When to Trust Your Gut and When to Trust the Math SB1795

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Stacking Benjamins Show

Episode: When to Trust Your Gut and When to Trust the Math (SB1795)
Date: January 26, 2026
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, Doug
Tone: Light, humorous, conversational, with practical and actionable finance insights

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Overview

Main Theme:
This episode explores the balance between intuition (trusting your gut) and using hard data (the math, AI, and software tools) in financial decision-making. The hosts discuss when following your gut serves you, when it can derail your goals—especially in investing—and how the most effective strategies blend both intuition and analysis. They also touch on maximizing Costco memberships and discuss new Social Security tools for advisors.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Kicking Off "Getting 1% Better Every Day" Week (04:27)

• The week's theme is personal development and continual improvement.
• Aim: Help listeners sharpen their critical thinking skills, particularly around financial decisions.

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2. Balancing Intuition and Data in Financial Decisions (07:55 – 32:59)

The Research

• Referenced a Fast Company piece (How to Balance Intuition and Strategic Thinking).
• Insight: Intuition and data are both needed—optimal results come from blending them, especially for those with domain expertise.

Gut Feelings vs. Math: When Each Leads Astray or Guides Well

• Joe: Intuition often strikes at odd times (e.g., thinking about investments over a tuna sandwich), which isn't always reliable.
• OG: “When would you intuitively want to be investing?...That’s not following the right way of doing things. You need to follow a system when you invest, and you have to have very standard rules.” [11:59]

Anecdotes on Being Swayed by Intuition

• Joe: Shared his personal failure investing in Africa based on emotion and anecdotes—a classic “gut over data” error.

  “There was zero data to prove it...But my intuition? Now’s the time. I’m on the front edge...Guess what happened? It intuitively went away.” [14:01]

Developing “Expert” Intuition

• Over time, seasoned investors find their gut reaction changes:

  “I know, like you now, when most people run from the stock market, my intuition is to run toward the stock market during those times of panic.” (Joe, 14:12)

• Intuition improves as you learn to recognize when your “system” is better than emotional reactions.

Early Investors: Fighting the Wrong Gut Feelings

• Doug: Many beginners “wait for their intuition to tell them to invest only once they have a lot saved up”—but it's better to get started small, which feels counterintuitive.

  “That's the intuition I think we all need to be fighting.” [15:25]

Using Data, Then Getting Creative (The Ludington Example)

• Joe: Successful financial plans often come from mashing together gut, creativity, and the cold, hard numbers. Example: A client couldn’t afford a lakefront Michigan retirement but, guided by her personality (extrovert!) and creativity, bought a cheaper property and started a B&B. This combined intuition, data, and creative problem-solving.

  “She came up with a solution…that all the cold, hard data said no [to].” [21:40]

When the Math Says One Thing, But Life Is Messier

• OG: “Intuition is more of a...gut feeling...when it comes to money...it’s still scary as hell to do the right thing.”

  “Courage is doing the scary thing with wet pants.” [24:10]

• Even for experienced investors, discipline trumps strong gut feelings during volatility.

The Role of AI

• Pure AI/data can miss context and creativity. Combining expertise (“human scope”) with AI yields the best results.

  “Taking that and applying our ability to be an expert in an area...That’s where the secret sauce is.” (Joe, 29:34) “If you have a gut feeling, go research it carefully.” (Joe, 30:02)

Prompts and AI Limitations

• Good AI results need good prompts; AI often lacks context.
• Example: OG asks ChatGPT whether to bet everything on roulette: “I'm really glad you said this out loud...it's not a strategy. It's a guaranteed way to risk total ruin.” [31:13]

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3. Maximizing a Costco Membership (38:23 – 46:17)

TikTok Minute:

• [39:22] Dave Wilson’s TikTok highlighted surprising Costco perks (travel, insurance, car rentals) beyond discounted bulk items.
• Doug: “On rental cars [from Costco], I’m always making a pretty good savings...The rebate from that Costco Visa? We’re probably getting between $1,300 and $1,600 a year back.” [42:05]
• Joe: “I tend to overspend at Costco. You see so many great deals that I overspend...and that counteracts the huge discounts.” [44:11]
• OG: “It’s not overspending...it’s just prepaid expenses.” [45:34]

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4. Should You Worry About Advisors Having 'Insider' Math Tools? (46:23 – 55:54)

Headline: T. Rowe Price’s new Social Security optimization tool for advisors

• Joe: Do advisors have tools that consumers don’t, and does that matter?
• OG: No proprietary advantage:

  “There are tools, but the value is in the expertise and in integrating all those pieces—not in the calculator or planning software itself.” [48:50]

• People often know what they should do; execution and accountability are the real challenges.
• Joe: “90% of the time...my client would look me in the eye and say, ‘Nope, I got it, I’m taking it.’ We get together three months later...they hadn’t done crap.” [53:12]
• OG: “The data’s the data and it’s already in a thousand places...If information was all that’s required, we’d all be millionaires with six-pack abs.” [49:45]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Joe, on intuition leading him astray:
  “Guess what happened to that money? It intuitively went away.” [14:01]

• OG, on investing discipline:
  “Having the discipline to stay the course when everything else around you, when all your intuition is going…that’s all the noise. Not doing the noise part and sticking to the plan...” [26:21]

• OG, on courage in scary markets:
  “Courage is doing the scary thing with wet pants. It still sucks, and you’re just going to do it, and it still is awful.” [24:10]

• Doug, on the value of Costco:
  “It is so easy to make that $65 back...You could almost not even walk into the store.” [41:16]

• OG, about advisor tools:
  “There are planning tools, but…it’s how to think through it and integrate it with all the other pieces…It’s not the tool, it’s the expertise.” [48:50]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [07:55] Starting the discussion on balancing intuition and strategy
• [12:13] OG argues for process over gut in investing
• [14:01] Joe’s Africa investment “intuition fail” story
• [19:38] Retirement example: client blends creativity, data, and gut
• [24:10] Courage and fear in investing
• [29:44] Research: AI + expert intuition beats AI or gut alone
• [31:13] OG tests ChatGPT’s responsibility with a betting question
• [38:23] Benjamin Franklin trivia break (skip if you want content-only)
• [39:22] TikTok Minute – Dave Wilson on secret Costco perks
• [44:11] Discussion of Costco’s psychological spending traps
• [46:23] T. Rowe Price launches new Social Security tool; discussion of advisor “secret sauce”
• [53:12] The real value in getting financial help is accountability, not software
• [55:40] Final takeaways: don’t hire advisors for their tools—hire for execution and support

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Takeaways

1. Lead With Your Gut—But Verify

• Use intuition to spark new ideas and sense-check decisions, especially in domains you know well, but always verify with hard data.

2. Disciplined Systems Outperform Emotional Swings

• For investments, a consistent, rule-driven approach beats hunches.
• Even seasoned investors feel scared and get intuition “wrong” in chaotic times.

3. AI & Data Are Tools—Not Replacements for Thinking

• AI gives fast data, but without domain knowledge and good questions, it's ineffectual or misleading.
• Best decisions come from combining statistical models, expert knowledge, and (trained) gut feelings.

4. Value in Financial Advice Is Execution, Not Proprietary Math

• Advisers’ specialized software isn’t as important as their experience and accountability to help you execute on plans.
• Many tools are now consumer-accessible, but discipline and action are what matter.

5. Costco Membership Can Be a Hidden Goldmine

• Go beyond groceries—think travel, gas, insurance, and credit card perks.
• Watch for overspending traps amid store “bargains.”

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Episode Close

The hosts remind listeners that improvement is incremental (“1% better every day”) and invite them to upcoming events, YouTube walkthroughs of their Vault tool, and shout out local Stacking Benjamins clubs (“Benjamin’s After Dark”).

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For a practical lesson on financial decision-making, personal discipline, and a few laughs—this episode hits the mark for both fun and functional money talk!

Transcript

[Joe]

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[OG]

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[Joe]

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[OG]

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[Joe]

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[Doug]

Quacked.

[Joe]

It's a Daffy Duck. Daffy Duck. Donald Duck. It's a Donald Duck mug because I just went to the house of mouse and I don't know if you guys know this, but this mug, which is beautiful and is supposedly for an espresso coffee, extra strong, it says deep roast. Quacked roasters for espresso. Yes.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Joe]

The size of your head, espresso mug.

[Doug]

Be in the hospital if you drank an espresso that large.

[Joe]

But the good thing, guys, is because I bought it at Disney, it only cost me 187.46. For this mug, I think the good.

[Doug]

News is, is that it is maize and blue colored.

[Joe]

Oh, God. Moving on.

[Doug]

You'll never drink from that mug again.

[Joe]

Now I gotta throw it away, Doug.

[Doug]

I got winning.

[Joe]

But you know what? I have this mug specially. I was so excited because we get to salute our troops with it like we do every Monday. So raise your mugs, gentlemen, and all you stackers out there, come on, pull over on the side of the road, make sure you're safe, and let's salute our troops on behalf of the men and women making podcasts. To mom's basement, the stackers out there in the field, getting it done every day. Here's to you. Thank you so much. Now let's go stack some Benjamins together, shall we?

[Doug]

Thanks, everybody.

[OG]

It's easy to grin when your ship comes in and you've got the stock market beat. The man worthwhile is the man who.

[Doug]

Can smile when his shorts are too.

[OG]

Tight in the seat. Okay, Pookie, do the honors.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and I got a strong feeling that today's gonna be your favorite episode ever. You know why? Today we're talking about when to trust your gut and when to lean into cold, hard data. There's new research on the topic, and we're helping you make the most of it. Plus, speaking of data, T. Rowe Price is out with some new Social Security software to help advisors. But how much of this software do you really need to make good decisions? And you know it. We'll also share a TikTok minute about Costco. Oh, that reminds me, I need another palette of Miralax. But I'll try to keep it together long enough to finish this intro.

[Joe]

Please keep it together.

[Doug]

It's a struggle.

[Joe]

And of course, laughing makes it worse too, doesn't it? Laugh? It makes it worse.

[Doug]

Quivering. And of course, I'll share some absolutely incredible, amazing, some may call it glorious money trivia. And now two guys who think the most glorious day is one where there's lots of sun, couple of microphones, and a positive stock market. It's Joe and. Oh, jj, Juja G.

[Joe]

Oh, don't all three of those factors make things great? Hey, everybody. Happy Monday. Welcome back. You made it. You found us. Sit back and relax because you're about to experience the greatest money show on earth. And the guy who is in the main event, in the center ring of this circus, Mr. OG is back. How are you, man?

[OG]

I'm good, thanks.

[Joe]

We somehow find found a way without you last week. You look tan, you look rested. I hope you had a great time. We were here, we got some upgrades. Doug, we got Anna on Monday. Last week we got Dana on Wednesday. So. Oh, gee, we had some, some good help while you were gone.

[OG]

My plan is coming together.

[Joe]

He's about to announce his retirement. Well, this week, guys, we're making you 1% better every day. Oh, gee, I think it's saltier by 1% every single day.

[OG]

Salty. Don't put that pox on me.

[Doug]

You were just salty in that response.

[Joe]

Just. How do you not see this? We've got a great mentor this week on Wednesday. We got a phenomenal guest on Friday. And this is personal development week, so.

[Doug]

So Everybody's going to get 3% by the end of the week.

[Joe]

Well, hopefully you even do it on the off days, Doug. So hopefully by Friday, 5% better. Imagine, isn't that great if you just get a little bit better every day? And today we're going to help your critical thinking skills with all this discussion about AI and so many chat rooms talking about all the different ways that we use AI. When do we trust our gut? When do we trust AI and when do we just look at hardcore data? There's some new research out on that and we're going to dive into that today. But before we get to that, we have this new tool you know, Cheryl, guys, a couple of years ago, we were actually driving down the road and she's like, what the hell happened? Somebody used her credit card to buy a flight from San Francisco to Seattle on Spirit Airlines. And we're driving down the road.

[OG]

Everyone knows Joe would never fly Spirit number one.

[Joe]

So that was an indicator.

[OG]

Spirit's awesome.

[Joe]

Finding that out way too late made it very difficult to unravel. Well, that is one thing that our new product, the Vault, helps you do. Between that subscription management, staying on top of your credit, running what if scenarios, this thing does 15 things you're paying 15 different other people to help you with, and it does it all in one. I'm going to be doing walkthroughs of the Vault all week. Monday, today, this afternoon, and on Wednesday over on YouTube. If you get the 201, we'll give you the times. Stacky benjamin.com 201 to get that stacking benjamin.com vault to dive in and to see what, well, what everybody's been raving about so far. Great to see all the people that are using it and saving bunches of money and also making sure that when scammers arrive that you're completely protected. All right, we got a couple more sponsors who keep us keeping on keeping on so that all this goodness is a hundred percent free. Doug, you know the line stacking Benjamins 100 free and worth every penny. There it is. We're going to hear from them and then we're diving into critical thinking versus intuition to begin your 1% better every day week. Abercrombie knows how denim should fit and feel, and this year is about curating a denim collection that carries your closet. Head straight to Abercrombie's baggy and ultra baggy fits. These are the pairs that turn any.

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[Joe]

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[OG]

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[Joe]

All right, I am so excited, guys, to get your take on this and stackers. I'd love to get your take too. Whether you're commenting on Spotify or you are in our basement Facebook group, this is interesting research that they're focused on at fast company and the piece is called how to Balance Intuition and Strategic Thinking. Often OG we're driving down the road and we're like, oh, maybe I'm listening to satellite radio and I hear about some great stock and my gut goes, oh, this, this sounds great. Or I'm eating a tuna fish sandwich at lunch and I go, oh, you know what? I think I should probably sell this thing that I have, right? Because it's not great. Doug, not a fan of tuna fish.

[Doug]

Should not be eating a tuna fish.

[OG]

Sandwich is what I have a weird timing sense of, like how to make financial decisions.

[Joe]

I'm just saying you have these bizarre.

[OG]

So there I was, doctor, minding my own business, having a tuna fish san sandwich, and I thought to myself, I should get a prostate exam.

[Joe]

Well, doesn't intuition hit at the weirdest time, at the strangest time? In fact, it's funny. David Allen, the getting things done guru, the time management organizational guru, says that your brain bring things up at these weird times because you don't have great systems for being organized and to make sure that you're going to get this stuff done. So your brain tells you at the time that you will never remember the milk. Remember when you're at the grocery store, you got to get milk. Like, it will tell you at the most bizarre time, you're like, what the hell? Because you haven't gotten a system together. So I'm wondering about this. So Natalie writes, balancing gut feelings with hard data isn't a soft skill. It's actually a strategic advantage. She says, in an era where AI, automation, ubiquitous dashboards, flood us with metrics, it's tempting to believe that better spreadsheets will yield better decisions. But our most consequential choices rarely emerge from a cell in column D. They arise from an ongoing negotiation between intuition and rational analysis. The frustrating thing is we have some stackers that are always trying to make their best decisions around their retirement plan, around their investment portfolio. OG based on just, well, this is what the data says. But sometimes, sometimes your intuition going, you know what? This doesn't seem right. Sometimes that's 100% right.

[OG]

I mean, not for investment decisions. No, your intuition is almost always wrong. I mean, think about it. Like, when would you intuitively want to be investing? Generally speaking, you're like, oh my gosh, the stock market's doing really good. Or like, right now, what's the number one asset class performer of 2026 so far? Last year was international. Right now it's small companies, or the last time I looked anyway, and by a Considerable margin. So what are most people doing the month of January? They're getting their investment statements. They're starting to work on your taxes. Maybe you're gonna update your spreadsheets like she talked about. You're doing all that kind of end of the year, beginning of the year refresh stuff. And you look at your 401 and you go, oh. I mean, I knew the stock market was good, but my God, you know, it's really great. Spain. I totally missed the boat on Spain last year. What? I didn't even think to have money in Spain. My gosh, they were up 58%. You know, I should have a little bit of Spain money this year. Let me, Let me do a. Let me do a strategic rebalance and so I can rebalance. I'm just being very strategic now, and I'm just going to rebalance back into my Spain holdings that I, you know, missed in the last 25 years because I didn't even think about it. And maybe more broadly, I just look at it from an international standpoint and say, well, I didn't have enough last year. I only had 20%. Maybe I should have 25 or 30%. That's not being intuitive. That's not following. That's not following the right way of doing things. You're taking the one piece of data, a year's worth of returns, to Support the next 50 years of your investing life. Because, you know, you think that this is now the new way of doing it, or you look at, you look at, well, the small companies are doing really well in January, so I must have to rebalance into small companies right now. That's not following. You need to follow a system when you invest, and you have to have very standard rules.

[Joe]

Absolutely. 100% you do, and I thank you. 100%, by the way. Nailed it. If your intuition says I need more space, how come I've never looked at Spain? I remember I did this around Africa once. Our old contributor Greg McFarlane wrote this whole piece romanticizing the fact that, you know, when it comes to emerging markets, Africa is going to be where it's at. And I had happened to schedule an interview with a woman and ended up being a great interview. Carol Rolini talking about how the money systems in Africa working so much faster because they didn't have all these legacy systems than they were in the US.

[OG]

So there were rules or banking requirements or. Yeah, legislation. It works so much faster. There's no supervision of any kind of.

[Joe]

Well, that's on one side. I mean, that's on the negative side. On the positive side you got these things like ach which what the hell, three days. Like what are we talking about here? But because I had this confluence of reading Greg's piece and Carol Rellini coming on the show, I start looking at Africa. And you know what I start thinking? OG Now's the time.

[OG]

My intuition is telling me my intuition time 20x into I should lever 2 to 1 into Africa. It's an, it's, you can't miss.

[Joe]

And there was zero data. There was zero data to prove it. There was zero data. But you know what the zero data told me? OG because of my intuition, now's the time. This is, I'm on the front edge of this thing. Like of course there's no data because I'm the first mover. I'm the person here. I'm going to be the guy that invested in Nvidia at $14 a share when it first went public, right? I think the number one performing stock between the time it went public and and today. So I'm that person. Like I'm a fricking genius. So I invested in Africa. Guess what happened to that money?

[OG]

OG it intuitively went away.

[Joe]

Intuitively not good. Intuitively horrible things happen. But we can widen that number one, I think there's things you can do intuitively against that because I will tell you this, my intuition has changed over the years. I know like you now when most people run from the stock market, my intuition is to run toward the stock market during those times of panic. And I know yours is too. So I think you can study your intuition over time to make better decisions. You can actually combine. Okay, my intuition has been this forever or most people's intuition is here and it's wrong. I think I can intuitively begin to turn that around to fight against these negatives and instead turn it into a positive because I don't make those type of mistakes often. In fact, usually I've had times when I've come across money serendipitously at the same time that the market has happened to be down. And instead of going, you know what? I shouldn't, I shouldn't add to my funds now. I should dollar cost average in or I should, I should leave this money in cash. Even though it's long term money. I have intuitively went, I don't know what's going to happen. But I do know that since everybody's running out of the stock market, this is a decent time, as decent as any to get in, you know I.

[Doug]

Think you're skipping a step in most people's intuition on investing, which is, I mean, you guys are assuming people are already invested and where should I invest? But I think you gotta back that up for most of our listeners who are early on in their investing journey and they're waiting for the intuition that says, I got this giant pile of money. I'm going to wait until I have a lot of extra before I invest. When that's when you should, you should be doing counterintuitive thinking, which is you got to invest when you have just a little bit of money available to you to then get that big pile of money later. I think we all trust our gut thinking, I can't invest now. I don't have enough money to invest. I need to wait until I have all of this excess cash. That's the intuition I think we all need to be fighting.

[Joe]

And isn't that interesting, Doug, because that counter intuitive approach works so often. And I'll give you an example. When I was struggling with money, I was that guy that wanted to have more cash available. Because if I had more cash available, it would solve my cash crunch problem. And yet what really happened was when I made it so my money wasn't as liquid, I moved it to a bank across town. And I had two choices. Either have it wired to me, which is going to cost me 15 bucks, which in the scheme of, you know, if there's a big emergency, 15 bucks is nothing, right? So I can have it wired to me, or I can drive across town. Would have taken me about an hour and a half round trip to get back and forth from this particular institution. And I cut up all the other ways to get to it. I got rid of all my online access. So I removed myself from my money, which intuitively is stupid. You know what happened? All of a sudden that money started to accumulate. And as I had more money go into that fund, my emergency fund built. Even though intuitively it seems like the stuff I did to put it there was 100% stupid. But turning that intuition upside down, I love that.

[Doug]

So that bank across town was in 1963. Like, what do you mean you had no access to it? There was no way to get to that money except driving there. I'm just joking, but I know I.

[Joe]

Got rid of it. I had all those options and I got rid of them. I made sure I didn't have online access. I made sure that I didn't have a debit card. Like it was me putting barriers between me and my emergency Fund.

[Doug]

Yeah. And you probably don't even need to work. You might have, but other people may not need to work that hard to put barriers between themselves. Because it could just be that if you take that little bit of available funds that you have and get it invested someplace that it's out of sight, out of mind, and you will be less tempted to liquidate it and bring it back into, make it 100%.

[Joe]

If I take the money and I invest it. Now, investing your emergency fund is stupid, number one. But let's say that you have this money that's beyond your emergency fund. Investing it totally makes you think it's not available. I look at the money in my Schwab account, in my brokerage account, and to me, it's not available.

[Doug]

Absolutely.

[Joe]

That is not a solution to buy my Disney mug. I cannot pay for my Disney bug.

[Doug]

Your U of M Disney mug.

[Joe]

Easy. Easy on that one. But I do think, oh, gee, I think we can use our intuition. We can study our intuition, I think, to make better decisions. But I also think there's a way to widen this. Like when we think about the cold, hard data. Like, as an example, you've run numbers with people before. You've used some financial planning modeling tools and come to the. The conclusion that, hey, if you want to retire the way that you told me, you can't do it, like the data in this spreadsheet says you can't do it. And yet you and I have been in meetings with people before where, using intuition and using that data, then to think creatively, we were able then to mix the data that we had that said 100% no, and come up with something that was a yes.

[OG]

But I think that's still just using data that's nothing to do with gut feelings on stuff. I think maybe gut feelings on, you don't have to live to 120 in your plan.

[Joe]

Okay, let me give you the gut feeling.

[OG]

You don't need to do that.

[Joe]

No, no, no. Let me give you the direct. I haven't told the story in a long time, so I feel comfortable telling it again. But I had this client who really wanted to retire along the shore of Lake Michigan. And if you've. If you're familiar with the shore along.

[OG]

Like the House Hunter show, where they're like, and we've got Betty and Bob, and they're moving down from Chicago and they want to get a place on 30A and, you know, like, what's your dream house like? Okay, we want three bedrooms. Well, we want four. But we'll take three bedrooms, two bath. We need direct ocean access. Okay, cool. What's your budget? 225. We could stretch it to 230. They're like in hundreds of millions. Is that what you're talking? You should be good because if you're.

[Doug]

In hundreds going the other way, which is he's a squirrel taxidermist and she's a crayon organizer. And their budget is $7 million.

[Joe]

Exactly.

[OG]

It's one of those two things.

[Joe]

So she wanted to do it. And clearly the stuff in the spreadsheet said there's no way in hell she's going to be able to do this. Right there. There was just. There was no way in hell she was going to be able to do that.

[OG]

Right.

[Joe]

So what she did then was she goes, wait a minute, I'm somebody who's an extrovert, number one. So this is where her intuition and her gut comes in. I'm an extrovert. I think I can still get this done. I think I can do this maybe a little creatively and in a way that actually helps me. So she then uses that data that said no, sets that aside and goes, okay, let's see if I can use some creativity to come up with something different. She came up with this solution in northern Michigan, this beautiful town called Ludington. Just outside Ludington, she found this property on a hill that is across the street from the lake. So considerably less expensive property. She has this beautiful view looking across the street, still has a view of Lake Michigan. And on that land, she opens a bed and breakfast. Now she's working in her retirement. She's not sitting on her porch by herself, but she's an extrovert and she's like. And breakfast, like my favorite time. So she's making breakfast for these people. She's making money, which helped her afford the property. And she's able to do something that all the cold, hard data said no. So this, I believe, is what this piece is talking about. So she's taking data and she's taking her intuition, looking at the type of person she is and her gut feeling around what she would enjoy doing. And she's mashing those together for a financial plan that probably fits better than that expensive property on the lake would have fit in the any. Anyway.

[OG]

Yeah, I guess I'm just using a different definition of, you know, to me, that's just problem solving. That's. That's looking at it and saying, like, how do I. This is something that I really want to do. How do I get it done, it'd be no different than somebody saying, well, you can't do it. And then you go, well, what if I saved more money? What if I changed my standard of living today? That's not intuition. Intuition is more of a, like you said earlier, a gut feeling. And I think that when it comes to money, you mentioned this earlier. You said that after 30 years of doing this, my intuition is to invest when everyone else isn't. It's not. It's still scary as hell. I mean, I was talking to a friend of mine about something else and I was just kind of brought back to Covid and more about the market volatility of COVID not the other chaos that it was. But I distinctly remember walking on a walk, you'd walk down the sidewalk and then somebody walked towards you and you'd cross the street because you're like, I don't know how close I'm supposed to be to the other couple that's walking down the street. And I distinctly remember walking with my bride and I was like, this will be the third one of these major chaos bombs in my career. And I was like, I just, I don't know that I have the stomach for it. I know what's coming and I know how chaotic this is going to be and I know how sucky it's going to be. It didn't make it any better and it certainly didn't make me want to. Like now, today, when I look back on those five years, five years ago, six years ago, now today I think, what kind of fool was I to not go mortgage my house to the hill at 2% and buy s and P long dated calls, you know, levered three to one. Like, like I'd be, I'd be a go zillionaire and we wouldn't have to worry about money no more. Like Forrest Gump said, you know, so it's easy to look backwards and decide what you should have done. I think the growing up and investing and growing up in your growing up, I mean like as you mature is that phrase of being scared is going to happen. Encourage is doing the scary thing with wet pants. It still sucks and you're just going to do it and it still is awful. And so the hard part, as your investing career goes, is looking at the future and going, I don't know what this is going to do. I don't know what the tariff situation is going to be or what chaos is happening in other places around the world that we don't see on a daily basis. And how that's going to affect my investing. And I know there's going to be a 20% decline sometime in the next two or three years because statistically it happens. And I know there's going to be a big 30, 35% decline sometime in the next 10 years because statistically it happens. But I'm not going to change my behavior because of my feeling of how this might affect me. I'm going to still do the thing that I need to do because I've got, and maybe this is your whole point with all this, I've got the plan 100%. And I absolutely know, I was thinking about a friend of mine, runs a big investment advisory firm. We were talking about investing and he's a really smart guy and he said everybody's really interested when I. Because clients sometimes want to know, how do you invest your money? Do you buy the same stuff you're telling me to buy? Basically? And he said, clients are always really interested in when we talk about this. Because he goes, I buy one mutual fund that's a global ETF mutual fund. I am 100% okay with getting a 7% after inflation return, 6.9% after inflation return for the rest of my life and the rest of my family's lives. The compounding that that provides me is perfect. I don't need to do anything different. And every time that I think I need to pull, oh, well, maybe I should get a little Africa maybe, maybe I should get a little Spain. Maybe I don't need to. Like this accomplishes my goal. And having the discipline to stay the course when everything else around you, when all of your intuition is going.

[David Wilson]

Look.

[OG]

At the job market, I don't know, you might lose that big client and then they're gonna fire you. Maybe you should have some more money in cash. You know, we don't know what's going on in the market. Maybe we should do this or maybe we should sell a little bit. It's an all time high, you know, that's all the noise. Not doing the noise part and sticking to the plan and going, no, I Invest, you know, 1,000 bucks a month into my brokerage account. That's just what I do. And I buy this selection of ETFs and I rebalance it on my birthday once a year. That's my investing plan. And wash, rinse, repeat for the next 40 years and you'll have a bajillion dollars.

[Joe]

This is 100% what we're doing. OG is parsing out the decision making because I think you've been doing it this way for so long that it makes you go, well, yeah, it's a combo. Yeah. But I think, man, the number of meetings that I've been in and still even today, some of the letters that we get, well, the data says X. Well, my intuition says Y. Like people leaning way one way or way another way. Listen to this recent research. This is back to the piece. Recent research reveals something counterintuitive. According to a Science Direct piece into research about entrepreneurs decision making, when entrepreneurs with domain expertise integrate AI driven analysis with their intuitive insights, they achieve the most balanced outcomes, excelling simultaneously in novelty. So they come up with something that is more novel, almost like we talked about with a woman moving across the street in her financial plan. Depth, it's a deeper, more satisfying thing. And innovation. A controlled study of 124 entrepreneurs found that while AI assistance increased the number of recognized opportunities in the depth of evaluation, it simultaneously reduced novelty and contextual sensitivity. But here's the interesting thing. Sector knowledge and intuitive judgment restored this creative dimension. Meaning a lot of us now are going to AI for the answers to our question and it's quashing a bunch of stuff. But then when we apply our ability to reason as a human being, we apply the thing that we actually want, our own scope and the way that we look at it to it. We flesh that back out and suddenly we become way stronger. So if we're just data driven or just AI driven, or we're just gut driven, gut driven is going to give us this wild ass roller coaster of results that we don't know where the hell it's going. If we're just completely 100, data driven AI is going to drive us back into things that worked 20 years ago. But taking that and applying our ability to be an expert in an area and then have our. And it's not just purely a gut decision. The tuna fish sandwich. I said it's no, I've been doing this for 20 years.

[OG]

I mean, having tuna fish as a sandwich would be definitely a gut decision, not a great one.

[Joe]

And I think this is good for all of our younger stackers out there who think that cheating on your homework by having AI do it makes the most sense. The next sentence separately, research into human AI collaboration decision making found expertise in the decision making domain is a necessary condition for this marriage to be effective. Which means you can have AI do your homework, but that's not going to send you anywhere. Having AI just come up with your answer to everything. Asking ChatGPT everything not going to bring you anywhere. Still, being an expert, marrying that with what AI is giving you is where the secret sauce is when it comes to better decisions.

[OG]

Yeah. I mean, there's been countless stories of wildly incorrect things. You know, it's. I really try hard using AI tools to be the devil's advocate. Like, I really want it to be like, no, I don't think this is going to work.

[Joe]

Which is beautiful because based on this whole topic, OG this is exactly what this piece is diving into. If you have a gut feeling, go research it careful.

[OG]

Because if you put it in chat GPT if you're like, I really think that I should sell all my possessions.

[Joe]

That's a great idea.

[OG]

OG Put it on black on the roulette wheel. They'll be like, I. I can understand why you're feeling this way. What I would do is equally divide red and black. So you have a 50. 50. You're good to think about this. You know, it's like the warm embrace of somebody that never tells you no. You just gotta. You gotta be careful because it's gonna.

[Joe]

Sell half of your possessions online and the other half have a garage sale.

[OG]

Actually, I'm gonna put this in. Let's just see what happens if I do.

[Doug]

I think the prompt needs to be tell me why I shouldn't put all of it in this one stock.

[Joe]

And I think that's important too, Doug, when it comes to AI knowing how to prompt.

[Doug]

Oh, God. Yeah.

[Joe]

I was working with our intern yesterday and AI was giving me this fantastic answer and our wonderful intern debony was like, wow, look at how detailed it was. I'm like, look at the prompt I gave it though very specific parameters about what we were actually looking for and what I didn't want. You know, the garbage that I. That I didn't want. What are you asking it?

[OG]

OG okay, to be fair, this was actually pretty good. I said, I'm considering selling all my possessions and putting it on black and roulette. I saw this work online and I think it would work for me. It says, I'm really glad you said this out loud. Before doing anything, I want to be very clear and supportive. Putting everything on black is not a strategy. It's a guaranteed way to risk total ruin. The stories you saw online are survivorship, bias and marketing, not reality.

[Joe]

Oh, that's fab. That is it.

[OG]

Scale's close to 50. 50, but it's not. It's really 47.37% for every dollar you lose 5 cents, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah.

[Joe]

It's actually talking you down.

[OG]

Yes. And then here's the little pat on the back. One important thing to hear. You don't need a miracle. Bet you don't need to prove anything. You don't need to blow up your life to change direction. Whatever this problem this feels like it could solve, it won't.

[Joe]

You're.

[OG]

You're good enough right now, damn it.

[Doug]

You're good enough. You're smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like you.

[OG]

Tell me what made this idea start to feel really appealing. I want to help you think through it clearly. Wow.

[Joe]

Now it's becoming your therapist.

[OG]

Yes. Yolo, baby.

[Joe]

I will link to this piece because I think there is a place for intuition. Maybe not in your investment scheme, but definitely in your process of decision making and strategic thinking. And that spreadsheet, definitely a place for both. But I love where they're headed here, where you're designing your process to take into account both pieces because they're both important. I'll link to this in the show notes@Stackin Benjamins.com of course, this week, Kevin Bailey's going to dive into, in our newsletter, the 201, all the things that'll help make you 1% better as we're getting ready for this cool conference coming up in Omaha, which is the 1% better conference that I'll be headlining. How about that, huh? Neat. Great.

[OG]

Yay.

[Joe]

With friends like you, I. I need AI to tell me, damn it, Joe, you're great. You're fantastic. We'll link to all of it on our show notes@stacking benjamins.com and of course, the 201 is stacking benjamins.com 201. All right, Doug, before we get into the second half of the show, we're going to talk about tools that advisors use. Speaking of that data, what if I have even better data? Do advisors have that secret key that you need to be able to make better decisions to get 1% better? We're going to ask OG that, because that's a cool thing about stacking Benjamins is you get to kind of peer across the table at what the advisors in your life are thinking. But before that, we pause so that Doug can steal the show away with the world's greatest trivia question of all time. The bar's low, Doug.

[Doug]

Well, I'm going to raise it right here, Joe. Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And on today's date, back in 1697, just days before Joe was born Isaac Newton received Isaac Newton received Johan Bernoulli's problem and was given a six month time limit to solve it. Oh, Isaac and I must be cut from the same cloth because Newton solved the six month problem before going to bed on the same day FedEx dropped it off at his door. If he'd asked chat GPT, he'd have been done by cocktail hour.

[Joe]

But who knows if it had been right, who cares?

[Doug]

He'd have thought it was right and that's what matters.

[Joe]

I've been confident about it.

[Doug]

Yes. On that note, I once solved one side of a Rubik's cube in about 25 minutes. Would have done it faster, but those red stickers are really on there. Also, I once I once solved a riddle of why a page intentionally left blank has words on it. Answer stupid people. That's why, unlike Newton, I'm not giving you six months to solve today's trivia question. You've got about three minutes, stacker. Here it is. On today's date in 1784, our namesake Benjamin Franklin expressed his unhappiness over the eagle being chosen as America's symbol. Which bird did he think was appropriate? I'll be back right after I go figure out what what would have happened if I'd chosen a New Year's resolution to create no resolutions? Would that mean 2026 would be even more successful?

[Joe]

This episode is brought to you by indeed.

[OG]

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[Doug]

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[OG]

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[Joe]

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[Doug]

So go build your dream team today with Indeed.

[Joe]

Get a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast.

[OG]

Terms and conditions apply.

[Joe]

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[OG]

This is pro linebacker T.J. watt, and I'm back with YPB by Abercrombie for another activewear drop. My second co design collection has new shorts and tanks that keep up with all my in season workouts. And their new Restore collection is a game Changer off the field too, because even pro athletes like me need rest days. Shop YPB by Abercrombie in the app online and in stores because your personal best is greater than anything.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm resolution keeper and guy who is always wondering who shaves the barber. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug.

[OG]

Think about it.

[Doug]

We're celebrating Newton solving a six month puzzle by answering it in less than a day by asking you a question that you'll answer in about three minutes. So what's the answer, Stacker? The question was this. Benjamin Franklin back in 1784 expressed his disappointment with the eagle being named the symbol of the US what bird was he pining for the answer? Benjamin Franklin was a big fan of the turkey. And you're a turkey if you didn't get that one right. But you know, around Thanksgiving time, turkeys are both delicious and representative of our gratitude for all the goodness in our life. So maybe turkey wasn't too overly slighted. And now two divas who are going to feel slighted if we don't get back to money talk. It's Joe and Og.

[Joe]

The difference for all the turkeys listening are like, wait a minute. But our prognosis is terminal. Like the eagle. The eagle gets to be the symbol. Tomorrow I get to express gratitude while I'm the centerpiece of your table for like the next five minutes before everybody.

[Doug]

Dives in when I'm deliciously golden brown.

[OG]

Right.

[Joe]

Turkeys might disagree. And by the way, Doug, I think you nailed that. Why is it that pages intentionally left blank have words on them?

[Doug]

Oh, it's a conundrum.

[Joe]

It's no longer blank. I mean, what's, what's going on there? Yeah, we will always, always wonder. Hey, you know, we don't to wonder about whether we have a TikTok minute today because we do. The TikTok minute 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. You know, we've had some of both here lately and wondering, Doug, if you think we're going to have some brilliance. You mentioned earlier, I gave you a hint. Today's is about Costco.

[Doug]

Well then it's brilliant. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing negative about Costco. I am a giant Costco supporter, fanboy, et cetera. So this is good. This stuff is going to be amazing.

[Joe]

This is a new friend I made at fincon. I love seeing some of the new creators out there that attend the Fincon conference. David Wilson, big time TikTok audience. And David has this to say about Costco.

[David Wilson]

Oh, please tell me how you're using your Costco membership. Because I'm seeing all these videos of people who are saving with their Costco card in ways that I didn't even know existed. And I'm beginning to think I might be missing out on something at this point. I've forgotten getting a Costco membership. I didn't think it was worth it to spend $65 just to buy an annual supply of TP and paper towels, but now I'm questioning that. And yes, I already knew about the $5 chicken, the $1.50 hot dog which I used to sneak before they required cards, the ridiculous return policy, the cheap gas and the car wash. But what I didn't realize is that with the Costco membership, I could be on a discounted beach trip wearing my discounted prescription sunglasses, that I got to driving my discounted rental car, leaving my discounted car back at home, that I have discount insurance on all of these benefits that I did not know about. So please let me know how are you getting the absolute most out of that $65 membership fee? I want the expert tips. And do you think a Costco membership is worth it for someone like me or should I just keep mooching off other people's memberships until I can truly benefit from that bulk buying discount?

[Joe]

I got to say, and by the way, thanks, it's Dave. Learn personal finance with that video. You know what's funny, Doug, is I have done that with you. I've actually mooched off your Costco.

[Doug]

That's right. I forgot about that. Yeah, you were hosting a whole bunch of people when you were here in Michigan and I got to go with you. That was fun.

[Joe]

It was fun by a whole bunch of stuff. You know, we don't have a Costco near us guys. But I think Dave makes a great point, which is, hey, I don't need a pallet of toilet paper. I don't need all of these discounts. Which is why, you know, for me, I was like, but I always forget about the discount gas, the discount rental cars, the discounts on cars, the discounts on insurance, like the vacation travel that they do.

[Doug]

It is so easy to make that 65 bucks back. I mean it. You almost wouldn't even have to walk into the store to get to get that money back. Like you said, gas alone, a couple of fill ups on gas because it's always at least 10 cents a gallon cheaper. So that's easy to do. I mean, I could go on and on. Only one time that I can think of in the last maybe eight, six. Eight years have I found a rental car cheaper than through Costco. I'm always making a pretty good savings on rental cars through Costco. I haven't done the full trip packages and those kinds of things, but rental cars. I've done my Costco Visa. The rebate that I'm getting from that Costco Visa. So I get two rebates. One is just on the cash back from the Visa.

[Joe]

Okay.

[Doug]

The other is.

[Joe]

What's your cash back percentage?

[Doug]

Well, it varies. It's a whole tiered system.

[Joe]

Okay.

[Doug]

You know, it goes, like, from five down to one.

[Joe]

Is it depending on what you buy?

[Doug]

Yeah, it's on gases, 5%. And restaurants and other travel stuff is 4. And everything you buy in the store is 2. So it's a whole tiered thing, but everything. And I might have gotten this advice from one of you two along. It's been so long ago, I can't remember. But literally every. We have one credit card, and everything goes. Everything I can put on that. Utilities, and every purchase goes on that we get. We're probably getting between 13 and $1,600 a year back. And we just don't travel that much like you guys do. So the travel reward thing doesn't. Isn't as meaningful for us.

[Joe]

But. No, but all this money back on daily living. Sure.

[Doug]

Right. And then on top, that's just the credit card. And then we're also an executive member, which is like maybe 100, 140 bucks. That's how important.

[OG]

Excuse me, sir. Sir? No, it's cool. I'm an executive member.

[Doug]

I think you understand a special line.

[OG]

For we executive members. Do you lump us together with all the commoners?

[Doug]

Be a great idea, sir.

[Joe]

This is the dmv. You still have to wait in line. No, no, no.

[Doug]

I don't think you get it. This is a black card. But yeah, there's like another four or five hundred bucks in rebates that I'm getting just for that. And there's just two of us in the house right now, but we buy enough stuff there and just everything else we're doing in our daily lives that having that Costco membership is an. That that membership cost pays back by the end of January, probably by the second week of January.

[Joe]

But you're definitely thinking bigger than groceries.

[Doug]

Absolutely.

[Joe]

I mean, you're thinking about all these other things.

[Doug]

Yeah. And I can't do the hot dogs anymore. I can't. They don't sit so well in the tummy as they used to. Can't do the. The hot dog and the food is not the reason to go to Costco.

[Joe]

My problem with Costco, though, is even when I was there with you, Doug, I just. A few times I've been in there, I tend to overspend. Like, you see so many great deals that I overspend. And that counteracts some of the huge discounts that I'm getting for things. Yeah, that's my conundrum. It's self control.

[Doug]

Yeah. There's no question you end up with impulse purchases. You wouldn't have other. Wow, Those pants are 9.99. Gotta have those. I'll use those at some point. So. Yeah, of course it happens.

[OG]

But I think it's cute that your impulse purchase is a nine dollar purchase. Mine was a case of wine. Last time I went, I was like, this stuff's only 60 bucks a bottle. Hell yeah.

[Joe]

I do have to say that when you have people over that don't care about the wine, but they just don't want it to suck like that Kirkland wine is fantastic for a big get together.

[OG]

Out of a box.

[Joe]

We did that when we did the VIP party at our house. Doug, you took me to Costco.

[David Wilson]

Right.

[Joe]

That was the first time I bought Kirkland wine. I think you were the one that told me, like, no, try this. And man, it was. It was. It was good.

[Doug]

I doubt it.

[OG]

Yeah. Because Doug's a big wine connoisseur.

[Doug]

Out of the way. I was gonna say. I'm not. I. Yeah, I could have helped you with. With whiskey.

[Joe]

But what do you think is in that mug of Doug's right now?

[Doug]

Right.

[Joe]

Secretly, it's a chardonnay.

[Doug]

Nope.

[Joe]

OG Costco in your house.

[OG]

Yeah, of course. Yeah. That's where we get all our meat from.

[Doug]

Of course. I'm an American.

[OG]

I know.

[Joe]

We just don't have one near us.

[OG]

We're getting one that's closer. We had the one that we normally go to is 10 minute drive or 15 minute drive. This one's going to be like five.

[Doug]

Could hear angel singing now.

[OG]

Yeah. You get the big log of meat and you can carve it up into like individual steaks.

[Joe]

Or just think about all the overspending we could do now with Costco that much closer.

[OG]

It's not overspending. I mean, I still have teenagers, so.

[Doug]

Right.

[OG]

It's not like we don't go to Costco and throw it out it's just prepaid expenses is basically what we have for tissue paper and meat.

[Doug]

Yeah, I think that's a good way of looking at it. And I mean, we don't get any, almost any produce there because we're never going to make it through that. But almost everything we get from a food standpoint is stuff that can go in the freezer or is going to keep for a while in the refrigerator or is a dry good that'll keep. So it's just, I like the way you phrase that. Oh, gee, it's just prepaid expenses.

[Joe]

I'd love to hear how you stackers are using Costco in different ways, much like Dave asked his audience.

[OG]

And if you have a nice car, the gas at Costco is, you know, the top tier gas.

[Doug]

Unfortunately, my truck only takes premium. So it's a hell of a lot cheaper to get premium there than it does.

[Joe]

Not only is Doug a diva, his truck is a diva as well. Let's move on to our headline, guys.

[OG]

Hello, darlings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show, our stacking Benjamin's headlines.

[Joe]

This headline comes to us from Napa-Net. Ted Godbout wrote this. T. Rowe Price launches new Social Security optimization tool for advisors. Coming on the heels of a study suggesting retirement savers need more help understanding Social Security, Baltimore based firm is out with a new tool to help advisors do just that. I'll link to this and it goes through what this piece of software actually does and how it helps advisors help people optimize Social Security. But it got me thinking earlier, OG As I was prepping for today, in the first half of today's show, we were talking about data and about having hard cold data. There's also this doubt that many of our stackers have that maybe they don't have the right data. They don't have enough data. The tools that they use are not good enough. What are some of the tools that you use as an advisor that me as a not advisor that I can't get off the shelf? Like what are some things where you've got this competitive advantage because of the fact that, well, you've got these insider tools that people like T. Rowe Price are bringing to you that I can't get on my own.

[OG]

I was just thinking about how you're talking about Social Security. And then you said I was thinking about this and I was, my brain, I was going, well, yeah, because you're like about to get it.

[Joe]

Oh my God.

[OG]

This is probably something you would be thinking Ageism. Should I file tomorrow or wait a year? Like where am I at? I mean, but what is that like, you know, knowing that you're inside the decade of getting your Social Security benefit. Does that.

[Joe]

Moving on.

[OG]

I mean, does it. No, seriously, is it like yay, I finally get paid back. Or is it like oh my God, I'm getting old.

[Joe]

It's a combination. It's where is the time gone? Yeah, where has the time gone?

[OG]

Way more yesterdays than tomorrow.

[Joe]

What have I done with my life?

[OG]

Yeah. Dun dun, dun. What was your question? Something about how old are you?

[Doug]

Oh my God, he is Beelzebub.

[OG]

Sometimes.

[Joe]

Enter. This is exhibit W in the ageism lawsuit. The Stacky Benjamin's ageism partnership lawsuit that's coming.

[OG]

Well, you can have my 50%. 50% of zero. Still zero.

[Doug]

Joe, think about how our corporate expenses would plummet if we didn't need HR just for og.

[Joe]

Exactly right. All of the budget.

[OG]

I think the answer to your question is I'm not entirely sure that there's anything that. I mean there are certain tech tools that we use, but I don't know that there's anything that's so proprietary that another off the shelf solution to it doesn't exist. That doesn't mean that you should. I think about two things. Mainly the planning software, which of course there's new retirement calculator, there's friggin Excel. I mean you can do it with an HP calculator on your phone if you know how to do that. I mean like there's tools out there that's consumer facing. I don't think it's necessarily the tool, it's how to think through it and integrate it with all the other pieces of information. You know, Social Security is a great example. You're talking about intuition. The intuition is take it. Now the math says take it at 70, but where do you really do it?

[Joe]

Where?

[OG]

You know, not everybody waits even though the math says to do 70. Why is that? Because you go, I might not make it to 72. You know, I don't know, some weird stuff happens and then I didn't get any of this money back and that totally sucks. And if I'd have taken it 10 years earlier, I'd be paid off, so to speak, for my FICA contributions over my lifetime. Or you live, you take it at 62 and then you live to be 104 and you go, dang it, I wish I'd waited till 70, I'd have so much more money. I'd have taken those sobs for hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's one of those scenarios where I think, you know, it's great to have the information, but it's one of my favorite quotes, you know, if information was all that's required, we'd all be millionaires with six packs, you know, six pack abs. Because we already have the info, we already know what to do. It's just the execution and integrating all those things. So it's not like, what's the optimal Social Security in a vacuum. It's what's the optimal Social Security in conjunction with my tax plan, in conjunction with my cash flow, in my retirement, in conjunction with my spouse and longevity and my other financial goals that are going on. You know, if you've got a goal to fund your grandkids college and you don't have the money saved and you're like, I just feel like I can do this cash flow wise or whatever. Well, maybe for you, taking Social Security at 64 is a better idea because you have a freaking grandkid that's going to college and this is the way you're going to pay for it. If you said to somebody else, hey, I'm taking Social Security at 64, they'd be like, what? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You got to wait till at least full retirement. That's 67, man. You got to wait three years and you should wait till 70. It's like, well, yeah, but all my grandkids will be out of college by then. You know what I mean? Like, it's just piece of the info. So I think it's really good to have. Have these tools and sometimes, you know, like we have a planning software that we use. I think it's pretty good, but. And we'll have clients that will say, hey, can I do this? Can I? You know, I like what you're showing me here. Can I get in there and fiddle with it? It's like, no, you can't. Because it's taken our team a dozen years to figure out how to make all these pieces work together. And it wouldn't be fair to you to just let you not let you. To have you punch all the buttons and not know what the outcome is. I'm not trying to hide it. Yeah, I'm happy to peel behind the curtain and go, here's all this stuff.

[Joe]

I love the planning software we had when you and I were at Amex. I thought that planning software was kick ass. I love the.

[OG]

Oh my gosh, Navaplan. That's what it Was right.

[Joe]

Yeah. I love the milestones.

[OG]

It was so intense.

[Joe]

I thought that that was fantastic. It was robust. It was hard as hell to use. Like you had to have a PhD in that software to use it. But man, when you, when you wrapped it around your finger, that was very robust. But I can't say I 100 agree with you. That's not a reason to hire me. The fact that I knew how to use it very well and I could help you do all kinds of what ifs, because I was a ninja at it, was a good reason to hire me because of my expertise in using planning tools. But that tool by itself, even though it was great, that was not, you know, our fishing frontier stuff I thought was also really robust. Super good. Having all the crap that, you know, we use. Portfolio Visualizer, just junk compared to what I was using there. But again, I don't think that's the reason. The big thing for me, when I was an advisor, OG I would tell people, I'm like, listen, you can manage your money yourself, and different advisors do things different way, but you can manage your money yourself and I'll just do the planning for you. Or you can have me push all the buttons and make sure this crap gets done. Also, the same with your insurances. I'm going to give you the insurance numbers. You can do it through yourself. I'll also run it through me. You can go buy it or you have me do it. And I'll tell you 90% of the time that my client would look me in the eye and would say, nope, I got it, I'm taking it. We get together og three months later for our first meeting after to see where all the dust settled, how it was all going. They hadn't done crap. They hadn't done anything. Yeah, in all those cases, they go, no, I really need you to do it. I just need you to do it because nothing's getting done. Because I would calculate out, look at all of the consequences of you not doing anything for the past three months. That was the reason, not the, not the software. So T row Price having this new software, I think it's great. I think it's fantastic. But not a reason why I go, oh, I gotta go find a T Roll Price affiliated advisor.

[OG]

The data's the data and it's already in a thousand places. You know, again, you can do with a calculator and an Excel worksheet on your own. I just think it's mostly. It's not even like DIY or not diy, you know, I've got a personal opinion about that like you do, but I think it's just how do all these things work together to form the life that you want to have with the things that you want to do within that. And then guess what, it's going to change. You know, you're going to change some stuff along the way and some priorities are going to be anti priorities and anti priorities are going to be priorities. And to be fair, you know, 25 years ago there was some proprietary stuff around the software. You know, it just was cost prohibitive to have an individual have a subscription to a financial planning tool like you had at an enterprise. It was too much money. Now, you know, Moore's Law and technology, you know, you can do it or you can use chat GPT and say, hey, here's all my stuff. Like, what do you think? I still think it's a little suspect on some of the data, you know, because it uses recent information. So it'll be like, oh, your asset allocation should be 60% international, 100%.

[Joe]

Yeah. Or 100% large cap growth a year.

[OG]

Ago, you know, because it's got the, it's, you know, not necessarily looking long term, but. And all that's good. By the way, I'm not upset about having consumer facing, easy to use tools for other people because frankly, the more people that are successful in our, in our world and in our country financially, the better it is for everyone. Right. Like, if everybody maxed out their 401ks, that would be a good thing for the universe. So I'm all about it.

[Joe]

Yeah, I think the lesson is don't go hire an advisor because of the tools. If stuff's not getting done, you just need it to get done and figure out how to do that. That's why I always have coaches when I go to the gym. I go to the gym because, oh gee, I won't do it on my own.

[OG]

I just won't because you are disgusting. Fat body, private pile.

[Joe]

I. I will not do it if I'm not being pushed. But if there's somebody waiting for me at the gym, an accountability partner, I will show up because I'm gonna make sure that I do my part in that relationship. So good stuff. We'll also link to that in the show notes. It's stacking Benjamin's dot com. Doug, I think it's time that we wandered out on the back porch. We've got some good news for stackers in southern Minnesota and maybe northern Iowa.

[Doug]

My God, I thought you guys would never stop Talking because I can't wait to talk about our next group. Mankato, Minnesota. Hey, you're on. No, sorry, wrong show. But Mankato, Minnesota, big event. They're kicking off their bad group. That's Benjamin's After Dark.

[Joe]

Well, it's meeting a bad group. We're kind of, you know, bad.

[Doug]

You see what they we did there with the acronyms and that's fun. They are meeting. So the Mankato, Minnesota having a Benjamin's After Dark meeting Wednesday the 28th. That's just two short days from now. They're having that meeting at the Maverick Innovation Gateway. It's on Stadium Road on the Minnesota State campus. And Man Code Mankota, Mankato. Too many M's. And I am so excited to see.

[Joe]

This group kick off. And I'll tell you.

[Doug]

6:30.

[Joe]

It's 6:30pm thanks. What I'm excited about this group is the fact that while we have groups now in twin cities about 75 miles north of Mankato and also in Seattle and groups coming online in Boston very soon. More on that coming up. And we're in the discussion phase in Dallas and in Tucson. This group in these planning calls have had a lot of students. Guys, it's great to see these.

[Doug]

That is cool.

[Joe]

18 to 22 year olds diving into their personal financial situation. And big thanks to Tim and Rob and some of the people that got this started to involve students. So we got students running, running the show here which makes Benjamin's After Dark have a whole different meeting that I didn't have until besides those years that I was in college. So maybe these meetings get crazy. Doug Kegger party.

[Doug]

It is exciting to see that and to see younger students getting into thinking about their personal finances for long term. I just had a plane ride about a week and a half ago sitting next to a young couple, pretty young, married young couple who they were talking about how they didn't fall into the trap of the Instagram trap, the whatever you want to call it. A feeling like, well, saving is impossible. There's no way that we're going to be able to have a long term retirement planning and buy a house. So screw it, we're just going to travel everywhere. I was so glad to hear them say it is possible. You just have to, you just got to put in some effort and have some self restraint early on.

[Joe]

Crazy.

[Doug]

Be able to. Yeah. And I'm like, God, where, where are the rest of your kind? Go talk to all of your friends and let them know. But Henry and Margaret now, there you go. I mean they've got old people names, so they're really old souls at heart. But Henry and Margaret have it figured out. They had it figured out at a young age. You just don't get to go to Bali every winter and you know, and get to go to Paris all the time. You just can't say effort. I might as well not even try.

[Joe]

Speaking of names, by the way, we owe apologies for Doug's outburst last Wednesday when Dana Onsbach was with us. Yes, when you went after the Ashley's and the Braxtons in our stacker community.

[Doug]

That's totally justified. Why are we offering apologies?

[Joe]

Doug is just railing against the fact that his name is Doug.

[OG]

That is.

[Joe]

That is 100%. 100%.

[Doug]

Where is this coming from?

[Joe]

Oh, you know it. You know it. You can't go after Ashley and Braxton and not take a look inside, man. Just look inside first and then realize maybe go to chat GPT and have it be your therapist like it was.

[Doug]

Trying to help OG Doug is such a normal name. They even named an emu Doug. Oh no, no, it's not the emu. It's the other. It's the, it's the star of the whole commercial. Is Doug the star?

[Joe]

It was the guy that was going to get fired. The guy that's kind of milk toasty in that deal.

[Doug]

He is the personality of those.

[Joe]

All right, moving on. What else we got?

[Doug]

Well. Oh, I know what else. It's happening today. Later today and on Wednesday the 28th, we've got some walkthroughs of the vault. You're just walking right through because there's like a screen door in the back. You just get to walk right through. Is that the way it works?

[Joe]

I bet people tell me that. Like I'd love to see how this thing works because I think when you see how it works, you'll see why people have loved it so much. Why I can't stop talking about it. But 6:00 clock Eastern Time, 3:00pm Specific, as Doug says, we'll be on YouTube. Go to our YouTube channel and you'll see us there. Also on Wednesday at 4pm Eastern and again at 8pm Eastern. So giving people a lot of opportunities to walk through the vault. Last week we had double digits every time we went live with groups of people and showing them exactly what they get when they buy this beautiful thing that we've made. So stacking benjamins.com vault if you want to take a look. But come join me on YouTube and ask all your questions. People have fantastic questions about exactly how it works. And we just went through the buttons, so love to see everybody there. We've got a lot more, but we're gonna have to continue this on Wednesday. Some fantastic reviews. Thank you for everybody who left a review. Also, we've had a couple people submit some cool TikTok minutes as well, which I think are going to be a lot of fun and some of you doing just amazing things. So take part in our basement Facebook group. Say hi to us on Spotify. Love to. To chat more about the stuff we talk about here on the show. All right, Doug, that's gonna put a pin in it. As mom says. What are our three big takeaways from today's show?

[Doug]

Well, Joe, first, take some advice from our main topic today. Lead with your gut, but verify with hard evidence. Watch out for those biases. Second, Costco. That membership could save you a ton if you aren't just thinking about pallets of toilet paper and ketchup. But the big lesson, don't think too much about these paradoxical problems, like who shaves the barber? It'll explode your brain. Like this one. If a guy's finished doing nothing, has he accomplished anything? Yeah, he has. He absolutely has. This is why, Joe, I think Americans love driving because you're doing nothing. But you're doing something.

[Joe]

But are you doing nothing? Well, you are just kind of sitting there.

[Doug]

You're just sitting there. But if somebody asks you to do something, like, nope, sorry, I got to drive.

[Joe]

So going from point A to point B.

[Doug]

It's the best. It's the best. Anyway, we're kicking off our week of shows about getting 1% better because Joe's going to be speaking at the 1% better conference in Omaha, Omaha on February 21st and 22nd. Come join the fun. We'll share a link on our show [e-mail] and we've got a week of shows to help you get 1% better. On Wednesday, we're going to help you figure out where great ideas really come from. See when two ideas really love each other.

[Joe]

Oh, boy.

[Doug]

Join us as we welcome George Newton, who will share how great ideas are more about archaeology than genius. This show is the property of SP Podcast, LLC, Copyright 2026, and is created by Josal Sehai. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. And oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not Take advice from these nerds. Don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin show.

[Joe]

Okay, Og we got to hear about the Caribbean. We gotta hear about the Caribbean, because I love the magic that happens at this trick that you describe every year. So even though we did a some pretty good shows while you were gone, I gotta say, the whole time I was waiting for the photos. I still haven't seen photos.

[OG]

Sorry. What happens in the Cayman stays in the Caymans. There's no. No record of it. Last year, you know, I got sick halfway through. Oh, you did too. And I was sick for, like, three days. Oh, yeah, with the flu. It was awful.

[Joe]

So you were making up for lost time this year?

[OG]

I was trying not to have that happen this year. This year, actually, the weather wasn't perfect. It was usually. It's always been really good. In fact, this is the first time that I actually ever remember it even being cloudy. And it was cloudy for a number of days. It rained twice. One day, we're just complete washout. But it's like 80, so you can still go outside. I mean, hell, you could go swim if you wanted, but it's just kind of type of day. But it's a great event that's put on by Chase and Mary out there. They bring in a bunch of chefs from all over the country, all over the world, honestly. And this year, we did a. We did a demonstration of a cooking demonstration, and Andrew Zimmern, which we've never seen before, and he's obviously great personality, and sure, it really challenges your palate a lot, you know, when you go to these things. So they're like. They make the thing, and you're like, I didn't see him cook that. Like, how you don't have to cook scallops. You just eat them. Like. Well, I'm a fan of butter and garlic. Can we just put mine? In fact, we joked like, next year I'm just gonna bring one of those little hand kitchen torches. So when they bring us the raw food, I can just flame it up in my plate real quick and be like, okay, now it's good.

[Doug]

A little jar of melted butter.

[OG]

So he was a great. And it's really about the personalities. The food's really good too. Obviously. You know, they make these little dishes and hand them out and you know, sometimes their signature thing or whatever. But just hearing the stories from the chefs and, like, how they came up with stuff is really fun. We went to do a demonstration. This woman made tamales. And when I think of tamales, I think about tamales like you get at Costco that are like corn wrapped in like a pork or, like a pork flavor, you know, spicy thing or chicken or whatever. And these were just tamales, like by themselves. And she's like, no, you stupid Americans. Like, we just eat these. We don't have to pack meat in them. You know, we're like, oh, wait, what? It's like corn, sugar, butter, like, that's all this is. And like, oh, well, that's a super easy thing to do. So it's also really cool to see them make this stuff. Like, literally inside of a 40 minute demonstration, you're like, okay, it's going to take me longer because I don't have those knife skills and I can't move my hands like that. But that seemed doable, you know, so it was kind of fun to see that. You can go and just stay at the hotel. You can go and buy some of the events a la carte. You get a package deal like we do. Yeah. One of the days you go just go out on the catamaran, you go play with stingrays, which is super gross, but some people like it.

[Doug]

He's right. I have a story about that.

[OG]

I mean, they're so. I mean, I don't. I don't fish. I don't like to fish. I don't like to touch worms or fish for that matter. So having these, I don't know why. I thought maybe it'd be like a dog or something. Be like all furry, which isn't my favorite thing either. But it was in the ocean.

[Joe]

Oh, so you thought they might like it?

[OG]

Oh, I was in the water. It touched me. I can say I touched it because my hand was in the water and it swam by and it brushed my hand and then I recoiled in horror and went back on the boat.

[Doug]

Speaking of recoiling in horror, one of the stories that gets told way too often in my house is the time we took the kids to SeaWorld in Florida and they have one of these big, huge sea ray pools. You stand next to it, like you walk up to the edge of it. You can buy for $100 or some stupid amount, you can buy this little thing of fish to feed the stingrays. They're all swimming in the same direction. So we're standing you're supposed to just hold the little fish right at the surface of the water, and then they come up and they take it. Great. So I'm standing there waiting, and I'm just looking at the direction that they're coming from and my hands. Right there near the surface of the water. Some hole. Sorry. Some jerk stingray comes from the other direction that they're not allowed to swim in and takes my whole forearm into its mouth. Just. It felt like. Yeah, it scared. I screamed like a little girl. I lost all my cool. I was not ready for it. I didn't see it coming. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but my entire hand was inside the stingray, and that was terrifying. So I get it. Oh, gee.

[OG]

They told us. They're like, don't, you know? Here's the mouth. You can touch the nose and put the top. Do not get your hand underneath there, because it will go. It will go away.

[Doug]

Yep.

[Joe]

We. So do you have bite marks?

[Doug]

Like, did you know it was just super soft? Like, there was.

[OG]

No, I don't have any.

[Doug]

Cheat.

[OG]

Like.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's just like a suction. Yeah, it was super soft.

[OG]

Okay, now there's plans for it after.

[Doug]

That, when you're not. I knew you were thinking that. I knew you were gonna say it.

[OG]

I was like, hold on a second.

[Joe]

So I took. Wait home.

[OG]

So hold on. Just thinking this through.

[Doug]

I'm gonna need three to five minutes.

[OG]

So there I was with a stingray on an American Airlines flight.

[Joe]

Now I have my favorite pet. We were on this trip to see komodo dragons when we were in Indonesia. And part of the boat trip was that you do a little bit of snorkeling, but all of a sudden, they get excited. They're like, oh, there's rays. And so everybody jump in. So I jump in. I'm like, okay, there's rays in the ocean. I didn't realize these were giant manta rays. So, Doug, I did not get my hand caught in it. But I'm sitting there, and the sea's a little bit murky, and then all of a sudden, below me, these things have a wingspan of seven feet.

[Doug]

Oh, right. Yeah.

[Joe]

And there's three of them, and they come right under me, and I about crap my pants. I don't just all of a sudden, out of the Merc, there's this huge, huge thing swimming right underneath me. And I was like, get me the hell out of the water right now. Like, oh, no, they won't hurt you. I'm like, I don't care.

[OG]

Right. I don't believe you.

[Joe]

Get me out of the water right now. That said the Komodo dragon that you know, you know will kill you. It has killed people before.

[Doug]

Do they have soft?

[Joe]

We had a picture taken with it. What's that?

[Doug]

Do they have soft mouths?

[Joe]

I don't.

[Doug]

I don't.

[OG]

I've seen the planet Earth on those things. Those things are vicious.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

It will rip you in a shred. Don't they have, like, a venom that, like, just slowly bleeds you to death or something?

[Doug]

I thought it was just their saliva.

[OG]

Yeah, can't.

[Joe]

Your.

[OG]

Your. Your wound can't heal, right? That's what it is.

[Joe]

They poison you. It takes a while, and it just follows you.

[OG]

Yeah. It's like, whatever. Whenever you die, I'll eat you. I don't care.

[Joe]

It's not in a hurry. It's coming now.

[Doug]

Looking at its watch. I got time.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe]

The story they told us as we were getting off the ship was of this person that had died six months earlier, and they decided to go camping at Komodo National Forest. Like, why the hell. Oh, there's things that are going to kill me here in the forest. I'm going to go ahead and camp there. Like, what do you. What? Why would you do that? But, Doug, it's a great opportunity. You should go try it.