Taking Control of Your Life and Finances (with Anthony O'Neal) SB1630

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Stacking Benjamins Show - Episode SB1630

Title: Taking Control of Your Life and Finances (with Anthony O'Neal)
Release Date: January 13, 2025
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy and OG
Guest: Anthony O'Neal
Network: StackingBenjamins.com | Cumulus Podcast Network

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Introduction

In this episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG welcome financial author, speaker, and educator Anthony O'Neal. Recognized for his transformative approach to personal finance, Anthony shares his journey from adversity to empowerment, offering listeners actionable insights on taking control of both their lives and finances.

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Anthony O'Neal’s Journey to Financial Control

Anthony opens up about his challenging past, including a period of homelessness that profoundly shaped his approach to financial management and personal responsibility.

Notable Quote:

Anthony O'Neal [21:00]: "I'm not taking control of my life. I'm not doing it at all."

This pivotal realization led him to redefine his relationship with money and purpose, emphasizing the importance of personal accountability and intentional living.

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The Seat at the Table: Defining Your Financial and Life Priorities

A central theme of the episode is the metaphor of "taking a seat at the table," which Anthony explains as assuming control over one’s life decisions rather than being dictated by external forces such as employers, lenders, or societal expectations.

Notable Quote:

Anthony O'Neal [22:37]: "Take a seat at the table. The table is a metaphor for your life. Take a seat and take control of your life."

Anthony stresses the importance of aligning financial decisions with personal values and life goals, ensuring that money serves as a tool for achieving desired outcomes rather than becoming a source of stress or misalignment.

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Earning vs. Managing Money: Striking the Right Balance

The conversation delves into the common financial dilemma of whether to focus on increasing income or cutting expenses. Anthony advocates for a balanced approach, highlighting that while cost-cutting can provide immediate relief, enhancing income streams offers longer-term financial stability and growth.

Notable Quote:

Anthony O'Neal [07:06]: "The answer isn't necessarily like, just sell everything, start over. It's like, how do I make a little bit more money?"

Anthony suggests leveraging existing skills, exploring side hustles, or pursuing self-employment as viable strategies to boost income without drastic lifestyle upheavals.

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Stewardship and Purpose: Building Wealth Beyond Money

Anthony introduces the concept of stewardship, defining it as the responsible management of one's resources and opportunities. He emphasizes that understanding and embracing stewardship is crucial for sustainable wealth-building and personal fulfillment.

Notable Quote:

Anthony O'Neal [24:04]: "Stewardship simply means it's not yours. You're just called to manage it well."

By recognizing life as a series of opportunities to fulfill one’s purpose, individuals can make more informed and meaningful financial decisions that align with their broader life objectives.

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The Role of Education and Adaptability in Financial Success

The discussion highlights the evolving landscape of education and its impact on job security, especially with advancements in technology and AI. Anthony challenges the traditional emphasis on degrees, advocating for learning paths that are tailored to individual career goals and market demands.

Notable Quote:

Anthony O'Neal [61:11]: "It doesn't have to be college."

He points out that certification programs and vocational training can offer practical skills without the burden of substantial student debt, aligning education more closely with specific career aspirations and industry needs.

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Technology’s Impact on the Workforce and Personal Finance

Towards the end of the episode, hosts and Anthony explore the implications of emerging technologies, particularly AI, on the future of work and personal financial planning. They discuss both the opportunities and challenges presented by AI agents and automation, urging listeners to stay informed and adaptable.

Notable Quote:

Anthony O'Neal [56:05]: "The only constant is that change."

The conversation underscores the importance of embracing technological tools to enhance productivity and financial management while remaining vigilant against potential risks such as identity theft and fraud.

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Practical Takeaways and Actionable Advice

Anthony provides listeners with actionable steps to take control of their finances and lives:

1. Define Your Vision: Clearly outline where you want to be by a specific date, ensuring that your financial goals align with your personal values and life aspirations.
2. Track and Manage Expenses: Utilize tools like Monarch to monitor spending patterns and make informed budgeting decisions.
3. Align Relationships with Your Goals: Surround yourself with individuals who support and align with your financial and life objectives, fostering a supportive environment for growth.
4. Invest in Personal Growth: Whether through formal education or self-directed learning, continuously seek opportunities to enhance your skills and knowledge.

Notable Quote:

OG [05:47]: "Have you ever thought that it might be time to take control of your life?"

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Conclusion and Promotional Segment

As the episode wraps up, Anthony promotes his new book, Take Your Seat at the Table: Live an Authentic Life of Abundance, Wellness, and Freedom, available in bookstores and online. He highlights special bonuses for purchasers through the podcast’s link, including study guides and free courses designed to help listeners implement the principles discussed.

Notable Quote:

Anthony O'Neal [41:03]: "If you purchase this book with your link, we're going to give them $2,000 worth of extra bonuses."

The hosts close with reminders about upcoming events, book club meetings, and opportunities for listeners to engage further with the content and community.

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Key Insights

• Personal Accountability: Taking control of one’s finances starts with personal responsibility and intentional decision-making.
• Balanced Financial Strategy: Combining income enhancement with strategic expense management leads to more sustainable financial health.
• Stewardship and Purpose: Understanding and embracing stewardship aligns financial actions with personal life goals.
• Adaptability in Education: Tailoring education to individual goals and market demands is more effective than traditional degree paths.
• Embracing Technology: Leveraging technological advancements can enhance financial management while staying aware of associated risks.

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show offers a comprehensive exploration of personal financial empowerment through the lens of Anthony O'Neal’s experiences and expertise. Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their financial habits, define their personal and financial visions, and take proactive steps towards achieving a balanced and purposeful life.

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For more insights and resources, visit StackingBenjamins.com.

Transcript

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[OG]

A debt can really take a toll on you. Between minimum payments, interest rates, it's really stressful and at times it just feels like you're swimming upstream. You can't get ahead. Navy Federal Credit Union understands debt is a huge stressor and they're here to help. Navy Federal Credit Union has all the financial tools and resources you need to dominate debt. So here's what you do. You put your strategy together, stackers and then you start putting the tools in place. So one great option is to get your interest rates to zero. So, so you're socking more away. And right now, Navy Federal Credit Union is offering a 0% intro APR on credit card balance transfers for 12 months. Plus you can get $250 when you spend $2,500 on your first 90 days on a cash rewards or cash rewards plus credit card. Don't let debt drag you down. Visit navy federal.org to start dominating debt today. Navy Federal Credit Union. Our members are the mission. Navy Federal's insured by NCUA. After the intro rate expires, variable APRs are 15.15% to based on creditworthiness, rates are subject to change. ATM fees for cash advances are up to $1. All non Navy Federal ATMs. It's a cold morning in Texarkana. We actually got snow this last week. How about that? It snows two days in Texarkana and now we've hit the quota, which makes me happy. It's early in the year we hit the quota, we're done.

[Doug]

Oh boy. Was it 34 there, Joe?

[OG]

It was rain. Snow, rain, snow, rain, snow.

[Doug]

I Woke up to 11 this morning, so I don't want to hear it.

[Anthony O'Neal]

It's 21. That's. That's respectable. 21.

[Doug]

I'll give you that.

[OG]

It's supposed to be high here on Monday morning of 53 degrees today.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Yeah, winter, I mean, winter sucks in Texas.

[OG]

It's like, oh, it's horrible.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Three or four straight days.

[OG]

I gotta zip up my coat like halfway. You've no idea, the pain.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Well, I am so Stressed about it. I am going to the Caymans in a day and a half. So you guys enjoy this little party and I'm gonna go sit on Seven Mile beach and drink champagne and OG.

[Doug]

Getting into character right out of the shoot.

[Anthony O'Neal]

It's our annual trip. We try to go every year to end this little food wine festival.

[OG]

Sounds fantastic. You know what else sounds fantastic? The fact that the men and women.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Of our military, men and women patrolling the Gulf of America to make sure the Caymans are safe.

[OG]

On behalf of the men and women making podcast in mom's basement and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union, Big Monday salute to our troops. Thank you for all that you do.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Mickey mug too.

[OG]

How about it is Mickey Mouse mug day? Cheers, everybody. Let's go stack some Benjamins together now, shall we? You heard of this thing, the eight Minute Abs?

[Anthony O'Neal]

Yeah, sure, eight Minute Abs. Yeah, the exercise video.

[OG]

Yeah, well, this is gonna blow that right out of the water. Listen this seven Minute Abs.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and so far this year, we've helped you grow your income, cut your spending, and define your purpose. And it's not even February. So are you ready to take control of your life? Today's mentor is the perfect man to do that. He's financial author, speaker and educator Anthony O'Neill. Plus, in our headline, what technology will influence your life in 2025, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, and others predict the future. And we're here to share what it means to you. And I can assure you that no AI or robots were used in the making of my incredibly amazing trivia segment. And now two guys who think keeping up with the Joneses is just a great way to burn through your emergency fund. It's Joe and. Oh, Juju. Jaja G.

[OG]

Hey there, stackers. And happy Monday. Welcome back to the Stacking Benjamin Show. I am Joe Salsihai and I'm super happy to welcome back to the microphone after a glorious weekend away. Mr. OG is here. How are you, my friend?

[Anthony O'Neal]

Sorry, I was just. Doug was yelling so much. Hurt my sensibilities. Good Lord. Tone it down a little bit.

[OG]

Did the open chase.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Indoor voice, bro. Indoor voice.

[OG]

Doug, we got him already open before.

[Doug]

It's literally what I do every time.

[OG]

We got him back again on a Monday. Have you noticed how much hair I've lost lately? And people wonder why. We got a great show today, gentlemen. Oh, gee. We've got Anthony O'Neal back. How about that former Ramsey personality financial educator? He is upstairs talking to mom right now because it's time to take control of your life.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Time to take control.

[OG]

Talks about. Yeah, get a seat at the table. He talks about, and he'll define what that metaphor means. But, OG have you ever thought that it might be time to take control of your life?

[Doug]

No.

[Anthony O'Neal]

I appreciate chaos. We were talking about this earlier. Chaos is what makes the world go around. If everything was easy, we'd all be lazy. So, you know, I thought it was.

[OG]

Time for Doug and I to have the intervention. Like, you came down to the basement and sat down. You didn't notice we were sitting here staring at you. Oh, gee. We'd like to talk to you about your life decisions.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

I've been blocking the door the whole time.

[OG]

Well, that's because you won't stay away from the Oreos, but that's a whole different thing. So let's review what Doug, you mentioned earlier about 2025. If you're like me, there's a lot you want to do in 2025. So we began with make more money. Let's talk about why we began there. Because in our Facebook group, the Basement, there were a couple people that were like, well, you got to make sure that you manage your money before we even got to step two. So we'll. We'll. We will tell you how these dominoes play out. You and I know OG that a big problem people have is we initially cut, right? We make cuts, and we make cuts, and we make cuts, and yet we can't shrink our way to greatness. We forget the thing that actually might be more fun and also is a thing that can allow us to keep maybe a bigger budget. And that is, how do we make more income? Like, how often have you had to tell people, you know what? I think we need to just make more money?

[Anthony O'Neal]

I mean, it happens, probably. I bet out of the conversations that I have, 60% of the time, 70% of the time, there's only so much that you can do short of, like, taking the drastic sell everything in the Dave Ramsey thing, right? Like, oh, you screwed up. You've got a little too much ahead of your skis. Just sell everything and restart. And that's a solution I think that you can have in your back pocket if you absolutely need to hit the reset button. But for most people, I just don't see that as a logical conclusion of, like, oh, I'm a little overextended, or my costs have increased higher than I Expected they could or would and my income hasn't, or I had a bad year of sales and so my bonus isn't as much as it used to be. The answer isn't necessarily like, just sell everything, start over. It's like, well, how do I make a little bit more money? How do I leverage the skills that I have? Whether it's having a second income or a side hustle or parlaying it into, you know, some sort of self employment.

[OG]

This is clearly for us. Beginning the year with this rubric. Let's work on making more money first. Which is why we had the two episode Alex Harmozi interview guy who's made tons of money. But then to the point of one of our wonderful family members in our Facebook group who said, you know, you can end up the way that Joe talked about that. He was in the 90s and I totally was. I was always like, hey, if I just make more money, that's it. That's why we followed it up with. It isn't about just making more money. It's also about what you keep and I love. Then we talk to frugality. I'm going to call them experts. They have the Frugal Friends podcast, Jen Smith and Jill Ceriani. And then followed that up with values. Right? Because then aligning this money that comes in with what do I really value? Or am I just wasting my so many times? Oh, gee. I would talk to people that are just blowing cash on stuff they just don't care about. And you're like, you could. Why are you spending money on that? It means nothing to you. Like, stop spending money on this crap. That truly is doing nothing for your life. That I would have to imagine also for you is the second conversation then that you have.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Well, I think when it comes to expense management, at the end of the day, everything does count there. Short of selling everything and starting over, if you are just very intentional about it. And we go through this in our lives during different periods of time. This is the beginning of the year. It's always kind of a reset for everybody. So it's a reset for us too. And, you know, you resync all of the accounts on Monarch, you know, make sure everybody's got the logins. And I'm literally looking at it every single day, watching all the different transactions. And most of the time, you know, we're pretty established in terms of our rhythm. I know when the mortgage is due and the insurance payment comes out and you know, it's like, I kind of got that Vibe. I know when those things are going to happen, but watching it happen in real time, and there's, you know, monarch. Anyway, there's a nice little chart that, like, shows your spending throughout the month. And it's like. And I'm like, we're sitting here on the 9th of the month, and I'm going, holy crow. Is this the pace or is this.

[OG]

Like, he's, like, bringing the rain.

[Anthony O'Neal]

There's a lot of stuff at the beginning, you know, you just gotta. But it also helps from a cash flow standpoint, understanding that, hey, I can't go into the beginning of the month with five grand in the bank if the first three days of the month have $10,000 of expenses. You know, just gives you some observational things that you can think about.

[OG]

I don't know, Doug. Sounds like a great fricking year. 10,000 bucks, the first four. Like, we're going to rock this year.

[Anthony O'Neal]

No, I'm saying. I'm saying at the beginning of the month, like, if you say my budget is 10,000amonth, but 5,000 of those expenses come out in the first three days, you can't start the first of the month with two or three grand in the bank. You're going to be upside down by 3,000 by the second day of the month. 100%, even if the cash flow works out.

[OG]

And I'm saying, I don't want to be around you long term, but while that party's going on short term, I want to be in the middle of it. Because, hey, if it's a spending spree, I'll help.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Yeah, yeah, we're not in a spending spree right now. I'm trying not be. Anyway. I think it's just important just to. When you have good information, you can make good decisions. You know, how many times. And, Joe, you know this from before when you were an advisor. It's like, how many times would you say, like, well, what's your budget? How much do you spend on da, da, da? And people will be like, I don't know, $500 on groceries. You're going, family of four or $500 on groceries. Are you sure about that? Can't be. That doesn't seem.

[OG]

And then you have them track it. You haven't track it for two months.

[Anthony O'Neal]

And they're like, oh, this was a high month. It was 1100. Like, okay, well, what's next month? 1100. What's the month after that? 1100. Well, it wasn't a high month. That's just the number, you know, that doesn't make it right or wrong. It just gives you the information in order to make a good decision. Maybe that's a lever that you want to focus on or maybe it's not. But at least it gives you the, the data from which you can make good decisions.

[Doug]

Yeah, you know, I actually want to rewind a little bit to something you said earlier, Joe. First, I think our listeners heads are spinning because you opened the curtain and let them know we have a rubric like there's a plan to what we're doing this year. And they're like what? Get out of here. You guys have no idea what you're doing when you turn on the mics.

[Guest]

Is that new?

[OG]

Right?

[Doug]

It's been what, 14 years. I've seen zero evidence of pre thought at all. Yeah, we started out the year with Alex Hormozi and earning more and we have talked about that before and I think pretty consistently we can plan on people pushing back and getting annoyed when we talk about or bring on guests that talk about earn more because it's painful. That feels painful. Like I'm doing everything I can right now to earn what I can earn. I don't have any more time to earn more. And you do, you just don't want to. And we've also talked about how you can't save your way to a new lifestyle or save your way to kind of a whole new financial. You, you can improve things incrementally but you're not going to make the big jumps doing that. And it just makes me think of analogy that a former mentor used with me that said everybody wants the pill to get to better health. We want whatever that thing is that's easy to take with a glass of water. Sometimes you need the shot or you need the surgery and it's painful but you have to sometimes go through that discomfort to get to the next level. Because if you're not doing the little stuff you need to do to get a little side gig that's maybe a little less painful or to do these incremental savings things that OG is talking about, it's going to get painful. So figure out how you can do the little things. Now whether it's small side gigs or things you can do to improve the income side and the same thing on the, on the savings side so that you don't need the major surgery.

[OG]

I was telling you guys before we jumped on today, I've never received so many emails about episodes like I did the Alex Harmozi episodes. So many wonderful emails from all of you going, what a wild departure. And that was so. It was so in depth. It was so good. It was so. I took so many notes. Just absolutely gratified by the number of people that jumped on that. But of course, Doug, to your point, I think one of the first things we received on that, and we received very little negativity, but it was a negative comment going, I did. I just gotta, you know, so tired.

[Doug]

Of hearing people say, I just need to earn more.

[OG]

Right. Well, and it's like Doc G saying people got upset with him, right? In his interview last week, people got upset with him when he was talking about purpose. Because it freaks people out. To your point. Exactly, Doug. It's. It's incredible. So now that we've talked about earning more and then let's talk about what's the purpose of that spending and where we kind of headed. Anthony O'Neill today used to not be in charge of his life, which is why I wanted him to come next, because he's going to explain how he wasn't in charge, but he's going to talk about creating your own seat at the table. Because if you're not working on your priorities, you're working on somebody else's priorities. By definition, you're working on somebody else's priorities. So by the end of 2025, with all three of these parts intact, right, the earning, the spending, and what are our priorities? And we're in charge of our destiny, we're going to be there. Anthony O'Neal. If you don't know who he was, he was formerly a Ramsey personality working with that guy in Tennessee. Today, he's rocking an amazing YouTube channel, teaching money and responsibility across America. And of course, today, he's on the Stacky Benjamin Show. Anthony O'Neal, coming up next. Before that, though, we have some sponsors that make sure that this is free for you so that you don't have to pay for great mentors like Anthony O'Neal. We're going to hear from them. And then Anthony O'Neal teaching us how to grab a seat at the table. Well, debt can really take a toll on you. Between minimum payments and interest rates, it's really stressful and I've been there. Stackers. And at times it feels like you just can't get ahead. Well, Navy Federal Credit Union understands debt's a huge stressor, and they're here to help. Navy Federal Credit Union has all the financial tools and resources you need to dominate debt. Here's what you do. Put together your strategy. One piece of a strategy might be to lower those interest rates as much as possible so you can sock even more toward those principal payments. Right? And right now Navy Federal Credit Union is offering a 0% intro APR on credit card balance transfers for up to 12 months. Plus you can get 250 when you spend 2500 dollars in your first 90 days on a cash rewards or cash rewards plus credit card. Don't let that drag you down. Visit Navy federal.org to start dominating debt today. Navy Federal Credit Union. Our members are the mission Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. After the intro rate expires, variable APRs are 15.15% to 18% based on creditworthiness. Rates are subject to change. ATM fees for cash advances are up to $1 at non Navy Federal ATMs.

[Doug]

How high is the interest rate for the new Laurel Road High Yield Savings account?

[Guest]

This high.

[Doug]

The air is really, really thin up here. The Laurel Road Very High Yield Savings.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Account Variable annual percentage yield APY is subject to change at any time. No minimum balance required. Fees may reduce earnings on the account. For full terms and conditions, see laurelroad.com savings. Laurel Road is a brand of key bank member FDIC.

[OG]

And here he comes down the stairs. Have a seat, man. Anthony O'Neal is here. How are you man?

[Guest]

Oh man, I'm doing so good, Joe. How about yourself, brother?

[OG]

I am doing really well. Happy New Year to you. You obviously are a guy who's very goal oriented. You're very intentional about what you do. What are your goals for 2025 look like, man?

[Guest]

My main goal this year is I am actually back in school to get my executive MBA in church, economics and management. And so my main goal this year is to finish that. I will be done December 16th of this year. So I will have my bachelor's and I will have my Master's. I'm really excited about that because, you know, I started out, if anyone remembers my story from the very beginning, I started out as a college dropout making some bad decisions. And so now that I have my MBA throughout this year as well, I will have the opportunity to be an adjunct professor teaching freshmen and sophomores financial management. I'll be teaching them how to budget, how to save, how to invest, how to stack them Benjamins like you. And so, I mean I'm really, really excited about that. But that's really the main goal for this year is of course, keep the company going, get this book out there to help a lot of people. But the thing I'm most excited about is just really completing My degree because, let's be honest, I don't have. I didn't have a degree. So then now a lot of people could discredit my thoughts when it comes to money because I didn't have the formal education. But now all they can do is just disagree, but they can never discredit me because I put in the work, not only practically, but I also had the education, me. So I'm really excited about that. Then to add that I'll be an adjunct professor behind my, my credibility. I just think that's going to be amazing, man. So I'm really excited about that, Joe.

[OG]

A professor like, you're going to be bald by like me when it's all over. Anthony, I don't. I don't know that you want.

[Guest]

I'm starting to get a little bit of gray hair, man, you know, right here in the middle patch. I know if you people can see me, but it's starting to get there. But, man, I hope I don't go bad.

[OG]

Well, a professor with gray hair, by the way, too. I mean, that's good. That means logic. You're in charge. Gray's not bad. I remember that when I was first started off as a financial planner, I had this baby face where people would always disguise their question around how old am I to. So how long you been doing this? Because I think I look like I was 13 when I started at age 27. Yeah, but I didn't know this. I remember your story from last time. We'll link to the first time that you were here a few years ago. But what I don't remember was I never knew you were homeless. I don't think I ever knew you were homeless. Like, how did that happen?

[Guest]

Well, you know, it was honestly right around school. So I had made some real bad, bad decisions when I first went to school. I had my father's GI Bill and I had a partial scholarship from the National Forensics League and just really made some bad decisions in school. And I come from a very strong Christian faith home. And so once you make a decision out there at a grown age, my parents like, well, hey, since you think you're all that, you got everything situated, then you go do that and you go live on your own. And man, I made some poor decisions. So my family didn't allow me to come back home. Well, technically, my father's. My mother's was all like, yo, come home, come home. But my dad's was like, yeah, nah, man. Since you think you're a grown man, go live that and so my family thought I was living with my girlfriend at the time. Well, they didn't know that me and my girlfriend had broke up. Cause she went back to another man, which was. That's a whole nother story.

[OG]

Oh, man.

[Guest]

And so everyone's thinking, I'm taken care of. But the truth of the fact was, no, I was homeless for a short period of my time. I'm not gonna sit here and. And act like it was for a long period of time. It wasn't that long. It was a couple of months. Few months. I was taking showers at the Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA during the week, freshening up in the cars during the weekend, and just trying to make life happen, man. But I tell this to everyone. It's probably one of the worst seasons of my life, but probably also one of the best seasons of my life. That really helped develop me into the man who I am today. I'm grateful for that season. I'm grateful that I got out of that season. Because during that season, Joe, man, I. I thought about completing suicide. I thought about questioning my relationship with God. Like, how can God put me here? Homeless man. I questioned all these things and I realized that it wasn't God. It wasn't my parents. It wasn't even my friends who I was trying to impress. It was me. I made those bad decisions. I wasn't taking control of my life. I wasn't sitting at the head of my own table. I was allowing others to tell me what to do, tell me how to do things and why I should do things, rather than taking the seat at the reign of my own life and determining my own path, technically, the path that God put out for me. So.

[OG]

Well, talk about seat at the table, Anthony. I mean, you would have given anything, I think, just for a table. I mean, you've got people, people telling you whether you can eat or not. Because if somebody gives you the handout that you need to make it to the next meal, then you're fine. If they don't, then you don't. I mean, you're. You're so not in charge. I gotta imagine in that situation.

[Guest]

No, totally agree. When you are, take it off of me and put on everyone.

[OG]

Sure.

[Guest]

When you are at the place of everyone tells you what to do, everyone tells you what time you need to be to work, what time you can get off, what time you can go to lunch, how to pay your bills, if you can go to your kids game, the food you can eat. Like if you're in that place of life. To where it's like, man, I can't decide if I want to work there. No, I have to work there because I have to pay back all these bills. I can't decide if I want to go to. To my kids game because I have to go pay these bills. So I got to choose between the two. I want to pay the bills or do I want to be a great mom and a supportive dad? No, I got to go pay the bills. Because if I don't pay the bills, then my kids won't have nowhere to go play and less to eat. During my life at that time, man, I realized that, man, I'm not taking control of my life. I'm not doing it at all. And that's what I mean when I say, take a seat at your table. The table is a metaphor for your life. Take a seat and take control of your life. No one should dictate what you're doing, how you're doing, when you're doing it, and whom you're doing it with. That should be solely between you and if you're a Christian like myself, God.

[OG]

You say that we all have the ability to get there, and yet most of us are poor stewards for our life. I think that's a direct quote, that we're poor. How are we poor? Why are we. Well, I wouldn't even say, how are we poor stewards, because you and I and all of our stackers, we know we're poor stewards. Why are we so bad? We all know if I get up and I do something with 20, 25, I can make it happen.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[OG]

And yet, and we know we want to be at the head of our own table. Why are we such poor stewards of our time?

[Guest]

Let me tell you why. It goes back to the very first question, what you said, because me and you, we know what stewardship is. But I believe that a lot of people do not understand the meaning of stewardship. And stewardship simply means it's not yours. You're just called to manage it well. And as a Christian, I firmly believe that this life is not mine. I'm just called to manage this opportunity in this season that I have on this earth. Well, so we can't steward something if we don't know what stewardship actually means.

[OG]

Boy, once we have your definition, not to cut you off. Once we have your definition, I feel like then we realize we've been given this gift and this responsibility.

[Guest]

Responsibility. So everything that God has put on inside of you with your podcast, like you're helping Thousands of people really get right with their Benjamins. What if you were to say, you know what? I'm gonna go get a job and just work a job and not do the podcast, not be a financial planner, but I'm gonna go out here and just work in a call center just so I can pay bills. Well, that's. That's you not being a good steward of your life because God fearfully, wonderfully made you to help people like myself, to help people who are listening. And so everyone has to understand that you were created for a purpose. There is a purpose. There's an assignment. There is something for you to do. And if you don't take the seat at the head of your life and understand that, then you're never going to reach your full potential. Now watch this. I'm not saying that if you're working a job, you're not taking control of your life. No, what I'm saying is if God has called you to that job, you need to be there. Because if he called you to work a 9 to 5, if he called you to be the vice president, if he called you to be the supervisor and you're trying to be the CEO, you're not being a good steward of your life and you're not going to really hit your full potential. So it's really about stepping back and understanding what is my assignment, what is my purpose? What is my being? Where am I supposed to be? And be there and watch how things open for you. Me and you both talk about wealth building. And the reason why I came out my first book out of my own, when they go take a seat at the table is because I could teach the principles of how to get out of debt. I could teach you how to invest. You could do that. Well, but if me you're being honest. I can teach you the steps, but if I don't help you see things differently, mentally, spiritually, and practically from your life in general, you're never going to succeed where you need to be financially. Because if I can help you get more money, but then you owe all this debt, it's just coming one end and it's coming out the other end, but it's not being fruitful in your life.

[OG]

You're serving a Citibank and not yourself.

[Guest]

That's it. I mean, that's. And think about it. Nearly 80% of us are serving Citibanks. We're serving bank of America. And I'm not knocking those banks because we all need checking accounts, savings accounts, and access to funding to get homes, right? But here's the thing. You should not work Monday through Friday. Get up every single day, get your kids ready for school, drop them off at the bus station, stand in that long line, man, I had to take my nephew to school the other day, and I got there late. So I stood in line for an hour just to take my nephew to school. Then I had to pick him up, and no one told me, hey, bro, you might want to go ahead and get there like 30 minutes early to get in line, because if you don't, you will be there for an hour, hour and a half picking up your kid. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What? Wait, say what? And so you're doing all this to get your kids picked up, to get your kids dialed in. You're working a job that half of the people really don't want to work. You're dealing with people you're really don't want to deal with. Why in the world are you dealing with all of that? For someone else to tell you what to do with your life for someone else? Take all of the fruit of your labor, and then you get the leftovers. So they're getting a steak, they're getting the macaroni and cheese, they're getting the potato salad, they're getting the collard greens. And then you get the leftovers of whatever they didn't want or whatever they couldn't take at that time. And it should be the opposite way around. If I'm taking the seat at the head of my life, man, I'm getting a steak, I'm getting the macaroni and cheese. And you know what? Bank of America, I owe you a little bit of potato salad. Here go your potato salad. But I'm getting that. My family's getting that. My legacy is getting that. But I still got to pay bills. I still got to go to work. Like, my job is not going to get the most of my time of my life. My family will get the most of my time in my life. And so I think that's when we could take the seat at the head and understand, yo, this is my life. And I say this, and you got to cut me off, man, because I'm a black preacher. You know this black preacher. So cut me off whenever you need to. This is yourself. But it's like, I remember this man, my young lady friend, her and I went to lunch, and her husband was supposed to meet us, but she sat down, and she sat down, was at Starbucks, and she said, hey, yo, my boss Just told me what I need to do. I was like, why would he tell you? She was like, well, he told me that I need to go. I need to be this by this time next year. I need to be this by this time next year. And within seven years, I could be in a position to be an executive VP of the company. I was like, okay, that's what's up. She said, yeah. But then he also said, if I want to go there, I'll be making about 150 to $200,000 a year. I also can't have any kids. And so I leaned back in my chair and I said, so did he ask you what did you want? She was like, no. I said, well, do y'all want kids? She said, yeah, my husband's saying he would like to start having kids about a year, year and a half. And so let me get this straight. Your job never asks you, hey, how can we best partner together? How can this be a win win on both sides? But instead they told you, this is what we need from you, and we don't care about your life and your desires? And she was like, I didn't think about that. I said, yeah. I said, no, darling, you're not sitting at the side of your life. You're not on the sidelines of your life. No, you are sitting at the head of your life. You're the vip, you're the head coach. You make the decisions. And so if you want kids within the next two years, you need to tell them, hey, we're going to have kids in the next two years. I'm going to work my butt off. I'm going to be a great team member here. But you're not going to tell me what to do with my life to benefit you at the cost of my pain. No, no, no, no, no. And so make a long story short, man, she said, you're right. She stood up and she took back reign of her life, and they had a baby a year and a half later. And because the company was trying to talk her out of it, she quit the job and started her own business on the side.

[OG]

Fantastic. You know what I like best about that? I feel, and this is great, that it's the start of a new year. Anthony, when people are really thinking about this stuff is the fact that I feel like we're always waiting for our boss to train us better. We're always waiting for our boss to tell us, like, at first. But hearing that story at the beginning, as you know, most of our stackers thought, wow, What a gift. He's telling us exactly what we got to do to reach the top. But why are we letting that person sit at the head of our table? Why are we doing that? I never understand why somebody, like, nobody wakes up every day and goes, I want to suck at work tomorrow, but how often do we go to the library or do we go to libraries anymore? Do we go to the library? Do we look up on our phone? Do we look up anywhere? Like, how can I be better at this role that I'm at so I can give it the best that I can and be the best. Not employee for you or for anybody else, but for me? Like, why? You know, the. It just drives me crazy. Why we don't create our own curriculum. Speaking about going to school, why we don't create our own curriculum to get there drives me crazy. I do have a question.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[OG]

Which is. So right now, for her, there's somebody else. You know, this guy was sitting at the head of her table. In all of our lives, if we're sitting here driving down the road, listening to you, me, they're like, oh, well, so. And so I gotta. How. How do you move the people that are at the head of your table now out of there? Because obviously, you know, maybe I got to make waves, but if I can do this, I'm thinking of Sun Tzu. The best battle is the one that's never fought, right? What is the way to get to the head of my table and remove the people that are there now?

[Guest]

You know, Joe, this is a good question, man. I think for me, I recently had to do this. And honestly, I did this in December. Coming into 2025, we got to sit down and we got to have a clear, written, detailed vision on where we're going. So for an example, I know in 2025, as a single man who is dating, right. I know in 2025, I clearly have.

[OG]

Never dropped kids off at school before.

[Guest]

Never. You know, Never. Never. Never. I know for a fact that this year is going to be a crucial year for me because I'm back in school. I'm in school. We're in evening classes on Mondays and I think Thursdays for this particular semester, I'm running a business as far as. And I got to record two days a week. I'm launching a book and then writing my next book that will come out next year. That's going to be my money book right now, since I lay down a foundation and take your seat at the head of your table now. I'm talking about money coming out in October 2026. Hopefully I can get invited back on and talk about that book.

[OG]

I don't know, man. It's a minute by minute.

[Guest]

And so for me, I wrote the Vision. This is what I'm focused on throughout the year 2025. Watch this. I identify people who do not align with that. Even as a man who was dating my single world, I'm like, hey, listen, this is the vision of where I'm going. And if you can align with this vision, if you're going to complain that I'm in school, if you're going to complain that I'm working, if you can't handle being on my team member knowing, like, hey, I need you to step up a little bit, then I got to remove you from my table for this season of my life. Because I only need people who align with my vision. And watch this. My vision aligns with theirs. It is a win, win situation. And so it's never me saying, hey, you know what, John? I can't work with you no more. I don't like you no more. No, it is. The vision is saying, this person has to go. And the vision is saying, we need this person at the table. I am back in school. I need people who've been to school before back at my on my table, helping me learn how to read better, study better, write better, think better. Right? I need people at my table who can honestly help my business run without me always doing it. I need a woman at my table who can understand that. Hey, I may not be able to give you a lot of time for this particular year, but if you ride this wave with me, it's going to be fruitful for you, especially after I graduate, because now look at it. I'm more educated. I have to have more experience. It's going to create more opportunities, more opportunities to create more funding and more resources, financial resources for this family. And so what I tell people is, you cannot make a clear decision who needs to be in your life, who needs to be out of your life without you knowing exactly where you're going. Because then what happens is you're making that decision based on, do I like her or him or are they cool? No, no, no. It needs to be, are we aligned? And when we are aligned, the vision itself will say, bring them or let them go.

[OG]

You talk about other people at the table as well. I know that mentoring now is hard. Everybody is. And by mentoring, I don't mean well, I mean both. I mean, heck, mentoring somebody's hard, but Getting a mentor's attention is difficult in this age where we've all got 5 million things that we're doing every single day. I feel like, how do you get those people at your table to actually be your, you know, knights of the round table, man?

[Guest]

You know, I think for me. And you're talking about specifically, like, mentors or just people in general?

[OG]

Well, I'm talking about. Well, I think. I think if somebody's gonna be at your table anyway, there's gotta be a little bit of a mentor aspect to that, isn't it? Or. Or am I reading this wrong?

[Guest]

No, absolutely. I believe that there has to be three particular types of people at your table is gonna help you mentor. One is gonna be a spiritual mentor. One's gonna be an accountability partner, actually, for a therapist. And also, watch this. An emotional coach. Now, here's what I talk about. Mentorship. You're a mentor. I'm a mentor. But people listen to our podcast. So we can't sit at everyone's table, but we can have a presence at the table by simply listening to our podcast, reading our books, consuming our content, because we're coming from a genuine and a heartfelt perspective. And so for me, I have several mentors that do not have a physical seat at my table because I don't have direct relation with them. But I do listen to their stuff. I do read their books. I have mentors who are in their 90s who can't even talk no more. But I'm consuming and reading their books because I'm constantly growing. But now when we talk about this from a practical standpoint, you do need to have a spiritual mentor at your table. In my personal opinion, you do need to have a mentor who's been successful in some aspect of your life. And if you can do that, this may be a pastor. This could be a someone from your local church, from your local community. You can say, hey, listen, I'm trying to do xyz. I need someone to guide me through this and hold me accountable. But then you've got to get a therapist, and you got to get emotional coach. Those are two things you can get today. You can Google that. But everybody needs a therapist. Everybody needs an emotional coach, in my personal opinion, because I do not believe you can truly grow wealth. Now. You can be rich, but if your mind is not healthy, you can't sustain.

[OG]

Well, how many people have we known that have violated that? They're like, no. And we all know them. You look and you're like, oh, I know this person's. Wealthy and miserable.

[Guest]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I know a lot of people. I know a lot of people because I would say they're rich and miserable. I haven't met a lot of people who are wealthy and miserable because wealth to me is so much more than money. Wealth is man. Peace, joy, abundance, happiness, Money. Right? Rich is. I just got a lot of money, but I don't have peace. I just got a lot of money. But I don't really have a family that I'm excited about. So for me, I don't know a lot of people who are wealthy and miserable, but I do know a lot of people who are rich and miserable. But what I've learned with the wealthy people is one, they take a seat at the head of their own life. Two, they have the right therapist around them that's constantly helping them, you know, medicine their head and their process and thinking. Three, watch this. Wealthy people have the right partner in their life as a single person. On the opposite side of the table, as a metaphor, there's an empty seat that will always be there that my wife will take reign over. And together we will partner together to build something of substantial. But every wealthy person that I've met, man, their partner, them and their partner are alive. And it is absolutely refreshing and amazing, and I can't wait to be there.

[OG]

I feel like then once you have that partner, the very next thing would be like a family mission statement. I feel like this is kind of built in. Anthony.

[Guest]

No, absolutely. One of the things that I'll be talking about, I'll talk a little bit about in this book as far as in family members, in my next book next year, I'm really talking about the importance of family meetings. Family, I call those family board meetings. But every wealthy person that I've seen, and I'm pretty sure you see this in the financial planning world, is that wealthy families, they have family meetings and watch this. The family meetings are not just, hey, to let you know what happens after someone dies. No, they take advantage of all the skills, resources and tools that is inside their family today. And how do we build our wealth more today while we're living? And yes, how do we position that to be in great use after we're gone, but how can we maximize the time that we have right now? And I think that's important. And I can't wait to have kids. At 2 years old, they're going to understand family meetings. At 3 years old, they're going to understand money and they're going to see Things that they may not be able to comprehend, but by the time they turn 18. Oh, that's what dad and mom was doing at the table. Oh, that's what we were doing when we was doing that. I'm teaching them before they can even start walking that you're going to take a seat at the head of your table. And that yes, I'm your mom and dad and it's not my job to take the seat at the head of your table. It is my job to train you in the way you should sit at the head of your table for your life moving forward. So, man, I get excited about this message, man.

[OG]

Yeah, I wish you had some passion. If you had some passion, you'd be the whole package. I thought you were going to say that by age 7 they would know how to drive so that you don't have to take them to school and wait in that line.

[Guest]

Hey man, listen, we gonna have somebody because I mean that's standing outline. They told me, hey, these big school at 8:00. So I leave my house at 7:45.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Guest]

And that's not the case. And then I didn't know if they're not there on time, you got to go in and check them in. And I'm like, yes, no, I was here, but I had 150 car.

[OG]

While the judgmental mom with nothing better to do.

[Guest]

Right.

[OG]

Point in the world, point at you, you horrible human being.

[Guest]

But here's what I saw that and then they told me after, they said, well, if you know you're going to be late, what you want to do is just find somewhere to park and just walk them up and walk back. It's just.

[OG]

Or run or run, run.

[Guest]

But I was like, yeah, but you do know it's 40 degrees outside, so who's, who wants to walk in 40 degrees? It's a learning experience. But you know what? I look, I look forward to those days, believe it or not, man. Like I really do look forward to those days.

[OG]

It was so fun. I miss them so much. My kids are almost 30. I don't miss being a financial planner. I love being able to talk to lots of people and mentor them about their financial planning, which is why I love this project so much. Taking control at the start of 2025, thinking about what do I want? Not what does the boss want, what does everybody else want, but what do I want? Not from 2025, just from my life. Your new project on this is called take your seat at the table. It is available tomorrow Live an authentic Life of Abundance, Wellness and freedom. And I gotta assume, Anthony, it's available everywhere.

[Guest]

It is available everywhere. All your bookstores, man, we've sold thousands of pre sale copies. And man, Joe, what we're doing, if they purchase this book with your link, we're going to give them $2,000 worth of extra bonuses even out tomorrow. So we're going to give them a free study guide if they get it through your link. So it comes with a study guide so they can really write through with their spouse, with their partner, accountability partner. We're going to give them some free courses to help them start out 2025. Well, so it's going to be absolutely amazing and I'm excited about it, but they got to click your link to get it so that we can know that they came from your site.

[OG]

Deal. We will have the link a little later in the show. Anthony O'Neill, good to see you again, man.

[Guest]

Hey, thank you, man, so much for having me.

[OG]

Happy New Year.

[Guest]

Happy New Year to you too.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and today is a huge day in world history. Why you ask? Well, it's the anniversary of the first time an ejection seat was used in an aircraft. Naturally, I thought today would be a great day to test one right here in Joe's mom's basement. But she quickly shot that idea down, muttering something about messing up her ceiling and insurance not covering Doug related disasters. That lady's a buzzkill. So instead of injecting myself into podcasting history, let's focus on another historic figure who could be considered the spiritual mentor of this show. Horatio Alger. I know you saw that coming, right? Born on this day, Alger wrote those rags to riches novels about Americans pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and as I always thought, getting into a healthy amount of credit card debt. Wait, what? Joe, I'm recording. Oh, that's not what he emphasized.

[Guest]

And.

[Doug]

All right, okay, fine, my bad. Anyway, speaking of pulling yourself up and standing out, another American icon launched into pop culture this week back in 1974, the Fonz. You know, leather jacket, slicked back, hair too cool for school. He was the king of clashing hilariously with older folks. And definitely didn't need Horatio Alger's advice. He had his own motorcycle after all. So here's the question, on what Benjamin Stacking super popular TV show, did the Fonz make his debut? I'll be back with your answer right after I see if Joe's mom will let me use the ejection seat to get out of doing her grocery run. Fingers crossed.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[OG]

Many of you may remember that mipro founder Angelo Poli is on our show a ton and the reason we have Angelo back is because he is such an expert on the science of diet and exercise. You may know or you may not know that a few years ago when I asked about metpro, they agreed to furnish me with a coach for a while named Jesse. And to this day I still work with Jesse because diet and exercise are such an important part of my regime and they should be, frankly of years too. In 2025 you want to achieve big things. You need some big health to go with that fat wallet that we're trying to help you create. The team at metpro has just helped me. They've helped thousands of individuals help perform their bodies by hacking their metabolism. If you're looking for a high touch experience working with a metabolic expert or you want access to the tools their industry leading coaches use, visit MetPro Co SB. You get a complimentary assessment like I had and then speak to their team to learn which option is best for you. Here's what I like Whenever I'm eating stuff that shouldn't go in my mouth, whenever I'm avoiding working out, which is something that I aspire to always do, I think of Jesse and I think about I don't want to let myself down and Jesse's going to hold me accountable. We all need accountability coaches in our corner, but even better, Jesse's not just holding me accountable, she's holding me accountable to a more scientific approach. And if you haven't heard Angela Poly on our show, not only should you sign up for the assessment with MetPro, but you should also go back and listen because you'll hear the science. One of my favorite Angelo Poly lines Everything works until it doesn't. All those fad diets work until they don't. And when they don't, the boomerang effect is pretty horrible. So to take advantage of this opportunity to get a complimentary assessment from MetPro go to MetPro co. It's not dot com, it's dot co MetPro co SB. And you're going to get a complimentary metabolic profiling assessment. A one on one consultation with a Met pro coach like my coach Jesse, to help you achieve your goals this year. Course results may vary. MetPro is not a medical organization. The service is not intended to treat any illness, disease or adverse medical condition.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds.

[OG]

Recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to.

[Doug]

Raise prices due to inflation.

[OG]

They said yes.

[Doug]

And then when I asked if raising.

[OG]

Prices technically violates those onerous two year.

[Doug]

Contracts, they said, what the are you talking about?

[OG]

You insane Hollywood. So to recap, we're cutting the price.

[Doug]

Of mint unlimited from $30 a month.

[Anthony O'Neal]

To just $15 a month.

[Doug]

Give it a [e-mail] switch.

[OG]

$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees. Extra Speed slower above 40GB. Details.

[Doug]

Hey there stackers. I'm guy with the exit plan and slicked back hair admirer, Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. All right, it's time for the big reveal. The Fonzie made his debut on a show that didn't just capture hearts, it captured wallets. This series was a money making machine dominating the ratings and stacking enough Benjamins to make even Horatio Alger a little jealous. Merchandise check spinoffs. Oh, we're talking Laverne and Shirley Mork and Mindy, and even the Blink and you'll miss it. Joanie loves Chachi.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Awesome.

[Doug]

They turned nostalgia for the 1950s into a full blown empire. And yet, let's not forget this show taught us some valuable lessons. Like confidence can fix anything, even a jukebox. And that leather jackets are apparently recession proof investments. That's what I keep telling myself. Meanwhile, I was down here trying to channel my inner Fonz with Joe's mom's hot water heater. Spoiler alert. These things don't fix themselves with a cool A and a well placed smack. Oh, and speaking of fixing things, I'm still holding out hope for that ejector seat test. Sure, Joe's mom isn't thrilled about me turning her ceiling into a launch pad, but I say, what's the basement for if not groundbreaking experiments? Literally, in this case, groundbreaking. Am I right? I mean, come on. Anyway, back to business. So what was the name of this Benjamin Stacking spin off spawning motorcycle Motorcycle riding Fonz fueled show. Happy days. Hey. And now I think I nailed it.

[OG]

Over. Did a little.

[Doug]

Hey. And now two guys ejecting money tips at the speed of sound. Joe and Og.

[OG]

You gotta try that at the Sizzler and scare the wait staff with that.

[Doug]

Hey, what I want to do is my jukebox fix on Todd's forehead.

[OG]

Can you believe that? That was Henry Winkler all those years ago.

[Doug]

And Henry, reverse mortgage. Is he a reverse mortgage guy?

[OG]

He is a reverse mortgage guy.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

I loved him on Bernie Arrested Development. Like all the things that he's. That guy. Just an amazing actor.

[Doug]

He's a really good comedic actor. He's. Yeah, he's been a bunch of other things, too.

[OG]

I've heard from people that know him, too. I actually know people who know him. And talk about just what a wonderful. Yeah, I know people who know people.

[Doug]

I can get to the Fonz if I need to.

[OG]

I don't think I can. We actually tried once last year and they're like, yeah, I don't think I can do that for you. But. But it would be fun to have Henry Winkler on the show at some point. If you know Henry Winkler stackers, tell them that we said hi and we're big fans. We'd love to talk to him. But, Doug, I know when you talk about merchandise. Happy Days lunchbox.

[Doug]

Like, I was.

[OG]

I was super young back then, but I think everybody had a Happy Days.

[Doug]

Lunchbox or wanted one like me. Coveted the Happy Days lunchbox. Couldn't get parents to pull the trigger.

[OG]

Oh, so, so sad being born into the wrong family. That's. I mean, some people have first world problems. That's a real problem in America, right?

[Doug]

Practically destitute. Had the hand me down monkeys lunchbox for my older brother. The thermos was broken. Sucked.

[OG]

Let's talk about a headline.

[Guest]

Hello, darlings. And now it's time for your favorite.

[OG]

Part of the show.

[Guest]

Our stacking Benjamin's headlines.

[OG]

Our headline comes to us from Business Insider. And oh, gee, we've got some predictions here for 2025. Bill Gates, Sam Altman, other tech leaders share their predictions for 2025. Technology. If you think during our entire life, becoming more and more just integrated into what we do every day, and I think it's even becoming more and more integrated into our money situation, especially when it comes to earning money. I remember we were talking to downtown Josh Brown from CNBC last year, and he was talking about, you know, the robots. Everybody's worried that the robots are coming for our jobs.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Robots are coming.

[OG]

Yeah. So I clicked this, wondering if that is going to be the case, according to Gates and Altman, and here's what they came up with. OG AI significant impact on workforce and tech use will continue in 2025. That doesn't surprise anybody. Shifts in work dynamics, including the introduction of AI agents, could be on the horizon. Now. I'm sure there's some people that work in the tech world that have heard about AI agents a ton. I'm not one of those people. I may have seen it in passing a few times. Doug, I know that you were in the tech field. Have you heard that term often? AI agents?

[Doug]

Yeah, absolutely. AI agents.

[OG]

Of course. Sam. Glad you define that.

[Doug]

You just asked me if I'd heard of them. Yes, I was in the tech field. Yes, I've heard of AI agents.

[OG]

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, of course, people who don't know OpenAI, they're the company that runs ChatGPT, said in a blog post that AI agents could join the workforce this year and quote, OG materially change the output of companies. Since generative AI became a more mainstream concept, concerns about job security have risen among workers. Agentic AI, which requires gen AI to work, is the technology that AI companies say could work alongside their employees as digital co workers. So it could be on the podcast year OG you dug me and a couple digital co workers working side by side with us in the future. How about that? The future is now.

[Anthony O'Neal]

That would be great for me. And then I can take Mondays off.

[Doug]

You're already working as a consumer. You're already probably working with AI agents, but just not vocally. It takes generative AI to be more convincing and create that human voice interaction that you might get if you called in on the phone. But anytime you try to do a chat for customer support, you know, pick a big company, they're going to start you out on an AI agent first. And then if it, you know, if they can't answer your question, then you can sort of just like you would on the phone, screaming into the phone.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Representative Rep. Rep 0.

[Doug]

You do that in chat. But yeah, it's coming vocally.

[OG]

I think this is important headline today though, because with Anthony O'Neill talking about taking control, I mean, I think part of OG taking control yourself is looking at what could be coming in my industry, what could be changing about my life, whether I wanted to. You know, there was a really seminal book back in the, what, late 1990s, early 2000s, who moved my cheese, where the cheese is moving. Not just the start of the year, the cheese been moving, whether it turns 20, 25 or not. You just got to acknowledge that the cheese is moving. And what do I need to do to keep pace?

[Anthony O'Neal]

Well, I think the reality is. Sounds really silly to say, but the only constant is that change. And I think what's really interesting is the rate of change. I was reading an article, and it was Gen Xer who was basically lamenting the fact that he felt since he was not keeping up with AI, he was losing ground. He's like, this is what I felt like in college when my friends were talking about Bluetooth and Google, and I was like, wait, what's Google and Bluetooth? What are these things? And he's like, it took me too long to kind of latch onto that. And now I feel like AI is this next thing that I'm 50 and I feel like I'm behind already. And to Doug's point, you're probably not behind. It's being used in applications you're maybe not even aware of. I think the bigger issue is the nefarious uses of it. And for people that are not thinking about how this could be used for bad things. We had that Notebook LM thing a couple of weeks or months ago. We talked about it. That you could take a book and turn it into a podcast, and it sounds like real people, and there's enough content for Joe, for you, or for me, or for Doug, that somebody somewhere could very easily take our personalities and turn it into something nefarious. And not having a way to protect that, I think is. That's the concern that I have about technology.

[OG]

Well, we just had the Golden Globes a couple weeks ago, and a movie that was mentioned around the Golden Globes, I don't recall if it actually won award, was Thelma, which is a story about an older woman who has her identity stolen. And, oh, gee, the chance of. Of not just older Americans, but anybody getting their identity stolen is. Is. It's. It's becoming easier than ever, I think with all the tools.

[Anthony O'Neal]

We all know somebody who's had some financial fraud due to technology or due to identity theft or whatever.

[OG]

Let's talk about this role of fear, though. You know, fear that something nefarious is happening to us, or fear that I'm not keeping up with AI, that I. That I don't know enough, and maybe my job is in jeopardy in a financial plan. Part of your financial plan is risk management. And I think to some degree, OG it can clearly be an insidious and be harmful to you, but I think there is a healthy amount of fear. Don't you think where being a little bit afraid that maybe I'm behind about AI, maybe I need to know a little more. That's not a bad fear. And acting on that fear to get, quote, caught up when I don't think you're truly that far behind right now is a wonderful thing to feel.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Yeah, I mean, I guess ultimately anything that moves in the moves you positively in a good direction is probably a good thing. Tension is a good thing until it's not. There's productive tension. Doug disagrees with that, but there's productive tension. And it's like when you're just fat enough that you need to go to the gym, but not too fat to recognize that it's going to really hurt when you go to the gym, you know, just to force you to not go to the gym.

[Doug]

No, I don't. I don't disagree with it. I think that whenever I hear that phrase in all of its many forms, X is great until it's not. It just feels trite to me because the problem is we don't see the it's not until it's not until it's too late. So the goal is figure it out just before that point, or, you know, even before that, so that you don't. We're like, holy crap, what happened? How did I get this fat? That's. I just don't love that phrase. But, I mean, the notion behind it is fine.

[Anthony O'Neal]

I mean, when it comes to technology, the best thing that you can do is just play around with it. OpenAI is free for some uses. Copilot is free for some uses. Like, there's no. There's no harm in messing around with it. Although I will tell you the other day that I saw this thing that was going on on Reddit about ChatGPT and, you know, super confident, and it's also confident in being incorrect. And it was a math problem that was like, super easy. And it was. It was 1,000% confident, but it was 1,000% wrong. And it even explained why it was wrong and then still got the wrong answer. And I can't remember what it was. It was something like, is 3, 8 bigger than 5 16? And it was like, no, 16 is bigger than 8, therefore 516 is bigger than 3 eighths.

[Doug]

The old quarter pounder. Third of a pounder.

[Anthony O'Neal]

This is a fraction. This is. A third grader would be able to calculate this to, like, figure it out and simplify this to. To see which one is better.

[OG]

Well, and I think that should give us all confidence, right? I mean, you're not too far behind right now. When you see the AI is very confidently messing stuff up, you're not too far behind. Just get on a normal person.

[Anthony O'Neal]

It's like a normal person just very confidently messing things up.

[OG]

I love what Sam Altman at OpenAI says. His quote is, we continue to believe that iteratively putting great tools in the hands of people leads to great broadly distributed outcomes. I love this because I know so many people, OG that are afraid for their jobs. They're afraid that the worst is coming. And when you think about it as a tool, right then you're doing exactly what Anthony O'Neal said today. I'm in charge. I'm at the head of my table. And guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to use these AI tools to get ahead faster. Josh Brown said it on the show. He said the key to not being afraid of the robot is to own the robot. And even if you don't have the money to go buy yourself a robot robot or, or buy some chat GPT, I think owning the robot is a confidence thing. I own it because I know that it's not going to be right all the time. I own it because I know where I want to plug it in to help myself either be more productive, get more time off, whatever it might be. I can, quote, own it because I own my time. The same way that Anthony O'Neal says, we just need to own our destiny. This year this piece also says will also reveal whether one of Bill Gates longtime predictions will come to fruition. I think this is another big point, guys. Gates has set up many occasions. Two thirds of all jobs in the US will require some form of education beyond high school by 2025. He said that for a long time that's been his prediction.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Two thirds, Yeah.

[OG]

I don't know that 2025 is going to be the year, but I think if you don't hear that first and then go back to Alex Harmosi at the beginning of the year, OG and go, don't worry about a college diploma. Worry about creating and designing a curriculum that serves your life. That's where you're going to need to go. And that will be beyond high school. It's going to be, you know, whatever type of training serves you best.

[Anthony O'Neal]

But it doesn't have to be college.

[OG]

Doesn'T have to be. No.

[Anthony O'Neal]

I was thinking about this technology thing. The other was. Was somebody the other day, like all these tech companies have certification programs in their ecosphere, right? Like you can be Google Certified, Microsoft certified, whatever. And they will run these trainings and you graduate with, you know, after six months of like learning their system and they've got this workforce that they're building that's really productive with their thing. I'm sure it helps to have some sort of tech background or at least be able to understand it. But there's no requirement that you come in with a bachelor's degree, you know, in computer science to work at Google. If you want to go that direction, there's a path for that that doesn't include $100,000 of student loan debt.

[OG]

Well, my son is in, you know, does coding with Microsoft.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Yeah.

[OG]

And the first thing that they do is they give you a test to see if, you know, coding don't really care. Og to your point where you learned it, it's, it's really the value of how can you think, how can you get this done. Certainly the recruiter is going to be attached to the sheet of paper that says, hey, this university, show me the credentials. But we've heard lots of stories that point directly to what you're talking about. We're going to link more to this in our shownotes [e-mail] head there. And of course we've also got the 201 which comes out tomorrow. Stacky Benjamins.com 201 if you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, that is our newsletter comes out what's a week? It is free and even if you happen to miss the show and you want to come back later and catch up with us on the podcast every Tuesday, we'll deliver to your email address a free newsletter going over a bunch of curated links. The best of the Internet on the topics we talk about here on Stacking Benjamins and the rubric we talked about the, the kind of the method behind the madness you'll see on the 201. All right, that's going to mostly do it for today. Let's wander out to the back porch. Doug, what do we got today on the back porch of this here podcast?

[Doug]

A couple of things, Joe, but I think I want to start out with last time we talked about this, we discovered that we had a member of the Detroit Lions wide receiving corps who was giving us a five star of course. And apparently we are just. We're spreading like wildfire through the NFL because now we have a Bills defensive back. Oh, I mean the, the username is Bill sdb. I can only translate that to Bill's DB So it's, I'm, you know, I'm trying to track it down, but I think it might be Joe Andreessen, possibly Rasul Douglas. But here's what they say. I don't agree with everything that's suggested, but I love this show, exclamation point. A good mix of comedy and real life money strategies.

[OG]

Love that.

[Doug]

Yeah. You like it when people disagree with stuff we talk about.

[OG]

I just like it that we make you think. Right. I mean, our job is to bring up this stuff that we feel like is relevant. And what are you going to do with this? You know, what are you going to do with making more money? What are you going to do with being more frugal? What are you going to do with taking a seat at the table? How are you going to do that if we can make you think more about that, even if you disagree with our take? Wonderful. Love that.

[Doug]

Well, you know, in the, in the. Hopefully the positive outcome of the disagreement in the listener's own mind is. That's stupid. I'm not doing that. Here's what I'm gonna do. At least you've then made a plan for yourself and something that you can, you can follow. If it's makes you think that objectively about it, absolutely. It should have a positive outcome.

[OG]

No. And your point, Doug? It's not what you know, right? It's what you do. It is 100% what you do, not at all what you know. So love, love that. Thank you for that review, by the way. Feel free to email me with the stuff. People that know me know that I will bore you to tears talking about this stuff and Cheryl will be very happy. Oh, please, God, email Joe and talk to me about it so he doesn't talk to me about it so much. That would be great. It's awesome.

[Doug]

And you, you probably get more of what you want if you email than if you send the flaming review first. And, and here's my experience with that. This is not a joke. I got a Christmas gift from an Etsy, you know, from, from Mrs. Neighbor Doug. But she got it off Etsy and it was not a great product. In fact, it was a really bad product. I sent the person an email first saying before I leave a review, I thought I'd reach out to you and say, here's here are the things that I have issue with. And they immediately refunded the money 100% and then offered to send me a free new pair.

[OG]

Oh, that's cool.

[Doug]

Of these mittens. And I think, you know, that was more effective than just going out on Etsy and leaving a review saying how much these supposedly real sheepskin mittens, they were so far from being real.

[OG]

These real fake sheepskin.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah. Anyway, it's pretty effective to send the direct email with stuff you're not happy about. Joe, let's talk about where you're traveling soon.

[OG]

You guys want to come to Seattle with me? Why don't you guys come to Seattle?

[Anthony O'Neal]

No.

[Doug]

Wow.

[OG]

That was quick.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Actually, I think Doug and I are going to go skiing While you're in Seattle. Why don't you come skiing with us?

[OG]

Well, because we got a bunch of stackers in Seattle that wanted a bunch.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Of stackers that wanted to go skiing.

[OG]

Well, you guys have a skiing meetup wherever you're going to go skiing and I will have another meetup and we could be two different places.

[Doug]

We should do that.

[OG]

We'll announce where Doug and OG are going skiing and Thursday the 6th, I can tell you we're gonna have a stacking Benjamin's meetup. I don't know where it is yet. Tina and I are working on that right now. But block off your calendar stackers. If you're in the greater Seattle Tacoma area, we'd love to come down from Vancouver. Wherever you you're at in the area, come join us for maybe some of your favorite foamy beverage or non foamy beverage and some great, great geekery. February 8th, I'm going to do a peer at Retire Me an all day seminar. Man. Paul Merriman's going to be speaking there. Your friend Apollo. I want to say Apollo Creed, but that's not Apollo's last name.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Different guy.

[OG]

What's, what's Apollo's last name? OG Lepescu. Yeah, Apollo Lepescu from Dimensional Funds is going to be there. He's always. He's been on the podcast as well. Of course, our friends Don McDonald and Tom Cock, who are just most gracious host of the Talking Real Money show, put on that retirement.com to get your tickets. Put stacking Benjamin's in the little promo code. And Thomas assured me you'll even get a discount if there's seats left. I talked to him yesterday. They're selling quickly, but. And they, they sell out every year. But if you can come to retire me, like I've heard a couple of you already tell me that you're coming. Can't wait to see you either on Thursday or Saturday or both when I'm in Seattle. Last thing I had, Doug, was that the book club ship is Going to be sailing here fairly soon. What's the book club? It's where we go through my book Stacked, and we take it lesson by lesson with a small group of people. We got great, great, great reviews on the book club last year. Our first group to go through it. If you go to stackingbenjamins.com book club, you'll find out more there. If you'd like to work on understanding your money a lot better, more thoroughly following all the tenets of good financial planning and how it works, it's decking benjamin.com book club.

[Doug]

I know that's going really well and people have raved about it, but when you first started that, I heard a different letter when you said the book club ship. I'm like, why is he what? Why is he harshing on this? I think it's pretty cool. Like, people like it.

[OG]

That ship. It's a whole different thing. Well, thank you to everybody for lending us your ears today. We always want to make this well worth your time. And certainly I thought Anthony O'Neal brought it today, but, Doug, you've got the list, man. What were our big things that should be on our to do list now that we heard the Monday edition of the Stacking Benjamin show?

[Doug]

Well, Joe, first, take some Advice from Anthony O'Neal. Not sure about your to do list? If your priorities aren't listed, someone else's are dominating. Start with what you want and grab your seat at the head of your table. Second, technology's impact in your life. If you haven't already, 2025 is the year to study tech and figure out how you're going to control it so it doesn't control you. See what I did there? But the big lesson, if you're trying to create your own destiny, remember, the Fonz may have started with a leather jacket, but he never had to share a table with Joe's mom. She's now 100% convinced an ejection seat would be the perfect way to speed up dessert time at dinner. There goes a pie. Hey. I'm just gonna say hey whenever I can. It's like, it's the best exclamation point at the end of a sentence. Get ready, neighbor. Doug. 2025. Hey, thanks to Anthony O'Neill for joining us today. You'll find his new book Take your seat at the table wherever books are sold. You know what? I'll also include links in the show [e-mail] hey. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC. Copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Saul Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube, 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.

[OG]

SA Doug, we promised last week that we're going to talk movies and TV shows. I certainly have watched a couple things that I'd like to dive into, but let's do it, man. Oh, gee. Do you watch anything over the holidays? Anything good?

[Anthony O'Neal]

I'm almost through. The final episode of Landman is I think this weekend, so I'll finish that.

[OG]

But you love that series.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Love is a strong word.

[OG]

Well, this is one of the few series, though, that you've told me about. Three have I told you about Landman?

[Anthony O'Neal]

I just got a lot of good one liners. It's like Bad Santa but in West Texas. So if you liked Bad Santa in terms of all the one liners that Billy Bob Thornton has, then you might like this. There's some really stupid storylines. I started watching the Agency. So I'm on this Paramount plus kick because basically all the Taylor Sheridan stuff's on Paramount plus they give you two free episodes on YouTube TV and then you got a subscribe, but they had a special for $2.99 to subscribe for three months. So trying to get through all that. Agency has got a ton of actors in it. Richard Gere is one of the main guys. There's two other main people that both of you guys would recognize. I can't picture. I can picture him, but I can't. Michael Fassbender, I think I haven't seen.

[OG]

Him in something forever. What a great actor.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Anyways, I got through the first two episodes. The first episode is really setting the stage. It's a very slow, slow burn. And then the second episode starts.

[OG]

What happens? What's the plot line? What's going on?

[Anthony O'Neal]

It starts out with this guy who is. So it's about the CIA, About.

[OG]

Okay, so that's the Agency they're talking about. The CIA?

[Anthony O'Neal]

Yeah, the Agency is the CIA. They're in Europe and London. And it starts out with him being sent home from wherever he was in Africa. And he has a love interest at the very beginning where he. It's very clear that he's lying to the. To the agency about how that ended.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Anthony O'Neal]

And then just all this other stuff is spinning up, right. Where it's like, well, how did this guy get hauled into a jail? Oh, he's an operative now. We have to try to find him. It's not. It's not like a shoot him up type of show like. Like Lioness was. It's definitely more of a thinking one. It would be along the lines of, like, Slow Horses if that was kind of your jam. Like, it's just more cerebral of what's going on behind the scenes than it is.

[OG]

I still gotta dive into that. I've got such a backlog right now.

[Anthony O'Neal]

I didn't. I didn't like Slow Horses at all. Mostly because it was too slow. But in the second episode, there's a little bit of a gunfight where. Where some stuff is coming to a head. But anyway, so I'm watching that while you're in Paramount.

[OG]

Plus, make sure you watch the offer about the making of the Godfather. I really enjoyed that.

[Doug]

Oh, that's right. You talked about that quite a bit a while ago. I did want to see that.

[OG]

Yeah. It was very impressive. Doug, you've got a bunch that you were watching.

[Doug]

Well, when we weren't watching football, because it seems like every year football just, you know, goes onto every day of the week during the holidays. So there was a lot of football watching.

[OG]

And now for two weeks beyond the holidays.

[Doug]

Yeah. I mean, I'm not complaining, but it just ate into the. The time that we were watching other movies and shows. But we did squeeze in a few, one of which I went back and watched Sexy Beast from.

[OG]

From documentary About Me.

[Anthony O'Neal]

Oh, gee.

[Doug]

Okay. How did I not see that coming? I need more coffee. No, Sexy Beast is a. Like a British mob movie, British crime, which has its. It's like its own genre. Right. That whole British mafia. British. They have a similar tone to them, a similar pace. And this is not a Guy Ritchie movie, but it led Ben Kingsley to an Oscar nomination.

[OG]

Wow.

[Doug]

And he is terrifying in this movie. And he's not in every scene. He's in a lot of scenes, but he's not in every scene. But he just takes over the movie because he is. He is terrifying. And so. And it's. It's cool. It's like I said, a British crime movie has a little flavor. If you like Guy Ritchie stuff? Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels. Snatch.

[OG]

All those Guy Ritchie movies.

[Doug]

So good. So good. It has that with a little less humor to it. So we watched that. We watched. Speaking of Guy Ritchie, we watched the Gentleman, the movie.

[OG]

Oh, the movie.

[Doug]

Yeah. On this show. We talked about the show.

[OG]

TV show. Sure.

[Doug]

I love the limited series the Gentleman. Thought it was hilarious. That's a Guy Ritchie produced show. Sort of very similar to the Gentleman, but just goes in more depth. There's more. A lot more humor in it. And so I liked the show better than the movie, but I just felt like I needed to see the OG See what I did.

[OG]

I would agree with that because I saw the movie when it came out in the theater and I thought it was okay. I thought it was fine.

[Doug]

The show was better.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Here's one that people should run away from if they haven't already. Carry on.

[OG]

Run from.

[Doug]

Run away from carrying.

[OG]

Really?

[Doug]

Jason Bateman. Oh, my God.

[OG]

Everything I've seen about this is how good it is.

[Doug]

So bad.

[OG]

Dude, are you wrong about another series?

[Doug]

Doug, it's not a series, it's a movie.

[OG]

Oh, it's a movie.

[Doug]

Jason Bateman should have never been in this. And even if you and Terry and. No, not Terry and Taryn Taron Asher Egerton. Taryn Egerton. Taron Asher is a newscaster in Detroit. She would have been great in it too.

[OG]

But she could have improved this, right?

[Doug]

And. Yeah, probably, man. Yeah. Carry on. So, so bad. There's so many plot holes in it. It's. It's hilarious. Spent some time with Homestead Rescue. Got pulled into that more than I thought I would.

[OG]

Homestead Rescue sounds like a low budget computer game.

[Doug]

It's the same format as so many other reality shows, but there are people out there who are trying to go off the grid, trying to, you know, raise their own chickens and sheep and have solar power. And they're homesteaders. And this is a dad and his two kids, grown kids, you know, they're in their 20s or 30s, but who will come to your homestead and help you get stuff under control, figure out how do you, you know, get better shelter for your livestock. And it's surprisingly engaging, mostly because the dad is just a crazy character. But it is so funny how much.

[OG]

I love those types of shows. All the restaurant rescue shows, it's that.

[Doug]

It'S the same format.

[OG]

I love the hotel one with the bald guy.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

You know, saving our rescue. The Bar Rescue 1.

[Doug]

But here's a show we really are liking. The last one I'LL bring up today is that. That we're into quite a bit, and I would say it's not a 10 out of 10, but it's a solid for us. It's a solid eight out of 10. It's called the Madness on Netflix. It's a CNN contributor. He's a TV personality who gets framed for a very serious crime, and it's him trying to get himself unframed.

[OG]

Wait, documentary?

[Doug]

No, no, it's not a documentary. Did I say that?

[OG]

This is all fiction. Well, when you said it was a CNN contributor, I was like, oh, oh, that's his character. His character. Okay, I'm sorry.

[Doug]

And there's a lot of action in this. Oh, gee, you might like this. There's a lot of. There's a decent amount of action in the show there. People lose their lives. I know you enjoy that, like the harsh reality of the consequences of your decisions.

[OG]

Oh, geez. About to test out your ejector seat right. Right now.

[Doug]

But. But the madness is solid. It's, you know, the plot's pretty good. You know, there's. You've got to always some amount of belief in a lot of these shows, but it's exciting, it's well thought out. And the only actor that I recognize in it is, I think he shows up in, like, episode three. It's Bradley Whitford from, I think is his most. He was in West Wing and he was in. Oh, my gosh, what's the dystopian show? The Handmaid's Tale. He was in that, too.

[OG]

Wow. Well, we filled your cue stackers.

[Doug]

Yep.

[OG]

There you go. You're welcome.