of the company I work with.
- [23:50]
Ted Dintersmith
Absolutely. And, and those two concepts go hand in hand. And it turns out that people's instincts on probability are often very far afield from what really deserves to be put front and center. And so for instance, you see all sorts of things we'll overweight. Sensational results. You know, one of my examples is what happened after 911 when literally hundreds of thousands of families decided not to fly but to drive because that would be quote, unquote safer because right in front of them was a tragic accident involving airplanes. Well, it turns out that code red security alerts. That was probably the safest time in history to fly on a plane. And your risk profile when you drive instead of fly is way higher. Well, we overweight those sensationalized. How many people will say, well I don't want to go in a driverless car because I read this story about this accident in San Francisco. So I perceive that my likelihood of dying in a driverless car is much higher than if I'm driving myself. Well, that's not true, right? You look at the track record, the safety record already today on driverless cars, and they're five or six times safer than human driven cars. And they get better by the day. That's an issue with probability. The other thing is that we often are too confident. We often zero in with narrow bounds on what's likely to happen instead of stepping back and saying, what's a broader perspective on the full range of things that could happen. I was really fortunate because I was eventually in school. I spent way too many years in school, but found my way to a graduate program in applied math. And so a lot of my worldview comes out of getting a PhD in Applied Math from a top program that immersed me in these concepts. And it's worth noting that the chair of the department, years later, I said to him, I never use any of the math mechanics I spent years on that I had to master to get my PhD. And he sort of laughed and said, you know, we kind of known all along that the mechanics don't matter. It's really the ideas that are important because they help you formulate ideas, structure problems, understand the interrelationships. It's the ideas that matter, not the mechanics. So this book is about those ideas. You know, you look at that and you say, oh my gosh, you know, oftentimes we're way more confident we know than we really should be. So I have this list of, you know, 20 items that are, in some ways that might look like a trivia test. It's not. There are things that nobody should know. You know, like how many lakes of 2 acres or more are there in Canada? Good example. I don't expect anyone to know that, you know, and if they did, who cares, right? What we ask people to do is put your balance. What's your 80% confidence range so that you think an upper and lower limit is 80% likely to include the actual number of two acre plus lakes. In Canada, we have 20 of those, all different. And then at the end, if you're relatively calibrated in your outlook, if your probability, judgment and instincts are more or less in accord with what's going on in the real world, out of those, 20, 16 ought to fall within your 80% bounds, and four more or less ought to be outside. Well, for most people, five are in their bounds and 15 are outside. We're way too confident that we know where things will be in the face of really serious uncertainty. I use that and funny, I did that exercise, gosh, over 50 years ago. Graduates. I still remember some of the items. Some of the items are on what I challenge readers to do because it was so eye opening, right? When you start to say, oh my gosh, am I over and over in my life imputing more knowledge and understanding about things where I really ought to be more humble, where I really ought to look more broadly at what could happen. And back to your team. This up is if you go in to somebody, you're working with, your boss or colleagues or whatever, and you could say, well, we think next year's revenue will look like this because that's how it projecting forward. But we should think about scenarios A, B, C and D that could create very different revenue paths for us and begin to put our own judgment, our own probability on those different paths and start to think through, if that were to emerge, what could we do now to mitigate or capitalize on it? That's unbelievably powerful. And as I say it, and I think as people hear it, I hope, anyway, people's reaction is, of course we should do that. My bet is that almost never happens in your work environment or around the dinner table at home. It's a math mindset. They'll start to look at the world differently. They'll question the numbers they get. They'll know what questions to ask. They'll take, issue or critically analyze the studies that come across their table. And they'll have these skills and perspectives that help them, their family members, their organizations make better decisions and chart a better future.
- [28:40]
OG
Yeah, Ted, not math is an equation that we think that doesn't have anything to do with our daily life. But math is a language as a way of speaking back and forth. We talk about estimation, probability, all of these ways to better analyze if this is even worth it. I mean, you and I were talking before, we're chatting here, and you know, you have a background in venture capital. What strikes me is just the number of times when I was a financial planner, I would just question whether the thing my client even wanted to explore was worth the time. And that's a mathematical equation. I mean, if you're at X amount of income per year and your goals are X, Y and Z, and you're gonna head off to explore this investment in this thing that has almost no revenue and a very small chance of, of success, why do we do that? Unless you're in love with the idea and it just sounds fun, which I love the idea of just grabbing it because it's fun. But I think also having this math mindset helps you make better investment decisions, I would imagine.
- [29:54]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I held my own when it came to my career in venture capital and I gave a lot of credit to having a perspective that was more challenging and critiquing instead of accepting and following. And I think that's one of the hidden damages of math in school is it is do it the way you're taught it is. There is one right answer. It is a world of arc secants and piecewise linear function. A whole bunch of things you just say like why do I even need to know this? But it's school sort of tells you that the most important thing you can do in your life is to buckle down on stuff you're never going to use and get good at skills that AI does perfectly to post a GPA or an AP score or an SAT score that might in some increasingly likely way lead to a better life. And it was interesting. When I look back on my career, I use math ideas all the time in business. How do you estimate market size? How do you predict future revenue? What are interesting out of the box statistics to track the progress of a company or your portfolio? How do you use probability in a way that goes beyond heads and tails? Optimization is fascinating and powerful. How am I optimizing my own activities, my own investments? And how is the company I'm involved with optimizing its activities? It would just ran through everything. It was never oh, let me prove cosine squared plus sine squared equals one. I think that's one of the tragedies of the way we approach math in our schools is we believe math and creativity have nothing to do with each other. And the interesting math, the ideas that are important are laden with creativity. They beg for creativity. But when your entirety is around low level math mechanics, One of the things that's heartbreaking is that when I interview test tutors, they're often very expensive and they're often hired by the rich families to help their kid on the sat. They tell me the single best point of advice they can give a student is if you get to a problem that's hard, if you hit a problem that's going to take you several minutes to figure out, skip it. Because if you spend five minutes on one problem, you'll miss the last 10 problems on that section. And it's like, what a dispiriting life lesson. You know, if it's interesting, if it begs for multiple creative approaches, if it's something that's going to cause you to actually have to struggle and wrestle and fumble around till you come up with an interesting answer. Skip it. There's this whole body of interesting ideas that I think people will dive into and say, oh my gosh, that's so interesting. And it shows up everywhere in my life. It surrounds me. It could define me or it could empower me.
- [32:33]
OG
It's multifaceted. You're learning so many different lessons, and maybe you're never coming up with the right answer, but you're still learning a ton.
- [32:40]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, and I, I think that whole right answer phrase is important here because I start with a simple example, which everybody listening has probably done this. You know, you've got a glass vase or jar, it's full of gummy bears or jelly beans or pennies. Estimate how many are in the jar. Well, you know, there are better, more informed, more interesting ways to estimate it. There are particularly bad ways to estimate it, but there really isn't a right way to estimate it. There's not one right way to do it. In 5, 4, multiple choice, wrong ways to do it. It's why it's not on our standardized tests. And if it's not on our standardized test, it's not in our curriculum. But when you invite kids to think about different ways to estimate jelly beans in a jar, which I've done with schools, oh my gosh, kids in third, fourth, fifth grade blow you away with different approaches. And it's like, wouldn't that be an interesting thing to put front and center in math for our kids and for our adults?
- [33:33]
OG
It can be so fun. Speaking of fun, let's talk statistics for a second because I think that, you know, from where I sit, Ted, statistics is a part of this home curriculum for ourselves. A couple interesting uses of statistics that you talk about. Number one is the misery index and about how it was used in Moneyball. One of my favorite statistics examples you use in the book is these walk score statistics of cities. As a guy who's passionate about walking trails in my little hometown of Texarkana and about what makes this fabric of life, what makes the heck you and I right now, talking about what makes life more interesting. It's phenomenal. You would think that a city that's laid out on a grid would be more interesting. And yet when we look at walk store score statistics of cities, a city like San Francisco, with these monster hills that a lot of people don't even want to climb, comes out at the top. And this little beautiful city near me, shockingly, I was this many years old. And I read Ted's book and I found out that Eureka Springs was number one on the walk score statistics. By the way, if you've never been to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, what a wonderful little town. I think 25,000 people, just a tiny, tiny town out in the mountains. But understanding these statistics allows people to succeed, Ted, where other people don't succeed because they don't understand stats. I mean, Moneyball, the New York Yankees versus the Oakland A's. The, the Oakland A's competitive in a lot of seasons where they shouldn't have been just because Billy Bean knew statistics.
- [35:12]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, absolutely. I start that chapter intentionally with the incredible jolt that Moneyball gave us all in rethinking statistics. And it's interesting, right, that people often say, well, why is it on balance, boys do better at math than girls? I think it's because a lot of boys are baseball kids and baseball is replete with statistics. And what we saw with Moneyball with Billy Bean and Bill James is they said, look, the standard statistics are not that helpful. So instead of batting average, let's look at on base percentage. They began to really rethink and look at what statistics are revealing, what statistics are powerful. And I include this guy in Kansas named Charles Castens who teaches kids in Title I schools, elementary school kids, to bring math to life for them, to get them interested in math, to see its power. He's created this whole set of fantasy sports. And fantasy sports actually gives you a budget. And you've got to allocate that budget based on your best take on the statistics that will help you put together the best team. I mean, it's unbelievably interesting math. By and large, when you look at the middle and high school math that does touch on statistics, it's usually like attacked on section of a science report or median mean and mode, or plots on standardized. It sucks all the life and energy and creativity out of statistics instead of encourages us to say what creative statistics might shed light on this, might help us make better decisions, might help us allocate our budgets more appropriately. The core concept, so understandable, approachable, not simple and equation laden, but ideal, you know, intensive. And then show how it connects with your everyday life. You look at, you know, that was a good walkability. It's a very interesting statistic. You know, infrastructure, how do nations. How would you go about calibrating and quantifying the infrastructure of a town or a state or a nation? Defense spending. I love what I found and try to bring to readers which Is, interestingly, the US Is ranked number one on defense and we spend more than the next eight nations combined. So we're not just number one, we're way ahead of number one. I note, and it's not playful because it's tragic. So I want to make sure that I have the right tone on this, but that Iraq and Afghanistan are not even ranked and yet number one, US invades Iraq. That didn't go well. Number one, US invades Afghanistan. Well, that went really poorly. Number two, Russia invades Afghanistan. That's going poorly. Number two, Russia invade unranked Ukraine. That's what you know, you realize these statistics, the way they are captured, reflects obsolete priorities. And so when you start to look beyond the measures and say, what's really going on? How much are we investing in drone technology for a military? We're actually way behind on drone technology, but we're still pouring massive amounts of money into sitting ducks that would have been good in fighting 20th century wars. Every statistic tells a story and it's intensely involving assumptions. And when you start to say, oh my gosh, here's somebody's statistic, let me look hard at that. That's where you develop critical thinking skills.
- [38:23]
OG
Statistics. TED combined with what you said earlier about asking why I think is a great at home curriculum, this statistic, you know, and it's funny, back to baseball for just a second, I was at my Detroit Tigers, played the Texas Rangers. So I drive to Dallas and I didn't realize until I was prepping for this discussion how much of this baseball ballpark is just stories, presents the statistics. I mean, the big screens they have in center field are literally a spreadsheet with pictures, right, that tell all these, all these different stories. But to your point, when you combine that with why I want to end our discussion together with one statistic that you glaringly point to going. Families chase this statistic. They're all about getting into these, these higher ranked places in the statistic for their kids. They focus their children's curriculum around this statistic and that is the U.S. news & World Report college rankings. And for people not watching the video, Ted just rolled his eyes. What's wrong with these statistics? TED?
- [39:33]
Ted Dintersmith
Well, I mean, for starters, we rank colleges and not one of the dimensions of that statistic has to do with what's really learned, which would seem like that might be relevant when you talk about which colleges are doing a great job on behalf of their kids. And so it's all these loose proxies, it's how much student Satisfaction, retention rates, which means colleges are motivated to make school fun and easy. Size of endowment, a bunch of things that I think, and college presidents will tell you this. They'll readily admit that this distorts their priorities. This causes them to do things that they don't think are the right thing for their institution or their kids because they're chasing those rankings because they're adults. Families put a lot of weight on really nefarious rankings. And so I lay out what is involved, what they do rank. And then I give all these examples of people who've gamed the system. And I include I love these back to back quotes from a dean at Columbia who one year when they're ranked number two, says these rankings are unbelievably great. And then the next year when they says the totally different thing, it's like these rankings, you know, like are unfairly punitive to, you know, like. And it's interesting because Columbia was called out and this is sort of where things come full circle by a math professor at Columbia who looked at the data Columbia was presenting giving to U.S. news and world Report and used estimation math to say, is this data relatively accurate or has it been ginned up to goose our U.S. news and world Report rankings? And he's a whistleblower. He says Columbia is falsifying the data and that's why they're number two in the US News and World Report ranking. And that gets a big Play. And suddenly U.S. news World Report lowers a bit, lowers the boom. And Columbia goes from number two to number 18 in a year. And if you know how slowly institutions change, nobody shifts.
- [41:28]
OG
That goes for 2 to 18.
- [41:29]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah. And then a couple years later when that came out and when people realized, hey, if we're falsifying our data, we might get called out for it, schools started to shift and be a little bit more accurate. And so suddenly everybody was shifting massively and US News and Report had to delay their rankings release because like, how is it that a bunch of schools drop 30 or 40 places in a year and you just realize every statistic has a story behind it. And before you just accept that statistic, you need to dig in and understand what assumptions are being made to produce that number. And if they're really valid and interesting assumptions, fantastic. And if they're shallow or even misleading, beware. And I think that's why the baseball metaphor is great. When I grew up, I was a baseball kid. Growing up, nobody had heard of wins above replacement, right. And now that's a central statistic. But it's an evolving statistic. It's not locked in time. I mean, there are better and more interesting ways to compute it. And so this year's WAR might be quite different from three years ago and three years from now. The WAR may be quite different, but it's a better way to look at the value of a player than just batting average or win loss record for a pitcher. That's the power of statistics. And I think it's interesting and it's creative and it's joyful and it's exciting. We can all understand that if we just step back and say, hmm, statistics isn't flipping a coin in a classroom or understanding the math behind a binomial table. It's real. It affects our lives. It is so fascinating.
- [43:07]
OG
I think that just being able again Ted, to speak the language as wins above replacement changes. I mean on a bigger level and for our non baseball fans, I mean just being able to understand more quickly how AI works and how it might be wrong is really based in math. And the math that AI is doing and that it's not doing. In fact, you know, you and I, Ted, see people misunderstand AI all the time because they wonder why it gives you the wrong information. Well, it's just a process of the math and the way they're looking at the math, which makes it, by the way, more fascinating and makes it so that when you use AI you can ask it better questions because you understand at least a little bit of the math behind what it's doing and what it's not doing. Yeah, an expert at Google once in a masterclass I was taking was talking about the jagged edge of AI and it's easier to. And everything, not just AI, has a jagged edge to understand the jagged edges of life. Understanding the math and what a, what a wonderful curriculum to create for yourself. Understanding the real math that we need to use.
- [44:12]
Ted Dintersmith
It's interesting. When I started writing the book ChatGPT couldn't add numbers. I mean it was very behind in terms of math capability. Recently, OpenAI and Google's DeepMind competed in the International Math Olympiad. Finished in the top 10% on very nuanced, difficult problems. Top 10% of the best high school math kids globally. If that's where it is today, in a year or two it'll be the top 1% and in another year or two it'll be way better than any. And you realize, my gosh, it's getting better and better and better, but it's, people are the ones who need to ask it to do things. And I always go a bit nuts when people say, well, it makes mistakes. Because if ChatGPT tells me something and it's important, I'll take what Chat GPT tells me and I'll put it in Claude and say, critique this fact. It's just that that important message that is up to you. You know, these are tools and if you're worried about it being wrong, take that into your own hands and figure out how to make sure you fact check it.
- [45:10]
OG
Yeah, understanding the language of the math behind it, I think is so important. Believe it or not. As we mentioned a couple times so far today, Ted's written a book on this topic called Aftermath. And this is the curriculum book stackers to teach yourself, teach your family the math that truly you're going to use every day and you do use every day to make better decisions, to make better investments and to manage your family financial picture. You've also Ted. Well, you know what? Let's tell people if they want to get the book where they can find Aftermath.
- [45:45]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah. Right now go to www.aftermaththebook.com. i was on a path, and I may still be on a path to strictly self publish it, but I've gotten some overtures from publishers who are telling me they could act really quickly. I'll give you a good example of really subtle estimation math. My last two books, the publishers did almost nothing. And when the book was released, I spent all the money to promote it and then they took 92 cents on the dollar of revenue. So with really difficult, probing math analysis, you might come to the conclusion that that's not a great deal.
- [46:21]
OG
Here's where some math worked in Ted's favor.
- [46:23]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, yeah. It took a PhD in math modeling to get there. So finally on book three, I said I don't think that's a particularly good thing. And so it'll be out in the next month or so and I donate a lot of copies. I probably shouldn't say this on a show, but I mean, if somebody gets excited about the book and there's a way to help bring math ideas to their community or to their school and budget's an issue, ping me. And I'm quite open and generous. At least I hope I'm being generous in terms of helping people out because I think this is really important, my goal, and I think I'm getting some feedback from early readers. I mean, I'm hoping to do for math what the amazing authors of Freakonomics did for economics. I mean, if somebody reads this book and that's what they say. Mission accomplished. But I think that if we have a math literate population, a population that does have these ideas and can engage in challenging, constructive discussion with each other about important personal or community priorities, we will have a much better nation. To me, if this book is at all helpful toward that goal, I will feel quite gratified.
- [47:29]
OG
We'll link to all of ted's resources, Aftermath and both documentaries on our Show Notes page@stacking benjamin.com Ted thank you so much for mentoring our stackers on not just better math, but I think a better way to think about about our education in general and about how fun it can be to ask why versus just just the rote multiple choice. Thank you so much.
- [47:57]
Ted Dintersmith
Well, I'll say if you don't mind. Thank you right back because I love your work and I think you're a great success. I mean, who would have guessed somebody that starts a podcast from their mother's basement would become a really important podcast in the lives of so many. And your work is so full of insight and perception. I just love it. So thank you, thank you, thank you for all you're doing.
- [48:22]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Hey there Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And wasn't that great?
- [48:25]
Ted Dintersmith
Great.
- [48:25]
Joe Saul-Sehy
I'd estimate and predict that that was probably the best use of your time today. See Ted, I was listening. Let's take Ted's lesson and throw in a definition for today's trivia, one you hear on the news a bunch when you hear about interest rates. What's the definition of the prime rate? That reminds me, I'll be back right after I go cancel Amazon Prime. Maybe that'll help Joe's mom's stop doom scrolling self help books for me. I'm fine, Ma. Worry about your own complexes.
- [48:58]
Ted Dintersmith
Wait, was that a spider?
- [48:59]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Oh my God, it was a spider. Gotta be a spider.
- [49:03]
OG
The McDonald's snack wrap is back. You brought it back.
- [49:07]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Ranch snack wrap?
- [49:08]
Ted Dintersmith
Spicy snack wrap.
- [49:10]
Joe Saul-Sehy
You broke the Internet for a snack? Snack wrap is back. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [49:20]
OG
With the price of just about everything.
- [49:21]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a.
- [49:28]
Doug
Thing Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless.
- [49:31]
OG
How many get?
- [49:31]
Ted Dintersmith
30. 30.
- [49:31]
OG
Better get 30.
- [49:32]
Doug
Better to get 20.
- [49:33]
Ted Dintersmith
20.
- [49:33]
OG
20.
- [49:33]
Doug
Better get 20.
- [49:33]
OG
20. Better get 15. 15.
- [49:35]
Doug
15.
- [49:35]
OG
15. Just 15 bucks a month.
- [49:37]
Ted Dintersmith
Sold. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [49:41]
Jack Welch
Of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first 3 months only. Speed slow after three 35 gigabytes of network spicy taxes and fees extra See mint mobile.com AI is moving fast. So fast it's hard to keep up. In fact, in ServiceNow's latest AI maturity index, scores dipped 20% from last year. But that's okay, because AI isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. You may be behind today, but tomorrow you could be a pacesetter. Dive into ServiceNow's AI maturity index and see see how you can innovate as fast as your ambitions? Visit servicenow.com aimaturity.
- [50:23]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Hey there stackers. I'm insect lover and the guy primed to deliver a great trivia answer. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug.
- [50:31]
OG
Oh, I see what you did there.
- [50:32]
Joe Saul-Sehy
That's how I do it. Ah, the prime rate. And here you thought it was like beef, the best cut of the interest rate. Litter served up steaming hot. And actually, that ain't a bad way to think about it. It's the best rate that commercial banks charge their most credit worthy corporate customers. It's usually directly tied to the federal funds rate that the Federal Reserve charges. So when you hear that the Fed is raising interest rates, you know the prime rate will increase and all of these companies will pass all of that increase on. Yeah, that's right. They pass it on to you. And here's something you never want to pass on. Another segment with Joe and og.
- [51:13]
OG
Doug's never wanted to pass on that.
- [51:15]
Joe Saul-Sehy
I want to pass out.
- [51:18]
OG
Big thanks to Ted and hopefully OG Stackers all over the world now working on let's introduce a little math to our life and have some better outcomes. I mean, just thinking about the probability of will I get a raise if I go in and I ask today what's the probability and how do I increase those odds? Right. Listen to all the math and just those statements. It's not necessarily an equation. It's just a way to think about redefining the battlefield. I love Sun Tzu defining the battlefield so that your outcome is going to be better.
- [51:52]
Doug
Yeah, I think about car shopping. We're kind of elbow deep in that right now. I guess I don't like the word probability because I got like a barely a C in statistics and I could never figure that part of it out. So I use the word likelihood and.
- [52:07]
OG
Maybe I think Ted would say based on what we just talked about, OG that was your teachers. That wasn't you. That was. But maybe more.
- [52:13]
Doug
Absolutely it was my teacher. Of course it had nothing to do with the work I didn't put in or the homework I didn't do, I had a high probability of not doing any work, and that turned into a high probability of getting a barely passing grade. I guess my way of thinking about this is like the choose your own adventure books. If you cheated like I did and did both of them so that you could like, figure out which ending you wanted to have. If you guys remember those from being a kid.
- [52:39]
OG
This is just basic, basic stuff. We didn't. We just talk about begin with the end of mind. OG yeah. If you do the choose your own adventure from the end you want, you work backward.
- [52:48]
Doug
Just think about, like the dominoes that are going and where you're headed on this. You know, you start going down the, you know, if you're going down the path of payment, they can structure a payment for anything that you want. You know, if I want to pay $400 a month, it's like, cool, $400 a month for the next 120 months. This car's yours. You're like 120 months.
- [53:07]
OG
That sounds reasonable.
- [53:08]
Doug
You know, it's. It's not. And so I think if you approach any situation from the perspective of what's their angle and what. You know, the angle sounds bad, but, like their perspective of this conversation.
- [53:22]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:23]
Doug
And how do I want this outcome to look? I think you get the right focus. I don't know.
- [53:27]
OG
Well, well, no. And think about all the things that you're going to put into your curriculum that are going to be usable immediately. And if you use it immediately, you're much more likely to internalize it. So I walk in and I think, what is the probability he's going to steer me toward just a more expensive car of the two cars? Well, then I start thinking about his side of an argument when we talk to Mori to Herapore about negotiation. Right. There's a cube, your side in their side. So I start thinking about probably, well, it's a very high probability that that's going to happen. And then I start thinking about why that is and what is the differences in these two vehicles and is the price difference worth it. So then I start thinking about price versus my emotions. And then I think, if I'm going to take out a loan back to what you're talking about, if you're going to do that, then maybe I need to bone up a little bit on interest rates and what acceptable payment terms are and what's kind of the going rate for this stuff. And I start learning a little about, you know, 1,000amonth pay of payments on this vehicle.
- [54:27]
Doug
But it's interest deductible. So.
- [54:29]
OG
Yeah, yeah, because they're going to throw some terminology at you very quickly and for you to know a little bit about that, it's fantastic. Love that. And we'll link, as I mentioned earlier, to everything that Ted has going on in our Show Notes page. Hey, let's get to a stacker who said, you know what, I better call Saul. See. Hi, nrg. This is where we shine the light on a stacker with an issue. And today we have a stacker OG who's asking about the different types of financial advisors.
- [54:58]
Ted Dintersmith
Hi, Joe, OG and Doug. I have a quick question and I was wondering if you guys could just discuss the differences between a independent financial advisor and a bank financial advisor. I've had friends that have used both and have advocated for both, but I would love to hear you guys compare the two. Thanks.
- [55:17]
OG
It's interesting. Independent financial advisor and a bank financial advisor OG Generally, what are the differences?
- [55:26]
Doug
Well, I would also, I would want to know the terminology of the word independent. Like, what does that mean to that person? Because like the word fiduciary, it means almost absolutely nothing because everybody says it. Half the people know what it means. Half the people think they know what it means. Everybody uses it. And it has no value in the marketplace. So the word independent also, I think, has no value in the marketplace because the person who works at Edward Jones might say, I'm independent. You know, I kind of have my own office. You know, I'm independent. The guy works at Ameriprise might say, I'm independent. I say, we're independent. The guy at Schwab says, hey, we're independent. I don't know. So I would say that that has almost a useless. It's almost a useless word in our industry at this point. Maybe. Let's talk about people that are affiliated with big companies versus not big companies. How about that? Instead?
- [56:23]
OG
And big companies will include the banks.
- [56:25]
Doug
Absolutely. Yeah. In this case, brokerage, Morgan Merrill, Ameriprise, you know, whatever's on the business card versus I'll just use us as an example. We don't have anybody else on our business card. Just me. And there's good things and not so good things about that. The biggest piece with a large organization is there's likely to be a little bit more oversight from a compliance standpoint. That could be a really good thing or it could be a really not so good thing, meaning the structures around compliance are going to be likely tied to the lowest common denominator. Like one guy at the bank 22 years ago did this one thing, and so now we can make it so nobody can do that one thing because that one guy abused it. The one person at Merrill lynch did that one thing and screwed it up. So now they make it so nobody at Merrill can do that one thing because it just makes it easier to supervise. And some of it's legitimate, some of it's really arcane and stupid. But again, when you've got an employee size of 20,000 people, you know, you got to have rules that you can apply to all 20,000 people. So I think there's a good thing about that from a compliance perspective. There's a onerous of heavy operations, you know, that makes that maybe not so great. Paperwork is a great example there. One of the not so great things about being affiliated with a big company is sometimes the structure of the compensation for that group can change from time to time. It's pretty well known in our industry that the big players, you know, when I say big players, I mean the Merrills, the Morgans, the Ameriprises, Edward Jones is of the world. They're a big organization. They have to report to shareholders and they have to create compensation structures that align with their business goals. And so over different periods of time, those structures and incentive programs may change. And to say that that doesn't affect advisor outcome is foolish. We've talked about it many times. When you eliminate the commissions on annuities. Nobody sells annuities. And you go, why is that? I thought they're so amazing. Oh yeah, they're really amazing. When I get 6% cash up front, they're not so amazing. When I get 1% over time, you.
- [58:39]
OG
Know, it's like you're talking about the advisor, by the way, get 6% right now of whatever the person buys.
- [58:45]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah.
- [58:45]
Doug
If you took whole life insurance or variable life insurance or something, you know, these products are just like heavy with commissions on. Why is that the case? Why does there have to be so much incentive to sell a reit? Because it's dog crap. And so they gotta like wrap it up nice and pretty so the advisor gets to pay. I'm not saying that they're all bad. I'm just saying like when you eliminate those or you straight line that or flatline that compared to other things, there's a shift in the sales, those things. So you may not know what that incentive structure looks like. And that may affect the opinion of the advisor.
- [59:22]
OG
I like where you're taking this discussion OG because when you talk about the good and the bad of the big organization, it's because they have these two pieces. The compliance piece, which you explained, can be really a good thing. It could protect the consumer. So you know that this is a mass market thing. You're not going to blow up your plan because somebody, Billy, had a great idea at lunch and decided to experiment on you. That's not going to happen. But there's also another organization inside of these big machines and you and I have been a part of this before and that is there's a sales organization where you have these organized classes where they are telling, they are teaching you words and phrases and how to get people to eat stuff that they might not necessarily want to eat, be hungry for.
- [60:07]
Doug
Yeah, look, I'm so grateful for the time that I spent at American Express and Ameriprise because it taught me how to be a good salesperson. And we've talked about this on the show, a bunch of with people that want to be advisors, they're like, well, you know, I'm really good at finance. Does that make me a good advisor? It's like, no, you have to be a good communicator with people. Also, the threshold competency is you better know a bunch of stuff about finance. But you, you know, you could be the smartest guy in the universe, but if you can't communicate that well to a person who has no desire to do that, who really wants to just spend all their money right now, you know, you have to motivate them to like save for the future. Like, you have to be able to do that well. The biggest difference between large organizations and small, especially on the name brand finance places, is the delineation between being a broker and being an advisor. I'm not throwing shade on anybody here because like our caller said she's had referrals to both of those places for people that have been equally successful or happy with those experiences. So there's nothing wrong with being a broker. There's nothing wrong with being an advisor. There's nothing better about being an advisor versus a broker. I can make a case for it, but that doesn't change the personality or the person. Right. And so much of financial planning, I think from a advisor, client, relationship perspective is about relationship. And then there's some again, threshold competencies, right? You got to know what you're talking about and be able to deliver good service. But so much of it is just me and you, you know, talking that you can get that experience by working with the gal at the bank. If that person cares about you and does a good job, that's awesome because they're a good person. If you read LinkedIn, there's so much stuff about like, this advisor sucks at this. That's not true. It's like the vast majority of people in this business, like the vast majority of doctors, like the vast majority of teachers care about the people that they're working with. Are there teachers out there that are like, this sucks and I hate students and I don't want to do this anymore?
- [62:04]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, of course there are. Yes, there are.
- [62:06]
Doug
There's doctors out there that say the same thing. There's financial planners who say the same thing, there's painters who say the same thing. But there's also people who are like, I really love being a physician and I love the fact that I get to help people. And they're like, yeah, but don't you hate all the Medicaid and all the paperwork and all the stuff? Yeah, that's a sucky part of the business. But I love this part. I'm going to do the best I can for my patients. So the same thing is true with the finance space. I think we spend so much energy on the nitpicking of like, well, that person is not a fiduciary. It's like, okay, but I know people who are fiduciaries who do the wrong thing. Does that, what does that mean? What does that get you? It doesn't get you anything. There's no jail, there's no penalty box. You don't have to fly a black flag in front of your office because you violated the fiduciary standard one time. You know, I just find somebody that cares about you and that you care about and be a good partnership. Trust but verify. You put the layers of protection in place because it gives you the opportunity to release from the day to day stress about money. So if you use a third party custodian, you don't have to worry about Bernie Madoff. If you get your statements emailed to you, you don't have to worry about that. You know, you pay commission, you pay a fee. Who gives a crap? It's the same thing.
- [63:24]
OG
I think a couple things to summarize. A stacker and she didn't leave us her name, so I hope we can send her some swag. Write me. Make sure that you, that you give me your name. Because this is a fantastic topic. But to summarize just a couple things. Number one, if you look at their business card or the website where you find them. If it's the name of a big company or on the business card, there's some fine print that says the name of a big company that you've heard of underneath their name. That's one side of the equation. If there's not, that is truly what we would call independent. But I like where you're going with the way people are paid. The way to think about it isn't so much to start with the advisor og it's to start with you. And let me give, give everyone an example. I can buy shoes online. I could buy shoes online all day and I could avoid a commission to a person. There is a guy in Texarkana who, when I talk to him about shoes, I always pick good shoes. I pick great shoes with this gu. So even though I know that he gets a commission and I know that I could do it myself, I always go back to this guy at this store to buy my shoes. And by the way, if he's not working og, I'm gone, I'm out the door. Because this guy is so good at finding this shoe. And, and sometimes I have no idea how he picks the shoe because he brings it out of the back. He's like, oh, I think you'd like this one. And every time I do. So if I'm starting with I want a shoe and I need an expert in the shoe, I think that finding one of these commission based people is perfectly fine and I can have a great relationship with them. But I know what I'm looking for a little bit. But I'm not, I don't have any expertise in that area.
- [65:02]
Doug
But by the same token, it's a little bit of know thyself, right? You are a runner who has to have some specialty stuff, right? I'm not a runner. I get Nike Pegasus 41s every time. Like, literally I go, my shoes are worn out. And I go on the Nike app and it goes, you probably like this color. And I go, sure do send. Like, it's the same size, it's the same shoe, it's just a different color. Like, and they're like, hey, by the way, we have Nike Pegasus 42s now.
- [65:33]
Ted Dintersmith
I'm like, well, nope.
- [65:35]
Doug
Well, I mean, no, I'll take them. They're the same ones. They're just a new, you know, it's the same line. I'm keeping that platform in business.
- [65:41]
OG
If it worked in the past.
- [65:42]
Doug
Yeah. And to your point, I think with this, the reality is that where you are in Your life is going to matter what sort of shoe service you need, I think is what you're getting at. And there's plenty of people who need to have somebody do a one off thing and there's some people that need a big long relationship. And none of this is right or wrong. What I try to do when we talk to people all the time about this and my phrase that I say is right fit, right time, I really try to make sure that what we do is in alignment with what that person needs. And if it's not, I also am very okay with going. I think there's a better path for you. You should do this one off thing or you should keep on what you're doing. You should DIY that like you're great. Like what do you, you don't need to pay anybody. You don't need to pay me or anybody, you know.
- [66:34]
OG
Well, that's why I think in this case og, I think there's for her. If she's had people advocate for both. I would go interview both if you're.
- [66:41]
Doug
Wanting to hire somebody. Yeah. Just because your friends have financial planners doesn't mean you need to have one.
- [66:47]
OG
Yeah, I would go interview them both and then look at what am I actually looking for, what do I need and see if either one of these people actually fit.
- [66:53]
Doug
And it's personality based. I mean it really is. This is the person that you need in the trenches with you when this isn't like what kind of asset allocation are you going to give me? Because newsflash, almost everybody uses a computer program to solve this. We're not hand mathing out efficient frontiers anymore. We use a software. This is the person you want in the trenches when something goes majorly wrong or something goes majorly right and you need some big time advice, somebody with you to guide you along the way. And if you don't love that person and that person doesn't love on you, then you're not going to follow the advice, you're not going to lean on them.
- [67:30]
OG
It's going to suck either way.
- [67:31]
Doug
Yeah, what's the point? I can go on for hours on this, Joe.
- [67:35]
Ted Dintersmith
Hours.
- [67:36]
OG
Well, I think that's enough on this one though, right? Thank you so much for the call. And by the way, please write me and let me know who the heck you were so that we can send you some swag for being a show contributor. We pay our contributors, Doug. We pay them.
- [67:50]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Aren't I a contributor?
- [67:51]
OG
That's why you got the mug. That's why it's. That's why we gave you the mug.
- [67:56]
Ted Dintersmith
That's right.
- [67:56]
Joe Saul-Sehy
I forgot I'm good for the year.
- [67:57]
OG
Yes. And by the way, have I made any headway for the people? I I've had five emails from people that have said I want to test this new mug. So have I made any headway on that? No, I haven't. But by next week will I have. Yes, I would have. But to finish out this segment before we I feel it's meandering onto the back porch, but before we get there, stacking benjamins.com voicemail if you'd like OG to answer your question as well. All right, Doug, what's going on on the back porch today?
- [68:27]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Well, I mean, you were just burning the oil, the candle, the all of the whole time leading up to this, our listeners were losing the opportunity to get our guides because they're down to like hours until the prices go up. It's about to happen. You're on the precipice of a price increase. So get it.
- [68:47]
Ted Dintersmith
Now.
- [68:48]
OG
If you're not familiar with our guides, we have a tax guide. Go back to Monday's show. You'll hear all the tax changes. Those are all coming to the guides. If you didn't hear Monday show, you didn't hear some of these are now some of these are 20, 26 different times. They will enter the guide when you need them. We update them every month, but you buy once. And so we're raising the price for new people. But if you already bought it, you're giggling right now because you're like, nope, I already got it. Price going up. Who cares? Because I'm still getting the same updates.
- [69:12]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Suckers.
- [69:13]
OG
Stacky benjamin.com guides we have 2hr open enrollment for most of the world coming soon, right? The fall for most companies, not for all, but for most. So if you've got that coming up, we can definitely help you with that. And then of course, the tax planning guide in fall and the end of the year is the time when you can really do all the heavy lifting on making your taxes better. We also include, by the way, tax prep, which will be important after the first of the year. So stackingbenchments.com guides for those we're also introducing at the beginning of August, our college guide. But that'll come out at the new at the new price. So we'll be up to three guides now. But the biggest guide you have at the end of every show is Doug. Did I say that out loud? That was pretty that really a thing? I can't Believe I said that. That's scary.
- [69:59]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Your best segue ever.
- [70:00]
OG
Doug, what are the three things we should have on our to do list after today's show?
- [70:06]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Ted Dentersmith. While changing schools takes time, changing your own math curriculum, you can and you should start today. Explore ideas like estimation, prediction and statistics with yourself or your family and friends and you'll see better outcomes across the spectrum. Second, financial advisors at the bank, they're going to focus on products because that's how they're paid. While those products might be helpful, and there are some good people working in banks know ahead of time that the person across the desk from you is incentivized for you to buy, not necessarily for you to succeed. But the big lesson I predict statistics will show that math is more fun if it involves counting fat stacks of cash.
- [70:51]
Ted Dintersmith
Am I right?
- [70:54]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Thanks to Ted Dentersmith for joining us today. Want more of Ted? Check him out@teddintersmith.com we'll also include links in our show notes@stacking benjamin's.com 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 team@stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello.
- [71:28]
OG
Oh yeah.
- [71:29]
Joe Saul-Sehy
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.
- [72:01]
OG
Sam Foreign, as you all heard, is truly a remarkable guy. Welcome to the after show. By the way. Generally here we don't talk more about finance or math, but Ted has a lot to say and it has been just gold. Those of you who know me know that I love films and I also spoke with them about his documentaries. He's got a new one coming out on Changing Education. I wanted to play his discussion on making these documentaries as our after show, especially if you're interested in higher education. Ted and I continued our discussion talking about Most Likely to Succeed, which is a feature length documentary on education. It was directed by this remarkable multiple Emmy award winning director, Greg Whitley, which if you look at Greg's Holy cow. The stuff Greg's been involved with is amazing film's been an Official selection of 30 major film festivals, including Sundance. More than 10,000 communities in over 35 countries around the globe have screened the film to spark discussions and inspire change. That's the type of stuff Ted does. So let's go back to my discussion on changing education with Ted Dintersmith. And by the way, before we get there, I mentioned, Doug, we were going to do this in the back porch, and we totally. We didn't. But if you're an educator and especially a math teacher, I would love to continue this discussion with you about how you're making math fun and exciting.
- [73:58]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Like yeah.
- [73:58]
OG
Is alluding to, because I know some of our math teachers out there might go, but wait, hold on, hold on. I'm doing this. I am doing this. And it's easy to paint, as you know, Doug, broad brushstrokes going, nobody's teaching math.
- [74:11]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Right.
- [74:11]
OG
Nobody's. And if I'm a math teacher driving down the road, that might be offensive. And I know we've got some great math teachers, so I would love to.
- [74:18]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Hear the cool things that teachers of any subject, but especially math, because it's the one we often think about as the most grueling from our childhood, the most confounding, because our brains just aren't wired like that. Most of our brains aren't wired like that, except for the freaks.
- [74:35]
OG
Well, what's funny is Ted says they can be if we just get playful and we go instead of, you know, his story about the teacher and the machines. Like, instead of saying, which simple machine does this? Say, hey, I've got this thing. Tell me all the different simple machines that could accomplish that. Like, all of a sudden, just by changing the phraseology of the question, you open up a kid's curiosity. But we think because of the way we were taught math, right answer, wrong answer, we don't think of any.
- [75:06]
Joe Saul-Sehy
Memorize stuff without thinking through it critically. Yeah, I agree. I would love to hear some of that. We often see or on YouTube videos or whatever, you see cool examples of science teachers who are doing, like, experiments in the classroom that make something that is fairly esoteric and tough to get your brain around when you're just reading it in black and white or maybe a static drawing. But then they do the cool physics experiment or the chemical reaction thing in the classroom, and. And the kids are just super engaged. I would love to hear from our educators about times they've done that with math.
- [75:38]
OG
Let's do that. Joe@StackyBenjamins.com if you have something for me on that. All right, here is our continuing discussion about his amazing documentaries with Ted Dittersmith. Can we also talk about just your work in helping to create better schools? We talked about creating a curriculum today or beginning for our stackers to create a curriculum at home. But truly in education, we can participate in the process of making our schools better. You did a film about a decade ago. You've another film that you're working on now. Can you talk about these films and changing education?
- [76:13]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, I came to the realization, it took me a while, but that the priorities of school were completely mismatched with what's important in life for kids as they become adults in a world where machine intelligence soars. And so that led me on this journey. It made me leave Venture capital. Take up this cause is sort of my life's mission. And I started with this film, Most Likely to Succeed, which credit to the director, Greg Whiteley. Very little credit to me, but it's fantastic. It premiered at Sundance, 25 major film festivals. We've done over 10,000 community screenings with that film. And it just shows kids learning joyfully and passionately on unstructured projects that they have a voice in creating. Teachers trust it to teach to their interest and expertise. Kids failing and getting back up and failing and getting back up and wow. We just invite the audience. Take a look. What do you think? And 10,000 screenings. Nobody said, oh, that's terrible. They all say, man, I'd love our school to be more like that. And we'll put in your show notes a free link to the film on that, because it's, as I say, it's timeless. We have a film coming out this fall called Multiple Choice. And I had sort of decided after Most Likely to Succeed, I had put some money into other films. You know, Most Likely to Succeed was a Home Run. The other films would have been Pop strikeouts or pop. Pop outs or something, or routine ground ball.
- [77:36]
OG
Stick with the baseball analogy.
- [77:38]
Ted Dintersmith
Yeah, yeah, I'm sticking with baseball. But documentaries are dicey, right? You know, like back to prediction. You know, you start with a story and a director and you hope and you might predict it's going to be a smash success, and sometimes it's not. And I've been on both sides of that. But I visited this school in Winchester, Virginia, pretty convinced I'm never going to do another documentary. And I just said, oh, my gosh, this is so important. I've got to capture this. So I found a great director. We've been filming there for two years. That film will be out this fall. You can go to whatschoolcouldbe.org or to my website, teddintersmith.com we'll have details about that. But the gist of it is this was a superintendent in a mainstream public school district that basically said, I'm tired of, of career based learning being looked down on, being stigmatized. He went to the local business community and said, what skills do you need created within that school? Something he didn't call the Vocational ed center, but the Innovation Center. And it's a lot of traditional economy skills, carpentry, firefighting, welding, electrician, some new economy skills, digital media, cybersecurity, AI. But the skill base that the local community needs to have a thriving business initiative going forward. Then what he did that got me interested in it, it wasn't an option for kids. Every kid through their high school years does this and they don't do it with a course or a few hours here and there. It's basically one third of their time in the Innovation center, two thirds of their time in traditional academic school, which by the way, is under pressure to get better. Multiple choice is what we call the film because instead of training kids for multiple choice exams, kids at 18 have multiple interesting life options or choices. Half their kids go directly to career. They've tried one, two or three things. They know I want to be a welder. They've done an apprenticeship or an internship with a local welding firm. They leave high school, get these great jobs that they love. The kids that want to go to college had they optionally picked welding instead of AP chemistry, I guarantee you college admissions officers would penalize them for that. Oh, you didn't challenge yourself academically, but here it's the expectation. They say, well, we can't really penalize them for that. Then these kids turn around and write amazing college essays about what they learned when they took on welding. Even though one of our central figures wants to be a lawyer and is at University of Virginia, but she talked about how much she learned in welding. I also think, and this is really important, all these kids learn that their classmates have very different skills. Being a welder is a demanding, interesting profession, just as being a lawyer is. And being a welder actually is a much safer job from artificial intelligence than being a lawyer. And so we try to bring that to life for the audience. And I'm really encouraged by what our film team has produced. I think it's a great film and we're going to do community screenings everywhere. And it's just Again, what we were talking about a few minutes ago, we try to do these things, create resources that bring people together locally in thoughtful discussion about how to create better futures for their kids, for themselves and for their community. And these days in America, that seems like a really worthwhile priority.
- [80:51]
OG
It's 100% so, so worthwhile.
- [80:53]
Ted Dintersmith
You know, when I interview people about how much did you learn in your first year on the job versus how much did you learn your last year in school, no matter when that was uniformly, I learned so much more in my first year on the job. And these kids are keen to take on internships and apprenticeships. And what I find over and over again is that local businesses, many are very interested in reaching out, changing the life of a young kid, helping them understand their profession. One note, there was a two minute video. Anybody can just Google MIT graduation day, light bulb, wire, battery, two minute video. There's a longer version that's three minutes. But a long term tenure professor at MIT had concluded, and I'm going to say this slowly concluded, that MIT graduates had learned very little real science and engineering. I think that's shocking. MIT graduates aren't learning real science and engineering. And to make his point, on graduation day, he goes to grad after grad and they give them a light bulb wire and battery. It says, can you light up the light bulb? And these kids are indignant, like, here I am in my cap and gown, I took all these engineering courses, of course I can light up the light bulb and they can't. The point I make with this is had those kids shadowed a master electrician, had they done a summer internship or apprenticeship with the local electrician, they'd have a far better understanding of the science of electricity than those kids who had drilled on Kirchhoff's Law. And we're really facile. It's shoving around, give them a bunch of numbers in units and come up with the unknown number, which is what the AP exam does. And so you realize that real world learning can be an amazing portal to the academic theory. And it's not either or, right? What if our kids who wanted to be top engineers were actually learning hands on things in high school when it's free and safe, they'd be better engineering graduates. Some would go on to be great electrical engineers or electricians. Fantastic. And any adult would know, like if the fuse box goes down, they'd have a good sense of what to do. So it's like we all benefit from that. The reason we don't do that, there are really two reasons. One, those hands on things have been stigmatized, unfortunately and offensively. But also, those hands on experiences don't lend themselves to standardized tests. Kirchhoff's law does. So we teach what's easy to test, not what's important to learn. And I hope that's one of the messages that comes out of the book Aftermath is that the math you took, the math that maybe you loved and did well at, the math you probably struggle with, didn't see the relevance of that, may have in some ways suggested you weren't deficient. It's all math that's easy to test, and essentially none of it's important to learn. But there are powerful ideas you can master, apply, and elevate your life path with.