46. Cybersecurity Meets Financial Planning with Eric Brotman
Welcome everybody to episode 46 of Unhacked. Guys, this is a show where we, we learn how to avoid Russian hackers, government fines and penalties, and greedy attorneys. And, usually, we've got, two or three cohosts with me. Today, we're down to one. It's been that's been the theme lately.
Justin:And then we have a special guest and, you know, we're gonna do a couple of quick intros here and then I'm gonna talk about who we've got with us today. Mario, I I'd like to tell people who you are and where you where you live, where you do your business, but I always forget. I just know it's up in the Northeast somewhere. So tell everybody who you are, what you do, and who you do it for, Mario.
Mario:At least you remember my name, so that's good. That's a start.
Justin:And I've started pronouncing it right, I think.
Mario:Yes. Yes. Mario Zacchi, CEO of Mastech IT. We are located in New Jersey, right outside of Manhattan. I've been in business about twenty one years now, servicing small to medium sized business, saving their computer IT network, you know, one computer at a time from the Russian.
Justin:I'm Justin from the yeah. Don't forget that. Yeah. One day, you know, the Russians are gonna come, like, find me and track me down because I'm always bad mouthing them. Listen, I say it because the the only time I really dealt with an actual breach, I swear to God, we're in, hand to hand combat with Russians.
Justin:That's that's where they were from. So shouldn't generalize, I guess.
Eric:You know what? Correct.
Mario:We all we keep saying it. It's Russian hackers. But, you know, it's not just Russia. You know? It's so many
Justin:different places
Mario:around the world. You know?
Justin:But Some of them look just like us. Anyway, so I'm Justin Shelley, CEO of Phoenix IT Advisors, and I do work in Texas, Utah, and Nevada. And like I said, I just try to keep the bad guys away from your money. And speaking of money, we have a little bit different guest today. We've been doing a lot of kind of in the weeds tech talk about cybersecurity.
Justin:Today we are going to talk with a guy named Eric D. Brotman, CFP and Eric in a minute, I'm going to ask you what that means. Because that's not an acronym I know showing my ignorance, but you are the CEO. I know that acronym of BFG Financial Advisors. Don't know that one.
Justin:There's a lot of letters here. President of Brotman Consulting Group LLC, host of the Don't Retire Graduate podcast. I love that concept by the way. And author of an award winning book also called Don't Retire Graduate, which I believe we're going to give people a discount for a little bit later on in the show. So Eric, say hi and thank you for being here.
Eric:Justin, thanks for having me. Mario, great to be with you today. We're gonna have some fun and maybe learn a little something and teach you a little something while we're at it.
Justin:That's always the hope. Always the hope. I do like to point out that honestly the best the the main reason I continue to do this podcast and insist on doing it week after week is because of how much I learned. It has shaped my business doing this. So love having some of the greater minds in the world join us and just continue to elevate our game.
Justin:Now, Eric, we're gonna talk. This is something that kind of caught my attention. I talk a lot about what keeps me up at night. Mario talks about helping people sleep at night by plugging filling some of these gaps. When you and I chatted, it was we're getting ready for this podcast, you said very few things keep me up at night.
Justin:Not stocks, not Capitol Hill, but having my identity stolen and my company infiltrated. Does that sound right? Is that something you might have No.
Eric:Is there's certain things that that I've come to expect. The stock market behaves a certain way and and we've come to expect economies and markets to do various things over the decades we've been doing this. Capitol Hill, it's a given they're gonna screw things up a hundred ways. So you already know what's coming. But the things that keep me up are the things that either we can't control or that we feel we must control and are struggling with.
Eric:And so one of the biggest ones frankly, our reputation. Yes. Our reputation risk is you you don't get that back. And I know we're in a world where I I get two letters a week from this company or that company saying, hey, you were found on the dark web and it's been this problem or that problem. And and people have started to ignore them.
Eric:Like there've been so many of them that, oh, get free identity theft protection for a year. Okay. Sure you do. And and so we started ignoring it because it happens so much. But if it happens to your business, it's it can be debilitating and so we take that real serious.
Justin:I mean, debilitating is the the preferable outcome. Right? Because it's not always a guarantee that we come back from it at all.
Eric:Well, you know, part of it is having the right people. I mean, I I am not an IT guy. It's strange for me to be with two IT guys who aren't trying to explain something to me that I don't understand. I mean, it's a language of its own. And I, you know, I am a nightmare for IT people and for the folks who represent our company.
Eric:I apologize in advance for anything I say during this hour together. But I break things and I break them in ways they've never seen them broken. So I like to challenge. Like people say, I have never ever seen that. I've been doing this for two decades.
Eric:I've never seen anything like that before and that's my normal Wednesday with IT.
Justin:True. We call that job security.
Eric:Yeah. Well, I I I provide a lot of that for the folks who represent us. That's for sure.
Mario:Well, the question is, do they fix it or are you are they just like, ah, so they're writing it off as like, yeah, this is one thing we can't fix.
Eric:Alright. This is not a job application for you, man. No. They do they do fix it and they do a great job and they're in Jersey no less. So they're right in your backyard.
Eric:Oh. I can't even tell you who they are because you folks in Jersey handle things a different way than the rest of it. But but I I I at at the end of yes. They take great care of it, and then we're we're fortunate to have the team we get.
Justin:Nice. I'm sure Mario's gonna be spamming you in the future just to see if he can Win you over. Probably.
Eric:No. One IT company from Jersey is enough. I'll never do that again. Never.
Justin:Well, I won't say anything about the Northeasterners or the Canadians. I can't say anything about the Canadians because they're not here to represent themselves today, but our other cohost is is from Canada and we like to give him a little bit of shit from time to time. Where in
Eric:where in Canada?
Justin:Niagara Falls area.
Eric:I love Canada actually. And despite the fact that the South Park movie had us going to war with them and now we're trying that, I I actually am a big fan of Canada.
Justin:Mean, same thing.
Mario:State. Right?
Eric:You gotta be kidding me. No more than we're gonna be their next province. Come on. Stop it.
Justin:I'm surprised they haven't thrown that one back at us.
Eric:Well, it's a matter of time. I mean, if bad enough, they beat us at that hockey tournament and said you can't have our sport, you can't have our country and what else is there? No. It's fine.
Justin:Alright. So thirty years in the world of financial advising. Right?
Eric:Yeah. Yeah.
Justin:And then somewhere somewhere in that journey, rumor has it, you actually do have you say you don't know anything about IT, you're not an IT guy, but you have some in the trenches time with a ransomware attack. Is that correct?
Eric:Yes. Yes. It's been a number of years, thankfully, but we did have a a situation where we didn't lose data to an outside party, but we did lose access to our own data, which was a bizarre thing. I didn't know that that was a possible outcome. And I was delighted that we were able to be back up and running within twelve hours like nothing had happened and we're able to tell these folks to pound sand.
Eric:But but it was scary. It was scary because we wanted to make sure everybody was protected, our employees, our clients, our our our company, our infrastructure. But it was also scary because you feel violated. It's like any other Right. You know, it's no different than if somebody breaks your car window and takes those those sunglasses you've been covering coveting.
Eric:You feel violated by it. And so I I yeah. That's it it was a scary thing.
Justin:And How long ago was it? If you don't mind me asking.
Eric:I I wanna say it was probably probably seven or eight years ago at this point. And it wound up being no harm, no foul, and no check to write. But it was scary. I mean, really, you can't imagine until it happens, you can't imagine what it's like to to literally be out of business instantly. And that's what it is.
Eric:It's not this isn't a disruption. This isn't a it's not like the power went out and you're waiting for battery backup. This is like you've been unplugged forever if you don't solve it. And that's scary as hell.
Mario:Yeah. And seventy eight years ago, it wasn't you know, it was still in, like, the transition to, you know, man like, managed services, proactive maintenance, you know, like this high end, you know, you know, protection, you know, back then it was still like, you know
Eric:Break fix.
Mario:Break fix. You know, and it was like even the backups and the security back then was not and I'm saying back then, like, this was like, you know, forever ago. This is, you know, seven, eight years ago.
Eric:But Well, in tech that is forever ago. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, it's moving so fast that the the the things that we're gonna have on our at our disposal in five years that don't exist now are gonna be infinitely more powerful and also have some pros and cons to them compared to what we have now. It's moving too fast for any lay person to keep up. Yeah.
Eric:There's no way for us to do it.
Mario:Yeah. And unfortunately it's moving very fast in both directions. Right? The hackers are implementing AI, you know, they're getting more advanced with some of that the stuff. And we we gotta implement it ourselves just to, you know, level, you know, level the playing ground.
Eric:Yeah. I'm I'm glad I'm not in the business you're in because frankly that that that is not my skill set. It does scare me to death though, and and it's happening super fast. I mean, it's it's enough for us to keep up on what's happening financially, economically, politically in the world, but to then also try and understand what's going on in the wires themselves and even in the wireless. We're hopeless to do that.
Justin:You know, early in my career, I would say that I loved the world of technology because I was never bored and self diagnosed ADHD, know, I need that new shiny penny to chase and new things to think about and worry about and learn about. But damn, I mean it is accelerating like nobody's business right now, risks, the very thing that keeps you up at night, we've got, I mean, technology is changing all the time, the bad guys are getting smarter. But now we just invented a new bad guy that we call AI. What are your thoughts on AI? Is the topic we've what have we done?
Justin:Two or three episodes recently Mario on AI? Yeah. Eric, just tell me a little bit about what your thoughts are where AI is concerned in both. I don't know, does it apply in the financial world? Does it apply in the cybersecurity world?
Eric:Tell me about that. It applies in the financial world because everything from artificial note taking to artificial chat bots to all of this stuff exists already. Most of it is not, is not passing the regulatory sniff test and the compliance rules in the industry. The industry is always late to the party. I remember when I was told we would never have a website.
Eric:I remember when I was told we would never be allowed to use email. We're we're last of the party because the regular the regulatory environment is so severe. So by the time we get technology, it's generally antiquated, but at least at least we get it eventually. Where AI is concerned is it feels like the wild west to me. It feels like you really don't know what you're gonna get because like anything else, it's garbage in garbage out.
Eric:Whatever the AI is programmed to believe, think, and do is what it's gonna do and more and more of it. So, you know, I I don't I don't fear AI as a replacement for what I do. I mean, industries are afraid they're gonna lose their jobs. There aren't gonna be any. Robots are gonna build things.
Eric:They're gonna do things. I don't so much worry about that, at least not today. Any more than I worried that robo advisors would put financial advisors out of business. I think there's a human element to it that's very very tough to to create in a synthetic environment. But I know AI is gonna push that envelope.
Eric:I mean, people are having conversations with AI. They're people have AI girlfriends, gentlemen. I I don't for the record, but that's terrifying to me. And and it just seems like it seems like the futuristic piece of this, AI is gonna be something that could transform us all for the better. It can save lives.
Eric:It can change everything for the better. It can also be used in incredibly nefarious ways, and that's true with all technology.
Justin:Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, going back to your breach a little bit, can you tell us, do you know looking back on this now, what happened? How how the bad guys got in?
Eric:I don't. And I'm sure back in the day I could have, but PTSD helps repress those kinds of life events. I really I don't remember the details. Okay. I believe it had to do with a suspicious email that got clicked by somebody and it opened up some kind of something.
Eric:But I don't remember all the details. I just know that we've constantly upgraded the malware and the cyber and the checks and balances and, of course, policies and procedures, which are only as good as the people who do or don't follow them.
Justin:Right.
Eric:But we've also locked down certain things in our system. We've got our IT company preventing certain certain things from accessing or being accessed even even legitimate things that we don't want access to your on-site just to try and make it less likely. But like I tell anybody, if if you can hack the Pentagon, you can hack any company, anytime, anywhere. It's just a matter when your number gets called. The key is to make it a little bit more difficult.
Eric:So maybe there's lower hanging fruit than you. I mean, really, you can't prevent it. You can just make
Justin:it
Eric:more difficult so they choose someone else. And I know that's that's kind of a sick twisted way to look at it, I think, but it's also true. You don't have to be faster than the bear when you're with your friends. You only have to be faster than one of your friends, and that's what that is.
Justin:Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. I used to work for Loomis Armored, I don't think it's even called that anymore, but I delivered money and I carried a gun and that meant that I was a target and I had to go get a fair amount of training on who I could and could not shoot and under what circumstances. And the thing that I remember most about that training was make it happen to somebody else. Bad guys aren't going away, People aren't gonna quit stealing money.
Justin:You gotta make it happen to somebody else and it is interesting because this is the crime of yesterday. Right now what we're dealing with these ransomware attacks, it's all extortion. It's all about they're they're getting money. And the same rule applies. The best thing that we can do is make it happen to somebody else.
Justin:Yeah. So
Eric:Well, I And unfortunately, the next level of this just just drains financial assets. And we've had we've had a number of clients fall prey to various schemes and and things that, of course, we had nothing to do with, but we've heard these stories, whether it's them or a family member, senior citizens are getting preyed on. They're terrified by this. I mean, you get an email or a message that looks like it's from the IRS and it's not or from your bank and it's not or and they look really compelling.
Justin:Well, yeah.
Eric:And so it it, you know, you you really have to let you can't necessarily tell the real one from the fake one. It's like, you know, if you buy a wallet or a purse on the street in New York City, can assume it's fake. But you can't really tell the difference unless that's what you do. So you just have to not click and you have to say, hey, if if Chase Bank needs me, I'm gonna go to Chase outside of this and not click the email to find it. And then we'll know if it's real because and I I yeah.
Eric:I'm not picking on them specifically for any reason other than that's the kind of stuff that comes across. I mean, constantly.
Mario:Well, not only that. I mean, there, you know, you're saying fake and real. Sometimes it's actually real because the person that you're working with, like a customer or a vendor or a partner or something, their security was not up to par. They got breached and, you know, the hacker will get in between it, you know, the man in the middle approach and they will edit something as simple as like a routing number and a a Yeah. Account number just on a word document and send an email that says, hey, you know, we changed our bank.
Mario:Here's, you know, here's our new routing stuff. Now with that The
Eric:good news is yeah. The good news is we we have very heavy regulations around that. We can't take any kind of instructions electronically. We have to, we have to have verbal authorization. It has to be proactively verbal authorization because you could have a spoof phone call come in.
Eric:That's, you know, it's very sophisticated now. So, we have to begin that process and be ahead of it by being the ones who initiate the contact. And so if we get something saying, hey, here's my new bank. First of all, usually it's nonsense because people don't deliberately do that. But secondly, it's one where we're gonna we're gonna be placing that phone call or sitting down with them saying, hey.
Eric:Is this this true? Or did somebody get your email address?
Mario:Mhmm. Exactly. Yeah. It's it's actually pretty surprising how how many people just don't understand that. Like they need to like do a two factor authentication, you know, like we're always talking about two factor authentication, logging into a website with your phone or whatever.
Mario:But, you know, unfortunately, we're in the world right now where people just prefer to text message, you know, send a quick email, something like that. Nobody wants to pick up the phone and actually call or talk to People
Eric:are busy. And the problem with a phone call is both people have to be available simultaneously on the spot. Mhmm. And that rarely is the case. And voicemail is where messages go to die.
Eric:So no one should send I I mean, people might read them through the email version of the voice, but nobody's listening to those anymore. So, trying to figure this out, it it is important and people are busy. And because they're busy, they're susceptible. Because people are busy, they're task burden, they're tired. And it's easy to say, let me just get this off my desk.
Eric:And you have to not bat that eye. You have to not do that.
Justin:May I ask you a question in the, you know, being in the financial industry for thirty years, know, where am
Eric:I Stop saying that. You're making me feel really old.
Justin:Eric, but
Eric:I started when I was six. Alright.
Justin:Okay. Well, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Listen, I've been doing this for at least that long.
Justin:So that's why it doesn't feel like an insult because it's the same. Yeah.
Eric:Fair. No, no. Bring me my Now that's great.
Justin:Now I'm gonna do the math because you're gonna point it out. So 95.
Eric:Please don't let's just let's just let's just talk what what?
Justin:Let's just say we're neck and neck.
Eric:That's fine.
Justin:And so we're in IT, at least like I got into IT believing that I was going to work with technology and circuit boards and, you know, modems and sound cards and and nonsense like that. Right? It wasn't too long before I realized I'm actually in the business of preventing cybercrime and preventing bank breaches, know, like bank fraud, wire fraud. You live in this world, you got in there by choice. What is it that you do or how do you work with your clients in helping them understand this horrific world that we live in, not just where technology is concerned, but where money is concerned.
Eric:That's a that's a great question. And it's interesting that you came into your, you know, your industry believing it was gonna be one thing and it's completely changed. I will tell you that a lot of people enter our industry, myself included, thinking they're gonna be solving portfolio and and doing the the math, and it was going to be quantitative, and it was going to be analysis, and it's not. It's mostly behavioral. It's mostly relational.
Eric:And our highest and best value, frankly, is in the conversations and the decision making and some of the ideation with folks. The rest of it can be outsourced. An algorithm can do it. A computer can do it. You don't need a human to do some of those things.
Eric:And so the role is completely different than the one thirty years ago, which was very transactional partly because thirty years ago, forty years ago, financial advisors had inside information. I don't mean inside like some nefarious way, I
Justin:mean Sure.
Eric:There was there was knowledge and you couldn't just look it up. Today, you don't have to call a broker to say, hey, what's what's the this stock trading for? Like, all the information is at everybody's fingertips. So that's changed. You know, when you you you ask about how we talk to our clients about specifically these money issues, there's a couple things we recommend to clients that other financial advisors have never said to them.
Eric:And I and I know that that's true because I've seen other financial plans and they don't mention these things. So for example, we'll often talk about whether their credit should be frozen, all three bureaus. We wanna make sure that there is credit monitoring happening. It doesn't necessarily have to be a a something with a cost. I mean, LifeLock is probably the gold standard for consumers, but not everybody needs that.
Eric:But you have to take your family into consideration. Do you have a a kid with a gambling issue or a drug problem who might try and get into your bank account? And not because you don't love them, but because that's just reality. So we talk about credit monitoring. We wanna make sure identity theft coverage is on your homeowners insurance.
Eric:Because at the very least, it provides some money and a case manager in the event that somebody does in fact steal your identity, and it's better than doing nothing. These are things consumers can do easily and very inexpensively and across the board. Beyond that, having the right secure portals and vaults. Don't email me documents, please. Have a secure vault.
Eric:Don't, you know, certainly don't put an account number in any anything being transmitted. Some of it is is a learning pattern. I think people are getting it. We don't have those issues very much anymore. It's extreme ten years ago it was it was not impossible for somebody to say, hey, need $10,000 from my account.
Eric:Would you send it to me? And for that to be a legitimate email. Now, wouldn't act upon it. We had to call anyway. But now people don't even try that.
Eric:They're like, you call me because I need to do something and we'll just do it. Or they'll pick up the phone and we'll have a conversation. But I I I think I think consumers are getting savvier, at least the ones we represent. People who have money to lose do things to protect their money. I mean If that makes sense in lots of different ways and that, you know, the people who don't have much don't have a fireproof safe at home.
Eric:Yeah. Yeah. You know? But the people who do are the people who need to hide it behind that one painting in the dining room. It's always the same spot.
Eric:But that kind of stuff
Justin:Nobody will look there.
Eric:If you have something to lose, you have something to protect, and you're going to be more vigilant about it. When you have less to lose, sometimes you're not thinking about that because you don't think you're a target.
Justin:I mean, plays out in our world here. Right? We when we're talking to businesses that are small struggling, they don't care about cyber security. You scale up, then all of a sudden it becomes more and more important. Is that Mario chime in on that one because like your clients, do you have a lot of smaller clients?
Mario:We have a handful, two, three, five users.
Justin:Right.
Mario:And they always feel like they're too small, nobody wants what we have and stuff like that. And unfortunately with those small users as well, they're very price conscious. They're like, well, I don't need to have my server be back up within like twelve hours. We're okay if it's something cheaper, the second, like, well, we don't wanna sit there and piecemeal cheaper options. Sometimes they just don't wanna pay the, you know, the price of being protected, you know, because they are smaller, you know.
Eric:Well, it's like Maslow's hierarchy. Right? You you you move up that hierarchy as you get more sophisticated and more things are happening. I I think it's reasonable for a small business to say, I can't do it all and I'm doing the best I can with some of this. It also depends what business you're in.
Eric:If you're a florist, you might have a very different experience than if you're a mortgage banker. Just because of the personal information that's there. Yes, a florist could be hacked and you could be hacked and it could affect your credit cards that you hold on file. I'm not suggesting it's not a problem. I'm suggesting that it it not likely to drain somebody's account.
Eric:It's more likely to create a credit card breach of some type, which is far less serious, in my opinion anyway, than than having those accounts literally drained. Right.
Justin:Alright. So before we transition completely away from technical speak, Mario, I'm gonna punt to you one more time to see if you have any final questions for Eric as far as his the breach that he went through, just just his experiences here.
Mario:I mean, have you, you know, within the last like, since the breach, are you guys constantly, you know, not only evolving internally, but also, you know, telling vendors or clients that you're working with, like, listen, we're not gonna work with you unless you follow like these protocols because we're we're For vendors, yes. We're pushing down For
Eric:vendors, hundred percent.
Mario:You know, we're telling them like, you know, if they're gonna end me and Justin actually talked about this in a previous, you know, episode. It's like, you know, working with a third party vendor, we're like, listen, we're not just going to integrate you, you know, you have to follow these protocols even if you're not governed by a certain compliance, you know, we're gonna request that you, you know, you follow these protocols. Have you guys done stuff for That's good.
Eric:We now have a vendor approval process. We have to go through due diligence on any vendor we're using. I will say for for clients, it's it's less so because most of that is very individual on their end. But if we're doing any kind of of data transfer or or aggregation or anything like that, we need to make sure that their security is at least as good as ours. And ours is updated on a constant basis.
Eric:I mean, I really do think we've got a great team and it's a significant spend. I mean, you know, as a percentage of revenue, it's not terrible right now, but as a dollar figure, it's kind of a a a an amazing thing. But when you consider the alternative, and and it's not just cyber stuff. It could be that the building burns down and all of the computers are gone and you need the servers to be up and running. You need somebody who can send you 20 computers in three days that are ready to run on a different location.
Eric:I mean, disaster recovery happens too. You're not just out of business physically, you're out of business electronically if your servers are all here. So everything has to be has to be backed up and mirrored in a way that's not only safe and secure but but accessible.
Justin:Yeah. Alright. So here's here's here's the thing I've been contemplating. While we're in very different industries, we actually are looking for a common goal, a common outcome. Right?
Justin:We're we're all in the business of building wealth. That's, you know, in the world of IT, we're trying to protect your wealth, we're trying to make your business more efficient, more profitable, so that you can earn more money. That's that's always our goal as IT consultants, help you make more money, help you keep that money. You you do something similar right, as you help your clients build their portfolio and correct me if I'm using the wrong terminology here, and and to some extent to hang on to it, know, we're talking the the marriage and cyber security here, but regardless there's just risk out there all day long. One thing that comes up a lot in my world in is where we're all looking at this exit strategy.
Justin:Alright. We've built this thing and now we wanna be able to enjoy it. You have kind of an interesting catchphrase. Right? Don't retire, graduate.
Justin:And I wanna talk more about that. That's that's that's the title of your book. Right?
Eric:Yeah. Sure is.
Justin:Yeah. Okay. I thought so, but pressure here,
Eric:the pressure of a podcast,
Justin:you don't understand.
Eric:Did great. You did great. Retirement's torture. No one should do it. Okay.
Justin:I know that
Eric:sounds crazy. We spend our whole lives thinking about retirement. Like you get your first your first job at 21 and they're like, much do wanna put in your retirement plan? I'm like, retirement plan? I can't pay rent right now.
Justin:Right.
Eric:But but people think about retirement they want and they should. But to me, the definition of retirement is terrible. Think about where what retirement is. Retirement is going from fifty or sixty hours a week and being engaged in something ideally that you love and certainly something that you're good at to suddenly being home, watching daytime TV and playing shuffleboard and waiting to die.
Justin:Right. Yeah.
Eric:It's awful. No one should retire that way. Now I I I redefine retirement as the absence of needing to work. If you've reached financial independence so that you're free to choose, I wanna work this much or in this capacity or I only wanna do volunteer work, but I wanna be active and engaged. You have to have something to move towards.
Eric:When we graduate from something, anything, when you graduate from elementary school, you're yes, it's the end of elementary school, but it's also the springboard to the next big thing. Retirement, historically, there's only one life milestone after retirement and it's a dirt nap.
Justin:Yeah.
Eric:So why would anyone sign up for that? I mean, I I really think it's great to be financially independent, but you've gotta have a reason. And so I discovered what what I, you know, anecdotally referred to as the secrets of the happiest retirees.
Justin:Okay.
Eric:And and having done this now for not gonna tell you how long because you keep reminding me. But having done this for a long darn time, what I would say is that that there are three things that that retirees who retire really well successfully, and I don't mean just financially, but successful retirement have in common. The first is they're debt free. They don't owe anybody anything. It's a big deal.
Eric:Psychologically, even if financially you say, yes, but my mortgage is at two and five eighths percent. Correct. Could you make more money elsewhere? Absolutely. Is there a psychological benefit when your paycheck stops or changes to not owing anybody anything?
Eric:Most definitely. So debt free is one. Second one is they have their health. They've taken care of themselves. And that's all different kinds of wellness.
Eric:But you you don't wake up one day at 63 and go, I think I'll get fit now. I mean, some people might, but most people don't. You have to have decent habits along the way. Just like you don't wake up at 63 and go, now I think I'll get wealthy. It's like, well Sure.
Eric:It's a it's a continuum. You begin early. You work towards something. So, I think you've maintained your health. You've taken care of yourself enough that that you have a shot at having a reasonably long time of good living, good years left, whatever that is.
Eric:And then the third and the thing that probably is even more important, if you can imagine anything more important than your health, or or your your being debt free, it's a, it's your purpose. It's a reason to get out of bed every morning. Because if you don't have a reason to get out of bed every morning, you will stop getting out of bed every morning. You literally there there are people who are in their pajamas till 01:00 in the afternoon and then decide whether they even want to get dressed just because they had nothing to do that day. And while I acknowledge that sometimes a day off, it's lovely to not care.
Eric:If that's your life, that's sad. And so I I think it's important to to think about money as a tool for freedom and choice and opportunity, And it becomes less of an albatross when you've when you've reached that level and you've got your independence and it's a it's a big deal. And so I'm looking to graduate myself. I mean, all of us do at some point from various things and and I'm looking to graduate in in January of twenty twenty six. Graduating to my next role in the company.
Eric:Yeah. And and, you know, I've been CEO for a long time, and I'm gonna be handing the reins off. We've got a full succession plan. You talked about that.
Justin:We've got
Eric:a full succession plan in every way, which has been implemented and which is going great. I am not retiring. I'm they can't get rid of me until they buy me out and that's gonna take a while. So I'll be here. But I'll be here in a very different capacity doing things that bring me joy.
Justin:Right. I love that. What It's
Eric:a pretty good next chapter.
Justin:Well, and I I now I wanna ask what Yeah. What is your purpose to get out of bed as as you look at this next chapter?
Eric:Yeah. No. It's it's great. Right now, I I can tell you for the last thirty plus years, my purpose for getting out of bed has been growing an enterprise that took great care of me. It's been changing lives for the better.
Eric:It's been impacting communities and and that means our employees and their families, it means our clients, it means it means our community. It means they're doing a lot of philanthropy. As I move into this next chapter, it it's really gonna be less one to one and more one to many.
Justin:Okay.
Eric:Doing a lot of consulting with financial advisors who want to figure out how to get here and just aren't yet. And I can help them get here so that they can amplify not only their reach and their impact, but the joy in their careers. So I'll be doing a lot more consulting and speaking and writing and podcasting and all the things that are that are fun and trying to communicate and make a difference in the world every day.
Justin:That sounds amazing. That's yeah. That would be a great retirement if if the word is is the accurate fit for it.
Eric:And I can do it from the beach. Yes. Know, I don't I you're not punching a clock the same way at that point. You can, you know, know, so I I'm a couple of years away from empty nesting in our home, and my wife and I are trying to figure out where we're gonna be, and the world's our oyster.
Justin:Tell me a little bit about the book. First of all, who's it written to? Who's your audience there?
Eric:It it it's written to anyone who would like to try and build some some personal wealth. So it's it's not for the high net worth, ultra wealthy. It's written to be available to lay persons. It is not a textbook. It is not complicated.
Eric:In fact, I wrote it in the first person so that it was very accessible. Each chapter of the book is a course like it was college syllabus. And we talk about the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years of your financial life and the various things that you face. And so some people might pick it up and say, well, I've already gotten that stuff out of the way. Like, you know, your freshman year is about choosing your right employee benefits and how to deal with student loans and how to handle your first budget and how to handle some basic cash flow and some basic risk management.
Eric:Sophomore year is about, you know, do I get married? Do I buy my first home? Do do we have children? What are the financial implications of those things? How do I start building a portfolio and building some some net worth?
Eric:Junior year's about, hey, now I'm in the swing of things. I'm making the most money I'll ever make in my life. Now I've got a tax problem and some other things to think about. So how do I handle that stage of my life? And oh, by the way, paying for college and dealing with parents getting older and all that simultaneously.
Eric:And then senior year is really a combination of your, your estate planning and your long term care and your elder planning, but also your visioning. What, what do you want to move toward? What do you want to do? What decisions do you have to make? And how do you position yourself to have lots of choice?
Eric:And so every chapter has an extra credit assignment at the end because I don't like homework, but everybody does extra credit. So there's an extra credit assignment. And if you do all the extra credit assignments, you will have a financial
Justin:plan. Okay.
Eric:And it it and so we created not only the book, but there's a workbook that accompanies it that is the extra credit assignments with worksheets and ways to go through it, and you can build your own financial plan. Does that mean you don't need a financial adviser? Well, you might, you might not. But not everybody does and if you were to start taking some of the habits from this book, think it would create a better outcome for you.
Justin:Rumor has it again, a lot of rumors flying around here that you might have a discount code or a way that those who maybe haven't built up their wealth enough Yeah. Could get your book for a little bit cheaper. What How do they get the book? First of all, where is it for sale?
Eric:It well, it's for sale at Amazon, but we also have a site at don'tretiregraduatebook.com.
Justin:Okay.
Eric:The word book is very important because if you don't hit book, you'll be at the podcast, which we're happy to have ears for that too, but don't retire graduate book Com. And if you would like, I was gonna actually charge your listeners a premium rather than give them a discount, but I this has been kind of fun. So we'll do it. The discount, if you put in the code unhacked, you will get a discount on the book and work. Love it.
Eric:Don't don't tell anyone else.
Justin:Okay. We will will keep that top secret.
Eric:That's yeah. That is just for your listeners and no one else.
Justin:I'll just put that out. And by the way, Google's listening to us and somehow I alerted her that she thought anyway.
Eric:Yeah. She thought you were shopping. She was gonna send me some recommendations.
Justin:I guess.
Eric:Terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. Mean You're gonna My book is gonna pop up on your feed.
Justin:Oh, I'm sure it
Mario:will.
Eric:Which is great. Yeah. Know it. There so there are two Eric D. Brotman's on Amazon who write This is true.
Eric:And I I know you can't make this up and I did not expect this, but when I this is now my third book, but when I wrote my first book, had to create an author page on Amazon and I went on and there was already an Eric D. Brotman and so help me, this is true. He's a PhD who writes books on how to toilet train cats. What? No joke.
Eric:I can't tell I've gotten a dozen of those in the mail from smart Alex, you know, fraternity brothers who think it's hysterical or like, hey, would you sign this? It is a picture book of cats on toilets. I'm not kidding. Don't buy that one. That's not mine.
Eric:And there's no discount on that one available to unhacked or anyone else.
Justin:I'm fact checking you right now. I'm not I didn't find that, Jeff.
Eric:Why lie? You can't I think it's called the education of Mongo or something crazy like that. It it the taming of Mongo. People have
Mario:way too much time on their hands.
Justin:Oh my a PhD.
Eric:Oh my get a doctorate degree in in Shit. Cat bathroom? I like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Eric:But that one is in fact not mine.
Justin:Okay. Don't go to that one. Don't put Jesus don't put unhacked as any connection to that at all.
Eric:No. No. That that will destroy whatever reputation you have left Justin. And I and I don't want to do that to you. So if you go to don'tretiregraduatebook.com, put in unhacked, you'll get a discount on the book and workbook.
Eric:And I hope it, I hope it's helpful. We've had folks read this and then give it to their grown kids to read, you know, their college age or or, you know, 20 kids to say, hey, start early, you know, look at this. You know, we've used it for financial literacy courses with with companies. We do financial wellness for for profit and nonprofit companies and we teach from it. And it's it's really it's it's definitely not a textbook.
Eric:There's no Aristotle in here, although I did quote Chris Rock. So you can you can tell there's a different vibe. I wanted it to be fun. It is not a boring read. It might be a chapter or two that are a little heavy, but but it's generally speaking very accessible.
Justin:Okay. Perfect. Yeah. Mario, any final questions for Eric?
Mario:No. I'm good. This was awesome.
Eric:Alright. Well I'm glad. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Eric:Wait. Are you the genius of the month?
Mario:I am. Actually I actually was the genius of two months.
Eric:Which which was this recent? You recently the genius of the month or was this a while ago?
Mario:Well, I was the the latest one was April because I won a car for being the spokesman of the year.
Eric:Congratulations. That's awesome.
Mario:Thank you. Thank you.
Eric:That's awesome. Good for you. Now I just I saw that I was like, that is the genius of the month. I like that a lot.
Justin:So we're a member of an just a peer group of IT owners, group and the owner, founder, CEO or whatever of this group has a competition every year. That's probably what about a thousand, maybe 1,500 of us are worldwide. It's a great big organization. That's and every year those she tries to get everybody to apply for it. Right?
Justin:But they whittle it down to five finalists. And Mario was in the top five last year. And then he jumped up on the stage. I should get you not dressed in a Mario suit. That was
Eric:mushrooms at the crowd? No.
Justin:I mean, kind of. No. Not at the crowd, but it was he had the the visuals and stuff. Knocked it out of the park. His presentation was just phenomenal.
Justin:Mario truly is the smartest IT guy in the country, at least for this year.
Eric:Wow. Congratulations. This is really Losing the last three weeks.
Justin:You you lose your title here pretty soon, but he's been reigning champion king, whatever you wanna call him. And
Eric:Don't give the belt up lightly. I gotta keep kicking and Go kicking and screaming into the night with the trophy.
Mario:I got to keep the car that that nobody's taking that from me.
Eric:There you go. That's good stuff.
Justin:Alright, guys. We're gonna go ahead and wrap this one up. Unhacked live is our website. And guys, if you can't remember Eric's, use the one that you always hear week after week. Unhacked.live, we'll have all your information up there, Eric, including the link and the code, the discount code for your book.
Justin:And I'm gonna go ahead and grab a discounted copy of that myself because that that does seem like a good read. I I've gotta throw out there though, you keep saying start young, start young and as we may or may not have pointed out, not all of us in this room and not all of us in the audience are young. Is your book gonna help us old timers as well?
Eric:It is. It is. Okay. Particularly because it's a continuum. And what I will tell you is that there is it is always better to start today than yesterday.
Eric:I I sorry. Let me try that again. It's better to start today than tomorrow.
Justin:Right.
Eric:You'd have been better off yesterday but it's past. See, I blew that entirely.
Justin:You did. Do the tree analogy. What's the best day to plant a tree? I Twenty years ago. Twenty years ago.
Justin:What's the second best time to to plant a tree? Right now.
Eric:Okay.
Justin:That's the one I've always heard anyways.
Eric:Alright. Well, listen. I butchered that wildly. But the point was, yes, it is always better to start sooner rather than later. And and so, yes, it can help you at any stage.
Justin:But don't make it later or or
Eric:Right. I mean, do something. You know, you start with you start with inventory. It's like any journey in this life. You start with the sticker on the kiosk map that says you are here.
Eric:Yep. Then you can figure out where you're going. But first, you gotta be darn honest with yourself about where you are.
Justin:Well, Eric, thank you for being here. What I love, I really do love this about today's episode is, you know, we're always talking to business owners, but there's value here in everybody, like for everybody. Right? Your your target, you said, is anybody trying to build wealth? I do believe that that is pretty much all of us are trying to build wealth in our industry.
Justin:We do help business owners build their business and we try to help them keep that wealth. And in your industry, you know, you can, it's just similar. There's, there's some overlap just minus the technology. Anyway, so thank you, for being here, Eric. Mario, as always, thanks for being here.
Justin:And, guys, that's a wrap. We're gonna take off, and we'll see you all next week.
Mario:Bye, guys. Thanks, guys.
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