← The Stacking Benjamins Show
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- [00:00]
Joe Salcijh
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.
- [00:31]
Progressive Insurance Representative
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- [01:01]
Narrator
Stacking Benjamins is not for everyone. Side effects may include euphoria, increased ability to meet your goals, and aggression from people wondering what the hell your secret is. Stacking Benjamins may be habit forming, especially if you stick around for the entire episode. Wink. Please check with your doctor to see if Stacking Benjamins is right for you.
- [01:22]
Doug
Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and how are your negotiating skills? We're about to help you pump them up to 11 with the host of the Afford anything podcast and negotiation instructor, Paula Pant. In our headline segment, how's your workplace retirement plan performing? We'll share a study from Morningstar that shows many could be doing better and how to tweak for better performance. I'll also share a TikTok minute about how your child could retire with over $4 million. And then I'll share some incredibly entertaining trivia. And now, two guys who believe the best side hustle is avoiding lifestyle creep. It's Joe and O Jaja Juju G.
- [02:25]
Joe Salcijh
Hey there stackers. Yes. Making more money for the win. Doug. I am Joe Sal Sehigh. Average Joe. Money on Twitter and X I stop saying Twitter.
- [02:33]
Doug
Welcome to I think you're good.
- [02:35]
Joe Salcijh
The podcast that not only helps you earn more money, helps you save more. And to get today to. To get.
- [02:44]
Doug
Easy for you to say today.
- [02:46]
Joe Salcijh
Negotiate. I could say that word today. Today. Come on, say it, man. It's funny. Back when I stuttered a lot more out loud, people would think they were helping you. When they say, come on, get it up, you're like, oh, yeah, that doesn't help at all. But the guy that helps us a ton here at Stacky Benjamin, Mr. OG is here. How are you, man?
- [03:02]
Paula Pant
Hello, everyone.
- [03:03]
Joe Salcijh
Blowing kisses to your fans? Yes.
- [03:06]
Doug
Oh, that's awkward.
- [03:07]
Joe Salcijh
It is a fantastic Wednesday here in the basement because somebody who we rarely talk to dropping by, Paula Pant. I don't know if you guys have heard of Paula.
- [03:16]
Doug
I forgot what her voice sounds like.
- [03:19]
Joe Salcijh
We have no idea. We spend nearly every Friday with Paula. But Paula has negotiated so many deals over her lifetime, she's also interviewed so many negotiation experts. She's a four time Plutus award winner. Heck, they gave her, they being the Plutus foundation, gave her a lifetime achievement award. This woman is 10 years younger than I am, even younger than that. Over 10 years younger than I am and has won a lifetime achievement award.
- [03:45]
Paula Pant
Does that say more about her or more about you?
- [03:47]
Joe Salcijh
I know. Say you're old without saying you're old.
- [03:48]
Doug
Ochi, Every time I hear that lifetime achievement award now, I think of the famous Tina Fey, Amy Poehler intro of I think it was the Golden Globes maybe where they start talking about Amal Clooney and they talk about all the incredible things she's done. And she's on this UN peacekeeping panel and she's negotiating the trial in Nuremberg. Right, Exactly.
- [04:11]
Paula Pant
She's a double doctorate in international law. But George is the one getting the lifetime achievement award.
- [04:18]
Doug
They run through the whole resume and they're like, but tonight her husband is kidding. Is just the best setup ever.
- [04:27]
Paula Pant
Tina Fey.
- [04:28]
Joe Salcijh
Yeah. Our friend Jason Faubush. Oh, gee, did that when we were kicking off my book tour. You flew into Texarkana for that event. Jason does this whole long intro about how super happy we are to have this person in Texarkana and all these accolades and goes and that Cheryl Sal se. Hi. And tonight we're going to drag her reprobate husband Joe out and talk about this book. Funny stuff. But anyway, Paula Pant here talking negotiation. Today she's going to teach our Stacker nation how to negotiate more, whether it's for a raise or what to have for dinner. Tonight you're going to come out of this being a better negotiator. So that's on deck. Paula coming up next. But first, we have a couple sponsors to make sure we can keep on keeping on. And you don't pay a dime for our mentors or any of the other fun things we do here at Stacking Benjamin. So sit back. We're going to hear from a couple of them. And then the Paula pant front and center in Mom's basement. Remember the days of you've got Mail? Well, maybe not. Maybe you're younger than that. But there used to be a day where you would turn on your computer, you go get a cup of coffee, and then you'd hear all this scratching and screeching and then this voice would go, you've got mail. That was before the Internet ruled our lives. And during that time, AOL brought America Online with email and Instant messenger. By 2000, AOL was so powerful it set its sight on media giant Time Warner. The deal was supposed to bring us into the future, but instead it became one of the messiest corporate disasters on record. But what went wrong? Was it culture clashes, the dot com crash, or something deeper? Business wars gives you a front row seat to the biggest moments of business and how they shape our world. Because when your flight perks disappear, your favorite restaurant chain goes bankrupt, or new design reshapes everything overnight, there's always a deeper story behind the headlines. Follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can binge all episodes of Business wars, the AOL Time Warner Disaster early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal can help you find and finance the right vehicle with ease. In this summer, you're in the driver's seat with savings. You could get a $250 bonus when you buy your next car through Navy Federal's car buying service, powered by TrueCar and finance with Navy Federal. With this tool, you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory and compare models. And you could get an amazing rate when you finance with Navy Federal. Navy Federal strives to support all active duty veterans and their families to achieve their personal and financial goals. And this partnership with TrueCar is one of the many tools Navy Federal uses to help its members make your plan with Navy Federal and TrueCar today Navy Federal Credit Union our members are the mission to qualify for the 250 bonus. Car purchase and financing must be completed by September 2, 2025. Terms and conditions apply and are available at Navy Federal.org TrueCar Credit & Collateral subject to approval. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA and as we mentioned, a woman who's never been here before, you have no idea who she is. Paula how do you pronounce your last name? Paula hi Paula.
- [07:56]
Paula Pant
Paula Shorts Paula Shorts. Paula Shorts.
- [07:59]
Joe Salcijh
Yeah, Paula Shorts.
- [08:00]
Paula Pant
You can also call me Paula Trousers sometimes. Paula Pantalones.
- [08:04]
Joe Salcijh
It's so funny. My nickname in high school was the Sea Hag for sea High. And I don't know if you remember Popeye, but there was Popeye and olive oil and the Sea Hag was like one of the bad people that they. Popeye was always fighting against the Sea Hag. So I was Sea high and I was very ugly. So I was the Sea Hag. Yeah, no, it was funny. I didn't mind being the Sea Hag. Did you get any pant related, like high school nickname?
- [08:30]
Paula Pant
No, not hat related, but people used to call me Nepala.
- [08:35]
Joe Salcijh
Yeah, that's good. I like that.
- [08:38]
Paula Pant
Yeah, because I'm Paula from Nepal. Nepal.
- [08:44]
Joe Salcijh
Let's begin here on negotiation. Because Paula was probably the reason why you dug into this topic is that all of our stackers know that they should negotiate, but like everybody freezes. Why do you think so many people that are confident in so many other areas, like they avoid negotiation conversations completely? Well, especially around salary and money.
- [09:06]
Paula Pant
Yeah. So it's for a variety of reasons. We surveyed our students, we didn't want to make assumptions. We wanted to talk to them, do in depth interviews, find out what, what was going on. And so we surveyed about a dozen of our beta testers and over we heard the same thing, which was specifically in the context of a job negotiation. It was I don't want to risk the offer or I don't want to jeopardize the offer. That was a huge fear. I don't want to not seem like a team player. I don't want to seem too greedy. I don't want to seem too money oriented during a job offer. You're trying to put your best foot forward. You're trying to present the most idealized version of yourself. And so having to self advocate at a time when you are simultaneously trying to sell yourself and to present that best version, there's a little bit of a cognitive dissonance there. So again and again, I don't want to jeopardize the offer was the number one thing that we heard that was for people who are in the context of switching jobs or applying for jobs, but in the context of someone who already has a job and they're dealing with their boss during a performance review. What we heard was, I don't want to be seen as not a team player. This is my most important professional relationship. I don't want to harm that in any way.
- [10:19]
Joe Salcijh
It's funny, it's like we internally think to ourself, if I negotiate, I'm going to be seen as a jerk. Isn't this need to be liked?
- [10:29]
Paula Pant
And I think part of the issue that a lot of people face is that oftentimes, especially in the United States, we don't have a lot of negotiation experience. Except for a handful of big ticket items. Your home, your car, your job. Those are typically the three times that a person negotiates. It isn't in some other countries when you go to buy groceries, you go to a fruit stall, and you're haggling over the price of bananas. In many other parts of the world, negotiations are something that you do in very small amounts for shoes, T shirts, milk, bananas, oranges. And so you get lots and lots of little bits of practice. And so one of the things that we really drew out and tried to emphasize is how often in our daily lives we in the US we do negotiate. Not necessarily about price. Think about when you're walking through a door and there's that hidden body language dance of who goes first to who holds the door open for who. It's subtle, it's quick, it's sometimes just a second or two. But there's a little hidden negotiation with strangers that happens right there. Or with your spouse. When you're negotiating over who unloads the dishwasher. There are these.
- [11:39]
Joe Salcijh
I lose every time.
- [11:42]
Paula Pant
Or you might say that you win. You, in fact win because you've made the decision that you're going to unload the dishwasher because it serves the purpose of having a healthy and happy relationship.
- [11:51]
Joe Salcijh
That's a great reframing. That is funny, because we'll talk about that more later. But I think a lot of negotiation, as you point out, is reframing. But can you think of a time when you either hesitated or completely bungled the negotiation yourself?
- [12:04]
Paula Pant
Yeah. The very first job that I ever accepted, my first job out of college, I did not negotiate any at all. I just took exactly what I was offered, no questions asked. And that was not a high salary. And which was part of the reason that I felt like I couldn't because they were offering me a very low salary. The way that I heard that was, hey, we don't have a whole lot of resources, but we want to offer you a position anyway. And so my interpretation of that was, all right, they don't have that many resources. How could I possibly ask for more?
- [12:35]
Joe Salcijh
Oh, yeah, and if you had that to do, again, you would negotiate.
- [12:38]
Paula Pant
Yeah, exactly. Because particularly if you're not earning a Whole lot. The marginal difference of even a few thousand dollars, even an extra three or four thousand dollars a year for anyone, that's a big deal. But particularly when you don't earn that much, an extra three or four thousand dollars a year is significant.
- [12:58]
Joe Salcijh
That's so funny because we think that, hey, this doesn't pay a lot. So there's not a lot to go around. And the opposite is true, which, because there's not a lot to go around, I need to negotiate more. I need to get good at this.
- [13:09]
Paula Pant
Exactly.
- [13:10]
Joe Salcijh
We talked about one myth about negotiation. Just that people are going to think that I'm a jerk if I negotiate. Right? That I'm going to be somebody that rocks a boat. What's another myth about negotiation you wish you could erase from all of our brains?
- [13:22]
Paula Pant
A lot of people believe that negotiations are zero sum, win, lose, every dollar that I take is something that I'm taking away from you. The best negotiations are actually value creation through mutual understanding. So if I. Let's say you've got a job candidate, you've got a hiring manager. If the job candidate can understand what the priorities of the hiring manager are and vice versa, the hiring manager understands the priorities of the candidate. They can find ways for both of them to win. Particularly in a multi issue negotiation like that, you're not just talking about salary, you're talking salary, health insurance, paid, time off, whether you work remotely or in person, depending on what type of job you have. That's applicable for some. That's not. You're talking about role adjustment. Yeah, role adjustment. Any fees for professional development like courses or conferences. Depending on the structure of the company that you're working for. It could even extend to things like parking spaces, things like what kind of equipment you receive, what kind of a budget that you have in the scope of the work that you do. There are so many elements to crafting that agreement that it isn't as simple as I win, you lose. You, you said 120,000 and I said 130,000 and only one of us gets to win. And like that's a very zero sum way of thinking about it. Versus let me understand what matters to you. What are the priorities of the company? What are your constraints and hopes and fears as a hiring manager? And when I understand that, let me understand how I can best fit that.
- [15:01]
Joe Salcijh
As you're talking, I'm thinking about the recent headline at Ford where. I don't know if you saw this, Paula, but Ford used to pay people $17 an hour at the lowest end of the rung. And then the CEO of Ford talking to some of the union heads. The union people said, listen, these people are going to get jobs at Amazon. When they're not working eight hours here, they're working at Amazon and they're tired and they're not giving you their best foot forward because they're making too little money to put their best foot forward.
- [15:27]
Paula Pant
Right.
- [15:28]
Joe Salcijh
And the CEO of Ford is Amazon should be a worse job than we are. Like that should not be. Well, at that level. You know what I mean? I mean, Amazon job, I'm sure can be a great job, but at the level he's looking at, he wants it to be a better job in people's head. So he took people from 17 to $23 an hour. Not $23 an hour. Isn't the end all be all. But that's a $6 an hour raise for tons of people at Ford. But I think what's interesting is you at that newspaper asking for more money. Had you done that, still wouldn't have been a zero sum game. Because by you making more money, you wouldn't have had to stress out so much about money, which you would have done at work. And now you can pay more attention to the bottom line, which is making your column or your pieces better.
- [16:11]
Paula Pant
Exactly. That's. And I did see that news story and it's a perfect example. Right. Because what's in the best interest of Ford, it's having a well rested, healthy, productive workforce.
- [16:22]
Joe Salcijh
Yeah. That's proud of working there. Imagine.
- [16:24]
Paula Pant
So $17 an hour, that is approximately $35,000 per year. The quick and easy math, by the way, for anybody who wants to figure out how to translate hourly TO yearly is 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year. That's 2,000 working hours per year. So just take the hourly rate, double it, and then put three zeros on the end, and you can do the same in reverse. If you make your money in annual salary and you want to know how that breaks down to an hourly rate, Just lop off the three zeros and then the number that divide by two. Yeah. Cut it in half. So 17 an hour is 35,000 a year. 23 an hour, that's 46,000 a year. That is. That's a jump at that level of income. That's life changing. It's truly life changing.
- [17:07]
Joe Salcijh
I want to walk through a couple of the concepts that are important for people when they negotiate that you've included in your course. One is this idea of aspiration points. Can you walk through Aspiration points, what is that about?
- [17:18]
Paula Pant
So your aspiration point, when you're going into a negotiation, your aspiration point is the best case scenario. It is the ideal outcome that you want. And remember, when we talk about negotiation again, I want to emphasize there are single person, single issue negotiations. Like you're buying a used couch on Craigslist or on Facebook Marketplace. It's more or less a single issue negotiation. There are also single person but multi issue negotiations. So one job candidate and one hiring manager, it's one on one because it's only between two people. But there are many issues that they're dealing with. And then sometimes there's multi party, multi issue. That's a different topic. But to go to your question, when we talk about aspiration point, is your ideal outcome among every single one of those multi issue variables, and that is without regard to what the counterparty wants. That is just something that you, before you even enter the negotiation, sit down and clarify for yourself. Because if you don't go into the negotiation with a clear sense in advance of what your ideal outcome is, then it can be very easy to get swayed by what happens in the heat of the conversation.
- [18:28]
Joe Salcijh
Sure.
- [18:29]
Paula Pant
Go in knowing what you want.
- [18:31]
Joe Salcijh
Well, one of the biggest problems I found with people negotiating, especially when we're talking about jobs, is, and you touched on this earlier, they only think about salary. They don't think about all the other points where I can aspire for more.
- [18:43]
Paula Pant
The opposite of the aspiration point is the reservation point and reservation point is the minimum that you'd be willing to accept. So if aspiration point is the ceiling, reservation point is the floor. And when you go into that conversation, know both sets of numbers, and I use the word numbers, it's not necessarily always a number.
- [19:02]
Joe Salcijh
Sure.
- [19:02]
Paula Pant
It might be weeks of vacation. It might be work from home versus not work from home. It might be the amount of support that you're given within the role that you have. Like it, it isn't necessarily numerical, but in every single one of those verticals of issues, know both the ceiling and.
- [19:20]
Joe Salcijh
The floor, we often then we go into this negotiation, I know both of those points. I start thinking about what the other person is going to do. Right. What's the other person going to do? Is that where our head should be?
- [19:32]
Paula Pant
Yes. Yeah. What you really want to do is think not tactically about what's the other person going to do, but rather what are the motivations of the other person. What's the other person's aspiration point and reservation point. Right.
- [19:48]
Joe Salcijh
So what are mine and what are theirs. I'm starting to see like a spreadsheet.
- [19:51]
Paula Pant
Yeah, exactly. Because you've got your AP and rp, right? There's that range in between, that spectrum. And that spectrum in between is what's called your Zopa, your zone of potential agreement. Right. So anywhere in that spectrum between your AP and your rp, that's your zone. And then they also have their own AP and rp, their own ceiling and floor, and anywhere in between is their zone. And so what you want to try to figure out is where your zones overlap. And so when you're going into that negotiation, your primary objective is to understand where the other party is coming from. Because the better of an understanding that you have of them, their concerns, their issues, their ap, their rp, the better you'll be able to figure out where that overlapping Zopa zone of potential agreement is.
- [20:42]
Joe Salcijh
I'm thinking about as I'm putting this together, I'm gaining so much confidence because I have this comfort that I have some idea of where this conversation is going to go and when it goes out of bounds, just how to bring it back. Because I know what that zone of personal agreement I was going to ask you was open. So nice job.
- [21:00]
Paula Pant
Oh, thank you. Zone of potential agreement.
- [21:02]
Joe Salcijh
I saw that in your notes. I'm like, I have no idea what this is. So we're just going to ask. Yes. And it's the zone between those numbers. Okay. For all of us. So I think that builds confidence. But you and I had this discussion before that. Another thing that builds confidence is actually going out and doing it, right?
- [21:17]
Paula Pant
Yes.
- [21:18]
Joe Salcijh
Going out and hammering it. So what is one? Let's put our stackers to work. Paula, what's a small thing? We could go out and try to negotiate. All of us, maybe this week. And I'd love for people to email me joestacky benjamin.com and tell me if you did it. And let's hear some success stories. But what's something that we could try negotiating this week? Maybe a little thing to get people started.
- [21:37]
Paula Pant
I would start with the dishwasher. Have that conversation with your spouse.
- [21:42]
Joe Salcijh
What if they're not married? Have it with the cat.
- [21:43]
Paula Pant
If you have a roommate or something, you could have that negotiation with your roommate. But if you live alone and there's nobody else to unload the. To negotiate that dishwasher unloading, then I would look for those little negotiations in your daily life. I would start paying attention to when you get on or off an elevator, when you make eye contact with the other person, and you are silently figuring out who's gonna go ahead, who's gonna go first, and then both of you gesture. Oh, go ahead. No, you go ahead.
- [22:12]
Joe Salcijh
There's this awkward dance.
- [22:13]
Paula Pant
Yeah. I would start really tuning into that because the thing is, a lot of people are nervous. Like, the word negotiation often triggers a bit of a knee jerk reaction from people who believe, like the students that we surveyed, that going into a negotiation makes you look like not a team player. But when you start to clue into the fact that you actually negotiate in your daily life all the time, constantly, you're already doing it. This isn't something that you have to start. You're already negotiating constantly. You just don't recognize those interactions as negotiations. So the first thing that I would do is just start recognizing the many things that you're already doing as negotiations. And that will, I think, ease the notion of negotiation for you.
- [23:00]
Joe Salcijh
So fun. Let's put it into practice. Stackers. All right. Most of what we've. All of what we talked about has been global. This is the way to look at a negotiation. But let's walk through a few tactics. Paula, if you could teach one negotiation tactic, just one little in the moment tactic to somebody who's terrified to ask for more, what would that be?
- [23:21]
Paula Pant
Anchor high. Throw out an anchor of some number that you really want. Maybe you want four weeks of vacation or maybe you want to work from home every Thursday and Friday. Throw that out and then be quiet. Don't rush to justify it. Don't rush to fill the silence. Throw it out and then be comfortable sitting in silence, because most people are uncomfortable with silence. And so if the room is quiet, and this could be a physical room, it could be a zoom room. If the space is quiet, the other party likely will begin talking on that point.
- [23:57]
Joe Salcijh
One of my favorite tactical pieces that I ever saw, Paula, which is very similar to yours, was mom used to have one of those just bathroom reader books that sit on the toilet.
- [24:08]
Paula Pant
Yeah.
- [24:08]
Joe Salcijh
This was a book of wisdom from nine year olds. And this is wisdom from Melissa, age nine. If you want a kitty, ask for a horse. Set the anchor high.
- [24:25]
Paula Pant
And in this case it's ask for a horse and then be quiet and then shut up. Yeah, don't rush to justify that horse. Just stay silent.
- [24:34]
Joe Salcijh
I thought as I was prepping for today, like all of the range of negotiation tactics that you hear from different people. I think about Maury Tahirapur, who is on our show, and she was talking about bringing yourself, bring yourself and who you are, which is More along the lines of what I read from Disney CEO Bob Iger, who said his negotiation strategy, Paula, is just come in completely open hearted, say here's what I'm looking to do, and just lay it on out. He's, I don't use a lot of tricks. He goes, I just go in and I tell them exactly what they want and then they feel like they're open to tell me what I want. We then just, we have more of an open conversation. So there's that style on one hand and then I think of the Chris Voss. Right. It seems a lot more structured and more hardcore negotiating. What's one negotiation tactic you would never use that you hear a lot of people talk about?
- [25:29]
Paula Pant
So there are a number of hardball tactics that you'll encounter out there and I don't like using them, but you need to know how to deal with them. If somebody else is using.
- [25:39]
Joe Salcijh
Oh, they'll bring it back at you.
- [25:40]
Paula Pant
Yeah. If somebody else is using those hardball tactics on you. For example, one hardball tactic is what's called the information overload, where they just, let's say you're buying a house or you're buying a car, you ask for some information. There are actually two different hardball tactics and they're the opposite of each other. One is that they're very reluctant to give you any of that information. They deprive you of critical information. You have to ask and ask. Eventually you get tired and you give up. Right. The other is the opposite of that. It's the information overload in which you ask a simple question and they inundate you with so much information, but they make it hard to search, hard to find. They essentially drown you in paperwork. And this happens more with real estate closings and things like that, but they drown you with so much information that you don't want to ask any follow up questions because you don't want to get flooded with additional information. Again, I have been there.
- [26:36]
Joe Salcijh
I'm like, whoa, hold on. Oh, wait, What? What? Huh? What I used to inadvertently do that. It wasn't a negotiation, it wasn't a tactic. I just thought that when I was a financial planner, if my client knew more, they would make better choices. And what I found, and I had a mentor finally share with me, is the reason people aren't making decisions is you're giving them too much. You need to cut it to the top three. That's what they pay you for. They pay you to cut it to something reasonable so they can make one of three happy choices. And you go to bed happy that they made a good choice and they actually made a choice. But I was getting really frustrated because of information overload. I'd been there. When I just look at the breadth of this course that you've put together, we'll talk about in just a second. There's so much here, Paula. And I know that whenever you and I talk to anybody who's written a book, written documentary, created something cool, here's a piece that completely surprised them. What surprised you as you were pulling this all together?
- [27:29]
Paula Pant
I think when it comes to multi party, multi issue negotiations, some of the complexity around forming coalitions and making side deals, that piece of it really surprised me. I'm most accustomed to these one on one negotiations. You are buying a piece of furniture on Facebook Marketplace, you are buying a used car, you are negotiating a salary with an employer, you're negotiating a contract with your freelancer and you're negotiating a contract with a client. All of these are one on one situations. When you've got, let's say, a group that's all you and your group of friends from college or from grad school, you're all getting together and you're going on a big group vacation. You're all renting an Airbnb in the mountains of Tennessee. There are actually, again, you don't think of it as negotiations, but there are a million different negotiations that are going on within that. And there are little coalitions that are forming and there are little like side agreements that are happening. And the easy way to think of this is think of any big group text thread that you're on. You've got your group text thread, and then there are all kinds of little ancillary threads of where maybe your big group text thread is nine people, but then three out of those nine are on another thread of just their own. And then four out of those nine are in a different thread of just their own. And so there are all of these little side conversations that are happening all the time. Those side deals that happen like on the fringes or in the margin, then come back into that big group conversation and help shape that. And so really developing an understanding of how that works. That was probably the piece that surprised me the most. And also it was the piece that was the most fun, I thought, I.
- [29:21]
Joe Salcijh
Would think done tactically and tactfully, that can really add some good leverage to your argument. Done poorly, I think that could wreck. I've seen it both ways, right? Done poorly, you're like, oh, you guys are all ganging up on me, so screw you. You know what? Like, you could totally put the person on the defensive if you don't know. Or I think the realization that this could be happening to you, that somebody else is organizing side deals.
- [29:46]
Paula Pant
Let's go back to the group text thread analogy. Yeah, if you've got, let's say nine people on a group text. If you've got some side text that eight out of the nine are on, one person is left out. That's terrible. Nobody wants to be that one person. But if you've got.
- [30:01]
Joe Salcijh
I don't even want to be one of the eight, by the way. I always feel bad when we've got that. I'm like, come on, let's just keep everybody on the same thread. But anyway.
- [30:09]
Paula Pant
But let's say you've got a group text thread with nine people, but you've got a bunch of little ancillary threads that are maybe just two people. So it's one on one conversation. Or maybe you've got a little group of three, but those three are united because they have some sort of a common interest. Of the nine people on your text thread, those are the three who all live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Right? So that's the little Milwaukee trio. And then there's a different group of three, and they're united because they're the only people on the text thread who have cars that they're going to be driving to the event and everybody else is flying in. So they're the drivers of the group. So it isn't that these little side groups formed randomly for the sake of excluding people. It's often that these side groups form because they have some sort of common or shared interest. And that common or shared interest leads them to come together to talk about how their common interest can best be represented in the context of the wider group.
- [31:05]
Joe Salcijh
Well, how many times have you and I both seen when someone. When there are people with shared interest and the person across the negotiating table neglects that, like, forgets to realize that so and so shares this interest too, having that so often. This just scratches the surface. Stackers, Paula, as you can imagine, has gone deep on this topic. I know this took forever to put together. You've been through all kinds of beta. But if people want to dive deeper, what do they get?
- [31:32]
Paula Pant
You get instant access to. So first of all, talk a little bit about how we built it. So we've been working on this for over a year. Actually. We began work. Joe, I was at your place when we officially began work on it. So that was when was that? Last April.
- [31:47]
Joe Salcijh
It's a hilarious thing. Paula was at my house, but I wasn't at my house. Yeah, I was in Nepal partying with Paula's sister.
- [31:55]
Paula Pant
Yeah, that was the week of the eclipse. So we've been working on it since then. We've gone through two rounds of beta. We have a total of 72 students who have gone through our two beta rounds. Now we're ready to finally have our first big, not beta release, our first real release. Here's what we learned during beta. We have lots of videos and transcripts, both written content and video content, about the theory of negotiation. And that's great, and I think that's a. It's very robust, and it provides a backbone. But what we saw with our beta students was that the live practice sessions was where we really began to see progress. You can watch YouTube videos about how to swim, but unless you jump into a swimming pool, you're never going to learn how to swim. You can read the manual about how to drive, but unless you actually get behind the wheel, you're never going to learn how to drive. The same is true in negotiation. It's such an interpersonal activity that unless you actually practice, you can learn all the theory in the world, and you're not going to improve. And so the net effect of those two rounds of beta is the biggest lesson that we learned was that we need to make live practice the biggest piece of this course. And so that was how we ended up shaping this course for its final iteration. When we did our first round of beta, we would pair people off into groups of two and say, hey, go self organize with your practice partner. And that often that didn't work because the practice partner would ghost. And then you'd have one person who was like, I want to practice, but my partner isn't responding right. And then we'd try to reassign them, and it was just a big mess. And so then when we did our second round of beta, we put people into pods, big account accountability pods of typically around six people. And we separated the pods by color. People were assigned either a warm color, red, orange, yellow, or a cool color, blue, green, purple. For every negotiation, the warm colors had one set of asymmetric information, buyer information. The cool colors had the other asymmetric set, seller information. And so we would say, all right, this week, red pairs with purple, orange pairs with blue, green pairs with the yellow. And if the practice partner couldn't make it, you had two automatic backups. And so that was how we tried to Organize it with our second beta cohort. And we found that even that didn't quite work because it was certainly better than the first one. But it didn't quite work because we just had some people who were very enthusiastic and wanted to come to every single negotiation and others who could only do it when it was convenient and they had some other things going on towards the middle. To end part of our second beta cohort, we said, you know what? Tuesday, we're doing it. I'll be there. We're doing this all together as a group live.
- [34:53]
Joe Salcijh
Everybody.
- [34:53]
Paula Pant
Yeah, everybody come together. And if you can't make it on Tuesday, you're still going to have your pod squad that's going to be there for you as a backup. So if you can't make it on Tuesday, here's your pod squad. We'll send you all of that information. But Tuesday, live practice. This is really where the value is.
- [35:12]
Joe Salcijh
It is where the value is. I would miss that for the world. I think anytime. If I get to step up and do it, it scares the hell out of me. But it's still the piece that completes a puzzle. Like, I could watch YouTube videos all day, but until I put the nail, the hammerhead on the nail, nothing happens.
- [35:27]
Paula Pant
Exactly. That was the biggest thing that we learned from running the beta cohorts Tuesday live practice. That is the heartbeat of this course.
- [35:35]
Joe Salcijh
So to get more information about your next raise, As I thought about this, and Paula and I, of course, have collaborated on a ton of stuff. I'm not going to say I collaborated on this at all, by the way. So if you thought I was going.
- [35:45]
Paula Pant
There next, you provided the house.
- [35:47]
Joe Salcijh
Joe, I'm exhausted from all the work I did on this. It was horrible. But head to stacky benjamin.com negotiation stacky benjamin.com negotiation and I'll tell you why you'll want to go there. You can certainly buy it at afford anything. But for people that enjoy Paula and my collaboration in other things, and I know there's a significant part of our community that listens to both afford anything and stacking Benjamins. I wanted that special community to get a little bit of the stacking Benjamins piece of this that Paula forgot to add. And we're adding two things. The first is mom's neighbor. Doug wrote an additional playbook about. He would have done this completely differently. So you will receive for free Doug's playbook. And I'll give you some of these. Doug's number one piece of advice is mindset going hot. Stay angry. Doug says negotiation is war. War is won by volume and confidence. You've got at least one of those. And by the way, what I like about Doug's Guide, and I know nobody, nobody's going to buy negotiation course because of Doug's Guide. But what I like about it, and this is what I think we bring to the table, is that we take some of these concepts that we've gleaned from Paula's course and we, of course, parody them with a real example at the end that, you know, the true tip here is that confidence is key, but it's not the same thing as confrontation. Maybe leave the war pain at home. And remember, we're trying to make everybody win. We have Doug's point and then actually the counter. Good point. So that's some fun stuff. And then second, and this is one that has been important to me and how I thought about this, there are often times when people think that you are doing the right thing, yet the person across the table thinks that you're being a real jerk. And so I've put together my list of phrases and words and strategies that I've seen people use in the past that totally make you seem likable and not to you. So, Paula, back to the question of what are some tactics used on you? These are some that if you try to take the stuff and Paula's not going to teach you any of these, but if you think these are great, these are some things that I will tell you are absolutely horrible. So you'll get those two things. They're not huge. They're small additions. But for people that love Paula's work but also want the little Stacking Benjamin spin on it, just use stackingbenjamins.com negotiate. And of course, we're affiliated with Paula on this. So you'll also help the Stacky Benjamin show a little bit while you get that huge raise that you know you deserve or you, you get to unload the dishwasher like you know you deserve for whatever you're negotiating. All right. And we'll have links in the show notes to all of it. Paula, nice meeting you. Glad we could have this chat.
- [38:48]
Paula Pant
Joe, how's Cooper doing?
- [38:49]
Joe Salcijh
Cooper is an older cat, like your cat, not having the issues that your cat's having. But he now has thyroid, which apparently humans go hypothyroid and cats go hyperthyroid, our vet told us. So we put this medicine on him, but we ran out. And I got to tell you, when he runs out of medicine, he's hungry all the time. And his Body just completely burns it off. So he begs for food non stop. And it was hard to watch, but it was also hard to be around. I understand why. I understand the medicine, but I'm also like, man, are you just a grouchy guy when you're not on your meds. And I know several people like that.
- [39:31]
Doug
Who.
- [39:33]
Joe Salcijh
Grouchy people not on their meds. Yeah.
- [39:35]
Paula Pant
Joe, the last time that I was at your house, I was there to watch Cooper. But this time you've got a renovation going.
- [39:41]
Joe Salcijh
I do? Yeah. We got about two months to go.
- [39:44]
Paula Pant
All right, when that is done, I'm coming back to Texarkana. I'm inviting myself behind the scenes. You've invited me.
- [39:52]
Joe Salcijh
You were supposed to come finish this thing for me, Paula.
- [39:55]
Paula Pant
Yeah, I'll be. I'll pick up the hammer. I'll be picking up the hammer.
- [39:58]
Joe Salcijh
Perfect.
- [39:59]
Paula Pant
But, yeah, I'll come back to Texarkana. I'll see your new. The new wing of your home. And looking forward to seeing Cooper again, as well as you and Cheryl.
- [40:12]
Joe Salcijh
Hey there, Stackers.
- [40:13]
Doug
I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And today is iconic actress Lucille Ball's birthday. The star of I Love Lucy and many other hit shows was a groundbreaking woman who not only negotiated well, she won. In fact, how about this trivia question? Lucy and her husband Desi Arnaz wanted. Lucy, I'm home. Wow, the best line.
- [40:36]
Joe Salcijh
And you did it so poorly.
- [40:38]
Doug
Nailed it. Lucy and her husband, Desi Arnaz wanted high quality viewership, so they wanted to tape the television shows and replay them at a higher resolution rather than just broadcast live. While the network thought this was too expensive, Lucy and Desi decided to pay for the film out of their own pocket. Nice move, because later they made millions from this. But how? I'll be back right after I go watch Lucy in the Chocolate Factory again. That is just so damn funny. Stuffing them all into her mouth.
- [41:11]
Joe Salcijh
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- [42:15]
Joe Salcijh
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- [44:08]
Doug
Hey there stackers. I'm chocolate lover and a guy with a crush on a redhead with a birthday Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Anyone who knew Lucille Ball knew that she was tough and a born comedian, writer and negotiator. She and her husband, Desi Arnaz Lucy, I'm home.
- [44:25]
Joe Salcijh
Don't you just.
- [44:26]
Doug
Can't you. Can't you say his name? You have to. They paid for the studio filming I Love Lucy to tape the shows so they could make tons of Benjamins. But How? During negotiations, they got the network to agree that they could own the rights to the tapes after the shows were originally aired, meaning that they could play them again later. The now standard rerun was created. And Lucy and Desi. I almost said it. Pocketed Benjamins and Benjamins upon more Benjamins. Great negotiating, Lucy. And now back to two guys who love an I Love Lucy rerun and one who's got a major crush on Ethel. Joe and OG who didn't have a crush on Ethel. Come on, she's a handsome woman.
- [45:12]
Joe Salcijh
Between me and Fred.
- [45:15]
Doug
Fred. Fred was probably like 39 when they filmed that. And he looked like he was 75, his pants up to his nipples. That was awesome.
- [45:24]
Joe Salcijh
For people too young to just go back and watch a couple I Love Lucy. It holds up.
- [45:28]
Doug
Actually, a lot of it does hold up.
- [45:30]
Joe Salcijh
Yeah. Great stuff. OG You're a big fan of I Love Lucy, I'm sure.
- [45:34]
Paula Pant
Never watched a single one ever. Never watched one not old like you guys.
- [45:38]
Doug
It's a pretty distant memory for me, I think, Joe, we were pretty young.
- [45:41]
Paula Pant
When we were in Black Run and.
- [45:42]
Doug
Rerun, they were totally black and white. But I'm just saying it wasn't like we were watching them at their original primetime airing. Jerk face.
- [45:49]
Paula Pant
Weren't you, though?
- [45:52]
Joe Salcijh
I love those negotiations where one side thinks it's no big deal. Like in this case, the studios, Doug. And the other side knows exactly what they're getting into.
- [46:01]
Doug
Yeah, that is cool. When they got a vision, it reminds.
- [46:04]
Joe Salcijh
Me, and I think, Doug, you saw the series. I believe it's on Paramount, plus the offer.
- [46:09]
Doug
It's crazy that you're bringing that up. Joe, this is what I want to talk to you about. This is. Remember before we started recording, I'm like, oh, I had something for you. But it wasn't show related. It was the offer. I'm so glad you just said that because now I can go to sleep tonight.
- [46:21]
Joe Salcijh
So this is about the creation for people that don't know before Doug launches. By the way, we got a double launch for a second. Doug, fire it up. Because this is the series about the making of the Godfather series and the. And the first movie. So taking Mario Puzo, the writer, had this phenomenal book and it follows the guy who's the producer of the movie, played in this case by Miles Teller. It's meant for Hollywood, obviously, but it follows a true story, which is pretty freaking wild.
- [46:45]
Doug
It is. It is wild. So off air, you may be surprised, but Joe and I have a lot of discussions about shows and quality of shows and we often do not see eye to eye on these things. And this I thought was going to be another one because you raved about this show to me. And so I started watching it like two weeks ago. And the first episode was like, at best a generous four stars out of ten. It was. I did not like it. I thought of 100. Yeah, it was. I just. I'm like, this is so cheesy. It's overacted. The dialogue is so contrived and just the setup between scenes is so contrived. And I'm like, this just sucks. But God, Joe has just losing his sense of taste. And I watched half of the next episode because I love the Godfather and I love anything that is loosely based in truth. So that's going to keep me around a little longer. Got halfway through the next episode. Maybe it's getting better. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm hungover. I don't know. And then I picked it up again last night because it was a day game for the tiger, so I had nothing to watch all night. I'm like, this is freaking awesome. This show is fantastic. Either I was not in the right frame of mind for the first episode or they just didn't find their footing until a little bit later. It is quite good.
- [48:00]
Joe Salcijh
Would recommend his negotiating with the Mafia. Just one spoiler here is that he agrees with this Mafia boss that they will not say the word Mafia anywhere in the movie because the Mafia doesn't want it made. Unbeknownst to the Mafia member who has not read the script at all, they don't use the word Mafia anywhere already.
- [48:19]
Doug
It was going to be in one spot. It was going to be uttered one time.
- [48:21]
Joe Salcijh
They had to take out one.
- [48:23]
Doug
It's super entertaining. Now I've done a little bit of research, as I do when I'm watching True Stories and read an interview with a guy who was part of the leadership of Paramount at the time and on this movie's executive team and he's. Yeah, most of this was written to make Ruddy. Was it Al Ruddy? To make him really good. And in fact, he was not nearly as hands on and involved. Make sure it looked like he saved the whole movie.
- [48:46]
Joe Salcijh
This is from Al Ruddy's biography. Yeah, they've taken out Ruddy's autobiography and taken it from there. So clearly Al is going to make Al look really good.
- [48:53]
Doug
When I write mine about this show, I'll give you one guess how it's going to look.
- [48:58]
Joe Salcijh
But negotiating, negotiate something the other side thinks is really important that isn't that important to you. If you can do that, give them what they want and it's an easy trade off for you. That's a great place to negotiate from. Let's do a headline.
- [49:11]
Paula Pant
Hello darlings. And now it's time for your favorite.
- [49:14]
Part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin's Headlines.
- [49:17]
Joe Salcijh
Our headline today comes to us from Investment News and this is written by Lee Harvey Oswald. Leo Almazora. Leo asks, could 401k plan participants gain from guided personalization? So we talked about leakage on Monday. OG from 401ks, but let's talk about the other side of this coin where you're going to leave your Money in the 401k. How well are you doing? Leo writes, while American workers are able to take important steps to our bright retirements by investing in retirement plans, they may improve their prospects even further by participating in a managed account service. I want to get into that in a minute, but Morningstar has consistently found in its 11 years of looking into managed accounts impact on investment decisions and savings among defined contribution plan participants. All right, I want to put the brakes on right there, OG because what's interesting to me about this is actually two things. We'll get into managed accounts in a moment, but just the fact that in your 401k advice in your 401k or not having advice in your 401k, Morningstar has found that having somebody that might know what's going on with the in how to lay out investments help you do a better job of asset allocation. Maybe leave your hands off it, maybe figure out this fund's good, this fund's bad, getting some education, some hand holding there's has proven that these people do much better than people who just enroll, pick a couple funds on their own and forget it.
- [50:52]
Paula Pant
You got to think when it comes to normal market movements, having even just a small system of rebalancing where you're taking a little bit off the winner every year and investing more in whatever asset class or whatever fund didn't perform as well, you're buying more at a lower price that eventually is going to have some sort of aggregate benefit, even if a little teeny tiny benefit every year of zero point whatever percent over time that's going to add up, just something as simple as that. Now add in a little bit better asset allocation perhaps, or just the discipline of not selling when things are the wrong time, the market's down a whole bunch and you get freaked out and you take money out and put in the stable fund. We all know people who have done that. Certainly not us. Certainly not. We don't do those things. But some people do crazy things with their money. Having those guardrails in place that prevent those little teeny, tiny mistakes, or, God forbid, the big, giant mistake of what we reported on some time ago, the rollover that goes and sits in cash for 18 months or two years because the person thought, oh, I did my rollover, so I'm good. And meanwhile didn't know that there was a second act of, now you have to invest that money.
- [52:05]
Joe Salcijh
Yeah. This gentleman who's the director of retirement research at Morningstar and Research, earlier this year, he and his colleagues found 65% of participants who were not on track to hit their retirement goals saved even more money after they got help. So if you're not on track, you're feeling like you're. You don't really don't know what you're doing. You get some help. It created this behavior og where they wanted to put more money in that thing because of the confidence that they felt to invest in the 401k. That's a powerful statement right there.
- [52:38]
Paula Pant
And I don't know that it's even confidence to Invest in the 401k, as in, are we feeling that the 401k is a waste of money or. I've told this story before. When I was first an advisor back in the 90s, I remember going to my dad and saying, hey, you got to do this 401k thing. It's really cool. And he's, I'm not giving those SOBs any of my money. You have to. If you knew my dad, you'd understand where that's coming from. But he was a pension guy. I work hard, I'm going to get my pension. That's what I. That's my retirement is my pension. I don't need to give those SOBs any more of my money. I don't know if it's so much that or it's the confidence of, hey, you've got this. You need to. If you save $500 a month in your plan, you're going to go from not being on track to retirement to being on track. I don't know which one of those angles of the confidence piece we're talking about. I suspect it's the former of trying to make sure that we've got a known outcome.
- [53:30]
Joe Salcijh
Yeah. People not on track. Yeah.
- [53:32]
Paula Pant
I just, I feel like you get to a certain age, we work with a ton of people who are at 40 to 55 ish range, right where it's okay. This is getting real. I can see the end of this. I've been doing this for 15, 20 years. I can see the fact that I might be done in 10 to 15 years, and I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I've been just doing some stuff, and I think a lot of people are surprised to find out, even if they're behind, how easy it is to catch back up. It's not like this radical change. It's doing a little bit of stuff in the right direction, gets you back on track. And maybe that's what he's talking about, is people are just like, I'm so far behind, I might as well not even try. And then you talk to somebody and you go, oh, dude, it's 200 bucks. You go, oh, I can do that.
- [54:16]
Joe Salcijh
I like this idea of the coaching, the handholding, the idea that there's a little bit of accountability when it comes to this. Don't get me wrong, it's your goal, it's your stuff. You could have done this on your own. But every study shows when you feel like you got to report into somebody, you're going to make better decisions in many cases, which is exactly what this shows. You're going to make better behavioral decisions. The second piece of this, though, is this idea of managed accounts. Now, Morningstar, obviously, as I read through this, so Morningstar offers a managed service on the shock of shocks, right? So they go to Investment News, their PR department goes, hey, we got a managed service and we did this study. This seems to show that we're badasses and more people should do this.
- [54:57]
Paula Pant
We're really good at the thing that we sell.
- [54:59]
Joe Salcijh
I do like the idea of coaching and people helping you with your 401k and having smart people around you. But this idea of having a managed fund inside of your portfolio OG where they're handing the keys to Morningstar or some other group, and you tell Morningstar or some other group your goal, and they are literally going between the funds inside your 401k, and they are making the moves for you, you're putting money in and they are making the moves on your behalf. Do you like that? Do you trust that? Is that an option that you think we're going to see more of?
- [55:34]
Paula Pant
It's another layer to what already exists, right? If you think about it, if you have A list of ETFs or mutual funds in your workplace retirement plan already, you're already hiring A fund manager. Now you say, I'm buying an S and P fund. That's easy to do. Yeah, but you're paying that person to put it together, make sure the allocation is the same as the S and P. Now, you're not paying a bunch, but you're paying a little bit. The next layer to that. Can you, Joe, sit down and say, I think that I would need using some tools or your own intuition or Math Skills or ChatGPT or whatever, can you sit down and say, I think I should have a little bit of S and P and a little bit of international and a little bit of small cap. Sure, you can do that. And could you, Joe, six months from now, sit down, print that off, dump it back into ChatGPT and say, Rebalance this and tell me what to do? Yeah, yeah, you could. Can anybody do that? Of course they can. Now, is that the right allocation for you based on your risk tolerance and timeframes and goals? Maybe not. Is it beneficial to have somebody double check it, or is there some benefit to rebalancing a little bit more tactically instead of once a year, once a quarter, once a month? Statistically, not so much, but maybe every so often somebody who rebalanced in April is really excited by the fact that they rebalanced April 8th. If that just happened to be the day that you're rebalancing automation ran, you're feeling pretty good about that. That's the day your profit sharing deposit for the year hit. You're feeling pretty good about that. It's a good day to put money in. You didn't know that at the time, but you know it now. So I think this is a little bit of know thyself. There's a lot of people who are listening to this going, what in the hell? Why in God's name would you ever pay anybody to do any of this stuff when you can just sit down and do it yourself? Absolutely. There's also a lot of people, my brother is a great example of this who, when I call him and I go, oh, yeah, we're just BSing a little bit. And he's, what are you up to? And I said, I got to take the car in and get the brakes done. He'll go, what in the hell? What kind of idiot are you that you don't know how to change your own brakes on your car, for God's sake? That's one of the easiest things to do in the world. Now, for him, that's what he's an expert in. He's really good at that. He's certified. He's done it his whole life. I've watched him do it for a case of beer and a pizza, he'll do it for me. But I'm not willing to trust the fact that I don't know about brakes on cars and my family's success or failure in driving to whether or not that's not my skill set.
- [57:58]
Joe Salcijh
Oh, geez. I've already had one hole in my garage and the brakes work just fine.
- [58:03]
Paula Pant
Yeah, exactly. We can do this for all sorts of things. Doug, you are in the tech field as your career. You feel pretty confident in fixing wifi problems. I don't know the first damn thing about fixing WI fi problems. Reset. Reset. You know what I mean?
- [58:16]
Doug
Unplug it.
- [58:17]
Paula Pant
So I think a little bit of this is know thyself. And there's plenty of people who are skilled and have the time, aptitude, and the energy to do this on their own. So, yeah, in those. In that case, I would say that's pretty stupid. But if you're saving time or you're saving energy or you're saving money or you're making money, maybe you do hire somebody to do it for you.
- [58:37]
Doug
I like your brother's ratio and his priorities. The case of beer, but just one pizza. I would probably do the case of pizzas and one beer, but truth be.
- [58:46]
Paula Pant
Told, he doesn't drink anything anymore. Good for him. He is completely sober for many years. But in the old days it was a case of beer and pizza. Now it's probably like a case of soda.
- [58:54]
Joe Salcijh
We have a sponsor, IDO University, IDO U now. And I'm taking their AI course. And what struck me OG is it is a lot of the basics and different ways to use AI and creativity and human centered design. It's funny. Human centered design using AI teach you Human centered design. Obviously, it's the circle of life. But going through this course, it also strikes me that I could have put this into something like chat GPT. I'm proficient enough, I could have designed my own course and it probably would have been pretty good. And I wouldn't have paid a dime for something that ido, our sponsor, does. But what also struck me as I began this course, I thought, is it beneficial for me to. To have a set date and time that I need to sit down and do this? Yes. I have ADD and I also have 50 things that I will be distracted by. But if a course is calling my name at this time and I have to be there, I'm going to make sure I get my money's worth. Paying money actually is a guarantee that I'm actually going to do the stuff that it takes to be successful, even though I might be able to set this up by myself. Second, these are people that have done this for years. And am I benefiting? Am I benefiting from these instructors who have a different point of view versus my AI, which spends its day kissing my ass about how smart I am?
- [60:23]
Paula Pant
Your AI is set up differently than mine.
- [60:25]
Joe Salcijh
Then my chat GBT is a wonderful choice. Joe.
- [60:28]
Paula Pant
Mine's like Arlie Ermey from Full Metal Jacket.
- [60:32]
Joe Salcijh
You can't handle this.
- [60:33]
Paula Pant
That's Jack Nicholson from Two Good Men.
- [60:36]
Doug
But this may not surprise you, but mine is totally deferential because I'll reply to it with things like, you're not very good at this, are you? And it'll be like, you're right, I'm not. I have a lot to learn.
- [60:49]
Joe Salcijh
My bad. Again, kissing your butt. So good. We will link to this story on our show notes page@stackingbenjamins.com I don't know about using a managed portfolio inside of your 401k. I'm on the fence about that personally, but I do think because you've got.
- [61:05]
Paula Pant
The expertise to do it right, so it doesn't resonate with you because. Because you're like, I got what's.
- [61:10]
Joe Salcijh
That's the point. I could see people doing it. I could see people foregoing it for the reasons that you've talked about, sure. But this idea of people having more confidence because somebody who knew what's going on looked at it and then you put more money in because that confidence and it gave you more success. Let me end on this, by the way, from the piece I almost forgot this OG so I'm glad you made that Aside, Morningstar found that not on track self directors, defined as those with less than 90% of their portfolio in an allocation, saw a 43% jump in their projected wealth on retirement, even after paying them 40 basis points. I like that they paid Morningstar just less than half a percent and your results shot up.
- [61:52]
Paula Pant
Yeah.
- [61:52]
Joe Salcijh
The impact on projected retirement income was also most pronounced among younger users, with a 26% increase in retirement income seen for the average 30 year old participant. Just phenomenal. You go get help, you do better, and you reap the rewards.
- [62:05]
Paula Pant
This is true in so many different areas, but to cap this off, it's right for the right people at the right time and right place in their life. I've got a good Friend of mine who lives and breathes bodybuilding. The idea that he would hire a trainer is so comical to him. Like why do you need to have a trainer, Joe? Why do you need to have somebody to call and talk about? Just do the right thing.
- [62:29]
Joe Salcijh
Duh, duh.
- [62:29]
Paula Pant
You're like, but that's not who I am. Like I need to have somebody slap the food out of my mouth because I like cookies. He doesn't and that's him. This is a good solution for somebody that doesn't have the confidence and for somebody that has the confidence and is on track and feels confident that they're on track, it's probably not a great solution.
- [62:49]
Joe Salcijh
Time for our TikTok minute. This is the part of the show where we shine a light on a TikTok creator who's either giving us some brilliance or some air quotes. Brilliance. Jenny found this TikTok creator Doug and asks the question, do you think this is actually doable? So I'll lead you with that hint. Do you think we're about to see some doable brilliance or not brilliance about.
- [63:11]
Doug
How your kid could end up with $4 million in retirement? I'm going to say not doable. I think it's going to propose some stuff that's just completely unrealistic for normal people.
- [63:21]
Joe Salcijh
It's funny, it's like how did you know that? Then I remembered that it was in your opinion.
- [63:25]
Doug
Yes, because I can see the future, Joe.
- [63:28]
Joe Salcijh
Wow. Doug's a mind reader. Yes. How can your kid have. Oh gee, do you think that this is. Let's listen and you tell us if you think this is a good strategy for people with their children.
- [63:41]
Narrator
My 16 year old son doesn't want to go to college. How can I help set him up financially for the future? This is a great question. I want to give you the out of the box idea here. I know this isn't going to work for everybody, but I just want to do this thought experiment with everyone on here. If you have a 16 year old and you can help co sign a vehicle for them at 16, like a 10 to 12, $12,000 vehicle, one that will last five to seven years, your child can get a part time job for $1200 a month with the sole purpose of taking $500 a month to make sure that car is paid off, by the time they graduate high school, they'll have 6, $700 a month of play money to have fun and be a kid. Now here's the second part which is most crucial. From 18 to 21, you stay at home with your parents. And parents, you pay for everything like you were when they were a kid, and don't have them pay a thing out of pocket. They go and get a job or a job and a half for $35,000 a year. They get to use 10,000 a year to go on dates, to buy, to save, to do whatever they want. It's free money. The other 25,000 they make goes directly into the stock market. If they do that for three years on their 21st birthday, they will have $75,000 for their retirement. Here's the best part about compounding interest. If your child accomplishes that and never puts another penny in for his retirement or her retirement for the rest of their life, they in their late 60s, that could be worth around 4 to 5 million dollars. They just took one of the biggest stressors of all of us millennials off their back at the age of 21, because their retirement's going to be so plush just by those three years of sacrifice. And they're also learning about money. The confidence that's going to build for that young person to look at 22, 26, 29, 30. And seeing that money growing is going to create really good habits, because the millennials did it completely opposite. I'm not saying this doesn't work, but a lot of us got trapped because if you graduated 18 years old, buy yourself a car, get a college debt, get credit card debt, now you're 22 years old, $80,000 in the hole, and now you're in this debt trap until your 30s or 40s, and then you wake up and go, oh, I got to pay this off. I have to. I want to save for a house. I want to have children, and I'm 20 years behind on retirement. I type it into the calculator. Now I have to put in $2,200 a month for my retirement to have a robust retirement. It is so much better in those first three years of graduating high school if you can stay home and dedicate your entire existence to accomplishing that goal, you will check off one of the biggest stressors that so many of us millennials have to deal with.
- [65:50]
Joe Salcijh
He ends by saying, I know that's not going to work for everybody, but so OG stay home your first three years after high school if you're not going to go to college. He assumes, by the way, 10% returns, reinvesting dividends about taxes on your 35.
- [66:04]
Paula Pant
You know, he's rounding whatever.
- [66:05]
Joe Salcijh
Yeah, yeah, it's a piece of a video. But what do you think is that.
- [66:08]
Paula Pant
Doable without doing the math? I'm sure it's doable. The problem is human behavior. This is the age old story of if information was all that was required, we'd all be millionaires with six pack abs. It just is what it is. Yes. And I'll do you one better. Why wait till they're 21? Why don't you just put $10,000 away the day they're born like that?
- [66:25]
Joe Salcijh
Because gee, yeah, this is Freddie Smith online for people that want to look him up on TikTok. But Freddie's point, I think that he doesn't make, that we'll make here is earlier equals better. I think is what you're getting at. Earlier equals better.
- [66:38]
Doug
Yeah, duh.
- [66:39]
Paula Pant
And the next thinking on this to me is this is why I have such an issue with people who say I want to be. I'm going to retire now. I'm going to be conservative. It's like, why in the hell would you want to do that at this point? You've accumulated all this money, you're 60 years old now you want to be conservative. Now is the time to let. Now's the time to put your foot on the gas, dummy. Because now think about, okay, I got my 3 million at 60 and I'm going to be conservative. The hell with that, man. Hammer down and get that 3 million to turn into 30 million by the time you're a hundred so that the rest of the entire family tree of yours never has to think about money. This is a responsibility. I think of everybody. The earlier that you can solve this, the better. And if the first tick in the turn of the lock on, this is the 21 year old that gets to stay at home for three years with mom and dad and save 20 grand. Awesome. That's great. My challenge would be, if you do that, don't stop saving the 20 grand. Why? Go. Okay. Whew. Thank God my retirement's good. I'm done. I don't have to worry about this anymore. Now you've done the right thing. Why don't you start taking care of your kids's retirement or your grandkids retire, you know what I mean?
- [67:45]
Joe Salcijh
If you still start on the success.
- [67:48]
Paula Pant
Don'T stop if you're the one. If you're like, my parents didn't give me anything. I had to pay for all my college on my own, my grandparents didn't leave me anything. And I'm six years old and I'm not leaving my kids anything. Like, why?
- [67:58]
Joe Salcijh
And this is the other point, Freddie kind of said that when he said, you're building these good habits and you see the fact that this ball's rolling downhill, OG you will do good stuff after that.
- [68:06]
Paula Pant
Yeah, I would give a ton of pushback on that. Nobody sees the compounding in the first 10 or 15 years. In fact, nobody sees it until your money makes more money than you make. It's not real.
- [68:18]
Joe Salcijh
And this is why Doug and I know you were kidding when you said duh. Because it is duh. Earlier equals better. It is duh. But if it was so duh, more people would do it. More people would actually do it. We all know that earlier equals better. But, oh, gee, to your point, nobody does it.
- [68:34]
Paula Pant
We should take all of our Social Security deposits and they should all go in the market instead of lending it to the government.
- [68:38]
Joe Salcijh
We have all these priorities. We got all this other stuff going on. I can't afford to do that. I got all this other stuff going.
- [68:42]
Doug
On because we don't realize it. It's because there are things like rolexes and cool SUVs that give us more immediate satisfaction. We're weak.
- [68:53]
Joe Salcijh
And I think it goes back to our discussion on Monday about the woman that said she was happy she took money out of her 401k and paid the penalties and got rid of some credit card debt with that money. I think it's because we see the Rolex, we see the suv, and those are extreme examples, Doug. But seriously, it's usually more extra dinners out with friends at a restaurant I can marginally afford, or it's buying stuff from my closet that I really don't need. It's the consumerism. Little thousand paper cuts.
- [69:20]
Doug
Benchmade pocket knives.
- [69:22]
Paula Pant
Yeah, they're so beautiful, though. I started Googling them since you talked about them. I got a whole wish list. I want steak knives, pocket knives. Doug's got one. He's flashing.
- [69:31]
Joe Salcijh
Doug's flashing us again. But I think it's. I think it's those little things. We don't see the opportunity cost. When Freddie tells us, hey, if you just do this for three years, OG here's the opportunity. We get $75,000 in our pocket. We're like, okay, now I can blow this up. I got money where I could live large right now. Great stuff, Jenny. I love that discussion. Please send us your TikToks that you found to have us chat about joe@stackinbenjamins.com or go to the contact pages. Dakandbenjamins.com let's meander out on the back porch. Before we say goodbye, Doug, I do have one note that you told me about a few weeks ago that I always forget to point to. We were sad a few weeks ago to hear about the passing of David Gergen, who was on the show, a guy who served US Presidents on both sides of the aisle. And one of my favorite interviews that I've done during all of our time at Stacking Benjamin's, he talked about leadership. And the next time we have our greatest hits week, we're going to replay that in honor not only of David, but of the idea that not only money and patriotism, but there's a lot of people out there looking for purpose and meaning. And I think David connects all those things together very well. When he was with Stacking Benjamin, so little look under the hood, by the way. He and I recorded an interview. I was so happy we got him because it's a little bit outside of daily money management. I was so excited we got him. I was on my road trip. I was in a hotel in Chicago during our book tour, and I interviewed him. And he shows up with an iPad, and he's remote, of course, and our software doesn't work with iPads. So I said, let's do it on Zoom. We do it on Zoom. It's the only time in. In all of our history of Stacking Benjamins, we finish it and the file is corrupt and there's no backup. We always run a backup in our system. We always have this idea.
- [71:26]
Doug
I forgot about that.
- [71:27]
Joe Salcijh
We had no backup. So I have to call David Gergen's book publisher and his assistant to ask if David will do the interview again. And he very graciously said, yes. Yeah, fine, we'll do it again. He shows up, and he's a little gruff because we've already talked, right?
- [71:44]
Doug
Yeah.
- [71:45]
Joe Salcijh
And even though he was nice enough to do it, he's a little gruff. We get done with the second interview, and. And I said, david, thank you so much, and I apologize again for having to redo this. And he said, you know what, Joe? I think it was way better the second time. And it actually was way better. We had a great interview the first time, but the fact that he did it again and then that he told me that made me feel really good. So, anyway, sad to hear about David Gergen passing away.
- [72:09]
Doug
Great guy. Yeah. Joe, let's talk about a couple of reviews that we've gotten recently as well. Back middle of July in the Heat Wave, Ashi Garuma left us a very straightforward, simple review. Says excellent. That's it. You don't need to get super flowery. Just says excellent. Five stars. One of the best personal finance podcasts. Great perspectives provided across a broad spectrum of topics. And then we had another interesting one that came in.
- [72:36]
Joe Salcijh
Thank you for that, by the way. That's very nice. Thank you.
- [72:38]
Doug
Yeah, I didn't mean to breeze past that too quickly. Thank you. Ashi also had an interesting one just a few days ago titled and this was perplexing. Additional contributors. Five star review. So we love that in the body text this person. LGOBP says love the addition of Doc G and Paula, who've been with us for what, 30 years?
- [73:04]
Joe Salcijh
Forever. But I'm glad that they noticed that 14 years ago we added Paula to the lineup and Doc G about six years ago. And Doc G's more time to time because that's our quote brother show, Earn and invest.
- [73:17]
Doug
Yeah.
- [73:17]
Joe Salcijh
So Doc is on a little less often.
- [73:19]
Doug
We got to give. I'm assuming BP is the last name. So we got to give LGO some grace here because maybe they just started listening to us recently and heard just unbelievable content and shows that we made the three of us. And then Doc G shows up and he's. Whoa. And then he. Maybe Paula was off. Yeah, off on a Friday.
- [73:39]
Joe Salcijh
Right.
- [73:39]
Doug
And then she shows up and his head hurts now.
- [73:42]
Joe Salcijh
And we tried to do that. LG will call him lg. Lg we tried to do that to make sure those Friday roundtable discussions are interesting. And we don't have this for a while. We had the same three contributors on every show and it just got a little. Everybody was betting what OG was going to say next, what Paul was going to say next. But we stick a few different people in the room from time to time we get these more nuanced conversations.
- [74:05]
Doug
You know what's been a really fun addition recently when OG hadn't been able to make a few in a row and is when his sit in still wins a point for him on trivia.
- [74:14]
Joe Salcijh
Unbelievable. Yes. Hopefully on Friday when Don McDonald from Talking Real Money sits in for him, that won't continue.
- [74:22]
Doug
Hopefully he just crashes and burns. Just falls right in his face. Big old scab on the top of his nose.
- [74:27]
Joe Salcijh
Come on, you can do it.
- [74:28]
Doug
Choke, Don. Choke.
- [74:30]
Joe Salcijh
Speaking of do it, I think we can end this episode. Thank you everybody for the kind words and thank you for lending us your ears and your time. If you know somebody who a needs to hear about how to use a 401k wants to set up their child for success or Somebody who wants better negotiation. This is the episode for them. So forward this to them. We always end every episode the same way here with our to do list. Doug, what are the three big things I think we need to take home with us today and get working on Joe?
- [74:58]
Doug
First, take some advice from Paula Pant, new addition to the show. A little negotiation skill can improve your life in many areas, not just when you're at the car lot. Second, your retirement plan at work. Thinking about how you'll manage it toward your goals can go a long way. Managed accounts, maybe not. But the big lesson, don't bother asking Joe for the film rights to Stacking Benjamins. Apparently they're already in a court ordered digital escrow, whatever that means. Thanks to Paula Pant for joining us today. You'll find her new deep dive into negotiation@stackingbenjamins.com negotiate. We'll also include links in our show notes@stackingbenjamins.Com this show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Josal 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 on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh, yeah. 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.
- [76:27]
Joe Salcijh
SA Sam.
- [77:21]
Paula Pant
Hold on, wait. I just got a voicemail from Comcast Infinity. They're watching us. We've noticed you haven't confirmed your 50% discount on your monthly bill yet. Please call back at the number shown at your earliest available time. Thank you. Fun fact, Comcast isn't a provider in Dallas.
- [77:50]
Joe Salcijh
Welcome to the after show. That's incredible. I got a good one the other day. OG I received one that said the DocuSign was completed from DocuSign.
- [78:00]
Doug
Oh yeah.
- [78:01]
Joe Salcijh
And it was very well done. It was very well done. So and so has countersigned your thing and I'm like, I don't remember a docusign.
- [78:09]
Paula Pant
I should click on it real fast.
- [78:11]
Doug
Yep. So I got one of those while we were in the midst of signing a bunch of stuff via DocuSign for.
- [78:17]
Joe Salcijh
Oh no.
- [78:18]
Doug
Yeah. So I did not Click on it. I can't remember what it was that made me think, wait a minute, this feels different than the other ones. But it was. They just got lucky. The scammers got lucky and slipped it in at the perfect time. And I was.
- [78:29]
Joe Salcijh
That they're hoping for, right? Your Docusign or. Oh, geez, Comcast. Just putting it out there.
- [78:35]
Doug
Yeah.
- [78:35]
Joe Salcijh
Is anybody else getting tons of job offers right now via. Via text? No, just get a job offer every day via text. Hey, I'm from Whatever Jobs. Why don't you come work for us? It just. I don't know where the scam is here, but there's got to be one if I'm getting one every day.
- [78:52]
Paula Pant
The scam is you have to pay to be on their like preferred list or something. They'll get you a job, but you need to send them an application fee or something.
- [79:00]
Doug
Yeah.
- [79:01]
Joe Salcijh
The one thing I do know is that all the best jobs come via text from people. I don't know. That's.
- [79:06]
Paula Pant
I'm sure that's how LinkedIn 2.0.
- [79:09]
Joe Salcijh
Yes. That's how Tim Cook received his job at Apple. He just got this random.
- [79:14]
Paula Pant
He got an imessage.
- [79:17]
Joe Salcijh
He's been unemployed for four months. Unemployed engineer walking down the street all of a sudden gets a. Oh, looks like Apple needs a CEO. I'll be darn weird. Yeah, so strange.