The Ben Maynard Program
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The Ben Maynard Program
EP. 89 Money Without the Madness - How to Surf the Market with MICK HEYMAN
What's your financial "sleeping level"? According to investment counselor Mick Heyman, that's the amount of money you can comfortably keep in stocks without losing sleep during market turbulence. This insight represents the philosophy at the heart of Heyman's approach to wealth-building—one that prioritizes investor psychology alongside financial strategy.
In this enriching conversation, Heyman shares wisdom from his new book, "Mellow Your Money: How to Surf the Market and Build Wealth Without Stressing Yourself Out," explaining why understanding your personal risk tolerance is crucial before market downturns occur. Drawing from decades of experience guiding clients through everything from Black Monday to the pandemic crash, he offers a refreshingly nuanced perspective on diversification that goes beyond simplistic advice.
The discussion delves into fascinating territory when Heyman recounts stories of different investor personalities—from the conservative "hit it down the middle" golfer to the swing-for-the-fences gambler. Even when these approaches seem diametrically opposed, Heyman demonstrates how each investor type can find success by acknowledging their psychological relationship with risk. His surfing analogy proves particularly illuminating: just as surfers must look toward the shore rather than down at turbulent waters to stay upright, investors need to focus on long-term horizons instead of daily market fluctuations.
Perhaps most valuable is Heyman's candid assessment of day trading pitfalls, cautioning that amateur traders competing against full-time professionals face steep odds. Instead, he advocates a measured approach to investing that acknowledges market unpredictability while building resilience through proper asset allocation. Whether discussing recent tariff concerns, gold as a portfolio diversifier, or the peculiar psychology behind our reluctance to sell winning positions, Heyman's guidance remains grounded in both financial acumen and human understanding.
Ready to find your investment comfort zone? Discover how to surf financial waves without wiping out. Subscribe, leave a comment, and learn more about Mick's approach at mellowyourmoney.com.
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Hey there, welcome into the Ben Maynard program. Thanks for being here. A little something different this morning, a little something special for you, especially for you educated ones unlike me. But before that, before we get started, a little housekeeping to take care of. As you know, this program is available wherever you get your podcasts. It's available on all the streaming platforms. So just search the Ben Maynard Program and boom, there it is. Go with it.
Speaker 1:If you could please subscribe to that also, whatever service it is that you're using, I'd greatly appreciate it. Anytime there's a new episode published, you get notification on it, okay? Next, if you can't resist this right here, or even some of that right over there, and you're watching on YouTube, then thanks, I greatly appreciate it. Couple of things. Please subscribe to the channel Once again. Anytime there's a new episode, you'll get notified.
Speaker 1:Next, you have to give me a thumbs up. Come on, you gotta give me a thumbs up. I was actually yesterday, just by chance I wasn't trying to do it going through some of my analytics on the YouTube channel and thankfully, I only have one thumbs down. I don't have a ton of likes, but I only have one dislike. So, anyway, you've got to give me a thumbs up. All right, those are important. Why, I don't know, has something to do with an algorithm and I don't really care. But I do care that people watch this or people listen to it. So give me a thumbs up and then you have to leave a comment. All right, comments are great. I reply to all your comments, as you know. Last but not least, follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Ben Maynard program, all one word. And again, I mentioned it yesterday, against my better judgment, I opened up a TikTok account. It's the Ben Maynard program. Okay, I'll never make any money on this, as you know people, and that's not my goal. My goal is just to get eyes and ears on this podcast. So there you go, plenty of ways to take in this show for your dancing and listening pleasure.
Speaker 1:And, as you can see, we have a guest this morning. My guest this morning is author and investment counselor Mick Heyman, and he's written a book called. You probably won't be able to see it too well, I only have the cover, mick, but it's called. It is called Mellow your Money how to Surf the Market and Build Wealth Without Stressing Yourself Out. I got that all right, didn't I Mick? Yeah, mick, perfect, that's perfect, all right. Well, that was a mouthful for me and you had to sit there and listen to all that, but thanks again for being here. Well, thank you, ben, podcast or whatever.
Speaker 1:I guess you just have to kind of like talking. Or my family says to me they say, boy, you really like the sound of your voice. And I say no, I actually I don't like the sound of my voice, because most of us don't like hearing the sound of our recorded voice. I don't like the sound of my voice, I just like to hear myself talk. So so yeah, this is my vehicle for that and it works out pretty well and I greatly appreciate you taking a little bit of time out of your day and your busy schedule to spend with me and my audience. So, before we get into things, just introduce yourself, mick, and tell the audience a little bit about you.
Speaker 2:Sure, I started this journey of learning, I would say, from the early 1980s, when I got into this business and realized it was not just a lesson in learning about the investment world, but about my life and how things are always interconnected.
Speaker 2:You know, you grow up learning. There's math class, there's English class and social studies, and everything is divided, and that's how we seem to learn things when we're young, and it was kind of through this, these experiences in the 80s and 90s and even today, that you learn that everything is connected. And so this learning process was is fascinating to me, and it both got me intrigued with the markets and how the markets work and how people work within the markets and how I, how I interact with both my clients, the markets, and myself. And so at some point I thought, you know, I always learn through stories. I always learn through, you know, hearing about people's experiences. You know, like your podcast, like you're talking, this is how you learn and grow and get excited about things. And so me, too, learn and grow and get excited about things, and so me too.
Speaker 2:Anyway, that's why I wanted to write this book. That was a little bit more of a storytelling book about how to learn about the markets as opposed to a textbook. I never learned a whole lot from textbooks, so I thought here's a chance for people to hopefully enjoy some of my stories of life and, while reading that, hopefully glean some lessons about the market, and so that kind of led to writing the book as well as kind of giving you a little bit of insight into how I look at things, even with the markets, you know with, you know today whether it's today or five years ago or whatever.
Speaker 2:We're always stressed about the market. There's always something to worry about. Anyway, my goal is to have people mellow out.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I hear you on that. Look, I mean for me, I'm one of the least educated people on investing in finance. So you answered the first part of my two-part question and that was why you wrote the book. But how can your book help people like me?
Speaker 2:What I hopefully will do is give you a background to the approach to take to your money and your long-term objectives and goals, because it's pretty easy if you just want to Google, you know what should I focus on in investing.
Speaker 2:You'll get anywhere from five, the five pillars of investing, or the 10, you know, main things to focus on. It's not that, it's not brain surgery Thankfully I don't have the mind for that, so that part is easy. How to pay yourself first, save every month, put things in slowly, get diversified. All these things are easy rules to follow, but until something weird happens and something strange happens all the time. Strange happens all the time, and so if you haven't dealt with your emotions, then you throw these rules out the window the first time something untoward happens. And so that's where my book is hopefully helping people along, and where I'd like to help people along is to have the rules in place, but also to know what's behind the rules and what can throw you off and what could throw the markets off, and not be so surprised by it.
Speaker 1:Right, Because I'm a knucklehead. Diversify, that just means to put money in multiple areas, correct?
Speaker 2:That's correct and that's pretty important to understand what the different areas are. You know, a lot of people don't want to pay any attention to the market or to investing, and there's just a little bit of insight that you need to go into it, because if you look back in history, you can see through all the different ups and downs that the markets have had during all the different historical experiences what happened in the depression, what happened when Pearl Harbor happened, what happened in history. And you can kind of see the ups and downs and say, okay, well, if these type of things happen, the market could drop X percent. Right, and we can't predict those things. I don't care how many videos you watch or people, the experts you listen to on TV, no one predicts these things consistently. And so you have to be ready for the surprise. And so when you think about I'm going to invest in stocks, you have to think about what am I willing to lose? What could I lose in the short term that wouldn't get me scared? And so that's the first question of diversification is because there are things that don't move that much Money market funds don't move a whole lot, bonds move a little bit, but not as much as stocks typically, and so get a sense of what things move and how they move.
Speaker 2:And if you're somebody who doesn't like risk, who is a little afraid, maybe you only want half your money in stocks. Well, that's diversification Half the money in stocks, half the money in safe things. And let's say you're a guy that doesn't care that much. Maybe you've got a long-term time horizon, maybe you have the kind of psychology that isn't going to get scared out when different things happen. You might have three quarters of your money in stocks. I have some clients who have 100% of their money in stocks. They don't care, they've got a long-term time horizon and they have experienced the pandemic. During the first three weeks of the pandemic the market dropped 35%. Imagine you got $100,000 all in stocks and in three weeks it's $65,000.
Speaker 1:Is that work? That 35% drop? That's worse than 2008 as well, isn't it, I think, 2000. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Sorry, in 2008, I think it dropped more, but not as fast.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah. I mean, it took some time, which I don't know which is worse, you know it's right, and then and then I think there was a there was what do they call that Black Monday back in 1987. But none of that was nearly as bad right.
Speaker 2:Well, in Black Monday, the market dropped 22% in one day, one day, right. So imagine, today you've got $100,000 and tomorrow you've got 78. So there is a reason not to own 100% stocks. I don't care if you have a 50-year time horizon, if that's going to get you to be scared.
Speaker 2:I have a client I actually one of my early clients. I talked to them about three weeks before the 87 crash. They were an older couple, they were worried about the depression and they said what happens if we have a 1929 experience? And I said well, let's look. And instead of in hindsight, I sort of said oh my gosh, yeah, let's sell everything. But I didn't. I said let's look at how many stocks you have, how much you have in stocks. This is how much you would lose if it dropped like 1929. If that happened, would you be okay? Well, they only had about a third of their money in stocks and so when that happened, I had to give them a call and they said well, you showed us what would happen. What's our value? Well, it was right around the value we had talked about and I said well, you said if that happened, we should start buying. Well, that's exactly what we did, and what a successful long-term client that began because they had strong hands. They didn't get scared after the 22% drop because their diversification allowed that to happen without panicking.
Speaker 2:Someone else fired us that day. Oh my God, it was like how could you put me in stocks? Well, we said what could happen, but you didn't say it could happen in a day, of course. But that's the thing is, you've got to get comfortable, and everyone's different. Everyone has a unique risk threshold. But that's something that is you've got to get comfortable and everyone's different. Everyone has a unique risk threshold. But that's something that I really encourage people to get in touch with Know yourself, because if you don't, you're going to automatically put yourself in some box and when you know tariffs happen as of today, people are scared.
Speaker 1:I was going to bring that up, yeah.
Speaker 2:The pandemic happened. You know all these things, the? I remember someone asking me, or, as the pandemic was ending and and the things were getting back to normal, he was saying uh gosh, now that the slow down you know pandemics ending things are going to really go well, aren't't they? And I said you know what? I'm not going to predict what's going to happen because I can't, but I tell you this something will. And I didn't predict inflation was going to get up to 9% and the very next year the market dropped 22% in a year that was in 2022. I don't know, maybe it was 20%, but whatever, you have to realize that even though we want to predict things people on TV look like they are predicting things it's better to say I can't predict things, what's best over the long term and what can I take, and then make little adjustments along the way when you're not so emotional because you have the right asset mix.
Speaker 1:And maybe what's best for me may not be best for the next guy as well. So you kind of have to look at every case. I mean, you have to look at it on a case-by-case basis, right?
Speaker 2:to look at it in a case by case, on a case by case basis, right, absolutely, and even within couples I've had where the husband wanted to be very aggressive and the wife was scared, yeah. So we said, okay, well, we'll be this way for him and this way for you, and, and together it's like you know, it's kind of in between between the two of you, and it seems to work that way.
Speaker 1:Now, would that be based on a couple that keeps their finances separate? They've got their own separate, whatever savings account or checking account my paycheck goes here and hers goes here, that type of thing so then you can have those separate investments. Is that what you're referring to?
Speaker 2:That's right. She had her own investment account and he had his and and and of course, they were in the same room talking and so they said well, this compromise thing, even though we're together and we, you know, we live together and we were right, we feel like we're together. This, you know, if we're you know, 40 stocks here and 60% here, this 50-50 is a nice compromise. And so that's kind of how they both saw it as separate and as one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so talk about. I don't know if I heard it from you or where I heard it from, but I wrote it down Money and marriage. Since we're talking couples right now, Did that come from you?
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:I don't remember.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I don't remember man, there's definitely different directions. We could go with that statement. Yeah, One thing that may not be where you're coming from, but I have actually have a chapter in my book about I got divorced about seven years ago. Okay, and right after the divorce I'm walking through the candy aisle looking for something sweet and a beautiful woman is walking towards me and she looks at me and she says I think I know you. Well, I didn't really recognize her, but I am not stupid. Of course we know each other.
Speaker 2:Anyway, we figured out that we had volunteered in this school classroom about 10 years ago together and, of course, it seemed like heaven had looked down upon me and brought this woman into my life. She was divorced, I was divorced. We end up together, we're living together, and this illusion of this is just what's supposed to happen in life colored a lot of things about that relationship, and it took about a year and a half to realize for both of us this wasn't the right thing, that this would seem to be kismet would seem to be the perfect thing. We just got sucked into this immediate illusion of this is perfect. Well, that happens in the markets all the time too, and so I was kind of drawing this parallel where we get mesmerized by something, by whether it's the stock market or whether it's a particular stock, and we fall in love with it because it's made us a lot of money and we think, oh my God, I can't ever part ways with that.
Speaker 2:Well, I've seen many, many times where people get locked into something that went way up. You know where it started to be maybe 3% or 4% of their portfolio. It triples and quadruples and goes up more and all of a sudden it's 15 or 20% of their assets. One thing, that's diversification. Now, if it keeps going up, they say why should I ever sell it? But how many examples do we have? You know, we thought Blackberry was the answer to everything back 25 years ago. Now it's sitting somewhere in our closets and has disappeared.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I have an old one in a drawer somewhere.
Speaker 2:We all do, you know. Yeah, yeah, apple continues to go up and maybe will continue, but there isn't any company that's invulnerable to potential decline, and so what I tell people is don't fall in love with any particular investment, because that emotional attachment will sometimes color your eyes, and if something is 15% or 20% of your portfolio and becomes BlackBerry, imagine the loss on that. Even as the market goes up, it could bring everything down, and so I know that's probably not where you're going with that comment, but that I don't know, I just wrote it down.
Speaker 2:That illusion of the thing that can happen is there are rules to follow. Keep kind of investments as enough of a portion that it's not going to hurt you.
Speaker 1:Well, to what you were speaking of. With a particular stock just continuing to rise and a client says well, why should I sell? Look, it just keeps going up and up and up and sooner I mean sooner or later inevitably, no matter what, the bubble's going to burst, you know, no matter what. So, is it? Is it for fear that? For, for easy math, okay, is it is it. Is it for fear that, okay, this stock is? It was at $20 when I started buying it. It's now at $100 a share and you know it's just been continually going up. I'm afraid that if I sell at $100 a share tomorrow, it's going to be $105 a share and I'm going to lose a whole boatload of money.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the funny thing, because what I'll tell people is exactly that example. It goes from 20 to 100. So instead of having 2% in the stock, maybe you've got 6 or 8% in the stock. I said, well, cut it back 2%. You don't have to cut it all the way back to your original thing, but take 2% out. You've taken your money out of the stock. You still have 4% or 5% in the stock. Root for it. You want it to go to 105. You want it to go to 200. And we'll sell it again.
Speaker 1:So it's not a matter of selling all of it, it's just selling a portion of it.
Speaker 2:And then you take that and maybe you invested in something else correct, which might do wonderfully well and may not do as well. I can't tell you how many times I've trimmed Apple along the way to its increase. And if you look back at the first one two, four times I've sold it you say, well, those were pretty bad sales because the stock kept going up.
Speaker 2:The client still owned it, they just didn't have as much of it it, you say well those were pretty bad sales because the stock kept going up, the client still owned it, they just didn't have as much of it and they did get spread around and did it do as well as Apple? Maybe, maybe not, but I know I will not predict the time when Apple peaks out. I don't know. You know, and so I know, if I sell it along the way, I'll deal with it when it starts acting poorly and maybe peaks out.
Speaker 2:Maybe that won't happen for another 20 years, For all we know. You know, IBM went through some terrible times.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:It actually has been pretty good recently. So sometimes stocks take a five or 10 year hiatus and then do well again. You don't know what. You know what the path will be. On the other hand, xerox we don't use Xerox machines anymore, or I'm from Dayton, ohio. National cash register doesn't. If it exists there's not cash registers I don't know where it would be. Right, so things do disappear and you tend to not predict the top of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's a big thing that's been going on, I guess recently, at least for the last year. You see here on the radio, see on television, about buying gold. Now to me, like I said, the knucklehead. It seems not grow as quickly as a particular stock in the market, but it seems to let's put it this way when and if the price of gold drops, it drops a little bit, but when it goes up it seems to go at a higher rate.
Speaker 2:But when it goes up, it goes. It seems to go at a higher, higher uh rate. Well, and gold has had over the years, many ups, long-term up and long-term downtrends. Actually, when I get in the business, gold was at 800 an ounce and people thought that was crazy I'm sorry, how long ago was that? 1980s yeah 1980.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, okay, and so 800. Well, that was the peak, because we have this long period of disinflation. That happened, and so gold fell to say 300 and 200, I think, and then bounced around for many, many years. But then at some point inflation got so low, interest rates got so low that it became apparent to me that I didn't think. I thought gold was kind of like what you're talking about. I didn't think it would make a lot of money, but it made sense to start diversifying into it a little bit. And the other thing that happened, as a kind of a coincidental thing, is it became easier to buy thing is it became easier to buy In the 1980s if you owned gold. You actually owned gold.
Speaker 1:I mean, you had to buy little coins or whatever it would be I wasn't buying a gold bar myself, but that's pretty expensive.
Speaker 2:It looked pretty Back then. It wouldn't have been as expensive as today Today. Expensive as today. Today it's at $3,300 an ounce A gold bar. My math isn't good so I can't tell you.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but those look very, very impressive.
Speaker 2:They look impressive. But now you can buy these exchange-traded funds that move up and down with the price of gold and it's an easy way for an investor to diversify into it. And I think having a little bit in in that those gold funds is appropriate and it does make you feel better when the when the markets head down, typically gold goes is a diversifier. With the stock markets down, typically the gold price goes up. Not always. Nothing is perfect, right. There are several reasons for gold to do well. One of them is inflationary worries. So you know, during 2022, when inflation was rising, gold did well. The second thing is general kind of geopolitical panics.
Speaker 2:You, when we went into Iraq, gold went well, because now you've got a war going on and or sometimes even if it's a disinflationary or a deflationary worry, people buy gold just because they're scared, and so it's a great diversifier for people to kind of help balance the risk they might be taking in stocks that's just something that I've, you know.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately I haven't pulled the trigger on, but I I have considered, considered, you know, wanting to make a, an investment in gold and see where that goes um. You know, you know stocks.
Speaker 2:I was thinking, like you're talking about starting to think about it. The one thing, and this is you know everyone, as I've said, everyone has a different personality to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But as I've gotten into whatever it is, I tend to go slow. So you buy a little bit, you buy next month, you buy a little more. Or six months, you buy a little more. So there's not that one day of regret. Say, someone has $5,000, they want to plunk into something. I would say, slowly, get into it. It might be a million dollars. Someone inherited a bunch of money. Do you plunk a million dollars in tomorrow or do you take a slow approach to it? I'm the slow guy. I don't want to have that regret of the next day going a million to 950,000. If you go slowly you have less regret. Of course you'll look back. If the market goes up for that whole year that you're investing, you're saying I should have put it in all that first day.
Speaker 1:There's always coulda, woulda, shoulda, you know and if you live your life that way, I mean you'll be messed up Exactly. You're going to question everything, no matter what it is. It doesn't have to be money. You're going to question every decision that you have made and will make, moving forward. You know.
Speaker 2:And your point is exactly right, because that's what I've tried to make. The point with investing is. It's not we wanna segregate things into different things, but, like life, don't question every move you make. Same thing with investing You're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna buy a crappy stock here and there. That's okay. Get rid of it and move along. Well, what if it goes up? Well, too bad. Well, I'll buy something else. And it's a way to make decisions and not have regret, which can also sometimes teach you about your life and help somebody who has trouble making decisions. They get into the market and they think, oh, I can do this, you know.
Speaker 1:Right right Now. Again, I'm an idiot. So it just to me it seems that your mellow your money philosophy would fit into somebody with my mindset. To me I'm a common sense, rational guy. I like to analyze things and not just impulsively dive right into something, doesn't matter what it is. But it seems that the mellow, your money philosophy is more geared towards somebody of that mindset, somebody who stops and thinks and maybe approaches things more on the conservative side.
Speaker 2:I would agree with that, and the only differentiating feature I actually point out in the book is I am like you described and that is my personality, and typically the clients that come toward me are those kind of clients. But I point out that, uh, when I was growing up, there was uh, we'd go and uh, once, once a month to cincinnati and we'd have this brunch and my grandpa would be there. My uncle was there and my grandpa more like what we're talking about was the conservative. He's a great golfer, but he was the. Hit the ball down the middle of the fairway, don't veer, don't hit it too hard. Get the ball straight and and you can make your pars, but you're going to be consistent.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:My uncle was the opposite Swing for the fences and they would get into this fight and my grandpa would talk about cutting stocks back. You know, I've got this profit, I'm going to cut it. You know, cut it in half and move on to something else. And my uncle would say that is the dumbest thing I ever heard. You either want to own it or you want to sell it. What are you talking about? And that was his thought. He was a gambler and he was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're all in or you're not. And I remember 20 years later, maybe longer, it was at the end of the tech cycle and he had probably 80% of his money in tech stocks in the late 1990s and, if we recall, that was the internet boom that became the internet bust. Well, at some point he looked at me and he said, boy, I got to start selling, or your aunt's going to divorce me and I'm going to have to go back to work. And so he did, and he protected himself, but close to the bottom, and what he realized was he said I am a gambler and I wanna gamble, but I've gotta have some of this money in safe money so that I can gamble with the rest of it. And he was a good gambler and he made. He wouldn't sell Apple to save his life as the stock was taken off after 2008. And he ended up with a lot of Apple. But it was balanced with this conservative side that if Apple had turned into BlackBerry, he would have been OK, okay.
Speaker 2:And so even if you're a gambler and that and that kind of gambling instinct is not somebody who would come to me I would still encourage you to realize have some safe money on the side so you can take advantage of your. If you have good gambling instincts, that's great. Some people do. I don't believe me. I tried, I, I proved with what I educated myself with. You always say, when you lose money in the market, it's kind of like a tuition payment. I paid my tuition in learning. I'm not a trader, but some people are, and that's great. But have that safe money on the side that allows you to be a strong hand trader, if that's what you want to do if that's what you want to do.
Speaker 1:I couldn't even play poker with my buddies when we were in the seventh and eighth grade. I was so bad at it. I'm just terrible at gambling.
Speaker 2:I'm the same with me. Now I say, if you want my money here, I'll give you the $20 and the $50. But don't make me play this game. It's too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the same for me. I have nothing against Vegas or casinos or anything like that. I'm not a gambler. I don't go play cards or craps or anything like that. I not that, I haven't before, but I'm just not very good at it. And, and I understand, people do it. Okay, maybe they're good at it, maybe they're not, and they still do it. Maybe they're willing to pay that price for entertainment. No, no, that's not for me. I'm not that kind of guy. So you go have your fun at your price and yeah.
Speaker 2:Exactly, we're very similar in that and yet I respect the people that are different. And that again it gets back to know yourself and the gambler would not be happy having their money with me, they'd be bored, but watching paint drop, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, right. But at the end of whatever the term is that they're looking at, you know, whatever that time of investment is, when it's up they are going to be pretty happy, you know Well, and true time of investment is when it's up.
Speaker 2:They are going to be pretty happy. You know well and true, and I did have a client for a long time and and he used to say he was gambler kind of guy and he was making money in business.
Speaker 2:And he said, ok, I want, I'm the aggressive guy and I'm going to do that with my side of things. I want you to be the boring guy, nick. And OK, I can be boring for you hopefully not on this show, but but but at least that for that instant I was, you know, I was comfortable filling that role for him because he he recognized in himself he could do one thing but the other thing. He wanted that balance, and so that is another way to play things.
Speaker 1:Let me do this real quick. For those of you who can't read the crawl on the screen, or those of you who are listening, I'm going to reintroduce. This is Mick Heyman that I'm speaking to. Mick Heyman is an author and he's a finance or an investment counselor. Yeah, I want to. I want to get that right. I don't want to say finance, but say investment counselor and um, so that's who we're speaking to this morning. Mick has written a book called let me get it again right here, so I get all of it Correct. It's called mellow your money how to surf the market I don't have my glasses on here how to surf the market. I don't have my glasses on here how to surf the market and build wealth without stressing yourself out. So again, we're talking about gambling. Would now, day traders are those kind of like the guys that are constantly on their phones all the time looking at whatever it is that they might be investing in? Would that be considered a day trader?
Speaker 2:Yes, although I've seen people that are long-term investors.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:They're just like you and me. They're putting their money away, maybe in a retirement account or whatever, and they're still on their phones and they're still worried about the market day in and day out. And I would tell you it doesn't. You know, go listen to your podcast, do something else, because all that does is stress you out every day. If you're a long-term person, looking at your phone every day isn't helping, and and all it can do is potentially cause you to make poor decisions. So that's one type of person, but there are people who literally are trading off their phones every day.
Speaker 2:Now I actually, in the 80s, when I got in the business, you know, I our company was more long-term oriented, but I thought, thought well, I want to be smarter than this, I want to be a trader, and I knew some people who traded on the Chicago Board of Trade. They're trading sugar and gold and all kinds of soybeans, and so I wanted to do that too, and I went to a couple of conferences and I remember one in particular where the guy had been the top trader on the Chicago Board of Trade the previous year. Back then he had made $30 million, which was, you know, in 80s dollars. That was a lot of money, of course. And he stood up there and he said I'm going to tell you exactly how I made my money and I guarantee you that after a year, if you come back to this conference, none of you will have followed my strategy and we're thinking nah, challenge, accepted man. And so, without going into all the details, the basic thing was there are four things that could happen.
Speaker 2:When you invest in something, it goes up a lot, up a little bit, down, a little bit, down a lot. What he does is take a lot of stop losses Stop losses when something goes down. Say, you bought it at 10, at 9.9, he's out. So he draws a line in the sand that basically sells something whenever it went down a little bit. So he took a lot of little losses. Imagine, 20 times in a row something goes you bought it at 10, it goes 9.9, out, you go. So he always eliminated the big loss. Sometimes it went from 10 to 10.10, and he'd take the profit because it was wiggling or whatever, and occasionally it went from 10 to 20. Maybe that's one out of 20 times, but that that, by eliminating the little, the big losses, the big gains, made him tons of money.
Speaker 2:Gotcha it makes intuitive sense right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, try it though.
Speaker 2:Try losing 20 or 30 times in a row. A little bit. You just don't do it, and at some point you say I'm going to hold on to this one. Well, invariably that's the one that becomes the big loss.
Speaker 2:And then you say oh, I want to take a gain. Well, you take a little gain and that's the big gain. And all of a sudden your psychology fools you, and so if you're the kind of person that could do what that guy did, great, you could make a lot of money. I can't, and I think most people don't have that discipline to actually be a trader. I think trading is a full-time job. The other mistake people make is oh, I could do this on the side.
Speaker 1:I could have my job and occasionally do.
Speaker 2:No, trading is a full-time. I mean, there are people that are focused on this and you're competing against them. By the way, these people that are full-time have four computers going at one point. Whatever you know, you know people think for some reason, they hit a long golf ball in the wind, with the wind behind you, it hits a rock or something. It goes 350 yards. They think, oh, I'm hitting it like Tiger Woods or you know whoever it is today. No, the pros are the pros and if you want to be one.
Speaker 2:that's fine, but but don't pretend you know.
Speaker 1:But you're not going to be a pro if you're a weekend warrior.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And that's I mean, whether it's in sports or in in investment, right, this, the guys doing it on the side, quote, unquote, you know are nothing compared to the guys that they're punching in at seven o'clock in the morning and they're punching out at five in the evening, and I guess the similarity to golf is occasionally you will hit a golf shot from 50 yards off and it'll go in the hole and that's as good as a pro can do, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, in golf, occasionally you're. My uncle always said it wasn't his good shots that separated from him from a pro, it was his bad shots, you know. And same thing. We can get lucky in picking a stock and occasionally look like a pro, but we're not a pro. We're not a pro, you know. But but that that it is alluring to people because they get something right. I always think the person that, say, bought Bitcoin or whatever it is and gets lucky the first time they do something, then they think I am brilliant, it, it, it takes. They don't have the humility.
Speaker 1:You use the golf analogy and I come from a baseball background, so you know even a horrible pitcher in the seventies may have struck out Hank Aaron once Exactly, but if he faced him another two or three times, chances are Hank yanked one or two of those out of the ballpark.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Just because he strikes him out once doesn't make this guy a stud or an all-star or anything like that. Yeah, there's that saying even a blind squirrel finds the nut. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's about the investment of time and practicing your trade, no matter what it is. If you want to be good at something, you can't just do it willy-nilly. I guess that's why I don't make any money on this podcast. No, I joke.
Speaker 2:I joke, you never know though You've done a lot of these podcasts and as we learn through doing, you know, and as you're doing these things and acquiring and the next thing you know, it doesn't mean that you can't acquire skills along the way Of course. But when you get lucky first, say your first podcast would have been, for whatever reason, got hit and went viral or something Right.
Speaker 2:And then you didn't learn everything you needed to become a great podcaster. That would have actually suffered you over the long term. And I, on the other hand, got lucky in a way, because my first investments were horrible and so I had to learn. What did I do wrong? Here? For a long-term investor, there are things to learn and to kind of figure out, and so, by having some failures along the way, it actually can teach you. And that's the other point I try to make in this book is that, you know, don't look at your failures as terrible things. They're learning lessons, and the market is great at teaching us.
Speaker 1:So, in your opinion, how have the? In your opinion, how have the? Um, well, how, how, what is your approach to what's been going on, uh, in recent weeks or the last couple of months, since we've had? We've had a new president in office now and he's implementing tariffs on a certain uh, certain trade partners and that type of thing. It for me, I, me, I mean, I see reports going on people losing their minds and that type of thing, and I don't know if it's just my personality trust in administration or all of it, but for me it's like I just try to see the big picture, open my eyes, and I'm one that is going to ride the storm out.
Speaker 2:And I think that is like all storms. People have to think about what amount of money and stocks will they be comfortable with if it's a storm. I don't think it's predictable yet whether it will be a storm or not. The funny thing is you talk to an investment guy who doesn't know exactly what the market's done year to date, but it's somewhere down, say, between 3% and 5%. All this consternation, all this worry, and maybe at the worst it was down nine or 10 percent, but of course it's come back a little bit Now. It's down three to five percent. If somebody is upset about that, they have too much in stocks. You know now there's an old quote from a guy that said take stocks down to your sleeping level. This is a good test of what. If you're waking up at night worried about stocks and the market's only off three to 5%, you've got too much in stocks Because you want to be able to ride through the storm, if there is indeed one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess here's a way to think about it. Like you said, three to 5%, that's like I mean. Of course, when you're talking, you know a tremendous amount of money. For some people it's thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, For others it's millions of dollars, but nonetheless, 3% or 3 to 5% is still three cents to a nickel on a dollar. Come on, and I think a lot of people don't see it that way. They just see that it's a loss and, oh my gosh, it's a loss and I'm losing money here.
Speaker 2:Well, and combine that with the headlines. The market I've not yet seen the market go down with good headlines. Oh, it's a wonderful time to get in because the market's down. The headlines are always nasty when the market's at the bottom, and so be prepared If you're watching whatever it is news you're watching, it's going to be some ugly headlines when the bottom happens.
Speaker 1:I don't watch any financial news.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't get interviewed by those guys either, because I tell people ignore it and so I don't think they want me on there either it's better to talk to knuckleheads like me. You know I'm not a knucklehead, but I think that it's better advice. And yet, it doesn't sell, it's not going to go viral with. Typically go for the long term.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard this the other day and I'm sorry. I don't mean to knock this guy because I don't know him, I don't watch him. I heard his name and the guy he's like on one of the cable outlets, jim Cramer, I think, is his name Big. The guy he's like on one of the cable outlets, jim Kramer, I think is his name big money guy. There's a thing it's like whatever Kramer says, do the opposite and you're like A-okay.
Speaker 2:I've heard that, and the thing is I don't listen to him very well and very often or whatever, but he's not a dumb guy, he's actually a smart guy. He does his studies. The trouble is and I don't know, I don't watch it enough to know, but I don't think he ever says I told you to buy Apple three weeks ago and now I'm a little worried. You got to sell it and Apple is only for particular investors. He's just talking, and so is he talking to you or is he talking to me, or is he talking to Aunt Frida? We don't know. And so it's interesting for people who just like to hear nuance about stocks, but it's not helpful for your individual thing, because he doesn't know you, and so that's my problem with him is not the information he has. I think sometimes, like anybody, if you you know who was it? Roger Federer said that he won 80% of his matches, but only 54% of his points. He only won a few more points than the other guy did.
Speaker 1:Same thing in the stock market.
Speaker 2:Kramer might be right we don't know 48% of the time, or 52, we don't know, but he's right. 58% of the time not bad for a stock guy. But we don't know, if you're listening to him, if you missed Monday, when he happened to be right about a couple, and you listened on Tuesday and he was wrong. That you know too. You know too bad.
Speaker 1:And right Right Right.
Speaker 2:So I don't want to defend them or throw them under the bus. The problem is.
Speaker 1:The problem with any of these things is they're not talking to you or you the person you know, and some people take it that way, as he's speaking individually to you, right, exactly, yeah, well, see when we're. You know you and I were having this conversation. Yes, I want the listeners to feel like we're speaking to them, but, but, but, yeah, you know, um but at least we qualified.
Speaker 2:we said you know, this is you, you know conservative people and this is the style and if they're gamblers they're going to have, you know, probably moved on to a different station.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if they're gamblers, they probably turned this thing off after five minutes, that's okay.
Speaker 2:You got another thumbs down.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, oh my God, and I'm responsible. No, no, no no.
Speaker 2:I think, I do all that stuff on my own, but you know you know, having written the book, I they always told me you gotta have a couple of reviews that are, you know, either negative or neutral, just because people think it's fake. If you don't, so a thumbs down here, and there is probably a good thing. It means someone's paying attention Only likes over here, though, people okay. Oh yeah, only likes. From now on, you've already had your ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. So tell us a little bit about what you like to do when you're not being an investment counselor to the public.
Speaker 2:Well, I enjoy all kinds of sports. I have three kids enjoy golfing. As you might have picked up, I try to be more like my grandpa with hitting it down the middle, but I'm not as good as him. So I buy a lot of cheap golf balls for the ones that move when I'm donating to the woods or the ponds, and I actually I moved out to San Diego about 20 years ago and actually learned how to surf a little bit with my kids, and so nowadays the water has to be glassy and the waves not too big.
Speaker 2:Sometimes the kids will say, dad, it's pretty flat out there, it's your kind of waves, go on out there. And so I enjoyed it. And you know, I use the surfing analogy in the book and actually there was a moment when I was learning how to surf. I was going, you know, I was looking down the water and getting all kinds of, you know, falling down all the time, and someone said, well, look to the shore, don't look. If you look down, you're going to go down. And so look out to the shore, and when I did that, all of a sudden I was up on the board, at least for a little bit, and and and kind of riding that wave and I thought to myself at some point that's, that's long-term investing. If you look at all the noise that's beneath you you're going down right look to the shore.
Speaker 2:That's, that's your goal, you know, and so um, anyway, that's a small analogy. But I do like surfing. I'm not so good at it, but uh, that's where everything in life can can teach us something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you never know what you can do unless you try Exactly, exactly. You know, and I love that line, I, I, you know, I. I got that line from um, a friend of mine, many years ago. We to coach baseball, uh, together, and he would tell all the kids, you tell all the players, and and it's just stuck with me and it and it, it, it goes for anything and it's anything in life. You know, when you're doubting yourself about doing anything, well, you never know what you could do unless you give it a try. You have to try and um, you know it, maybe it's I, I don't, I don't know. I'm guessing I'm, I'm a little bit of a pollyanna guy, but I don't think that's a pollyanna way of looking at things either. I think it's just I don't either.
Speaker 2:It's a great philosophy, and and it allows you to to fail a little bit along the way, too, which can teach us so many different things it allows you to fail a little bit along the way, too, which can teach us so many different things.
Speaker 1:It gives you permission to and where a lot of times especially for those who can be incredibly hard on themselves for any amount of failure it does it does give you permission to fail and you just get right back up, you dust yourself off and do it again. Absolutely, absolutely. So how was, uh, how was your, how was your walk on the links yesterday? It was, it was fantastic it was.
Speaker 2:Uh uh. You know it's a little chilly at the end, but uh, yeah cold it got cold yesterday it was definitely a little. Of course, I don't know. We might be talking to people in Minnesota. So cold, cold out here we're wimps. Sorry, but you know, 55 degrees that's chilly, and I'll say that to my sister and she said, yeah, it's warm here, it's 55 degrees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's warm here, it's 55 degrees. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it was definitely. You know, I had my share of donations to the, to the wildlife beyond me, and, as my friend always says, oh, someone will turn that ball in at some point.
Speaker 1:Not really.
Speaker 2:But I love that. For me it's almost a meditation. You know, I'm walking along, occasionally I'm one with the shot or whatever, and occasionally I'm not. But either way, it's beautiful to be out in nature and carrying my clubs and just enjoying the stroll.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that's great. So where can people find your book? So where can people find your book?
Speaker 2:So the book is on Amazon and Barnes, noble and most of the major major places and then, if you want to contact me, my website is mellowyourmoneycom. I'm at mick at mellowyourmoneycom and I'm happy to correspond with anybody and really enjoy it. And of course, it's on audio book too, if you can, you know, stay in my voice and want to listen to it.
Speaker 1:It's available that way too. Oh, you got a pleasant, pleasant voice there, mick. Thank you. Yeah, again, the book is called Mellow your Money, how to Surf the Market. And again, no glasses. I need to put them on how to Surf the Market and Build Wealth Without Stressing Yourself Out. And I really wish the publisher would have sent me a copy of this book, because it would have showed up a lot better on camera, but they didn't.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to have to get you one anyway, so I'd appreciate that I'd appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Listen, so people can just reach out to you on your. They can on your email, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be perfect.
Speaker 1:Okay, and give that one out again.
Speaker 2:It's nick at melloryourmoneycom and melloryour. Again it's a Nick at Mellor your moneycom, and Mellor your moneycom is the website. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nick, this is. This has been a lot of fun and I think my audience pretty much knows. I always I don't call it a pre-interview, I just call it I'll get to know your conversation, and so everybody knows that I talked to the guests before they come on here. It makes me sound a little less dumb and a little more prepared. Just the brief conversations you and I have had over the past week have been great. This is wonderful. The brief conversations you and I have had over the past week have been great. This is wonderful. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and getting to have a little bit better understanding on investment and finance and I can't thank you for your time.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, ben. It's been a pleasure and fun both chatting beforehand and also during the show. It's great.
Speaker 1:And look, I told you I'm only like an hour and a half away. So if you want to taste some barbecue and bourbon, you're more than welcome to come on out, that sounds fun.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, hang with me for a second, okay. Okay, that's great, everyone. Look, this has been great. I know there there's, I know there's something in this for everyone. All right, maybe not everything, but there's something. Take a piece of this away for yourselves. As you know, this program is available wherever you get your podcasts. It's on all of the streaming platforms. Just search, search the Ben Maynard program and there it is. Go with it, please. Whatever service you're using, whatever streaming outlet you're using, just subscribe to the show and you'll get notification every time there's a new episode. Again, if you're enjoying your time here on YouTube, I greatly appreciate it, and I know Mick does as well. So, please subscribe to the channel, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. Last but not least, follow me on Instagram Ben Maynard Program, all one word. And then again on TikTok the Ben Maynard Program. Okay, with that, we're done, we're out. Thank you for your time. This is the Ben Maynard Program. Tell a friend there.