Ep734: Paul Merriman – What You Do When You Are Young, Is Golden

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community. We know that to win an investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. Thank you for joining that mission. Today. Fellow risk takers this is your worst podcast hosts Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests. Paul Merriman. Paul, are you ready to join the mission?

Paul Merriman 00:39
I am on the mission. I'm right with you, Andrew, thank you.

Andrew Stotz 00:43
Yes, in fact, that's the great thing about what you're doing is that you know, you are on a mission. And I want everybody in the audience to know about that mission and to take advantage of what you're bringing to the world. So let me introduce you to the audience. Paul is a nationally recognized authority on mutual funds, index indexing, and asset allocation. After retiring in 2012. From Merriman Wealth Management, which he founded in 1983, Paul created the American financial education foundation dedicated to providing investors of all ages with free information and tools to make better investment decisions. Paul is the author of eight books, including we're talking millions 12 simple ways to supercharge your retirement. And his website, Paul merriman.com provides over 700 articles, podcasts and videos, plus recommended mutual funds and best in class ETF portfolios at Vanguard, fidelity, and Schwab. Paul, take a minute and tell us about the unique value that you are bringing to this wonderful world.

Paul Merriman 01:57
Well, I think the most important thing we do is to give the in Do It Yourself investor the tools that they need, we've got to remember that a do it yourself investor is in essence, taking on the responsibility of being the professional investment advisor, but they only have one client and that pocket is themselves. And you and I both know that the emotions of this whole process are a difficult wrestling match when you're wrestling with yourself. And we're trying to give them that information that they can put their portfolios on automatic with the right amount of equity, the right amount of fixed income, all the important steps that any paid investment advisor would need to know in order to help you and if we can do that, we not only got them, but we got their kids and their grandkids. So it is a mission. We do start at the college level. And we do go all the way through retirement in every way that we can to help these folks take better control.

Andrew Stotz 03:06
It's a great way of putting it about being an adviser to myself. But it reminded me of the movie Liar Liar with Jim Carrey, where he says, allow myself to introduce myself. And that allow myself to advise myself. And I think that one of the first things that I've learned from being in the financial markets is it's a it's a roller coaster. And one of the things that I did many, many years ago, even as a sell side analysts, and my job is to be on that roller coaster is I, I worked really hard to try to detach myself from that. And nowadays, when I help my clients, part of what I help my clients with, is not being on the roller coaster ride, because I know that my clients are on a roller coaster of emotion. And I'm just curious, just that point about how you help yourself when you know it's an emotional roller coaster. What is it that works? Is it your you've got your steps, you've got frameworks, you've got, you know, structures, what helps someone in that situation?

Paul Merriman 04:09
Well, at the end of the day, if folks have unrealistic expectations, they're not likely going to be successful. I mean, we have got to learn in life, the difference between the courtship the honeymoon and reality. And what is that reality about investing and you talked about it? It's the roller coaster. So we do a couple of things for folks. We show them that historical returns, not just have an equity asset class or not a bunch of asset classes together, but how do they look with a certain amount of fixed income? And we build tables that show how much you would have made. But then the important part that I think you're talking about is how much did you have to be willing to lose along the way in order to Stay the course. And if you can't stay the course, you're going to fail. And so I sometimes think that I'm going to fail when I die. If I haven't left enough information for others to use, all of this hard work is going to be for naught because it's got to go on way beyond me.

Andrew Stotz 05:21
Well, and that's what's so admirable about what you're doing. You know, I think a lot of people that were in the industry just enjoy their, you know, they, they retire, and then they, you know, they fiddle around and you're not fiddling around, maybe we just I want to talk about, we're talking millions, because it's, first of all, it's such a great title. But maybe you can tell the audience, you know, what they could get from this book, and tell them where they can get it, I'll have links in the show notes. But maybe we start with that.

Paul Merriman 05:51
Well, where you can get it it is at Paul merriman.com. Because we want you, we don't want you to go to Amazon and buy the book, you can. And if you do, the royalties will go to our foundation, that's great. But I am way more interested in you getting your hands on that free PDF, so that when you're done reading that book, you're going to pass it on to your kids and your friends and people at the office, we do not make a penny on the book, in fact that people who put it together, none of us are paid for the services that we provide. But at the end of the day, that we're talking millions, which sounds like we're over selling this book, it is not overselling this book, because each and every one of those 12 decisions, and they're all simple. And they're mostly controllable, you can't control the market. But there's so much you can control that, that each of those 12 should add a million dollars to your life, what you spend, what you leave to others. That's the way it's supposed to work. But you've got to know the territory and order to figure out because remember, there's a whole industry that is based on you not getting an education. So if we can help you get that education. In fact, I noticed you've had Larry sweat row on your on your show a number of times. Yep. He is what I call a truth teller. I've got a whole list of truth tellers, you got Bill Bernstein that you're going to work with in the future, another truth teller. Not only do I want to teach you how I think you should see investing, and learn these 12 things. But I want to turn you loose on truth tellers that carry it beyond. Although I could outlive Bill Bernstein. It's possible. You know, somebody's got to carry this on. And these folks, these folks are good.

Andrew Stotz 07:53
Yeah. Well, I love that on your, on your website, where you have the truth tellers, and you, you know, list them out. And I think that ultimately, as a young person, when I started listening and reading what these guys were saying, it really helped me to set, you know, simplicity, and all that. And the other thing that I've really learned too, is just the fact that I used to get confused, like stocks, bonds, commodities, gold and all that. But now I'm very clear. Ultimately, it's companies in the form of stocks that have the best growth profile over the longest period of time. And therefore, if you use bonds, if we use commodities, if we use gold, were using those as something that brings some benefit to the core, which is the growth potential of the stocks. I'm just curious, how do you see, you know, like, one of your, one of your points, you know, you talk about stocks versus bonds. And you know, all that, I'm just curious how you see it for someone that, let's say, is pretty much a beginner listening to this?

Paul Merriman 08:58
Well, in fact, those are the most important listeners that I have, because they have an asset that you and I would like to have. And that's called time. And so that means they can actually take advantage of this, the impact of compounding. And the first thing that I'm trying to teach these young people is forget about investing itself, understand the math, of making money, understand the implication of making an extra one half of 1% a year over a lifetime. And once you see how easy it is to make an extra half a percent, well, how about another half a percent, because here's the bottom line for every half a percent that we can make over whatever that base return is going to be. That's probably going to lead to a one to $2 million extra money over your lifetime. Now if that's true, and I can show you a bunch of ways to make an extra half or percent. We're talking about a lot of potential returns. But what if there was just one decision that you made? That would not give you one half percent advantage, but 10 half percent advantages in one decision? Well, you just mentioned the decision, do I invest in bonds? Or do I invest in stocks, and the beauty of what we have at least based on history, and that's all we have to go on, is bonds over the last 95 years, they've made about 5% a year. Now, some are much less because they're less risky, some, maybe a little more, because they're more risky, but 5% is kind of the base, whereas the s&p 500, the large, the well known kinds of companies have compounded at 10. On average, well, if that's true, they're just your there's your 10, one half percents between 10 and five, you're talking about the potential of another $10 million over a lifetime. And I'm not talking about somebody who's putting away a whole bunch of money every year, I'm talking about people who are putting away maybe five $6,000 into a retirement plan that their work or some sort of a government retirement plan. It can be done. And the beauty is that the academics not Wall Street, the academics have shown us clearly what the steps are that we need to take in order to not just pick up that extra 5% between bonds and stocks. But how about if there were some kinds of stocks that did better than 10%, that you could add a little, you wouldn't have to add a lot. But you can add a little to your portfolio to push that return up, maybe another half, or maybe even another 1%. These are all things that are known to the academic community, they are known to Wall Street, but also Wall Street is not going to go out of their way to tell you how to act in your best interest.

Andrew Stotz 12:12
There's one thing that I've I've, when I many years ago, I don't know maybe it was 15 years ago, whenever that was, we started to survey clients in the world of finance. And we would ask them, Are you high risk, low risk, moderate risk, and there was these behavioral tests and guys that came up with these great behavioral tests of trying to understand and then the result of that is that we would say, Okay, you're low risk, therefore, we're going to reduce your equity exposure and increase your bond portfolio exposure. Because we know that if time gets tough, and the markets collapse, you're the person that's going to basically sell at the bottom, and you're a high risk person, therefore, we're going to have a higher level of exposure to equity. And, you know, all that made sense to me at the time. But now, when I look at that, I think, in fact, I would argue that most people now who are signing those things, it's not to protect the individual, it's to protect the institution.

Paul Merriman 13:13
Perfect. Absolutely. And the reality is, go ahead. I'm sorry. Well,

Andrew Stotz 13:19
the other point, I was just going to say is that what they appear to be saving you from? They're causing you like there are no solutions, only trade offs, I believe it was Thomas soul that said that. And the point is, is that they're exposing you to shortfall risk. Because that means okay, that my money is going to compound at a lower rate, because you said I'm low risk and all that. And now instead of having the million that I need, when I'm 60, I'm gonna have 450,000. But nobody's gonna, like deal with that. Now, that's going to be dealt with in 20 or 30 years. And so they're blameless when it comes to shifting someone into that. And that's, you know, what, what I'm seeing, but yeah, tell me what your thoughts are on that?

Paul Merriman 14:03
Well, I think the other part of that I think you're right on in that conclusion. But the other part is that they also know that when the market goes down, they're gonna lose the client, because they didn't educate the client. The problem is that, and it's a challenge for people that are in this industry. If you educate them, the first thing you tell them is not only that stocks are better than bonds, and 1000 stocks are better than one stock, and a number of things that will lead them eventually to the low expenses are better than high expenses. And the most direct path to higher rates of return are lower expenses. Well, all of a sudden, you're in the realm of index funds. How much profit is there in this in the financial community in index funds almost nothing. And yet it is the very products that people really need to own. Because they have more diversification. That's a plus. Because strangely enough to do the way a lot of people believe more stocks are likely to make you more money than a few stocks are going to make you more money. I mean, the academics have shown that clearly. So there's a big advantage, then you also have low turnover. So there's not all of the buying and selling going on inside the portfolio. Another plus for you as the investor. And in this is I don't I don't know of any broker who has ever sent their clients the speedo report, SP iva, what is this report that Standard and Poor's comes out with every six months, and in that report, and it's just so juicy. In that report, it shows what percentage of actively managed funds, were able to beat their benchmark over the last year 510 15 and 20. And by the time you get out to 20, it's about one out of 20, actively managed funds, has outperformed the index itself. So if I'm an investor, and you tell me that we are going to try to find the best actively managed funds, first of all, do you have a way to pick them? And the industry is honest answer would be we have no idea. Because you we know Bill Miller was the best of the bunch for 15 years, and the money just piled in and into his leg Mason Value Trust mutual funds. But then he was the worst for a decade, after he attracted billions and billions of dollars. No, the odds of the in are so in favor of the individual investor using index funds. Plus, by the way, as you know, once you have a fund that has 500, or 1000, or 5000, companies, you don't have to spend any time thinking about do I need to fire the advisor because he or she doesn't know what they're doing? No, that's taken care of. So I don't think Wall Street is going to go out of their way to really show people the best way to take care of their money.

Andrew Stotz 17:31
I'm going to include a link to that site. I'm looking at it right now. And I'm just showing in the US in the past 10 years 92 point, let's say 92% of funds underperform the s&p in I know I have listeners in Australia also, this shows that about 81% of funds underperform, and in Japan, about 82%, underperforming the past 10 years. And in India about 70% underperformed. Now, I noticed one of the things that you can see is that maybe the more developed the market is the harder it is to you know, to outperform Europe is at about 90%. So these are great statistics for us to understand, you know what's going on there, it's not just you know, you coming out and saying hey, you know, most people are underperforming? No, it is right there in black and white.

Paul Merriman 18:28
Well, let me just add one thing, because you're gonna, when you start digging into that, Andrew, you're gonna love that report, because they also show the returns of indexes. And then they show the average return of the actively managed funds over the last 20 years.

Andrew Stotz 18:47
Now, this is an incredible number for everybody listening to think about i haven't seen what their calculation is, but I've read read some academic research on it. But what what's the finding that you seen?

Paul Merriman 18:57
No, no. Now there really we have to remember there are two important findings and we can't forget one is the average is about 2% less per year 2% Less, I'm talking about a half a percent, adding a million or $2 million to your fortune to either spend or lead to others. And we're talking 2% Trying to find the and how do we know if we're going to be better?

Andrew Stotz 19:24
Just to clarify, that means that if the market went up by 10%, and you tried to get market exposure, and let's say you could get that at 9.8% or 9.9%. In a good index fund, you're actually going to have a return more like 7.9% or so. Let's just say roughly 8%, which actually is low. The number I remember was 5%. But let's just say 2%. And I suspect that's all because of bad timing of buying high and selling low. Is that correct?

Paul Merriman 19:59
Well There are a number of things, by the way that 5% You're talking about, I think is the dowel bar study. Yeah. And that's the return that the individual investors get. So they buy substandard mutual funds, and then they try to time them and get an even lower compound rate of return. But here's the other number that we got to gotta remember, we have to remember that child who walked who drowned walking across a river whose average depth was two feet. Now we know that if 10 And by the way, the over the last 1520 years, the s&p 500 was about 10.9, or some such number. But that 2% less than that as an average means a whole bunch of people made lower numbers than the 8%. And so how do you know that you're not B? Why would you take any chance of being down in the bottom half of that study, where you can choose to buy an index fund, and immediately, you are amongst one of the winners. And when I came into this industry in 1966, everything was built, not to take advantage of the investor. But today, thanks to John Bogle and a whole bunch of other really great people, we have a chance, because we can put money away in investments that compound tax deferred, I didn't have that possibility. When I started in the 60s, and you have indexes, you have ETFs, you have target date funds for crying out loud. And by the way, I gotta tell you that I don't know whether your listeners are using target date funds. But the Wharton School did a study along with Vanguard at $1.2 million dollars 1.2 million investors in these company retirement plans. They found that people that just used a simple target date fund, which does everything for you for the rest of your life, you don't ever have to make a decision, all they want to know is when do you want to retire. And then they do it. On the other hand, they looked at all the people that didn't have any target date funds in their portfolio, their portfolios were built to make 2.3% a year less. And wow. So here's this opportunity. And the reason I know this is important, I teach college university students, and I have a class that our foundation supports. And I go there once every quarter and teach for a couple of hours, most of these young people do not want to come out of college and be stock jockeys. Most of them want to go to work to make a living. And as far as saving, they would really have somebody else do it for them. And of course, the target date fund is exactly what so many of those people's people need, when we try to show them. Of course, we want to make it better for him. We show them how to just and it's in the book, we're talking millions, the last half of the book, how you just put a little bit of small cap value in that portfolio? Because those target date funds don't have any of that of consequence. And if you do it right, man, it's at least an extra half to 1% a year over a lifetime.

Andrew Stotz 23:45
Yeah, great advice and that it's kind of rules based but even better than rules based. It's rules based done for you. Target you know, target funds. I before we get into the big question of this podcast, I just want to tell you the story, given the title of your book, how I created five millionaires. Great. So when I was building up in my career and understanding finance, teaching finance, and my one of my sisters passed away and she had three daughters. And as I watched them grow, you know, I thought about the challenge of not having, you know, a mother and all of that they had a great father. And my other sister has two daughters and she was divorced. So it was you know, they were both my sisters you know, had a tough in some ways and I thought to myself, what can I give to my nieces? That would you know, be a value and I thought I know so much about investing. What could I do to help so when my first niece graduated high school, I went to the bank here in Thailand and got $3,000 Putting Michael Rocket jumped on an airplane in Windsor High school graduation. And after graduation, I sat down and I said, Here's my gift $3,000 in cash, but you can't have it, we're going to open up a Vanguard account. And we're going to put it in, you know, ve T fund, and investing globally. And as each of my nieces graduated, I flew back to America with that same 3000 set up their accounts. So I got all three of my nieces started at the age of 18. Now, none of them are interested in the stock market. So they wouldn't never have done that themselves. And so by the time I was done with all of them, I was pretty, pretty felt pretty good about myself. But the here's the kicker to the story. Actually, I failed. And the reason why I failed, Paul was because I really couldn't somehow I didn't convey to them that they need to contribute every month. And therefore, though, that 3000 has been compounding over the years, and I told him, basically, I told him Look, my advice to use, buy and never sell by this one instrument that owns every stock in the world, never sell it. And I guarantee you, you'll be richer than almost anybody else that you know, you know, out there. But that one thing of getting them to contribute. And then I talked to one of my niece's and she's like, Yeah, you know, at work, they have this and that, and then I was talking to my friends. So, you know, I decided to put some extra money in some tech and some this and that, and I just thought, I really failed.

Paul Merriman 26:43
You know, I have a feeling I love what you tried to do. And if you go under best advice on my website, at the bottom is advice for basically children, and what parents and grandparents can do. If you just put away $365 A year, in fact, if you want to, if you want to do some work, picture this, a newborn child gets $365. And account is open. They don't qualify for any kind of a Roth IRA or a 401 K or something. But they can have an account. And you put that money in an asset class that has a history of returning 12% plus percent over return over 95 years. Now, it's academic, it's hypothetical, but it comes out of the academic community, it's the work of fama and French. So what you do is you take that for when they're 70 years old, and the account is only for that $365. And if that account gets three a 12% compound rate of return, and then the US that can be tax free, because it can be in a Roth as soon as the child qualifies, that will be worth a million dollars at age 70. Now they got a problem, because they learned how to live on a million dollars for a year. By the way, if the amount was 10% a year, it would be more like about 500,000. But what you do when they're two years old, or a year later, you give them another $365. Pretty soon it's starting to sound like $3,000 that you put in. And what you will be able to show them when they're older, is look what happened to each one of these investments. We kept each one of these separate. And we don't want now we do this for our grandkids when our grandkids are born, we immediately give them a $10,000 that's what we're gonna leave 10,000 developers, but it's there to fund their retirement investments. And we got the problem. And you do too they can go out and spend that money if they want to. I mean, that's the killer is when you find out you've given money, and then they blew it on something that gave them a quick mount of enjoyment. But there are the steps we can take as parents or grandparents to build a partnership with that little tiny investor because they're going to grow up. And then you hand them a copy of we're talking millions. It'll have to be revised, of course. So but anyway, yeah, we bother. We even have that plan.

Andrew Stotz 29:37
I guess I should have said to my nieces. The good news is I'm going to give you a million dollars for graduating from high school. That's it. The bad news is you can't collect it until your seven deaths.

Paul Merriman 29:49
That's the right message. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Andrew Stotz 29:53
And I think, you know, the sad thing is that, you know, we could solve so many of these problems with politicians. And with what's going on in society by basically setting up these types of accounts for young people when they're born that guarantees their education or guarantees ability to pay for a house or guarantees their retirement. But unfortunately, most people aren't thinking about those things in the way that you are.

Paul Merriman 30:19
Well, and we're all working on this and who, here in the United States, there's a fella by the name of Tim Rand Zetta Tim Rand Zetta is on a mission just as you and I and minnow I'm we're all trying to help. He is developing free financial literacy curriculum, and making it available and not only making it available free to the schools, but he does all of the teaching of the teachers, he will even give money to a school district. If they will install these programs. There he is writing the check himself to underwrite this program. And his mission is every state in the United States will require a semester of personal finance before they can graduate from high school. And I look Western, and

Andrew Stotz 31:13
I'm looking at the website right now, mission 2030. By 2030. All us high schoolers will be guaranteed to take at least one semester long personal finance course before graduation. And guess

Paul Merriman 31:23
who just gave him $100 million dollars, Michael Jordan's Foundation to help support this out. And what we're we're a little tiny foundation. But what we have next week, it will be announced that our foundation is going to be underwriting a program at a university here in the state of Washington, that every student will be required before graduation at Western Washington University, to have a course that will take care of the important financial topics that these young people are going to face. Because you and I both know, Apple, Google, Amazon, they know better how to get us to spend than we do know how to say, and boy, we need some help educating these young people. So that's a major part of what I do

Andrew Stotz 32:20
now. And I'm teaching in the top university here in Thailand Chulalongkorn University. I'm teaching a class in ethics in finance to every Oh, ethics, both every Master's in finance, and also undergrad finance students. It's a 15 hour class where I go over the CFA code of ethics, and try to help them understand ethics and finance.

Paul Merriman 32:43
That is terrific. I'd be anxious to hear what the students have said about that after they take it. You must want to

Andrew Stotz 32:51
make some money. No, no.

Paul Merriman 32:54
Well, I would say we got a lot of work to do. And you're gonna find a lot of people that have a heart for trying to help. Yeah. And we got to do what we can to get it together. Okay.

Andrew Stotz 33:06
Yes. So let's, let's now turn ourselves to the topic of the day. And that is my question, which is, now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thing, here will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, then tell us your story.

Paul Merriman 33:24
Well, I've have a bunch of those, and they all look alike. And the reason they all look alike, even though some of those mistakes were in the commodities market. Some of those mistakes were loaning money to friends, some of those mistakes were investing in, in early small little companies. And the some of those mistakes were trying to trade the market and make quick money in they were all driven by emotions. And boy, it was not until I got the emotion out of that process, that I started to get the money to truly grow. And to realize that the great success in this process is time. I mean, that's all it takes is intelligent decision on day one. We want to help in that regard. And then to let it go, because there is history that proves that has worked for 100 plus years. Having said that, you and I both have to warn people, it can get ugly, but at least when it gets ugly, I have no question in my mind. It is eventually because I'm investing in this, that we have my wife and I have 12,000 stocks in our portfolio, and we're half in bonds, or I'm almost 80 So we're more conservative. But the bottom line is I have no question that it is likely highly likely to work for the rest of my life. I cannot say that about the commodity trades. The little companies, the people I loaned money to. So we've got a, and this young people who this happens to, and they are the very ones who have the greatest possibility in terms of leverage. And as one of the things that you'll see in that book, the first five years of what the money you put away, can theoretically, represent 40% of the value of your portfolio. Over the long term, what you do when you are young, is golden.

Andrew Stotz 35:37
So my big takeaway from that is the focus on time. And I gave, you know, I have, I wrote a book called How to start building your wealth investing in the stock market, I gave some seminars in Thailand, when I was developing the material, kind of like a comedian, I go out and test my material. And I had a group of people in there, and I had some young people in there. And, you know, I had people raise your hand, like, Who's the youngest in the room, and, and then I was able to highlight, like, the advantage that this person had, which of course, they're sitting there thinking they have a disadvantage, because they don't know everything that these people, but I said they have an advantage. But it invariably happened at the break, that a 55 year old guy would come and see me says, Andrew, I get what you're saying about time, I just have to admit that I didn't pay attention, and I didn't save much. And so now I realize I'm going to retire in five or 10 years. And they always ask me the same way. Can you tell me the fast way to make money? Yes. And the answer is, there is none. Right? And that's where, you know, if you don't get it right, at a young age, time, time runs out. And then you don't have the ability to actually get that compounding effect.

Paul Merriman 36:56
Well, and what people end up doing is hoping they can work forever. And sadly, the studies show that too many people due to disabilities or family challengers are enabled to work forever. And I will tell you, the one thing that's disappointing to me is that there is one group that is so unbelievably easy to impress, and to educate, and to get them to hold up their hand to say, Amen, brother. Yes, I get it. And that is engineers. Engineers are a slam dunk. Last year, I spoke to 154 honors engineering students at wreckers online. And the information I got back from those young people, a all got it, they understood, follow the math. And the sooner we can get them to follow the math, and then understand how investing works. We got them, we can help them. But remember, the enemy is always going to be working their job as well. So you know, we got to defend the fort. And that's what education is about. And thank you for what you're doing. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 38:16
So let's just wrap up by first, let's just for the listeners out there, what's the first step that they should do? In engaging with your content? And all that you have? Is it the book? Is it the website? Is it a what what would you suggest

Paul Merriman 38:33
to finish the book, I think would be a great step. There are actually three books that are free are actually six books that are free on the site. But we're talking millions is the one I think to start with. But then I want you to go to the homepage, and go to what is called boot camp. And when you go to boot camp is going to take you to some topics, and each one of those topics will teach you the very most important things you need to know. Like how much do you need in bond sir, what equity asset classes should I have? Or how do I take money out of my investments in retirement? Then you go to those topics. And in there will be an article, a podcast, a video, and a whole bunch of tapes. And so if you will just spend a couple of maybe three hours with each one of those eight different topics, you're going to have most of what you need to know

Andrew Stotz 39:38
bootcamp I'm looking at right now. ultimate buy and hold strategy sound investment, poor investing portfolios, risk and return history, fine tuning your asset allocation. It's all there ladies and gentlemen, and I'm gonna have a link in the show notes for that last question. What is your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Paul Merriman 39:59
All Over the next 12 months, well, I'm turning 80 In just a couple of weeks. And my first goal is to get this new program at Western Washington University up and running. That's a really big deal. And by the way, it even includes educating the PI, the parents, I mean, think of that not only educating the students, but the parents. That is a goal. And, and of course, every year, we update all of our tables, we update all of

40:34
the tables on it. That's the first thing I thought of when I saw that.

Paul Merriman 40:38
Yeah, yeah. And, and I would like to get a million of those, we're talking million PDFs in the hands of investors. If I can do that, I will sleep easy. And as you I think, you know, I'm an early riser between three and four in the morning. So sleeping easy is not the easiest thing for whole people. Sometimes

Andrew Stotz 41:00
we have that same habit. I was having three this morning. And I had someone that wanted to have an eight o'clock meeting tonight, and I'm going to do it, but boy, I can't guarantee I'm going to be awake. It's great. Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. Remember, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. As we conclude, Paul, I want to thank you again for joining our mission and on behalf of ACE Don's Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for our vast audience?

Paul Merriman 41:36
Well, I just want them to know that the payoff for getting a good you doesn't even have to be great. A good education is the biggest return you're ever going to get. So find yourself some good teachers.

Andrew Stotz 41:56
And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that. Today. We added one more person to our mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast hose Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.