What makes a bully
We can all remember a time during our formative years when a bully used their position, power or sheer physical presence to push around someone who seemed like an easy target.
At 5’1″ my sophomore year of high school, I was the short fat kid who wanted to “change the world” — not a popular thought at that stage of life. Although wrapped in a temporarily small package (I am now 6’7″), I was fiercely protective of anyone who was suffering under the tyranny of these kind of kids.
The nose guard of our football team was one such buffoon. He was 6’2″ and almost 300 pounds. During lunch one afternoon, I witnessed him pouring chocolate milk over the head of my helpless friend while he laughed to the applause of his band of letterman-jacket cronies. Without missing a beat, I got in his face. After a barrage of colorful language that caught him by surprise, I threw the hardest punch I could and ran like hell. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very fast!
Decades later, I still do not tolerate bullies. The bullies of the financial services industry are those who extract as much value for themselves to the detriment of others. I don’t think there is an educated person in America who doesn’t think that the system feels set up for those in the know. The rest are left out in the cold.
In 2008, while watching many of my friends and clients lose half of their nest egg to the market crash and real estate crises, it struck a deep chord. Having grown up with very little, I was reminded of the pain. These weren’t just statistics to me. I was reminded of nights where my own family went with little or no food. That fearless high school kid in me was kicked into gear. I knew I had to take action.
For decades now, I have been blessed with the incredible gift of access: access to some of the most brilliant minds and peak performers in their own fields. For instance, I’ve had the privilege of coaching Paul Tudor Jones, one of the top 10 traders in financial history, for 22 straight years now. He hasn’t lost money in any of those 22 years. As his coach, I have been inside the ropes, and what I have learned from him has been invaluable to my own situation. In early 2009, I sat down with him to ask if the game is still winnable for the average person. Then I asked 50 of the top financial minds the same questions and wrote my #1 New York Times best-seller Money: Master the Game with the answers.
Winning the game of money
The foundation of winning the game of money is that you MUST know the rules of the game before you blindly throw your money at a bunch of mutual funds your brother-in-law wants to sell you. Or before you trust your 401(k) to get you through your golden years. For example, 67% of investors think they pay no fees in their 401(k), when in fact it’s a gravy train for the brokers, plan providers, and mutual funds that are on your plan menu. Heck, the 401(k) industry didn’t have to disclose their fees for over 30 years! Now they offer you 30-50 page disclosures that you and 99.9% of people have never seen nor read. They are opaque at best, predatory at worst.
