PEPs, Private Equity & Crypto in 401(k)s

[0:00] Speaker A: Back then, it is hard to watch that and pay attention. [0:04] Speaker B: It is. [0:06] Chad: Justin, was it you recently that told me you've been sipping vodka? [0:10] Justin: Yeah, that client. [0:11] JD: Oh, straight. [0:13] Chad: I might. I might. [0:15] Speaker F: Wow. [0:16] Chad: Decide if I put the Coca Cola in here because I have no other good mixer tonight or if I just sit. [0:21] Speaker F: Hey, Chad, did you see that? Do you see that one thing? They say that if you drink cocktails with diet beverages versus regular, they. They're. They get you drunk or faster. [0:33] Chad: Drunker, huh? [0:34] Speaker F: Yeah. [0:34] JD: Really? Why? [0:37] Speaker F: Because I believe everything I read on the Internet. That's why. [0:44] Speaker A: You're gonna have a real bad. [0:46] JD: You're gonna have a really, really bad time, sir. [0:52] Speaker B: Let me up. Let me up. You're gonna have a real bad time. [0:57] JD: Welcome, everybody, to this Shamanda show. I. In all seriousness, right now, and I'm very serious, I want to share with you a disclosure of kinds. I believe this is the third time we've had the Shamanda show on, and I wanted to do some research, which is not common for me, but I just kind of want to go back and see, like, what the past shows have been like, you know, and just kind of orientate myself. [1:30] Mark: And as soon as I hit play on the first time, immediately I noticed [1:36] JD: my hands getting sweaty, my heart was beating faster, I was getting stressed out. [1:43] Speaker F: Spaghetti. [1:45] Mark: Then I moved on to the second [1:47] JD: one, and the same bodily reactions were occurring to me. It's kind of like a. Like a Vietnam vet going on a vacation in a tropical place and walking into the palm trees and stuff and having like, you know, bad reaction to their. To their past. And so I have to tell you, [2:05] Mark: right now, I'm in that mode. I'm feeling very anxious, sweaty, nervous, even frustrated. [2:15] JD: And no one's even said anything yet. So I just want you all to, like, buckle up. [2:21] Mark: And if you're feeling any of these [2:22] JD: same types of emotions throughout the show, I just want you to know it's normal. I'm here with you, and we're gonna get through it together. We're gonna get through it together. [2:36] Mark: Let's see. Justin, let's. [2:37] JD: We don't have a lot of time to waste, so let's get right to it. Intro, our guest, Silent J. [2:44] Justin: You legends really need to be introduced. I don't think so. These amazing, amazing ladies are up there with the likes of Mark's BFF, Mr. Fred Reich, the one and only Nevin Adams, and the prank master himself, Mr. John Sullivan, among many others. Surefire First Ballot hall of Famers. They hold the records for setting the original actors in as well as the longest running show of three hours. And there shan't be anyone better at taking JD off of his game. Ladies and gents, it's been a minute here to reclaim the title for Mocha Most ackersons and clearly already taking JD off his game. TPA extraordinaires, BFS for life. Part of the OG Crew. Please welcome back for the third appearance Shamanda. [3:22] Speaker F: Justin, I'm going to ring you up, but it's gonna be disruptive. It was worth it. That's four. [3:29] JD: How many did. [3:29] Speaker B: I was counting. Was it four? [3:31] Speaker F: I gotta. [3:32] Justin: Yeah, we got up the ante. We gotta get you over that cold today. [3:35] JD: I like this. I like this. [3:37] Mark: Brandon, let's get to it. [3:38] JD: Let's do some headlines. That's what we do here. We do have. All right, I noticed I had a little Elon Musk black eye there in that last one. [4:01] Mark: Before we go on ahead, these are [4:03] JD: kind of like headlines. I just want to do a quick. Two quick updates for everyone first. Okay. My updates have to do with my. My new ten thousand dollar toilet that I know a lot of you've been thinking about and I want to keep you up to speed on that. And at the same time, Manulife John Hancock Retirement. God, that rolls off the tongue. A little quick update there. [4:28] Mark: My ten thousand dollar toilet is in place in the. [4:32] JD: In the. [4:33] Mark: What do you call that? [4:35] JD: The powder room. Right, the bathroom that all your guests can go to. [4:39] Chad: Put it downstairs. [4:41] Mark: What's that, John? [4:42] Chad: You put it downstairs? [4:44] Speaker F: Yes, for sure. [4:45] Chad: You're putting it upstairs. [4:46] JD: Well, I've got my own bidet upstairs, but this one. [4:49] Mark: There it is. There it is. That is installed and in the powder room. [4:54] JD: And I think maybe on the next show I'll give a little video or can show everyone what's going on. You can talk to it. It plays songs for you. It does a light show in there. It's been a lot of fun. [5:06] Justin: The same one that's in your. Like your bathroom or. [5:08] Mark: No, no, no. I only got. [5:09] JD: Only bought one. Let's not lie to the people. I've only got one $10,000 bidet, not two. The other one's the standard one. [5:16] Mark: I think I only dropped like 4k [5:18] JD: on the other one. [5:19] Mark: Okay, let's. I Manulife. [5:22] JD: I'm really rich. [5:24] Mark: Manulife. It has such a creative design team, [5:29] JD: branding marketing team over there. And we all know this because they came out with this just, you know, jaw dropping new name of Manulife John Hancock Retirement. Every time I say it I just feel happier when I say it. [5:43] Mark: But have y' all seen their logo? The logo that goes along with this is fire. [5:50] JD: Brandon, put it up. [5:51] Mark: I mean, look at that thing. Just soak it in the creativity over there. It's mind blowing. [6:00] Justin: What, are you afraid? [6:02] Speaker B: Undoubtedly that stands for something. [6:05] Speaker A: It has to say. Is there anybody from Manulife on here watching? [6:08] Speaker B: Can you tell us what it stands for? [6:11] Speaker A: They probably had branding lessons about this. [6:14] JD: I don't know. [6:15] Speaker F: It's also the very start of. For all you millennials, when you do the Stussy sign. Right. That s. That you connect all the lines. [6:22] Mark: Yeah. [6:22] Speaker F: So maybe they started the sign. They're like, oh, oh, we're just. Nah, it's enough. [6:27] JD: Can you imagine the amount of the check they wrote to the Madison Avenue design company to do that for them? I wish I could have been in the conference room when they presented this on the big screen. [6:39] Mark: We'll move on. Let's go to an article from the [6:42] JD: national association of Plan Advisors. Hyphen. Whatever their. Their website is, and they need to get a new website. I feel like a new new address, [6:52] Mark: but it comes from our boy Sully. [6:56] JD: And I call the title of this article. [6:58] Mark: Damn, dude, you seen those Fidelity savings rates. [7:02] JD: But I think it's titled something else. Did you all get a chance to read this? [7:06] Mark: And Amanda, I'm going to go to you first. [7:09] JD: If you were hanging out with one of your neighbors or a friend and they said, amanda, you work in the 401k biz. You're a big shot chief executive officer of a. Of a large company. [7:22] Mark: If I was to ask you what [7:24] JD: the average deferral rate is of people across the country before reading this article, which is just a fidelity. I mean, what would your answer be? [7:33] Speaker B: Honestly, what would I honestly guess? Six? Yeah, I would have guessed 6%. [7:38] Mark: Six. [7:39] JD: Yeah. I think that's fair. Yeah, I think that's a great. That's what I probably would have done the same thing. 14.3 might well hang on. [7:48] Mark: Year six would be. [7:49] JD: Should be compared to their 9.5, which is what they're saying the employees are doing. [7:56] Chad: You got to acknowledge, though, they're talking about those that are participating. So we tend to operate in a world of looking at people who are not saving and counting them as a zero. [8:06] Mark: There's no zeros here. [8:08] Chad: Yes. No zeros. [8:09] JD: Damn you, Chad. That was literally my next question on my iPad over here. But great minds think alike, so. But 14.3%, when you combine the deferrals with the average Employer, contribution match, whatever you want to call it. That's to me when I read this article, I was so bored going into it. But then I'm like, holy. Like that's pretty phenomenal. [8:33] Mark: If even what Chad said. And I'll go to you here, Mrs. S words. They're almost at 15. Like this is what everyone tells a [8:45] JD: responsible investor they should do. At least the people at Fidelity that are participating seem to be doing a pretty good job of it. [8:53] Speaker A: Yeah, they seem to be doing an awesome job. So like when I read it, because I went through and read it JD when, when it came out earlier this week and I was like super excited for all of us in this industry. Like we're making a difference. [9:05] JD: Yeah, I felt the same. [9:06] Speaker A: Kind of like we, you know, we're curing problems. And I was like, yes, we're. [9:11] Speaker B: We make a difference. [9:12] Speaker A: We're. [9:13] Speaker B: Nice to read an article that wasn't a downer. Right, Right. [9:15] Speaker A: Right. Or didn't say like the 401k plan is failing. [9:18] Speaker B: Wait. Mark shaking his head no. Why not? [9:24] Speaker F: John Sullivan's Infidelity's Pocket. Let's be honest. Job. [9:29] Speaker B: No way. [9:30] Speaker A: No way. [9:30] Speaker F: Can I point out two things in my. In my brain which is very small. Okay. One specifically this was for the first quarter of 2025. Right. So what happens in the first quarter? Re enrollments, auto enroll. Auto. Escalate. Everything kind of bumps up a little bit. Opt out. Aren't happening yet. Right. People haven't adjusted secondarily. You know, these big corporate companies hand out bonuses in quarter one. Typically after the year closes, people are going to bump up that one time rate to save, you know, 25% of their bonus to reduce their tax taxes. So I think the rates can climb in the first quarter. I would like to see what the second quarter looks like because I'm going to estimate. Close your mouth, Chad. That it's going to be less. [10:25] Mark: Who are you? What have you done with Robe guy? And welcome. Welcome to the show. I love this new person. Those were phenomenal insights. Have you been pre gaming? What is the key to this new you? [10:40] Speaker B: Maybe we jazz him up. Right Mark? [10:42] Chad: Maybe. [10:42] JD: Maybe that's it. [10:45] Speaker F: Amanda. You intimidate me. [10:48] Mark: Shannon. [10:49] Speaker F: You've pointed a gun at us. So you really intimidate me. So I'm just here to make sure I can walk out of here. [10:58] Speaker A: All true things. [10:59] Speaker F: Let's. [10:59] Mark: We'll move on. [11:00] JD: But those are probably some pretty good points. [11:02] Chad: Those were fantastic points, Mark. But, but, but to combat them a little bit, remember the stat is first quarter over first quarter. So they're referencing it against what the first quarter numbers were from the year before which were also fairly inflated. [11:18] Mark: But to Chad, I wasn't. I wasn't saying that there was this massive leap year over year. [11:24] JD: I was just saying the general number was very impressive to me. [11:27] Mark: Yeah. [11:28] Chad: But I think Mark's greatest point there was the auto enroll factor in this and someone wrote it in the chat bar. 10% is the new 6% for sure. We're auto enroll in plans is not just increasing but the am. The percentage that. The percentage of deferral that's coming out of the auto enroll. [11:46] Speaker F: Chad just spoke cursive. That was really cool. [11:49] Mark: How are you? [11:49] Justin: I like. I like percentage. [11:50] Mark: Amanda. [11:51] JD: Amanda or Shannon? I guess I didn't think about this for a second because I don't think anyone not, not a lot of people auto enroll people at 8 or 9%. But what we do have a lot more these days is those annual step ups. Right? Yeah. [12:06] Mark: So do you think that those things [12:09] Speaker B: are kicking in at an auto enrollment of 10? [12:11] Speaker A: I think, yeah. I think a lot of new plans are being written with auto enroll at 10. [12:18] Justin: That was all Fidelity, wasn't it? Was all Fidelity plans. [12:21] JD: It's a Fidelity study. [12:22] Justin: Fidelity isn't a startup company. They don't take on a lot of startups. [12:26] JD: It's. [12:26] Chad: It's usually a good point. [12:27] JD: Yeah. What does that have to do with. [12:29] Mark: Well, grandfather mandatory auto. But what Fidelity does do is it plays. [12:36] JD: It plays in the. The mid to large to mega space. [12:40] Mark: And we all know that those are the plans that led the automatic enrollment crusade. [12:45] JD: You know, so charge anyways. [12:48] Mark: Whatever. We don't need to dwell on it. But I thought. I agree with all good things. [12:52] Speaker F: Can we just say that that's awesome [12:54] Chad: but I loved reading that You'. [12:57] JD: That's what I was going to try to say was that's a great thing. So let's follow it up with another great thing. Shady looks very tight. Okay. [13:05] Speaker A: Nice compliment. [13:06] JD: Look tight. [13:07] Speaker F: I don't think. [13:07] Mark: I don't. [13:07] Speaker F: Yeah. Uptight is what I think. [13:10] Mark: But Roby. Roby. Didn't they do that in the. In the 80s? [13:14] JD: Wasn't like bro, you look. You look tight, bro. [13:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a compliment back then. [13:18] Speaker B: Oh yeah. But Roby and I were barely born then. You two. [13:21] Speaker A: Sorry. [13:22] Mark: You know what else is tight? [13:24] JD: The wheel of ice. That's already. [13:29] Chad: You know. [13:29] Justin: He is with this. [13:30] Chad: It's gonna be all of us. There should be a shaman on there. How did we not put a shaman [13:41] Speaker B: all four of you. [13:43] Mark: I gotta. [13:44] JD: I gotta pause mine because I gotta set up this next segment. I'll get to it. I got it right here. [13:48] Speaker F: But wait, hold on. [13:53] Speaker B: I thought we weren't. Hey, I can do one of these. [13:55] Mark: Yeah. You guys, when is the last time [13:56] JD: we've had guests do smear knoffs? [13:58] Mark: We don't do that. [13:59] Chad: They are special. [14:00] Speaker A: Okay, wait a minute. The first time we were on here, you sent us smear offs and you made us do it. [14:05] JD: That was a one off. I might have done that. Then. [14:07] Speaker B: Then we happened and he quit. [14:09] Speaker A: That again. [14:10] Speaker F: Then JD bought a $10,000 toilet and couldn't afford it. [14:14] Mark: This is the. This is the big news. Everybody there has been first ever released photos of Shlomo's secret society. We've talked about this before on this show. Shlomo in Southern California has been having this kind of. What do you call the secret bar that you go to where you gotta like, know how to get in? [14:41] JD: Yeah, it's like, it's like a 401k speak easy of fancy retirement plan geniuses. And it's been going on for quite some time, but no one till now has ever really gained access into what's going on there. Yes, we had all imagined them in [15:01] Mark: hooded robes standing around a fire of [15:05] JD: some time chanting 401k slogans. But now there are photos and there are videos out there and we've even seen the people that are there. Charlie Nelson's Jason Roberts, Mitch Habers, Fred Rees, my bestie. Like, lots of big shot people there. [15:24] Mark: Chad, did you see these shots and were you excited? [15:28] Chad: I. So I did. And I have to be honest, my initial thought when I saw that is I've seen that photo before, J.D. i've seen it. And then I went back and looked at Shlomo, had prior posts where it is the hidden society folks with the two dogs in the picture. And it looks like everybody's wearing the same fucking clothes. [15:49] Speaker A: He's just reposting old pictures. [15:51] Speaker B: No, but it's a different angle. He got a little different not having any. Any women in there. And so in the one post, then [15:57] Mark: there's talk about a sausage. [15:59] Speaker B: We got a token woman there. [16:00] Mark: Oh, wow, there's one talk about sausage. [16:05] Speaker F: To wear the same clothes. Maybe it's a requirement. [16:08] Chad: Do I want to be there? The answer is yes, absolutely. I want to be in that room so bad. I want to be in there almost as much as I want to go watch a Masters at Augusta. [16:20] JD: I kind of feel. I kind of feel the same Way. But it was really cool. [16:24] Speaker F: Your priorities way out of whack. [16:25] Speaker A: I'm gonna go with the Masters at [16:27] Speaker F: Augusta almost 100 times out of 100. [16:31] Mark: You do realize you'd literally be sitting [16:34] JD: by a fire in Shlomo's modern house architecture in the backyar yard, and Fred Reese would be sitting right by your side. [16:48] Speaker A: I'm pretty drink. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. We could go sit by Fred Reese at dinner at NAPA 401k summit if we just. [16:57] JD: Don't make me jealous. [17:00] Mark: Ring her up. All right. Well, what were they talking about? [17:05] JD: Let's move to a topic because these people were talking about something. [17:08] Speaker B: You guys gotta finish your story, Smirnoff. [17:10] Speaker F: We already did. [17:10] Justin: Me and Mark did. [17:11] Mark: I will. I will. Amanda, don't pressure me right now. [17:13] Speaker B: You did it. [17:14] JD: Okay. They were talking about guaranteed income solutions for sure, but bore. I don't want to talk about that anymore. What they were talking about as well was private equity in 401k plans. And I have to say I re. We talked about this. There they are. They talk. [17:35] Mark: We talked about this recently where Empower [17:40] JD: had done a big press release about private equity in their. Their programs. And they were going to kind of slide them into some managed account sleeves at I think like less than 10% or less than 5%. I saw a post on LinkedIn where I didn't realize this, but a lot of people in our industry were really like, popping off on that. They were pissed off about it. They. They felt like it was not prudent, it was reckless. They didn't like that Empower was kind of waving the flag that they were doing this. And I didn't realize there was so much passion on the other side of this argument. So I'm going to pound my spirit off ice. But for anyone who has not, how do you feel? [18:22] Mark: Do you join this side of negative? [18:24] JD: Are you against private equity? And for one K if it's done in a smaller sliver and, and tell me why, Because I want to spend about two minutes on this and we're going to move on to the next one. [18:35] Speaker F: That's too. That's to you, Amanda. [18:38] Speaker B: No, I. I thought if we all be quiet long enough. Silent J was going to talk. [18:43] Speaker F: He will. [18:43] Mark: No. [18:43] Chad: And that. [18:44] Speaker F: Well, we don't need to hear what he has. [18:45] Speaker A: He almost talked. [18:48] Justin: Okay, so my. My opinion on it is I'm all right with it as long as people are educated on what they're investing in. It can be pretty risky and it could just Be, I mean we've, we're a society of like, you know, we hear something, we go do it, think of like crypto and, and we don't, we don't think before we, we act. So just like the crypto thing that we're going to talk about in a little bit, it's kind of my stance on it. Educate the people and let them make their own. [19:13] Mark: You're right. The analogy that you're bringing up with [19:16] JD: the crypto is so good because I think a lot of the same arguments are made and we'll kind of, we'll pivot that right now. But I do want to be clear to everyone, private equity, you know, investing in these smaller companies that are not on the publicly traded stock markets has really done well for a lot of investors over the past five, 10, 15, 20 years. And the returns, when you compare them with regular returns, they, they outperform. [19:50] Mark: It seems to me that taking advantage [19:53] JD: of that and getting it into our programs and again in a small responsible sliver. And to Justin's point, we'll get to the crypto here in a second which has some other characteristics. But I, I do get a little upset at the people that push so hard against it because I think I said this on a past show. Like I like to see us evolving a little bit and like bringing some [20:18] Mark: fresh stuff to the investment mix. [20:21] JD: I would like to see target date funds that have new sleeves of alternative investments that might boost the performance for our participants. And you know, what's more important than what I think or what I want? I think the people that you serve, the employers and the participants for sure, [20:40] Mark: that work for them would like us [20:43] JD: to innovate like this a little bit when it comes to investments. But we're all fiduciaries. We're too, our fucking, you know, our neckties are tied too tight and so we're not going to let things change like this. That's kind of my pissed off version [20:57] Speaker F: of this to that point. JD Though, like I think a lot of what's going on is typically focused on what the average investor. Does the average investor care, know or want to know about this stuff? And the answer is likely no. But to your point, these different have, have proven successful in other countries and other areas. And I like what you're saying. We should be open minded and specifically as an industry and not be so stuffy when it comes to things that are different. Right. Because eventually something that's different is going to be moved into reality. [21:35] JD: And look at all these in the Chat bar. Remember when we were saying we weren't giving the chat bar enough attention? You got fucking Jason chiming in on transparency. [21:44] Mark: You got Brashaw going paging slicker. You guys fucking grow a pair. This is an alternative investment that can create not only diversity, but cannot be [21:59] JD: correlated to some others and actually, like, help balance out a portfolio. [22:03] Speaker B: If you're. Even if it's allowed, right. If you're the fiduciary on a plan, are you going, yep, let's do that. Or is your risk way too high there to say? Yeah, let's put that in the plan. [22:13] JD: If you put a restraint on it and it's, it's 5% of a, of a managed account or a target date fund or whatever, I don't see why a responsible fiduciary couldn't make that decision and defend it in court amongst a Schlichter or whatever. [22:28] Chad: You know, let me kind of ask. The simple question is that this, the saying has been around for decades that the rich get richer and the rich get richer and number one, because they have more money to invest. Two, because they get access to other investments that the average person does not. So if we're talking about the largest investable assets for the vast majority of America being inside these qualified plans, and we're saying that this is where the rich want to invest, right? They give someone $10 million, they're usually getting access to private equity. So if we're saying those two things in a similar sentence, why wouldn't we want the average American to get some exposure to this? And why wouldn't we do it in a fiduciary capacity? Like JD Is saying, that is de minimis in terms of the exposure, but gives them access to some big gains. I think we're not doing it because we don't want to bring the average American into the same investment boat that these large hedge fund folks are leveraging. I think that that's the fear. [23:33] Justin: I think Russ and or Jackson, whoever Nova 401K is, said it, I kind [23:38] Chad: of hit the nail on the head. [23:39] Justin: So guiding fiduciary principle in ERISA is, is to minimize risk, not to maximize returns. [23:46] Mark: What the is that? [23:47] Speaker F: No, no, [23:51] Mark: on that we. [23:52] JD: No, it's about having a prudent, well balanced, diversified portfolio. That's a stupid statement. Otherwise we'd all be in like fixed accounts or something. [24:03] Mark: I think the problem with this is [24:06] JD: the high fees we talked about last time. There's a fee structure here in the retirement plan space we're all not very familiar with. And we're not very comfortable. And so to, to Grant's point of transparency, I think that needs to be dealt with. I think what I don't want to see is people putting these in so they can make a lot of money. But those are problems that we can easily solve. [24:29] Mark: Let's, let's, let's go to the next [24:30] JD: level with crypto because it gets even dangerous or. Here is that a word, dangerous or. [24:35] Speaker A: I don't think we'll let you use it. Well, let's use it [24:39] JD: recently on the, on 4K specialist. They had a great podcast. But wait, let me set it up first. The Employee Benefits and Security Administration very recently has rescinded their, what was called guidance on crypto that we got in 2022. In 2022 we got this guidance from them, which by the way was very unheard of to, to have that entity comment on what was an okay investment [25:12] Mark: and what was not. I'm sorry, guys. Getting over a cold and. But that went in and so now [25:18] Speaker F: toilet doesn't fix that. [25:23] JD: I, I'll try that at the shoot. [25:27] Speaker F: Some medicine, right? [25:28] Speaker A: That toilet should fix everything. [25:30] Speaker F: You know what? [25:33] Justin: Right at the butt. [25:34] Mark: You know what it does, the Roby, [25:35] JD: is that when you walk in it obviously it opens for you, but it does squirt out like a fake, a fragrance anyways. [25:42] Mark: Okay. [25:43] Speaker A: Does it talk to you too? I went. Does it welcome you into the bathroom? [25:46] JD: No, but you can tell it, you can ask it to play like play the Bee Gees for me or whatever. It'll play music for you. [25:54] Mark: Okay. [25:54] Speaker B: So Alexa, I think they're like 30 bucks now. [25:58] JD: Debbie, you can't shit in an Alexa, Amanda. [26:03] Mark: And so they come out. They come out and they rescind this. And yes, this is a Democrat versus [26:11] JD: Republican kind of thing. It's definitely a Biden then, then a Trump kind of thing. But what I'd like to now go to is I have an audio clip from Canute. I think that's how you pronounce that. [26:24] Mark: Knut Rostad, [26:28] JD: he's part of the Fiduciary Institute of something. Someone look it up for me in the chat bar. It's one of these Washington, you know, non profits. But he's being interviewed by Brian Anderson, a foreign K specialist magazine. [26:42] Mark: And this is his response to crypto in 401ks. [26:48] JD: And more specifically, how these employers or these plan sponsors might, might talk to their employees about this. Brandon, play the clip if you can. Otherwise. [26:59] Speaker H: But you know, in terms of demand for it, if plan fiduciaries and those that are good will absolutely do this, you know, sort of instinctively. Once they inform a plan participant what crypto is all about, the planned participant is not going to be very interested in it, I think, plain and simple. But, you know, a plant fiduciary could start to say, Listen, Mr. And Mrs. Jones, if you seriously want to take a certain amount in your pension and put it into cryptos, here's my suggestion for you. Take half that amount and buy yourself a very fancy trip to Las Vegas and gamble all you want to do, because you'll lose less money and you'll understand what cryptos are all about in [27:42] Chad: a more meaningful way. [27:44] JD: Wait for Brian. [27:44] Speaker A: Okay? [27:45] JD: It's an interesting take. Great. [27:47] Mark: Do you hear Brian? Then he goes, okay, [27:51] Speaker A: I loved that, that section. [27:53] JD: Wow. [27:54] Mark: I was like, I've never met this Canute guy. [27:57] JD: And I. I'm sure someone out there right now is thinking, you snotty little brat. JD Talking out this guy. He's got. Probably got a very established career, very respectful, you know, a Washington, D.C. type. I'll drink. [28:11] Mark: Um, but that response to me is [28:17] JD: again, very similar to this private equity thing, is everything that upsets me about our industry's response to some of these. These changes. Now, if you listen to the whole podcast, which I recommend because it's literally like less than 10 minutes, he brings [28:33] Speaker F: up the put on two speed. It's four minutes. There you go. [28:37] Mark: He brings up the classic concept of volatility. [28:42] JD: You know that this is just. You heard his Vegas analogy. This is just an extremely sketchy, volatile asset. [28:50] Mark: And before I bring up the next thing, he goes, brandon, I sent you a little slide that I ripped up [28:55] JD: real quick before the show today. [28:56] Mark: Can you put it up there? The three grass. [29:00] JD: Thank you. [29:01] Speaker B: Look at this, J.D. look at all this homework. [29:05] Mark: Wow. [29:06] Speaker F: Which one is Standards and Pores? [29:09] JD: By the way? [29:10] Mark: I'm. [29:10] JD: I'm already calmer with the new Amanda. [29:15] Speaker F: I promise you, I don't like it poured out of my mouth. [29:19] Justin: I want her just taking over. [29:21] Speaker B: Severe anxiety, you guys. [29:23] Speaker F: I text everybody and said, come for a show. It's going to be crazy. And they've all left. [29:28] JD: Most people have been telling me, I've been getting a lot of texts and they're saying, amanda's tight, bro. Man is so tight. [29:35] Mark: So check out this. [29:37] Speaker B: Are we ready with Festivus yet? Because I want to go there. [29:40] Mark: Yeah, we'll get there. [29:41] Speaker B: Okay. [29:42] Speaker A: What I have, starting with Festivus, what [29:44] JD: I have here is obviously this is a two year performance for all three of these investments and one of them is bitcoin, and the other two are household names that no one has any problem with you investing your 401k in. [30:01] Mark: So just stare at that for a [30:02] JD: second and tell me that you can [30:04] Mark: pick out which one is which based on the ups and downs. [30:09] JD: And Chad, I don't mean in a [30:10] Mark: nerdy way, because you can remember when bitcoin dropped. My point is just. Just look at them in general and tell me that one of these is more volatile. And if you had to guess, Shannon, which one might you guess is the [30:24] JD: most volatile investment up there? There's no wrong answer. [30:28] Chad: Really? [30:28] Speaker A: No. I would guess the. The top. [30:32] Speaker B: There is a wrong answer. [30:33] Speaker A: There is a wrong answer. I'm gonna guess the top one, which I think is wrong. [30:37] JD: Yeah, that is wrong. Anyone else want to guess which one? [30:42] Chad: I can't read which one is which. [30:43] Speaker F: Which one is bitcoin? Yeah, I'm going number three. [30:47] JD: No, it's number two. [30:49] Mark: Okay, so on top is meta, and on the bottom is Nvidia, and in [30:55] JD: the middle is bitcoin. [30:56] Mark: So suck on that, motherfuckers. Like, you guys have no clue what you're talking about. [31:03] Speaker F: Hold on, though. [31:03] Chad: Hold on. If you're. The general conversation has been around crypto as a whole, and you obviously know I'm a believer, but let me combat this point. You picked the most stable of all the cryptos, like bitcoin. [31:15] Mark: Yeah, yeah. [31:16] Chad: Bitcoin is. Now, if you start throwing in litecoin and all these others, you're going to see. [31:20] JD: Come on, Chad. [31:21] Mark: What is. [31:22] Speaker F: What is. Whoa. [31:24] Speaker B: When they're saying it, they're talking about bitcoin. [31:27] JD: Yeah. Thank you, Amanda. I. I think when you're talking about fidelity, putting in 4.1k or any, like, established program. Amanda's totally right. It's going to be a big point. [31:35] Speaker B: Holy. Did you guys hear that? Let's back that up. Can we hear that again? [31:41] Chad: Totally. Right. [31:42] JD: Clip it. Now, this is only one issue, so I don't. [31:45] Mark: I won't. [31:45] JD: I don't want to upset the anti Bitcoiners in 401k out there, because all I'm speaking to now is volatility. [31:52] Mark: But. But if you listen to Canute, volatility [31:55] JD: was a big part of his argument against why we would have bitcoin and 401k. [32:02] Mark: The next problem he had, if you [32:04] JD: listen to that podcast with. [32:05] Mark: With Brian, was the. The custody. [32:09] JD: The fact that he feels like crypto [32:11] Mark: is in a black box. [32:13] JD: Right. [32:13] Mark: It's in these people's wallets. [32:15] JD: It's on the blockchain and you don't know what's happening underneath the hood. Hello, everybody. You think that's how Fidelity is doing it? [32:25] Mark: Do you think that they're, they're, no, they're, they're cussing it. [32:29] JD: It's. [32:29] Mark: It. They're literally putting it in their thing [32:32] JD: and allowing you access to see your value of it. [32:34] Mark: And it's in the good, trustworthy hands of a mega company with a stellar [32:40] JD: reputation called Fidelity, who, by the way, has decided to do this a long time ago, back in 2022, they decided coincidentally, right around the time the, the original guidance came out from the Employee Benefit Security Administration. But anyways, I just wanted to have this conversation about all the people that continue to push against this as now. [33:06] Speaker F: Similar to our really good conversation though. JD I will say you're fairly one sided when it comes to this. [33:13] Speaker A: Thank you. [33:14] Mark: I want to wind up. [33:16] Speaker F: I'm pointing out facts, buddy. I'm not, I'm not here to debate you because I don't want to, but I'm just saying, perfect. [33:24] JD: It lines up to me with the private equity side. [33:27] Mark: It's. [33:28] JD: I'm not saying let's let our participants invest 50% of their account in Bitcoin. I'm not saying let's let the participants even invest 10% of their own money. I'm saying would it not be prudent and smart, just like private equity, to start to put a sliver of crypto into our managed accounts, our target date funds? [33:53] Speaker B: I think you. I think, I think we should move on. [33:56] Mark: Okay. [33:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [33:59] Chad: Hold on. [34:00] Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're about ready. You have a good instinct, Amanda. We are. [34:03] JD: We're about ready. [34:04] Chad: Let me make, let me make one statement. JD I feel what you're arguing for more than anything is that we need to continue to be open to evolving in our space instead of just saying this is the way we've always done it, so let's just keep doing it the same way. And I feel like most folks in our space are preaching that you do. You don't put anything risky in there because you shouldn't. That's not the way we've ever done it. We're not going to do it moving forward. And I think we need to continue to evaluate what those other options are. [34:32] JD: I appreciate that. Okay. [34:34] Mark: Amanda, I blew it already because I [34:37] JD: was going to have you start off the show with this and I, and I forgot about this. [34:42] Mark: So I did not know what a vestivus was until I got the email from you. [34:47] Speaker A: Today you didn't know what Festivus was. [34:49] Speaker F: Amanda, for Christ's sake, chat to everybody. [34:55] Mark: So Amanda, everyone would like the floor. [34:58] JD: December 23rd. Apparently it's Vestavus. I'm sorry, I don't know. [35:01] Mark: But she's got her own little vestavus [35:04] JD: or grievance to share with us all. Take it away. [35:07] Speaker B: And now I don't even see him in the chat bar. It's not even any of you. And I wouldn't tell J.D. who it is. So I'm like. And I don't see he's in the chat bar today. So let me just start off by saying this. 2023 was a busy year for me. I got became a CEO, became the President elect. I had traumatic thing happen in my life. I was just trying to get through things. I don't think I posted on LinkedIn much, but I've been working in corporate America since I was 22 years old. And I'm the same fucking person I was when I started to where I am now. Hopefully evolve just a little, little tiny bit. But Tony Davis needs to shut the F up and quit harassing me on LinkedIn about becoming corporate. Because every post, where I post something, he posts, Amanda Iverson's become corporate and I'm over it. This is how corporate I am. So suck it. [35:54] Chad: Wow. [35:55] Speaker A: How about that? [35:56] Speaker F: Do you know your business partner buddy now. Hey. [36:00] Speaker B: And he's not here tonight. [36:02] Mark: Hey. Remember? [36:03] Speaker F: Yes, he is. [36:04] JD: Remember when I told you that pilot. [36:07] Speaker F: Remember when I told you, dude, remember [36:10] JD: when I told you that my hands weren't sweaty anymore and I was. My heart was getting sad. [36:16] Speaker B: I saved it for half the show. [36:18] Mark: Jd, one thing is true with Amanda. [36:23] Speaker B: That means you. [36:25] Mark: Do you know that in 10 years [36:26] JD: of doing this show, the only times [36:30] Mark: I can remember where drama broke out afterwards are times when Amanda's been on the show. And I feel like later tonight I'm gonna have to answer some text messages about more drama. [36:44] Speaker B: I'm just saying I could have said it on LinkedIn when he called me out again for the whatever time and said, Shannon's gonna have to save the show or whatever she did because Amanda's gone corporate. [36:53] Mark: He was claiming, I think, that you were. By the way, is he wrong? [37:01] JD: Very. [37:01] Mark: The old Brandon. Brandon, can you put up the video of the old Amanda, the pre corporate Amanda, please? There she is. [37:10] Speaker B: Okay, this is my third drink. [37:13] Mark: I'm kidding, I'm kidding. [37:14] Speaker B: And I promised JD I'd behave so I don't have to wait five years to come back. [37:19] Mark: It Seems. [37:20] JD: It seems like you're being much more responsible, which others could conclude, but let's see how the rest of the show plays out. [37:28] Speaker A: I think we could conclude, too, that she calmed down a bit when she became president of the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries. [37:37] Speaker B: Oh, no, she didn't. No, I didn't. [37:41] Chad: She's as scared of Brian Graff as you are. [37:46] Speaker B: Brian's my buddy. [37:48] Mark: Yes. Yes. Brian is reading my mind. Or is that Mark? [37:51] Speaker B: I don't know. [37:51] Speaker F: Hey, did we have that button? [37:54] Chad: I need to know what Festivus is. [37:56] Speaker A: It's the airing of grievances. [37:58] Speaker F: I thought Festivus was a Seinfeld holiday. [38:02] Mark: It is. [38:03] Speaker B: It's where you air your grievances. It's December 23rd. [38:06] Speaker A: Festivus Air all of your grievances. [38:09] Speaker F: Hey, happy Festivus, everyone. [38:13] Chad: I'm gonna do this now. [38:15] Justin: I like this. [38:17] Mark: Let's see. [38:17] Speaker B: Nobody else has a. Has a grievance to air. [38:20] Speaker F: Oh, we all get to do it. [38:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I do have a grievance to air. I have a grievance. [38:25] JD: Go ahead. [38:26] Speaker A: I am so tired of people connecting with me and acting like they know me and just to sell me something. [38:33] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [38:34] Speaker A: When they try to sell me something, they don't even know what the hell I do. And they haven't even read my bio or what my company is about or what my volunteer work is about. They, like, think I'm a cpa. [38:44] Speaker B: They're a bot, honey. [38:45] Speaker A: Or they think I'm a financial advisor. [38:48] JD: I've heard many people share your. Your frustration here in terms of these direct messages they're getting in LinkedIn. [38:59] Mark: I just want to give you a [39:00] JD: piece of advice of, like, how I deal with these. I have two solutions that have worked really well in the past. One currently is, and I'm being serious here. [39:09] Mark: I feel like those are pretty easy [39:11] JD: to recognize pretty quickly because I get my fair share, too. And so I just ignore them. Like, they don't even bother me. They're just, like, a little, you know, thing there, and I just ignore them the next thing. [39:26] Speaker B: So advice you're giving Shannon and I is when someone is annoying you just to ignore them. This is coming from you? [39:33] Mark: Yes. Let's ignore them. [39:35] Speaker B: Which one of us changed? [39:37] Mark: I don't respond to it, but you [39:40] Speaker A: know how sometimes that little gnat is flying around in the air all around you and all around you, and you're trying to ignore it, and finally you just want to smash it, and then it just drives. [39:50] Mark: Okay, let me. [39:51] JD: Let me give you A way to smash it. Now, let me. Let me give you a way to smash it. This is a very fun exercise that I recommend everyone do. [39:59] Mark: And maybe I'll get Brandon and I [40:00] JD: to pull some of mine from the past so we can kind of read through them, start to play with them. [40:07] Mark: So respond and say, don't tell. Tell me about this great deal you're [40:13] JD: going to 7x my business. [40:15] Mark: I want to know more. And they're like, oh, let's set the call. No, no, no, tell me more. [40:20] JD: And then you. And you just start with them. [40:22] Mark: Start telling them that you've got marital problems. [40:26] Speaker B: And, you know, my luck would be they would screenshot that and then post it. Tag me. [40:33] Mark: I'm just saying go crazy on them. Go crazy on them. [40:37] Chad: By the way, don't be naive. Nobody is actually writing you in that post, Shannon. It's automated. It's blocked. A bunch of. It's not an individual. [40:47] Speaker A: You mean they don't love me, Chad. [40:49] Chad: I mean, everybody loves you, but they're not real. [40:52] Speaker B: Shan. I love that you had a grievance, though. [40:54] Mark: Yeah. [40:54] JD: Do your. What's your grievance? [40:56] Speaker B: That was it. [40:58] Justin: That was it. [40:59] Speaker A: Oh, that was my grievance. [41:00] Mark: All right, here's mine. [41:02] JD: I'm gonna call out someone. I don't know if they're here tonight or not. I really don't care. [41:07] Mark: Rob Smith. [41:10] JD: Getting that right. [41:10] Mark: Rob with two Bs. [41:12] JD: He's from Pooled employer plan hyphen Hub. Is that a thing? That's not a thing. Is it a dot com? [41:22] Mark: This is what Rob does. [41:24] JD: And I've had many a fun debate with Rob about pulled in player plans, but this is what Rob does on LinkedIn. This is my grievance. [41:32] Mark: Someone posts something, someone else, and Rob is consistently in their comments then promoting his own business model. [41:43] Speaker B: That's the worst. [41:45] Mark: Literally putting the links to it. Well, at I'll drink right now. [41:49] JD: At Pep and Hub, we do this [41:51] Mark: and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [41:52] JD: And this is our services and our value added. [41:54] Mark: And check us out at WW. [41:57] JD: I guess I'll drink for that, too. [41:59] Mark: Worldwide Web. [42:01] JD: And so if you're doing that. [42:03] Mark: And Rob, I'm calling you out, if [42:05] JD: you watch this recording, that's a big grievance of mine. That is poor taste on LinkedIn, if I do a post about something, I [42:14] Mark: do not want you to use my comments to promote your own. [42:19] JD: I don't care if it's related or not. [42:23] Mark: Fair. [42:24] Speaker A: I agree. [42:25] Chad: Fair. [42:26] Speaker B: All three of these grievances are totally 100 there. [42:30] Speaker A: What I have noticed about. [42:31] Speaker B: Who else has one said? [42:32] Speaker A: What I have noticed about that person is when you disagree with him in the comments, it turns into an all out argument as well. [42:39] JD: No, but that's fun. I like doing that with him. I get a lot of. [42:43] Speaker A: Nobody is allowed to have their own opinion. It's. [42:47] JD: Anyway, I love a good LinkedIn. Violent debate. They're a lot of fun. I have no grievances around that. You know what else I have a huge grievance about is when you. When you walk in to go to the bathroom and a toilet seat does [43:01] Mark: not rise for you. And that's. And you know what else is worse? [43:08] JD: Wiping your butt with toilet paper when you could have nice clean water. [43:12] Mark: Okay, we'll move on. [43:14] Speaker B: No, wait. We got. Chad has a grievance and so did Mark. [43:18] JD: Okay, sorry, Amanda, I apologize. [43:20] Chad: My grievance is not fun and. Or probably relatable for any of you. But. But it's. It's come about in the last three weeks when people sell products that a client does not need. Working with a guy right now who's selling his. Thank you, Brandon. Who's selling his. Who is open to selling his business in the next three years. And an advisor set him up. The 412E heavily insured DB plan. [43:50] Speaker A: Damn. [43:51] Chad: That does not fit for him at all. And. And he's trapped now. You know, he's put in $350,000. He's 100k behind in what he. What his cash value is in that insurance and he has no way of getting out. And it's just. It's just shitty. Now, he signed the paperwork and he acknowledges that there's no fight about that, but the fact that someone threw that through him in there and sold him something to make money off of that he absolutely did not need is a terrible thing for our industry. [44:22] Speaker A: Yes, agreed. [44:23] JD: Chad. Way to. Way to bring the mood. [44:25] Speaker B: Agreed. [44:26] Chad: Hey, you said bring things that I have issues with. I got an issue with that. [44:30] Speaker B: All right? [44:32] Speaker A: I got tricked into all those things. [44:37] JD: Did we say Silent Chase got something to complain about? [44:40] Justin: Life is good over here, guys. You know, nothing to complain about. [44:44] Speaker B: Yeah, because nobody's called you corporate all over LinkedIn. [44:47] Mark: Whoa, Tony, [44:53] Speaker A: Do you remember that commercial? Hey, what's your name? Tony. You Tony? [45:01] Justin: What's your name? [45:03] Mark: Oh, there. Yeah. Jason's proving my point. [45:06] JD: Not bring my mother into this. Jason's proving my point. [45:13] Mark: I have it. One more grievance. Jesus, what is this? [45:17] Speaker F: Dude, this isn't like fairness. If you can afford a ten Thousand dollar toilet. You can afford a thousand therapist. [45:25] JD: Go get one. [45:28] Speaker A: Mark wins Chat champion. [45:30] Speaker F: My wife show you a video of [45:33] JD: my toilet later tonight? N. No. [45:35] Mark: My grievance. My grievance is the same of a [45:39] JD: lot of people out there, Rob Guy, which is the stock market is a mysterious thing and they all would like to get great returns. But there's only one person, one person on this planet that knows how to read that stock market like a tight ass God. [45:58] Mark: And that's Rogue Guy. It's drunk stock tips, people. It's back. [46:03] JD: Bryn. [46:16] Speaker F: Sorry. You can talk to city. I'm gonna be pouring a cocktail while you're doing that. [46:20] Mark: I got you did a little update today. [46:24] JD: Not. Not a deep one, but just kind of generally. I mean if you think about the stock market, you might think like, wow, it's been a crazy ride for a while. But Rogue Guy told you to buy DoorDash at $75. It's now people at $215. Okay. He told you to buy Home Depot at 269. It's at 369. [46:48] Mark: He said Disney was crack for kids at $90. [46:54] JD: It's now at 112. [46:55] Mark: You ready for this? Costco. He said yes on Costco. Bye bye bye. At 500 bucks, it is a four digit banger. [47:07] JD: Now it's a thousand people. [47:10] Mark: Budweiser at 55. In all of its drama, it's at 70. There's another big one. [47:17] JD: Where's my notes? [47:19] Mark: He got you millions of dollars on Twitter. [47:21] JD: Netflix. [47:22] Mark: You ready for this last one? Netflix199. Rope guy says Netflix and chill. Buy that. [47:35] JD: It's at 1,250. [47:38] Mark: Okay. [47:39] JD: When this guy talks, E.F. hutton listens. [47:43] Mark: I'll drink today's DOC 2024. [47:50] JD: Revenue of $66.52 billion, which was a 14 decline from the previous year price to earnings ratio. You ready for this? Negative 11.8. Did you hear that, nerdy Chad? [48:06] Mark: Negative 11.8. [48:08] JD: I was like, what? How do you have a price of earnings ratio? Negative 11.8. [48:12] Speaker F: Well, I don't even know what that is. Couldn't tell you. [48:16] Mark: You want to know how much free [48:17] JD: cash flow they have right now at this company? [48:20] Mark: Negative $14 billion. [48:22] JD: LOL. [48:25] Chad: That can't be a real. Yeah, that's a. That's a drink. [48:28] Mark: No, this is real. Year to date return 19.763 year 525 year 1510 year return. A nice even number of 69%. The new stock is Boeing. I believe the ticker is Ba. I will drink. Rogue guy. Lead us to the promised land. [48:55] Speaker F: That was a lot of information you just shared. [48:58] Justin: They had to get Musk to fly him home, bro. [49:01] Chad: What? [49:02] Justin: They had to get Musk to fly their people home. [49:06] Speaker F: I don't know what that means either. I don't keep up with the news typically, you know. [49:11] Speaker A: All right. [49:11] Speaker F: It's all negative stuff. What's the number at today? [49:17] JD: You say J.D. [49:18] Mark: oh, good call. [49:19] JD: Not sure. [49:21] Speaker F: Of all the things you said, I wasn't really listening. [49:23] Mark: Say that Ask Chat usually throws the stock up. It's at 209 02. [49:32] JD: And let me. Let me put that into the record here. [49:34] Speaker B: Mark, you should phone a friend, see what the chat bar says. [49:37] Speaker F: Oh, I don't need help, Amanda. [49:39] Mark: That's not how this works. Amanda. [49:41] Speaker F: This is what I do. It's like. It's just fingers it to the wind kind of thing, you know? [49:45] Mark: Amanda, this is not about him trying [49:47] JD: to figure out how to get it right. [49:48] Speaker F: It's. [49:49] Mark: He always gets it right. He just. [49:51] Speaker F: Yeah, but by the way, I don't like how Boeing is spelled. Just gonna say it right now. It's. It's like, boy, yeah, that's a warning. No, no. Now you do the boing. I like it. Okay, if I'm just getting down the brass tax here, I'm just gonna say this. I have a really good friend, really good friend who gives me really good discounts on. On stuff. And his dad retired from Boeing, and his dad is an amazing human being, probably one of the smartest people I've ever met. [50:32] JD: But he's retired. [50:33] Justin: Yeah, he retired before Boeing took a. I know. [50:37] Speaker F: He's a smart guy. So he's telling me something there. [50:40] Chad: He was like, hey, buddy. [50:42] Speaker F: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? I'm gonna go against them. I. I'm just gonna take the path of least resistance and say, this is a. This is a stock you buy. This is one down. Huh? [51:00] Mark: Yeah. [51:00] Speaker F: I think if. If their planes do what they're supposed to do, which is take off, I don't want them to land. They can fly forever, Shannon. So you buy it and you hope that it's just an ongoing outward motion towards the sky. [51:17] Justin: The issue is they're the only ones that are falling right now. [51:19] JD: Yeah, they have had some issues in the past, too. [51:22] Speaker F: Oh. Oh, Justin. Do you think that I know that or care about that? The answer is no. [51:27] JD: I hope you are right, and I hope their takes off. [51:31] Speaker F: They will. They will. [51:33] Mark: Justin, did you just say, I hope you're right? [51:36] Justin: I want Mark to be right. I want people. [51:37] Mark: How long have you been on this show? [51:42] Speaker F: I got a lot of cheesecake, buddy. [51:44] Chad: Cheesecake. [51:46] JD: By the way, where is cheesecake? I gotta look at that one. [51:49] Speaker F: Oh, that's. That's been one of my big misses. I will say I've been wrong. [51:53] Speaker A: You have been wrong. [51:54] Mark: Yeah, he's been wrong. [51:56] JD: Maybe less than 10, maybe three times. [52:01] Mark: No more than that. [52:02] JD: But, like, he's done a lot of these. It's been a long time now, but [52:06] Mark: I will do a full. [52:07] JD: I'll get artificial intelligence to help me [52:10] Mark: do, like, a full analysis. [52:12] Speaker B: Oh, you like AI? Do you love it? Would you say love Amanda? [52:17] Speaker F: Two. Oh, my God. Three. Maybe two or three. [52:19] Justin: Do we get two or three there? [52:20] Speaker A: She said it, like three times. [52:22] Speaker B: Does that count? [52:26] Mark: Yeah, it does. Okay, let's move on. And I'm actually gonna try to sit [52:32] JD: this one out a little bit. [52:33] Chad: Hey, hold on, jd. One comment. First I asked artificial intelligence if I should buy or sell, and then I said, what about the terrible pe. I think I already said it. [52:46] Speaker F: There. [52:47] Chad: Now you gotta check. [52:48] Speaker F: Yeah, it is. [52:50] Chad: It is disagreeing with Mark and saying that you should not buy. [52:56] Mark: Which one are you using? [52:59] Chad: Chat. [53:00] JD: Yeah. Okay. [53:01] Chad: Generative. [53:01] Mark: I'm not. [53:02] JD: I'm surprised it answers you that a lot of them are starting to say, like, I'm not going to tell you to buy or sell. I'll give you some information on it. But anyways, I digress. [53:12] Mark: Well, clearly it's wrong, Chad, so I [53:15] JD: don't have to tell you. I'll give a call to Sam. [53:17] Speaker F: I'm so much happier that it says to. Yeah, I'm so. That makes me so much happier. [53:22] JD: Better analysis. [53:24] Mark: Yeah, he wants you to. Not really wants to use deep research. [53:27] JD: That's not fair. [53:28] Speaker B: That's a private chat. [53:32] Speaker A: Where the hell did that come from? [53:36] Mark: Shannon, I also like to drink vodka [53:40] JD: in my free time. [53:42] Mark: Okay. Less. [53:44] JD: I've been drinking a lot of vodka in my free time. [53:49] Mark: Shannon, this is for you. [53:52] JD: Shannon. [53:53] Mark: You know when I. When my palms also get sweaty and my head also throbs. [54:00] JD: It's not just when a shamana show's coming. It's also coincidentally, when I'm in a shamanda group text. And I've been in that recently, the two of them. [54:10] Mark: And Shannon said, hey, some things are going on in the pep world. Let's discuss fellow Shannon. I'll drink. And I. To everyone. I'm gonna try to tone it down and let you all discuss. [54:26] JD: Take it away, Shannon. [54:28] Speaker A: So I wanted to bring this up just because I. I mean, I've learned some things over the past couple weeks. And. And Chad and I did an article. It was a point counterpoint with Pete Swisher, which Nevin said was actually very calm for what he expected. [54:44] Speaker F: A lot of name dropping going on right now. [54:47] Speaker B: I know you guys. I just want to. Let's. Let's just break this down first. She's like, I did an article. Perhaps you haven't read my six articles in Plan Sponsor magazine. If you haven't, I'd like you to see this edition. There was only 10 in this edition, but this was one of the articles. Oh, and I did this article with Name drop. Name drop. Name Drop. We're really good friends. I could just have a drink with him. Why do you have to go to a special secret club? Why don't you just have a drink with him at the bar? That's what I do. Name drop. Name drop. [55:14] JD: Name drop. [55:15] Speaker B: Okay, Shannon, now continue. [55:17] Speaker A: I love you, Mandy. Anyway, Chad and I both, during this interview, actually admitted that we had come to the realization that from time to time, there is a place for certain employers to have a plan in a pooled employer plan. I know that that would make J.D. lose his mind. [55:38] Chad: No, he agrees with that, too, but. [55:41] Speaker A: So we were discussing those types of plans in the last week, and I heard two things. First of all, there is a. I'm not going to say the three P's that has recently gone bankrupt, that now all the money in the plan is frozen and nobody can get it out. [56:01] Chad: Oh, I didn't know that. [56:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know the name of it. I don't know the name of the plan. I just know that this happened and it was confirmed by somebody else. That is the to do. [56:11] Mark: We know. [56:12] JD: Is the. [56:12] Mark: Is the P3 also like the custodian [56:18] JD: or the record keeper or something? [56:20] Mark: Or. [56:20] Speaker A: I don't know enough about the story. [56:23] Speaker F: Just. [56:23] Speaker B: Just to be clear about it, on Monday. Is this the thing you're talking about [56:27] Speaker A: on Monday that it was verified by somebody else? [56:28] Speaker F: Is it Boeing? [56:34] Mark: It seems to me they might be [56:35] JD: if stuff's frozen, but go on. [56:38] Speaker A: So, I mean, so that happened. And then there are several that the record keeper is the same as the P3, is the same as the 338 or 316. So there's like no oversight, no independence, and basically, who's going to fire the fiduciary when the fiduciary is doing bad things? Right? So I just wanted to toss that [57:00] Speaker F: out for discussion when you need them. [57:03] Speaker A: I just Think this is really scary that this is what I mean, the [57:08] JD: conflict of interest concerns you. And I think that's always been a really big one. So I'm curious how Rogue Guy or Justin or Chad or Amanda feel like. [57:18] Mark: I got in a lot of trouble [57:19] JD: with a good friend of ours, Lee Sylvester, Leah Sylvester. She was giving a presentation at some conference somewhere and I was in the audience and I made a big stink about it because I. I asked, I got on the mic that they put around the audience and I said, who's the pool plan provider here? And I forget who the vendor was. It was principal or someone. And it was like, we are. And I was like, okay, who's doing the compliance work? And they're like, we are. I was like, okay, who's. Who's holding the assets? Who's the record keeper? And they're like, we are. And I dropped my mic on the table and I walked out of the room. [57:57] Mark: And you said a few things. [58:00] Chad: Absolutely did. And we got kicked out of the conference. [58:04] Mark: Amanda and Leah came to me very upset and she and I had a [58:07] JD: kind of face to face talk about it because she was up there. And I was like, look, I'm not upset with you. I'm just upset with the conflict of interest. So anyway, so I've always felt that way. [58:16] Mark: So Chad, Rogue Guy, like, is this coming up? [58:20] JD: Are people talking about this? Like when you discuss PEPs, this conflict of interest that Shannon, you know, isolated so well, like, it's got to be an issue. [58:30] Chad: I immediately shook my head no, like it's not popping up. But the truth is it is, it is now. And I shake my head no because I'm not competing against it, but I am regularly getting asked, what do you think? Would you do this? Do you think this is the right fit for it? [58:47] Speaker B: And I'm just interrupt you for a second. Do you think that you almost need like a solution so they can go, oh, nevermind, that doesn't fit for me. It's almost like we get asked all the time, but it's not. [58:56] Chad: We have a solution. There's a solution. [58:58] Speaker B: Well, oh no, I know, but it's almost like, well, you could do the shiny coin. So almost feel like. Because I get asked all the time, but it's never really the right fit for. [59:07] Mark: So answer Amanda's question, Jack, is she's [59:11] JD: not saying have a, have a pivot solution. She's saying, should I just set up a pooled employer plan so I can just say like, of course we have one at Pinnacle here. [59:19] Speaker B: You go, no, it's never the right solution or not? Not, never. Almost right. Almost. [59:25] Chad: Not with the type of clientele that we typically work with. Right. But, but. So, guys, I sent you all an email recently with Empower's new solution that is a third party administrator driven [59:39] Speaker B: app. [59:40] Chad: Now it is a solution that we all have access to. The problem is, and I shouldn't say it's a problem, it's a good thing. Advisors are asking the questions they should be asking. It's a new shiny tool. People are marketing on them. They're hearing about it. They want to know is this the right fit? And I'm very thankful that they're asking me if this is the right fit. And it gives me an opportunity to have that discussion. Because the vast majority of plans that are considering that pooled employer plan approach, they're not the right fit. But to your point, Amanda. Yeah. I now have an opportunity to say we've got access to a good one. I don't think it fits for you, but here's why. Here's what it could look like if we decided to. So yes, I do think you need to have a. You need to have an option and not just be a hater, aka old employer plansuck.org but, but you, you also need to understand that this is not a widget. I'm just out there. We are just out there trying to, to sell. If there is a group that it fits, I will tell them this is a fit. You should go this route. I just don't come across them. [1:00:46] JD: Amanda. [1:00:46] Mark: Shannon, can I go a little deeper [1:00:50] JD: with you just for a second? In that people always get upset with me, like why I'm so anti this. [1:00:58] Speaker B: Why can you drop the mic and [1:00:59] JD: walk out of a car? Yeah, yeah. Why so like aggressive? And why can't JD you just be okay with like. [1:01:07] Chad: Hold on, jd. Mark's fighting you right now. [1:01:09] JD: Go ahead. [1:01:09] Speaker F: No, no, I'm not. No, I have a comment. Not till later. But so can be clear. This, this show is not going to go just an hour. We know this. This is not an after show. I'm just making sure that I'm still allowed to press the Ackerson button. [1:01:25] Speaker B: Hey, but can we just stop for a minute and just tell Tony because he's razzing Shannon and I in the chats that we're doing Ackerson's all the time and not drinking. [1:01:33] Mark: Tony, they are drinking. [1:01:35] Speaker B: Do the shots. I was doing the shots. I. I have the does. [1:01:38] Mark: And Tony, this show does not work. [1:01:42] JD: The chat bar does not allow you to just allocate shots to people. [1:01:46] Mark: That's not how it works in our [1:01:49] Speaker B: acrosens but I've absolutely done mine. [1:01:51] Mark: You're totally keeping up. [1:01:53] JD: And we've. We've had many big shots on this show that have not. You guys are keeping to your shots. 100. [1:02:00] Mark: My very kind of serious concept I [1:02:04] JD: wanna pitched you guys is that when about 20 years ago I feel like our industry was catching a lot of flack for hidden fees. It was not uncommon for advisors to get like 1 in 50 or 1 in 25 on on new plan sales. You know they'd literally sell it sell like a 4 million dollar plan and walk away with 40 grand on the front side. And we had a lot of conflict of interest in terms of revenue sharing and and must invest in proprietary funds and and guaranteed income investment contracts. All kinds of stuff. [1:02:45] Mark: And rightfully so. [1:02:47] JD: The public kind of look. The public, our consumers kind of looked at us as an industry like we were just like Wall street like not to be trusted. [1:02:56] Mark: And I feel like over the last [1:02:58] JD: 20 years through 404 A5 and 408B2 and fee disclosures and to the, to hats off to the vendors the record keepers for creating products that had institutional share class of funds and really breaking out the fees. And in the industry as a whole evolving in terms of fee comparisons and all these things. I feel like we really kind of like dug ourselves out of that hole and we're starting to be looked at as like a different type of industry that I was really proud of. [1:03:32] Mark: And and that is why I get [1:03:36] JD: so upset when I hear big names. Fred Reese Swishers chief executive officers of some of these record keepers pushing pooled employer plans as some type of new solution to help the coverage gap when they're riddled with these conflicts of interest. And I'll try to finish it right here. [1:03:59] Mark: My concern is that as soon as [1:04:02] JD: these things get to a certain size Schlichter is going to go after them and Schlichter's peers they're going to be [1:04:09] Mark: all over the headlines of the news [1:04:12] JD: and Schlicter's gonna find out that there's a lot of self dealing happening. A lot of conflicts of interest, a lot of. I guarantee you that that that's going to happen. And my point is that that is a bad look. [1:04:27] Mark: And then I'll also say a a [1:04:29] JD: bad direction for our industry. And so I just want to say [1:04:33] Mark: for the record that is why I [1:04:35] JD: push back so hard on this. As I say Everyone, family, friends in my industry, people I love. [1:04:41] Mark: Why are we allowing this to happen? [1:04:43] JD: This is not a good look for us. [1:04:45] Mark: And the fact of the matter is, [1:04:47] JD: it's not Amanda, it's not Shannon. It's not the fabric of our industry that's pushing this. [1:04:52] Mark: It's people that are, that are motivated by greed and they want to make money and they want to have these things be sticky and they want to [1:05:00] JD: get back the profit margins that they had in the 90s and the early 2000s. And that's where I say, I say no personally. And I'll continue to shout about it. I'll shut up. [1:05:14] Speaker A: No, I, I, I agree, JD in large part. I mean, it might. My dad told me, did you see Will's thing? [1:05:23] Speaker B: He wrote hashtag greed is good. [1:05:26] JD: What did he write? [1:05:28] Speaker A: I mean, for years, my dad told me when I was growing up, all you have to do is follow the money, right? You want the answer to a question, follow the money. [1:05:35] Chad: And you know, loves to say that [1:05:40] Speaker A: Pete, you know, when, when we were, when we were doing that interview with Pete, it was, you know, he thought that the, the PEPs were the solution for everything. And then every plan should be in a pep. [1:05:52] Speaker B: I can see when a pet makes could make sense. I can see when it could make sense. [1:05:56] Mark: Amanda, tell me, tell me why. Like, so what do you think? What's the situation where it makes sense? Like, why. [1:06:05] Speaker B: So I'm kind of torn and saying this because I grew up an auditor. That's how I started my. I think you guys all know. [1:06:13] Mark: Yeah. [1:06:13] Speaker B: Potentially a plan is that 100 participants. It has to pay for a 10 to $15,000 audit. And they can go in a pep. I'm just going for it and could [1:06:26] Speaker F: just not say it. [1:06:27] Speaker B: Okay. [1:06:29] Justin: We got records to break. Mark. [1:06:30] Speaker F: Shut up. [1:06:31] Speaker B: Mark, will you say it for me? Would you say it for me? Actually just turn red, Mark, and you say it. [1:06:36] Mark: Okay. [1:06:37] Chad: Nope. [1:06:37] Speaker F: Not. I'm pitching a no hitter. [1:06:39] Chad: His, his bidet is painting him right now. [1:06:41] Speaker B: Then so if they need to save money on that audit and they can potentially. Now, I'm not convinced. Here's the problem. I'm not sure when you look at all the fees across the board that everybody's paying that they're actually so [1:07:00] JD: I [1:07:00] Speaker B: swear I could see the argument for it, but I'm just not convinced that [1:07:03] JD: it's so you made a clear point. You made a clear point. [1:07:06] Chad: Let me support that point real quick, JD in that that it's not just about fees and expense. Right? There are some Operational efficiencies that are created in that relationship don't go on to more defensive. [1:07:19] Mark: And Chad, I want to tackle this [1:07:20] JD: one at a time. [1:07:21] Chad: I'm just going to say you still can get them in a standalone plan. Let's not drift away from that. Right, but the pooled employer plan world is built on those efficiencies, and there is value in those efficiencies. So it's not cheaper. It can't be cheaper. It's not about bridging the coverage gap. It's about saying if you don't want to do anything and you think you can outsource your fiduciary responsibility, we can charge you more, we can take it on. [1:07:47] Mark: Okay, so let's put it. [1:07:49] JD: Let's put a pen in Chad's administrative work, slash, fiduciary responsibility, because that obviously, that is. That's probably, you know, in the top three for sure. Amanda, you brought up the audit cost, which that one does really like, bother me sometimes, because just to go back to the origination of this all in Washington, this was to solve the coverage gap, which means this was meant for startup plans and small businesses, not employers that have a hundred plus, 125 plus employees. [1:08:24] Speaker B: No disagreement. [1:08:25] Mark: And even with that said, when you've [1:08:28] JD: got 200 employees, 500 employees, a thousand employees, you could give a. About 10 grand. Okay, I'm just being dead honest with you. Like you would. [1:08:39] Speaker B: Hope so, but that's a big but that is. [1:08:42] Mark: Okay, fair enough. [1:08:43] Speaker B: But quite frankly, I might be the only one on this panel, but I actually really do see the value in those audits. [1:08:54] Mark: Amanda, I know right now I'm not [1:08:56] JD: going at you because you just kind of. What do they say? Steel manned it or whatever. She was just kind of making the case for it. It's not like she. Yeah, it feels. [1:09:04] Mark: I'm not. [1:09:04] JD: So I'm not talking to you directly. I'm just saying that the audit cost thing, to me, I mean, that's got to drop so far down a list. [1:09:12] Mark: And if you would have gone to [1:09:13] JD: Washington, D.C. and said, I'll drink, we want to bring these new plans on board so we can reduce audit costs, you would have been thrown out of their place. That's not why these are in existence at all. [1:09:27] Mark: And so then we go. [1:09:28] JD: Chad already tackled the cost thing, which unfortunately is a lot of misinformation. [1:09:33] Mark: A lot of people think, right, these are cheap. [1:09:37] JD: Everyone's heard me say this before, by the way. That is why Washington approved these. Some people disagree with me, but I Believe wholeheartedly. All of those congressmen and women said yes to this because they were told that if we pulled together hundreds of small employers, they would get big employer pricing. [1:09:58] Mark: If you told me that, I would [1:10:00] JD: say, like, yes, that sounds like a phenomenal idea. The problem is that that is not occurring and it does not even occur at scale. So even if they make these things very big, it's still not true. Because there's additional services. You know that there's the pool plan provider, as Shannon talked about. There's fiduciaries. Let me ask you this, Amanda, or picking on Amanda. I'm gonna go, Shannon. [1:10:23] Speaker A: Okay. [1:10:24] Mark: How many startup that you would sell [1:10:29] JD: that you'd sit down with a startup [1:10:30] Mark: employer who's got 15 employees and wants [1:10:33] JD: to start up their 401k for plan for the first time? Would you say, hey, I got a great idea for you. In addition to my third party administrator [1:10:41] Mark: services, let's bring on a, a good [1:10:45] JD: 316 for 1500 bucks a year to kind of look over your plan and double check the I'm doing and handhold you. From an administrative service standpoint, how many of them do you think would want that? [1:10:56] Mark: Or. [1:10:57] JD: Or you should sell that to them. [1:10:59] Speaker A: There's not a single one. [1:11:00] Speaker B: Right, but that could be good for them. [1:11:04] Speaker A: Of course not. If that's not what they want, if they have a good compliance administrator, they [1:11:10] Mark: don't need you almost act like a 316. So now we evolve to Chad's defense, [1:11:15] JD: which was relieving the employer of their responsibilities. [1:11:21] Chad: No, that was not my defense. [1:11:23] Mark: Their administrative burden. [1:11:25] Chad: Okay, so, yeah, process argument. [1:11:27] Speaker B: It's not the one that. [1:11:28] JD: Sorry, sorry. Not their fiduciary responsibility. Their administrative burden. Okay, fair enough. [1:11:31] Chad: Yeah, there you go. [1:11:32] Mark: That's not what I meant. That's another one we could talk about. [1:11:35] JD: That'd be fun. But let's stick with administrative burden. Amanda Shannon, Third party administrators all over the country for many years now, before there were pulled, employer plans can offer 316 fiduciary services, whether they're doing it themselves or they're partnering with some outside third party. This has always been something that we could offer to clients to help relieve their administrative administrative burden. Therefore, the pooled employer plans do not have that. That is not a unique characteristic of, of theirs. But they continue to wave that flag in such a big way. So, Chad, I would go back to you and say like, okay, but you don't. If you want to relieve yourself of administrative burden, that doesn't mean that you run to a Pooled employer plan. [1:12:21] Chad: No, no, no, no. And I wrote, I wrote 402A in the chat bar. Like it's different than just the 316 side of that plan. Protection and, and responsibility. But I guess that's right. [1:12:31] Mark: You get a pooled plan provider too. [1:12:33] Speaker F: Yeah. [1:12:34] Chad: What I was trying to say in that comment, JD is that it is involved in, from my knowledge, every pooled employer plan, and it's not involved. [1:12:44] Speaker F: Yes. [1:12:45] Chad: That kind of procedural prudence in every standalone plan. So they may want, by the way, and because we haven't been selling that as an industry, they think the pooled employer plan space is where I get that level of service, that level of outsourcing. And the truth is, that's not true. We just haven't been selling it as an industry because people don't usually want. [1:13:04] JD: Well, and they don't need all of that. And then here's the bigger problem. Much like when 316 came out, I was actually excited when 316 started to first catch fire. I was like, this is great. [1:13:18] Mark: This is going to allow me to [1:13:19] JD: run my firm more like my dad did in the 80s. Like we could be real. Like, like Shannon is really white glove, attention to detail and get paid for it. And unfortunately, within weeks or months, all these 316 light types of things came out where people were going to offer these services for $250 or $500. And to some of the comments in the chat bar, that's because you need to read the contract to understand exactly what someone is going to offer you. [1:13:49] Mark: And by the way, these pooled plan [1:13:52] JD: providers and the three are way better [1:13:55] Speaker B: at that than me. [1:13:56] JD: What's that? [1:13:57] Speaker B: I said you're way better at experience. Yeah. [1:14:00] Mark: Are. Are actually doing the same thing. [1:14:04] JD: If you read the contracts of pooled employer plans, there are a lot of things that they refuse to take responsibility for or they at least caveat based on what data you're going to provide them or this or that. So to me, even Chad, even that value of a pooled plan provider. Shannon's example of the recent lawsuit aside, [1:14:24] Speaker B: I would like to know who is Shannon? Pardon the ignorance. Who is Shannon? [1:14:29] JD: What do you call her? [1:14:29] Speaker A: That would be. That would be me. [1:14:31] Chad: I said, I said she's a beast of a detailed tpa. [1:14:35] Speaker B: I know. [1:14:36] Speaker F: I'm like, anyways, that counts as two. [1:14:39] Mark: Anyways, I, I actually thank you guys [1:14:42] JD: because to me, that was my favorite pooled employer plan conversation to date. Because it was calm, we could go through it. I just wish more people could. [1:14:53] Speaker B: Wait, hold on A second. JD just thanked us. [1:14:56] Speaker A: Yes. [1:14:57] Speaker B: For having a conversation. We could go through it. You guys hear that? You see how I've done? I've done a good job. [1:15:08] Speaker F: Five to eight minutes. I haven't. L, like, didn't know. I have not been listening because I'm [1:15:13] Speaker B: trying to be so calm. [1:15:15] Mark: And that's Hagler. Hagler just called you corporate, Amanda. [1:15:20] Speaker B: Will. Will's my friend. [1:15:23] Speaker A: They are all gonna call you corporate now. You know that. Okay. [1:15:26] Mark: That. That's such. [1:15:28] Speaker B: No, because I don't think it's funny. [1:15:29] Mark: My. This is my favorite Branda, favorite Shamanda show yet. [1:15:36] JD: If anyone out there feels like they have very low blood pressure and you'd like to raise it up, I suggest going and looking at episode one of Shamanda or episode two. They're out there on YouTube. You can check those out or give [1:15:51] Speaker A: us their cell phone number and we'll include them in our group text. [1:15:54] Mark: Let's do a little bit of. [1:15:57] JD: Where's my housekeeping? I'm gonna have to wing it. [1:16:00] Mark: I don't know where it went. [1:16:01] Speaker F: Housekeeping. [1:16:03] Mark: Yeah, to close it out. Close it out. I'd like to let everyone know that we're going. [1:16:08] Speaker B: Three hours tonight, guys. [1:16:09] JD: No, that Sherry Fitz has her Sway conference. I think it's happening in August. [1:16:16] Mark: It's in Wisconsin. [1:16:19] JD: Am I getting that right out there, Sherry? [1:16:21] Speaker B: No, I think it's Milwaukee. [1:16:22] JD: Milwaukee. [1:16:24] Speaker A: That's. Isn't it. [1:16:25] JD: Isn't that the same thing? [1:16:28] Speaker B: Oh, well, I. I think it's in Milwaukee. [1:16:32] JD: Missouri, Kansas. [1:16:33] Mark: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [1:16:35] Justin: One of those flyovers. [1:16:38] Mark: Oh, Sherry's here. [1:16:39] JD: I didn't even know she was here, so. [1:16:40] Mark: Okay, great. [1:16:41] JD: Sherry. Put the dates in there. Thank you. August 3rd to 5th, location. [1:16:46] Mark: Very quick. [1:16:48] JD: And Sherry has not paid me for this in any way, shape or form. I attended the first Sway conference, which to me was phenomenal, and it's grown massively since then. [1:16:59] Mark: This is like no other industry event [1:17:02] JD: that you've been to. [1:17:04] Mark: There's a lot of real authenticity, a [1:17:07] JD: lot of transparency, a lot of honesty from people, and you walk away from it feeling like, oh, wow. Like, this is actually very productive and valuable. And so I love what she's doing there. I'm proud of her for doing it. And she's having a lot of success and she deserves that. So if you're not aware of it yet, which I'm sure you are, but check it out. That's going down [1:17:32] Mark: Self promo. [1:17:34] JD: My artificial intelligence company is having a webinar on the 18th of this month at 10am you'll be able to sign up at waves.AI/webinar. I'll have that up tomorrow. You'll see. Email blast. Oh, shit. Coming out. [1:17:50] Mark: And we're talking about our enhancement. [1:17:52] Speaker F: I wasn't even accepted that you faked the step. You did not step. [1:17:55] Mark: You're. [1:17:55] JD: You're actually. You're totally right. [1:17:57] Speaker F: I know. [1:17:57] JD: I barely had Liquid Touch. [1:17:59] Speaker B: Mike, the chat bar. Tony won't call him out. [1:18:04] Mark: Corporate. [1:18:05] JD: JD's going corporate. [1:18:08] Mark: So anyways, look for that. Look for that email. [1:18:11] JD: We've had massive attendance on those things, so we're going to show you our enhancements. [1:18:16] Chad: Three people. [1:18:16] JD: Four people. Hundreds, bro. [1:18:20] Mark: Hundreds for real. And then lastly, someone else has a podcast around here. [1:18:28] Speaker B: Yeah, Shannon's pot. [1:18:29] Mark: Oh, that's what I'm doing. Amanda. [1:18:31] JD: Yeah, someone else has a podcast around here, and I think it's called the Gap. And I was driving my truck to [1:18:40] Mark: the beach to surf the other day, and I. I hit play and I listened to it. You know, my first thought was, what S. Words? [1:18:53] Speaker F: Who does the. Who's the dude that does, like, the intro part? Did you hire that person? Is that a fake thing? Like, what is that? [1:18:59] Speaker A: No, he's. Yeah, we hired him. It's with Turnkey Productions. They're actually a great company. [1:19:03] Mark: So, Shannon, please take a company. Take a moment to tell everyone about it, and take more than a moment. [1:19:10] JD: Like. [1:19:10] Mark: Like, you got a couple episodes out now. [1:19:13] Speaker A: Oh, I'm on the spot now. We have four episodes out. The first one was with Will Hansen from ara. So the whole point is, like, I'm. [1:19:21] Mark: Oh, finish your thought. [1:19:23] JD: Finish your thought. [1:19:24] Speaker A: So the whole reason I called it the Gap was I started it because I'm super passionate about closing the gaps in both coverage and savings. And so as I started talking, I went through this whole class with Turnkey, and actually, Sherry introduced us to Turnkey, and Sherry went through a podcasting class with me and Eric Dyson. I don't know if you've seen him. [1:19:47] Mark: Yes, yes. [1:19:47] Speaker A: I love his BE more than. [1:19:49] Mark: He's been a guest on this show. [1:19:50] JD: He was phenomenal. [1:19:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I love Eric. So we all did this together. And so as we were coming up with our podcast, you know, Doug was asking us kind of like, what are you passionate about? Why do you. What do you want to talk about? And so that's why we named it the Gap, because we're talking about, with our guests, how to close what people are doing in. In the industry or in their own, you know, cities or with youth or whatever. How are we working to close Those gaps. So I'm really excited about it. It took me a long time. [1:20:22] Speaker B: It's really, really good. You guys should listen. It's shortest. [1:20:26] JD: Oh, yeah. [1:20:26] Speaker B: And it's so good. [1:20:27] Speaker F: And the fourth episode might be on her pass right over there. [1:20:33] JD: What's the fourth one? [1:20:38] Speaker F: It's got some corporate chick on there. [1:20:42] Speaker B: Tony isn't. He's not. He's not done with me. He's like, I'm. I'm not. I'm not annoyed a man enough. Now I'm gonna start picking on Shannon. He wants to see me hot pick on my bestie. [1:20:52] Mark: Well, bro, I mean, the. The fourth episode is so corporate, right? [1:20:56] Speaker F: Super corporate. [1:20:58] JD: So corporate. [1:20:59] Speaker F: Just a bunch of, like, buzzwords in there. [1:21:03] Speaker A: That means we've had. [1:21:05] JD: Yeah, we've had plenty of corporate people on the show. Where to me corp. [1:21:10] Mark: I think in Tony's mind, corporate means you're not getting drunk enough. [1:21:13] Speaker B: But in general says high noons in an hour. [1:21:16] Mark: In the general sense. To me, corporately, you're minding your. Your p's and Q's. [1:21:22] Chad: You're afraid I'm gonna say that that counts. Clearly. Are not. [1:21:26] Speaker F: I don't even know what those letters stand for in that little context, but that counts. [1:21:31] Mark: But now I'm making sure I actually drink. [1:21:35] Speaker B: But Shannon's podcast is. [1:21:37] Mark: This is a problem. [1:21:38] Speaker B: Really good. [1:21:38] Mark: My wife asked me for the tequila bottle. I don't know if she needs it or she's simply taking it away from me. [1:21:46] Speaker A: Okay. [1:21:46] Speaker B: So I gotta tell you guys, if we're kind of done. So quick story. So my husband went with me to an event and Chad was there and chat. We were chatting with Chad and Brooke and they were so nice. We got along with them great. You know, we're from a small town in North Dakota. They're from. They're living in a small town. And my husband is like, oh, he's one. [1:22:03] Speaker A: Who. [1:22:03] Speaker B: He's. Who is he? He's wonderful. He's. So how do you know him? And I was like, he's one of the retireholics. He's like, he's one of the retireholics. He's one of the guys that gets you. [1:22:13] Mark: Like, gets you. [1:22:14] Speaker B: And you're on that thing. Like, what? So he was impressed by Chad. He was shocked. He was a retireholic. [1:22:22] JD: Yes. [1:22:23] Mark: That we're. [1:22:25] JD: For 10 years, we've all been shocked that. That Chad is a retireholic. [1:22:30] Chad: I thought you were gonna say that. We all are. Retireholic. [1:22:33] JD: That makes perfect sense. Perfect sense. Naru says JD is not Corporate. [1:22:39] Mark: Yeah. I had a webinar zoom meeting with Nauru recently. I wonder what my cus counter was. [1:22:47] JD: I think I might have cussed like 15. [1:22:51] Mark: Huh. [1:22:51] Chad: More than a show. [1:22:54] JD: No, but you know, a lot too. [1:22:56] Mark: Okay, so we've got Shannon's new podcast, which. [1:23:00] JD: The Gap. [1:23:01] Mark: Which great, by the way. Awesome graphics and everything. I love the name. [1:23:06] JD: I told you that. I meant that. [1:23:08] Mark: But mostly, and I hope this doesn't [1:23:11] JD: sound bad because I. [1:23:12] Mark: But I was. [1:23:13] JD: I was taken aback at how, like, confident. I don't. [1:23:18] Mark: How like, you seemed like you had [1:23:20] JD: been doing a podcast for a long time. [1:23:23] Chad: She's a beast. [1:23:24] Speaker A: Well, thank you. [1:23:25] Chad: I've spent so much time with the two of you now. You both are. Are beasts in this industry. Both inside Ara and outside Ara. Like, it is incredibly impressive. [1:23:36] JD: That's true. [1:23:37] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. [1:23:39] JD: Great way to wrap it up, Chad. We thank our guests Shannon Amanda for being here. The Shamanda show. [1:23:48] Speaker B: Did you. [1:23:48] Mark: Less. [1:23:49] Speaker B: Less sweaty palms this time. [1:23:51] Speaker A: Was it a little better? [1:23:52] Speaker B: A little better. [1:23:53] JD: So much less. So much less. [1:23:55] Mark: And. [1:23:56] JD: And I will back up what Chad said. We obviously believe that a thousand percent, and not just because of a. Amanda's kind of career trajectory. And Shannon being a, you know, entrepreneur, that's crushing it. Oh, here's a good, warm feeling. I got two private messages from people that said, you know, this. [1:24:16] Mark: They said, hey, and I think they [1:24:19] JD: only knew because you guys were coming on and they hadn't. Because we've had other third party administrators on this show, but they both wrote me and they weren't. They weren't related to each other. And then they said, that's really cool that you have another third party administrator coming on your show. And. And it's become such, like, normal default for me that. That it stopped in my tracks. And I was like, yeah, you're right. [1:24:46] Mark: And I'm proud of that. [1:24:47] JD: Like, we're a community, you know, we're [1:24:50] Mark: not against each other. [1:24:51] JD: We're for each other. [1:24:52] Speaker B: Yeah. As a community, the. The good ones, we can raise each other up and that's what we want to do. [1:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. [1:24:59] Mark: We don't. We don't. Even if we do compete, you know, do you know that I'm doing an [1:25:04] JD: event with Jordan here in Southern California? [1:25:08] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [1:25:09] JD: Two third party administrators coming together with both our logos on the invite and working together to invite advisors to a thing. [1:25:19] Speaker A: That's awesome. [1:25:20] JD: I like that. So very similar to the way it should be. [1:25:23] Speaker A: Exactly. [1:25:24] Speaker B: There's enough. We're gonna love it Firms. [1:25:27] Mark: My first meeting tomorrow Is tomorrow we're gonna invite. [1:25:30] JD: And you're gonna get to invite advisors [1:25:32] Mark: to the Palm Springs beach surf pool. Oh, [1:25:39] Chad: with Jordan. [1:25:40] Mark: What's that? [1:25:43] JD: Sorry, I can't hear you. Chad's talking over you didn't. [1:25:45] Justin: It just closed down? [1:25:46] Mark: No, it's up and running. [1:25:48] JD: It's good. [1:25:49] Mark: I think it's gonna be July 25th, [1:25:51] JD: and we're gonna have a whole bunch of advisors out there. They're actually gonna be able to bring some of their family. There's cabana this. There's food, there's drinks. [1:25:59] Mark: But my point was [1:26:02] JD: together saying, hey, come on in. [1:26:04] Mark: Anyways, so there's that. That's it. Oh, you guys out there. [1:26:09] JD: Everybody but Nauru, you nerdy coder guy. I'm kidding. I love Naru. Thank you for tuning in on another Thursday night. [1:26:20] Mark: You know what I'm Gonna put on [1:26:22] JD: LinkedIn this week is all of our guests out to the end of the year. We're pretty much booked out for the rest of the year. [1:26:28] Mark: So I'm gonna let you all know [1:26:29] JD: exactly who's coming for what shows for the whole year. [1:26:33] Speaker B: JD Just said that, you guys. Yeah, like, we're booked out for the whole year, so we're booked, bro. Don't ask me if you guys can come back. [1:26:41] Chad: I sent him a guest this week, and he's like, sorry, dude. [1:26:45] Mark: No. [1:26:46] JD: The last Shamanda show, I believe, was in 2022. So in 2035. [1:26:58] Mark: Can I just. [1:26:59] Speaker F: This isn't like, in a creepy way, but can I just say, like, Amanda Shannon, you look amazing for being. Having been three years since then. Like, wow. [1:27:06] Speaker A: Well, thank you. [1:27:07] Speaker B: Same. [1:27:08] Speaker F: Oh, I can't. I can't say the same for us four. So that's why I'm saying that disasters. [1:27:15] Mark: Brandon, throw up a young picture of the retire. Alex. [1:27:18] JD: I'm sure he doesn't have it. So thank you to the audience. Thank you to our guests. [1:27:23] Mark: Thank you, guys, everyone, except for the [1:27:26] JD: pooled employer plans out there. And we'll see you next time on Retirement Holics. We are changing retirement. No, not tonight. [1:27:37] Speaker F: No, wait. I vote for. We should all just vote for Nauru. [1:27:41] JD: Boom. [1:27:41] Speaker F: Narrow wins. [1:27:42] Mark: Whoa. Okay. [1:27:43] Speaker A: Okay. [1:27:44] Mark: Yeah. [1:27:45] Speaker B: For me. [1:27:47] JD: Nauru, your champ bar champion tonight. [1:27:49] Speaker A: There you go. [1:27:50] JD: And we'll send you. [1:27:52] Mark: We'll send you a custom retireholics paper hat. [1:27:55] Speaker B: Will. Will also. Will's a good runner up. [1:27:59] Speaker A: Will sucks too much. [1:28:04] Mark: Yeah. Love you 401k people. [1:28:07] JD: You're our family, your industry. We love you. Let's keep moving forward together. [1:28:11] Mark: Keep crushing. [1:28:12] JD: And we'll see you next time. [1:28:14] Mark: Brandon, play us out with a song. [1:28:17] JD: Hopefully one that. [1:28:18] Speaker A: I don't think so. [1:28:21] Mark: We'll see you next time. [1:28:22] Chad: Good night, everybody. [1:28:23] Mark: Peace out, everybody.