Welcome to Bogleheads On Investing, episode number 29. Today our special guest is Frasier Rice. Frasier is the author of Wealth Actually, Intelligent Decision Making for the 1%. He's also the host of the podcast Wealth Actually, and he's a director at Pendleton Square Trust Company. Welcome, everyone. My name is Rick Ferri, and I'm the host of Bogleheads On Investing. This podcast, as with all podcasts, is brought to you by the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy, a 501C3 non-profit organization that you can find at bogelcenter.net. Today our special guest is Frasier Rice. Frasier is the Northwest Regional Director for Pendleton Square Trust Company and the author of Wealth Actually, Intelligent Decision Making for the 1%. He's also the host of the Wealth Actually podcast at FrasierRice.com. Frasier has decades of experience working with high net worth and ultra-high net worth families. We'll be talking about his experiences, and he'll be providing us with a lot of great ideas we can all use at every level of wealth. With no further ado, let me introduce Frasier Rice. Welcome to the Bogleheads, Frasier. Rick, thank you for having me on. I was looking at the podcast before I came on, and I saw that you had Morgan Housel, Cliff Asnes, and Roger Loenstein on before me. And to be part of that kind of a group of people is really cool. I'm honored to be here. Well, I've been a follower of yours a long time because you write some really interesting blogs, and you wrote a book called Wealth Actually, Intelligent Decision Making for the 1%.  I advise to the 1%. And that might turn some people the wrong way, but for me, it intrigued me. One, that you say you do it. And number two, I want to have a conversation with you about this because it might be some really good ideas that you're doing with your ultra-high net worth clients that could help everyone. It's funny you say that because when I put the book together and the people who helped me publish it were saying, you know, you've got to market this. And one way to be good at marketing is to find your niche. And the niche for me in my practice was in that sort of 1% world, and we'll talk about what that means shortly. But in terms of selling books, that was probably a big mistake because a lot of people said, geez, you know, this is for the 1%, only it doesn't apply to me. And as I got through writing it, there are a lot of lessons that apply to people in all different strata. And if I had it to do over again, I might sort of couch it as something a little bit more broad from a bookselling perspective. But the book itself, it's got some good lessons, I think, for people of all stripes. And we'll get to the book in a minute and everything you've wrote in there. But before we do that, let's hear about your background. How did you get to become an advisor to the ultra-wealthy? Well, it's a varied background. And like most people, they go through two or three iterations of things before they get to where they are. I started out, I worked in politics after college, I worked for New York State Department of Economic Development. And my job was to sort of go around the state and to try to help businesses either locate in New York or otherwise stay here, which is difficult given our business climate. I didn't want to be a civil servant my whole life. So I did what other law souls do. And I went to law school, went down to Emory and Atlanta. And I had a lot of, aside from the really good legal education there, I had a lot of really cool experiences. I worked for the SCC and for a music lawyer down there. So I got some work in the entertainment space. Then I worked for the House Banking Committee my second summer, and then the Federal Reserve in my third year. So I had kind of an interesting pastiche of legal experiences. My third year in law school down there, and I said, I liked Atlanta, nice people, the Fed, sort of interesting work, half corporate council work, half regulatory. And that was interesting. But I decided pretty early on that practicing law wasn't what I wanted to do. I made it back up to New York. I passed the bar. And I got started. I practiced law with my uncle's firm for a couple of years, which entailed some lobbying and securities regulation and banking law, which sort of befitted the last two experiences I had. But in the meantime, I wanted to do something else. And I ran into a family friend who started Wilmington Trust's office in New York, basically on the back of his Rolodex. And he liked the idea of lawyers as issue spotters. And at the same time, I hadn't been practicing so long that my answer to everything was no or it depends. So he hired me. And I worked for a managing director for about four or five years. She left and moved on. And then I was on my own for almost 16 years. I took care of the ones I had and went out and found new ones. And when you work for a trust company, you get very heavily involved, certainly in the investments, certainly on the liability side of things, you know, lending and that. But I really got into the trust and the state side of it. About year 14 into this, my 16 years at Wilmington, I started the started a podcast, and which has been called Fraser Rice's podcast because I'm not good with titles. But then, but then I also, I felt like I had a book in me. I wrote Wealth, actually, which tried to congeal a lot of the lessons that I'd learned within my experience with Wilmington and beyond. And I ended up publishing that I had to leave Wilmington to do that. So I did publish my book, publicize that for a little while. I joined up with a smaller RIA and work for them for about a year doing strategic work for some of their bigger clients. And then the part that I'm really excited about is I moved to a trust company called Pendleton Square Trust Company out of Tennessee. And it aligns really well with my way of thinking on things. And a lot of it has to do with independence. A lot of it has to do with using jurisdictions for planning. And there are lots of good reasons to do that, not least of which tax, but there are other good estate planning reasons to do it. And it really gets me involved with a broader subset of the financial services community. I get to work with the investment advisors and can be anywhere from Morgan Stanley or UBS or Goldman Sachs or whomever to the high end RIAs, to broker dealers, to folks who are managing money. But then I also get to work with the families themselves. And so many times I butt up against family offices and multifamily offices, people who really need a lot of structure around their wealth for a variety of different reasons. So that's where I am right now. And sort of gutting out COVID here in Manhattan, but doing a lot of good stuff. That's quite a very background and certainly have the experience to help us out here today in understanding trusts and understanding taxes and investing and asset protection and a lot of things that we don't normally talk about on an investing podcast. But I think it's extremely important to understand how these things work. But before we dig into all the nitty gritty of the trust work that you do for high net worth clients, one of the Bogleheads asked a question. He would like this podcast to start with, what is a ultra high net worth, a high net worth 1% or how do you define this marketplace? Sure. And I've gone in this whole thing about how I fled the practice of law and I'm going to come back to the answer, it depends. But I try to tackle this a little bit in my book and there are a few ways to think about it. Sort of 1% from a current income perspective, let's call it sort of wage income, I think is probably in the depending on where you live in the United States, let's call it the 300,000 to 700,000 bandwidth from an asset perspective, meaning the assets that you have in a net worth statement, I think it's probably more maybe the two and a half or three million range. The banks, when they market segment to let's call it the affluent, the high net worth and the ultra high net worth, I think in general, zero to three million is in the affluent, three to 10 million is in the high net worth, meaning you have a lot of assets and you have theoretically more money than you can spend before you die. And then there's what I would call the really high net worth, which is maybe 10 million to 50 million, where certainly currently you have significant estate planning issues and definitely more money than you should be able to spend. Yet at the same time, you are far away from what I would describe as institutional advice. And then once you get over 50 million, I think most people would categorize that as ultra high net worth where especially on the investment advice side, you're out of the put in quotes retail high net worth offerings and much more into the institutional offerings and able to negotiate your terms of engagement with the institutions, things like that. And I'll add one more sort of slice to that, which is the idea of the family office or the multifamily office where your affairs are so complicated or so specific that you need your own staff that truly understands what you're up to. People have their own family offices, they make sense from a dollar perspective in terms of maintenance and upkeep of them, certainly over 100 million dollars, but probably more like over 500 million or a billion dollars when you're hiring staff and doing that type of thing. I would add one other thought process here and I'm going to steal from two colleagues and I can't call Scott Galloway a colleague, I've never met him, but I've read his books and I like them. He defines rich as when your burn rate is less than the passive income that you generate. And I really like that because that means when you go to bed at night, your assets are generating so much that it covers your costs and you don't have to really do anything. Another way of thinking about that is a definition from a friend of mine, Brian Portnoy, who in his book Geometry of Wealth described it as funded contentment. Now that may be away from the equation that Scott Galloway put out that said that the burn rate has to be lower than the passive income that you generate. But in Brian's case, I think he means to say that if you've got a lifestyle that you've set upon and you have the assets and income necessary to fund it without a whole lot of worry and risk due to volatility and things like that, that that's interesting. In my book, I tried to define it. Am I rich? Deals with various types of flavor of those descriptions that we talked about. But I think just to throw numbers out at it, if you have $20 million and you're earning 4% off of that, however you find a way to do it, and that's $800,000, I think that's rich for most people. I think that covers the lion's share of a lot of different spending. Now obviously, there's some people in New York City for whom $800,000 is going to be a couple of months rent out in the Hamptons and that doesn't quite apply. But that 20 million figure I think really puts you in the category of rich. Interesting that the first thing you talked about was wages, where a lot of people associate wages and your income with being rich. And I think the government statistics generally break out their poverty levels based on income. You could go back to your Fed days and correct me if I'm wrong. But I find this ironic because a lot of the clients I work with are rich according to your numbers. And yet if you look at their income, they're at the poverty level. They get listed on government statistics as being in the poverty level. And ironically, they qualify for ACA health care tax credits, subsidies, their energy paid for at their home in the wintertime and such, only because the government uses just income as a measure for who's wealthy and who's not. And in reality, a lot of these folks who are getting health care subsidies and getting other subsidies are in fact multimillionaires. But that's just not the way those entities measure wealth. So things can be skewed pretty quickly. Well, and it goes back to really, how do you analyze wealth? And if you go back to sort of accounting features, it's the difference between a cash flow statement and an asset and liability statement. And taken to one extreme, you know, if you have a $10 million house, but no income, you are quote unquote wealthy in one respect, but poor in another as you just described. Whereas the investment banker who makes $5 million a year over the course of let's call it a 25 year career but forgets to save, they're wealthy at one moment in time, but then poor once they get into the retirement component. And I think that's what we as advisors have to do, especially at the high end is try to really educate people that that wealth really involves taking a look at both of those kinds of features and that you don't forget one at the expense of the other. And the tax code itself is regressive. If you are saying that the rich need to pay their fair share of taxes, well, they're not talking about wealth. They're talking about income. And there's a big difference between wealth and income. I mean, we know a lot of people, all of us who have very high incomes, but have no wealth. They're in debt up to their eardrums, but they have high income. So it's sort of an interesting discussion about is high income really a measure of wealth? And my answer is no, probably not. But unfortunately, it's the one that most government entities use for figuring things out who gets what and how the pie is sliced up. So essentially, when talking about different types of wealth, again, there's lots of different ways to come at the question. One thing that I see with a lot of clients is occasionally they don't understand the difference between, let's say, liquid and illiquid wealth. And sometimes that comes in the form of people who buy property, real estate in particular, and they say, this is a good investment. And I hearken back to the example of someone who has a $10 million house but doesn't have the liquidity to pay for the taxes or for their daily expenses for that matter. And so what I try to do is get people to understand that there is value in liquidity in terms of sort of dealing with risk, dealing with lifestyle issues, dealing with spending. And there can be value with illiquidity as it relates to being able to get a better return based on that investment's upside. And many times, by being illiquid, it has more flexibility to make better investments and to do better things to increase value. That's one aspect of it. From a time perspective, current wealth versus legacy wealth and a demarcation for that for some people might be death, it might be retirement, but it's generally that line when you're talking about your current needs that you need to fund and then things that you want to leave as part of your legacy, whether it's to your kids, whether it's to your philanthropies, whether it's to other causes that you think are interesting. Thinking about wealth in terms of function on that front, oftentimes can be very interesting in terms of helping people think about how to invest funds accordingly. As an example of that, and certainly the estate planning world talks about this in great detail, but from a tax perspective, if you're able to put assets that are framed for longer time horizons, i.e. for legacy functions, you're able to get the benefit of compounding. If you put it in different structures, you might have a better taxation of those assets.  Whereas, if you need money as it relates to saving up to buy a house or to pay for a wedding or something like that, you don't want things to go up and down and not have it ready for you. So if you have a daughter who's getting married in three years and you've budgeted $100,000 for that wedding, to put that into Tesla or into Bitcoin or something like that, where that value may go up and down, you may find yourself having put $100,000 away and having it worth $50,000 at the time you need it. And so that's where that liquidity and illiquidity component comes in and how it relates to current versus legacy wealth. Time horizon, as you know, Rick, is a big function in putting together a portfolio. And I think it's an important function in just sort of understanding what your wealth is and what kind of investments you should be thinking about. Frazier, there are people who have unexpected wealth. I mean, they hit it big.  And the next thing you know, they're worth $20, $25 million because of that. And they're suddenly wealthy. And I find these people to be very scared in many ways. They don't know how to handle this wealth. I was just talking with an individual yesterday, as a matter of fact, who is in his early 20s and he's going to be getting a check for $10 million for an invention that he created and then there will be more residual after that. And he's just very scared about this. What advice would you give to someone like that? Well, first of all, it's a great problem to have. The first thing I would try to impart on people is to say, okay, you now have a really good set of issues here. But this lucky windfall, let's call it. And let's kind of assume for a second that there's a little planning that's been done for it. But this even applies to say the first round draft choice in the NBA or the NFL, et cetera. Those types of people, I try to impart on them the idea that this chunk of money, a way to think about it is to annuitize it for your long-term benefit. Now, I don't mean to take the money and go buy an annuity. I'm saying that this $10 million, let's expect it to last the rest of your life. And let's expect it to fund your legacy going forward. And to reframe it as away from, I've got this windfall and I've got to watch people looking over the fence and wanting something from me or am I going to spend too much? Those are good and valid fears. And I think the scarier one is someone who inherits or gets that windfall and doesn't have that fear. And you have to really deprogram them to thinking that $10 million equals $10 million a year going forward. But for those people who are equipped with that fear, I would say, look, this is something that in my opinion, you need to think about what you want your life to look like going forward and what that looks like on a year-to-year basis. I would also say that I would take a year before making any big decisions because it's going to take a year to think about what that kind of windfall looks like and what that from a current income that it generates looks like and how it impacts your life. So for someone who gets a $10 million lottery winning or something like that and then goes and quits their job the next day, those are the ones who are really at risk because now they have completely turned their life upside down. Any structure they may have had going forward has been completely swamped. I would really tell people, number one, think about what your life looks like on a $10 million generates $400,000 a year type of basis. What does $400,000 a year look like to your life going forward? And I would not make any decisions for at least six months and probably a year about anything related to moving, related to quitting your job, et cetera, absent some crazy circumstance happening. But I would really take the time and that goes to everything from picking advisors and talking to good people and really taking the time to sort of bed this new impact in. It's a positive one, but it's one that it's not like a big health change. You're going from one type of thing to another very quickly. Often I talk with clients and they say to me, how should I structure my estate? Should I do marital trusts? Should I do special needs trusts? Should I do different types of trusts? How are you counseling people on whether or not they should be putting their assets in a trust? How are trusts being used today versus let's say 10 years ago when they were used mostly to try to avoid estate taxes? Sure. So I think the universal truth is that trusts as a tool are to affect estate planning goals. And that's kind of where I start out when talking to people. And sometimes when people go on the coffee or on the cocktail, if it was coffee, they'd be more sensible. The cocktail circuit and they hear about different transactions or they hear about sort of the flavor of the month in terms of a tax planning angle or something like that. And that's driving the planning. It's kind of going backward. From an estate planning perspective, I think the smart thing to do or an intelligent thing to do for better long-term planning is to understand, okay, here's the money or the net worth that I have and here are my goals for it. Do I want my kids to benefit from it? Do I want my charities to benefit from it? Are there things that I'm trying to look around the corner and protect against? And so you start by having a honest discussion with yourself and your advisor saying, here's where I am. Here is my fact pattern in time. And this is what I want to plan for.  And then that goes automatically to the court system and the state essentially decides, according to its general rules, how your assets are divided going forward. 99.99% of people don't find that particularly advisable. So step one, step one is to say, okay, what documents do I really need in place? Document one for everyone, whether you're 1% or 0% or whatever you think you should have a will, which allows for the equiting of your assets in a manner in which you decide you want to do it. Now, for yet tax planning for a second, that's just a way to do it so that you're able to put forward your assets in the way you want to do it. And that's not according to sort of state law. Step two is the power of attorney and health care proxies in case you are disabled and can't make decisions for yourself. You don't want to have a situation where there is different interpretations over who has control over the decision making if they have to make health care decisions for you. This is Terry Shiveau is the case that really brought this to light where unfortunately that person was brain dead for a while and her state planning was unclear and it was unclear whether she should be taken off the feeding tube or kept on. That kind of documentation I think is useful and important going forward. So then you get to the point where wills go through a process called probate where they are proven within a state court and essentially the will is put there, everything hopefully the eyes are dotted and tees are crossed and there are enough witnesses and things like that. And then the court goes through that process and then the assets can get distributed by the executor. Occasionally, not occasionally, this is much more standard now and especially in the high net worth space, there is the concept of a revocable trust. And this is usually where most people first hear the word trust beyond the idea of setting up a quote unquote fund for their kids or something like that. But a revocable trust is a way to take the bulk of your assets and put it in a trust that is revocable, meaning you can change it up until you die. And then upon your death, it automatically flows into a trust and those assets are distributed according to the terms of the trust. Why is this useful? This is useful because you avoid the probate process. It's less expensive, it's autopilot, it happens very quickly and the executor doesn't have to really do anything. The trustee comes on board and the assets are dispersed proportionately, et cetera. Just as a quick aside, I would say that it's a good idea to put bulky assets into a revocable trust and to have a will on top of that because revocable trust planning doesn't really work unless the assets are titled in the name of the trust. Otherwise, it goes back into your regular estate and hopefully you have a will that governs that. So I think standard procedure is to have both in place. That's estate planning 101. Then the concept gets into place when people say, okay, I've kind of thought about my family fact pattern and I have things I need to worry about. Is my son a drug addict? I have a daughter who's young and I don't know who she's going to marry. I don't want my daughter's new husband to have access to the assets. By the same token, I'd like to leave some of it to my charities and there may be a tax reason for that type of thing. That's when trusts really start to come into play. So against that backdrop, that's where the need for structure to avoid next generation problems comes into play. I think that's consistent now and has been from 10 years ago to 20 years ago and beyond. There's just the tools that are at our disposal for some of those things. They're not necessarily different, but sometimes they get more popular. And then to sort of bridge into the next component of what we're talking about, I think what's interesting now versus 10 or 20 years ago is the fact that there's relatively settled law and of course this could get changed in 2021, but relatively settled law and settled tools that are at our disposal to avoid things like estate tax and other forms of taxes. Essentially, in a quick summary, there are things called the estate value freezes, where by placing assets into a trust at a current value, you are able to pass the growth on to the next generation. These are especially interesting right now because we are in a generationally low interest rate environment and we are at a generationally high estate tax exemption environment. So there is a way to get double the leverage using a lot of different techniques to get assets out of one estate and into the hands of beneficiaries going forward. And if you combine that with other charitable techniques, you can get even more leverage out of it. So that's, I think, what's different between now and 20 years ago that we've got very big estate tax exemption capabilities, we have very low interest rates and those two things together can be a powerful set of tools. How do you go about finding a good estate planning attorney right at the beginning? A lot of people ask me, who should I use at night? And I'm rather uncomfortable because I don't know who's good and who isn't. You have to be careful whom you refer to people because you have the $1,500 an hour types on down to those with sole proprietorship practices. I try to come up with a list of three people. Usually, if I know where the client is coming from that are ideological fits, that are personality fits, that it's not too aggressive or not too conservative depending on the person, and then somewhere up and down the price range. If I'm out there and I don't know of the community real well, I would go to, one's accountant is usually a good place to start if they have that in place because accountants are always dealing with attorneys, both estate planning and otherwise. That's a good place to start from a networking standpoint. If people use a financial advisor, they will have a pretty well established network of estate planning attorneys as well. And then if they have a lawyer for other uses, whether it's real estate or business or something like that, many times they either have that within their own firm or have worked with other people in terms of business succession or other issues that have popped up. Start with the state of residence, and then for those people who are really, really large and gigantic, oftentimes there are national or international practices. So if you're in Nebraska, I'm not sure I'd want to be doing sort of Columbia inbound estate planning, but there are people who deal with that, but sometimes larger national law firms, they'll certainly take your call and if they can't do it, they'll direct you. I think that there's always an issue with parents talking with children about how they are setting up their estate or children who are looking at their parents trying to talk with them about how they should set up their estate. Now, family dynamic goes on where even though different generations should be talking with each other sometimes or a lot of times, it doesn't happen well. Maybe there's some hard feelings. I've dealt with families where the parents thought it was important that all five of their children be co-trustees of everything. Yikes. And because very, very messy. Can you talk about some of the family dynamics and how you might be able to facilitate these conversations and make them simpler as far as decision-making? What has been your experience? Well, it's a big, deep and important question and it underpins everything. I think that, let me reference two TV shows because sometimes people say, well, you know, what does this relate to it? I grew up enjoying Dallas with JR Ewing and the like. And because he always chewed up the scenery and it was a lot of fun. But watching the dynamics play out amongst people of the same generation with husbands and wives and kids and what happened with a significant oil empire, that was sort of my first exposure to it from a sort of entertainment perspective. The show's succession on HBO deals with it as well where you have people who have different ideas about how things should happen. Essentially, it comes back to two truths. The first one is that there's a saying that transcends culture called shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations where the first generation makes the money and the second generation kind of spends it and enjoys it. And then the third generation loses it. And this is the offshoot of the idea. This is me talking where I think that over the long haul, assets increase linearly while liabilities increase geometrically. So everything that you're doing from estate planning purposes and from investing and so on is trying to fight that natural law of asset depletion. And against that backdrop, that second generation and beyond where the people who created the money, they created the culture that accumulated assets that built businesses that generated the wealth. How do you get that to the next generation? How do you have people who can enjoy the wealth, use the wealth, take advantage of the advantage in many ways and build off of that without creating entitlement? And that is the thing that most people really, really worry about. So some things to think about on that front. I think that communication and education are big sets of tools that are important on that front. Step one, I think from a communication standpoint, to get started early is good in terms of fostering discussion around why things are the way they are, how the wealth was generated and what it means. You can debate what is too early or not early, but one way to sort of foster communication and I think a tool that's interesting is the idea of having shared philanthropy. So what does that mean and could it be used by someone not in the 1%? Absolutely. And here's what I would say. If your parents and you've got, let's say, three kids and let's say you have $5 to give away philanthropically, I think an interesting exercise is to give each of the kids $1 to give away under their own set of values, what they want to do, and then have the three kids decide together how to give away that other $2 of the $5 that you set aside for philanthropy. What does that do for you? Number one, it gives you some insight as to what's important with the kids. Number two, it gives them some idea of how to work together to make a decision around money around a very low stakes and very positive situation, namely giving it away to a charity that deserves it. I think if you build a culture around that early and young, I think that gets the kids not only sort of seeing what's important to them and what's important to them jointly, but it also gives them some insight and some context into what they're good and not good at. So out of those three kids, maybe one of them is totally disinterested. Okay, so there's some context around that. Maybe one of them is particularly good at math and driven and maybe they're the one that, you know, if they end up running the family company, there's a good couple decade track record of understanding that those talents were in place. And maybe the other kid is somewhere in between and or maybe artsy and off to do Peace Corps type things. And that, you know, while their endeavors are just as valuable as maybe the business aspect of it, it's just different. And so as a set of parents looking at that and sort of seeing that interplay when they are sort of coming up with the why as far as how as how their estate plan is put forward and put in place, the kids have some context around that already. And one of the worst things that happens I see is when the estate plan essentially is laid out to the kids upon the death of the matriarch or patriarch. And, you know, they find out that things were done for reasons that weren't stated and combine that with decades of baggage.  And I didn't get invited to that in overtime. And I was excluded from this. That's when conflict really happens and when it gets particularly expensive. So that's one tool. And then to add on to that, and I'm going to borrow from Tom Rodgerson, who is a an expert in the family governance field. He has the idea of a vacation fund, which essentially, you know, let's say you have those three kids, the idea of having a fund for vacation. So let's say you set aside $5,000 for the vacation. And at a certain level, let's say the kids are all teenagers, but you have the three kids make joint decisions around the investments of that money. And it's going to teach them very quickly. You know, they're going to touch the stove and put it in Bitcoin too late, or they're going to put it in Tesla too soon, or, you know, maybe they'll get conservative quickly. But they'll learn on the ground investment lessons with money that isn't the corpus of the family estate. And at the same time, they learn to work with each other on money. They learn to have a shared set of values and education around how investment decisions are made. And this can happen at the foundation level too, if you want to do it for a family foundation. But I like it in the family vacation mode because if it goes from $5,000 to $10,000 and you have a better vacation, there's a real concept of shared accountability. And if the parents buy into that as well, and the family, the whole family has shared accountability, the lessons go beyond just the investment component, and they go to the family decision making component, and then the context around the long term planning of the family assets component. So that's another tool. A third tool, which is usually kind of around in the, let's call it the family office world, is the idea of a family bank. And that can really be the idea of kids who have entrepreneurial ideas can come up and give a business plan to a group of people as decided by the family. And you put some structure around that. But in a sense, kids learn how to come up with an idea, put a business plan around it, and you can obviously support that and bring your advisors in and get as involved or not involved as you want. But get that in place so that the kids get up and they learn to think of the plan, think about how to execute it, and think about selling it to a dispassionate, although they're family members, but a dispassionate group of people. And that's a life lesson. It's that kind of experience that I think raises kids above the level of the entitled and at least gives them a little bit of experience into how the world works. You've talked a lot about parents talking with children, but I also see it the other way. I see parents not opening up to their children and their children needing to have conversations with their parents. I'll often talk with a client and gathering their information and talking with them about their own retirement if they're in their 40s. I'll ask things like, are you in line to inherit any money? And sometimes there's silence and one person will say to the other, well, my family know, but my spouse, yes. And I say, well, what kind of assets are we talking about that you would inherit? And they say, well, I don't really know how much my parents have. I don't know what it is, but I think they have a substantial amount, but I don't know. They're in their 40s and sometimes in their 50s, and they still don't know what their parents have. So how do you get the conversation to go the other way? It's a boy, that's a great question because it's a big deal. And the worst thing that happens is people assume they have something and then they are displeasantly surprised or unpleasantly surprised that it's not there. And the life that they kind of penciled out based on the assets that they thought were there aren't or worse, you know, when you this is kind of in more in the let's call it in the one to even 10 million range, but maybe more like in the one to five million range, the costs of health care are not going down. And the idea that Medicare is going to take care of everything I think is, I think it's dangerous. I've seen it with my own family. My parents dealt with my grandmother who made it to 102. Sadly, the last seven years of that weren't particularly pleasant because of dementia. And it costs thousands and thousands and dozens of thousands of dollars almost per month, especially at the end to make that happen. So to answer your question, how do you break that divide? I think there are a couple of interesting things going on. Number one, I would say an interesting component to kind of back your way into the conversation, especially if you're in your 40s, 50s, etc., is to say mom and dad, I'm doing my estate planning for myself now. I'm reviewing it. I've seen the tax laws. I've heard a lot about it. It's time to get things buttoned up and reviewed. Can you fill me in on what is and isn't available? If not for me, then for my kids, so that I know how to make decisions on my estate planning that affect them, that don't double up or cut in half the benefits that I think are important for them. That may be met with one response or another, but that's one way to get it started, is to say that you're doing the responsible thing by getting your estate planning looked at in an order, and you need more information to make that happen, and that part of that information needs to come from above from the more senior generation. The second part about it is that, mom and dad, I need to plan for your healthcare going forward, and we need to make this a joint decision because there are lots of different variabilities in place, and it's extremely expensive, and if we don't think about this correctly, we could be left up the creek without a paddle and it could be left with everything from not much in the way of access to healthcare facilities to just a dangerous situation where a sudden death could occur, and we don't understand where things are. I think an interesting tool on that front is to say, is to have the idea of a fire drill, and it's oftentimes very difficult to get families to execute on this, but I think it's interesting to say, you know what, okay, this is all sort of hypothetical, but dad just died, what happens next? Okay, step one, where are the documents? Step two, who are the advisors we have to talk to? The lawyer, the accountant, is there a healthcare facilitator, funeral arrangements, that type of thing. There are going to be people who are sort of recalcitrant and they're not going to want to do that, and that's tough, but I like the idea of couching it in terms of a family fire drill. What happens if, what happens when, if this, then what? Doing that maybe once a year, even once every two years, at the very least, you know how things are going to get executed, and then you can back into what's in those documents as if it gets particularly complicated. That'd be another way I'd be thinking about it. I'd be thinking about it in terms of, you know, how do I best plan for my family? I need to use the second, you know, the first generation's information from them to make my planning work. And then step two, it's a very good thing for this family to understand what happens if there's an emergency or there's a problem and to run a drill off of that. Yeah, for sure. Again, I speak with a lot of clients who have parents' assets in probate for a year, year and a half. It just takes forever in some cases to resolve some of these things because there wasn't really any planning or the parents didn't communicate with the children or the children didn't initiate a conversation with the parents or something. But in the end, it does fall on the children who, if they inherit the money, they're the ones who have to sort it all out and it can take a very long period of time. So it's a good idea if possible to have that conversation of the parents and the children are willing to do it. I mean, the one thing that I think is useful for everybody is to have a sort of go bag or a list of documents and contact information so that even if you don't know exactly what the process looks like, you know whom to call quickly. That first week is going to be brutal for most people. It's emotionally fraught. There's problems. If you have sort of an end of life situation, those early periods of time are important. If you can have some checklists laid out of things that you should be thinking about and if you can drill ahead of time and to sort of impart on the senior generation as to why it's important to have these in place, that may help break the ice a little bit. Well, Fraser, given everything you just talked about, the family dynamics and the initial part of the estate plan, can we get further into trusts? Sure. So, you know, as I just laid out, the idea that if you can understand why you're doing things and the purpose of it, the use of trusts is to, there are lots of different functions for them, but the idea is to provide structure around the wealth in order to pursue other goals. Goals can be asset protection. It can be tax avoidance. It could be putting structure around the wealth so that kids don't spend willy-nilly or that they don't go down a certain path in life that you think is inappropriate for them. And, you know, as we sort of talk these things through, I think the idea that anything that can be done to preserve the assets or forestall that shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves phenomenon, that's the point of a trust. And, you know, for those matriarchs and patriarchs that have ideas about the wealth that they created and the impact and the legacy that it provides, that's the point of a trust is to sort of put that structure around it so that the decisions made as to how it is spent and how it's invested and how it's protected ultimately allow it to be preserved for as long as possible. A lot of clients are talking about Nevada Trust. They're talking about Dakota Trust. They're talking about all these different states changing their trust laws and moving around going to using different state laws. What is that all about and how can somebody utilize that? Sure. So again, this is what I'm doing in my day job and sort of advising larger clients and other clients about how to sort of use jurisdiction to your advantage. What you described, Nevada, South Dakota, Delaware, Tennessee, which is where I'm working. I work in New York for a Tennessee Trust Company. These places all have trust laws that have various advantages. Now, first and foremost, especially if you're in California or New York, places I just described have no state income tax. And so there are a lot of different things you can do with your estate planning and sometimes your income tax planning to be able to take advantage of that non-state income tax feature of those states. These states also have asset protection features. So when there's a possibility of lawsuit or something else where there's a creditor in play that you want to defend your assets against these types of jurisdictions are interesting compared to other ones. There's a notion where you can bifurcate roles. So you don't have to have one trustee or one corporate trustee do everything. And so Tennessee and the other jurisdictions described have direction trusts where you can appoint people who are good at various parts of the trust process, whether it's investments, the administration component or the distribution component. You can divvy up those roles as well. And there's all sorts of other different features. For instance, in Tennessee, the trust can last 360 years. Some places are limited to the rule against perpetuities, which basically caps you at a generation. So for real multi-generational wealth, one of these usual suspects, as I call them, from a jurisdiction standpoint is particularly interesting. So just to be clear, I don't need to live in Tennessee or I don't need to live in Nevada to be able to use these trusts. Nope. If you have a corporate trustee or an administrative trustee who serves in that function, you get the benefits of that jurisdiction's law. And let me get down to one question that I have all the time. I always ask, who is going to be the trustee? Should it be five children all equally or how do you deal with that? Well, it's complicated for a lot of different reasons. The trust has three main parts to it. It has a grantor, which is someone who forms the trust and funds it with assets. It has a trustee and that trustee has three main functions. They have to safeguard and report on the assets. They have to invest the assets prudently and they have to distribute it to the beneficiaries according to the terms of the trust and then state law if it's silent. Then the third part of the trust is the beneficiaries. So against that backdrop, that's a trust in a general sense. When you're picking a trustee, oftentimes people have an idea of what that word means and don't have an idea of those three functions I just described. Finding that one person who is both a good investment manager is good at taking notes and making sure that the tax returns are filed and that the assets are safeguarded and that the reporting is correct. That's another function. And then also that person who's able to have the hard conversations around how to distribute those assets when they have the discretion to do so. And hard conversation might be a son wants to pillage the trust to buy a Lamborghini versus the daughter wants to use the trust to buy a house versus what does it say in the trust versus what does state law say? Finding that individual who can deal with all three of those functions is hard. And it's doubly hard because people who understand that role and understand those three functions understand that that's a high liability situation and that they should get paid for it. That in turn argues for a trustee that understands the risks, hopefully has some idea that understanding the the family's dynamics and then also has the structure in place to make those decisions so that when something goes wrong, which invariably it does, and siblings start fighting and they think one's been favored over another or maybe keeping that position in Kodak wasn't a good idea, that they're going to get sued. So choosing a trustee is when you really get into the weeds on it very difficult. Oftentimes corporate trustees are brought in and they can be expensive and they cost, but they help soak up some of those functions that individuals may not be very good at. They can provide structure around the distribution process. They can provide structure around the investment process. They can provide the back office for those administrative details. So when one's coming up with a trust, the choice of trustee is extremely important, not least of which, and I talk about this and I think about two sentences in my book, which is to say trustees get old, individuals do. So if the family lawyer who puts this together at age 65, they may be 95 when the situation comes to pass that where there's conflict or real judgment needs to take place. And that's tricky because that person is probably retired or they shouldn't be making decisions for whatever reason. It's important either to create sort of a situation where there's help that is going to be consistent even if people move in and out or that your trustees and that your advisors around your wealth get younger as you get older. If a family were to go down the road of hiring a professional trustee instead of family members so that there is this consistency and no favoritism or ambiguity, what would that cost a family? So it's a good question and it depends which functions the trustee takes on. If you have a full mandate for a trust, meaning investment management, trust administration, distribution responsibilities, I would expect that to be in the one and a quarter plus percent range. I think 25 basis points for the trust administration, one percent for the investment administration. Obviously as you move up the ladder and those functions get delineated, there's negotiation around that. By the same token, if you hire a lawyer to be a trustee for you and that happens very frequently, they may have an hourly rate, they may have a flat rate, but I would say that in essence kind of in that one percent plus range is probably a good place to start and it will vary depending on assets, functions, complications, things like that. So not inexpensive, I guess it's a double negative. Well it can be expensive. Now many times people balk at the price and to get let's call it a professional trustee and they have family members serve in trustee roles and very often that's fine but I think the idea is that when something has to happen and if there is the potential for a lawsuit for conflict reasons etc. I think it's a good idea to start thinking about professional trustees because an individual who forgets to file a tax return or forgets the election of some state law that needs to happen, they're liable, that's it. And I think many people who take that role on let's call it for free or for de minimis, they may be saving the trust on fees but they may be really piling on liability for themselves and it's something in fact they should probably investigate some liability insurance as well. A lot of people come to me and they ask me to refer them to professional trustees but it's not my area of expertise and I don't know how to go about evaluating one professional trustee against another. How would somebody do this who is looking for a professional trustee? Well the first thing I would do if you're going through an estate planning attorney they should have a pretty robust network of trustees both individual and corporate to choose from if they won't do it themselves. Failing that financial advisors people who work with them oftentimes they have another set of people in their network that sometimes works. I tend to sort of gravitate toward the legal community for referrals on that front. It can really be like unearthing truffles because the person who has the expertise with the family dynamic and the assets sometimes that can be a really specialized person but being part of a trust company I'm also more than willing to take any calls or any entreaties from your listenership if they have any questions about it. Let's get into the final area because this is the Bogle Heads on Investing show. Let's talk about investing and the ultra high net worth and the one percenters. I mean these people have access to really special mutual funds that outperform all the time correct? I guess. My theory on investments and again I work for a trust company that provides trustee services not investment management. I'm a big fan of after tax after fees after inflation and then I'll put in parentheses after spend. So as a trustee I try to fight the after spend part and try to really you know sort of add value on that front and then to make sure that we're operating in as an efficient manner as possible on the fee and tax side of things and then asset allocation tends to take care of the rest. That said many trusts especially ultra high net worth people they believe in alternative assets special situations many times they built their wealth on something where they had a definitive edge and that's the part where I would be I am not inclined to discourage people from investing in things where they have experience resources context and also just that advantage that I think is sometimes missing with general money managers when they're trying to beat an index. Is there any truth to the idea that ultra high net worth people have access to better investments than the rest of us? There is some truth to it I mean Warren Buffett getting golden preferred is not something that during the financial crisis is not something that people had access to but I would say for the lion's share of people that that may be a little bit overstated. So but that's true I mean ultra high net worth people especially the ones who traffic around family office worlds and so on are exposed to individual deals they're exposed to private equity funds and so on those people who know what they're good at and also know what they're not good at they're willing to pay fees for things that they understand extremely well and then I see it work best when they delegate and pay as little as possible for things that are either commoditized or provide some diversification but they may not understand real well. David Swenson from Yale his view is that unless you're the ultra high net worth hundreds of millions of dollars maybe even a billion that you're just not going to get quality asset management and that you should just index most of your portfolio how do you feel about that? I generally agree there's certainly exceptions to the rule an example would be in real estate for those people who understand neighborhoods and understand classes in a multifam versus office and they're really good at it and that's their thing and investing in that or investing in a manager that they understand where you're able to take advantage of scale where you're able to take advantage of expertise those are reserved for very big situations and to find them group together in situations that are really structured to raise capital as much as to you know provide outsized returns and everybody gets paid along the way and that comes out of the investor's pocket ultimately I'd agree with Swenson on that one and there's unless you're able to develop that deal yourself with your own expertise and your own resources in many ways the sub ultra high net worth level I think you just have to really look twice and think three times before heading into it the name of the book is called wealth actually intelligent decision-making for the 1% thank you so much for being on the bogelheads on investing podcast and good luck with your new role as a director at Pendleton Square Trust Company terrific Rick thank you very much and I want to say it's a pleasure to be on it's you do a great service for the investing community and for the high net worth ultra high net worth and beyond for those people even who are just learning about investing so I'm thrilled to be a part of it this concludes bogelheads on investing episode number 29 I'm your host Rick fairy join us each month to hear a new special guest in the meantime visit bogelheads.org and the bogelheads wiki participate in the forum and help others find the forum thanks for listening


The European Pediatric Translational Research Infrastructure, EPTI, project aims to address the lack of age-appropriate medications for children by developing a research infrastructure that connects experts across Europe. This includes surveying the current state of research in the field and mapping out the competencies of the various institutions involved. By networking these resources, EPTI hopes to create an open science space where top-level researchers can collaborate on projects related to child health care.


When did you decide to start monetizing your podcast? That's a good question. I decided. See, this is hard taking. And this to me goes into like the nuance of the fear and why people don't start things because we're it's so out of context because the world, the podcast space, the world in general has changed from then, right? And so I would tell people, yeah, I don't think about monetization, but it was like week three. Fresh books, like email me, hey, man, can I like sponsor your show? And I was like, Mike, the Dermot, right? Right, exactly. And I was like, oh, and like, figuring out like, how do you do a sponsorship? What's a sponsorship contract? And they ended up sponsoring me for like a year and a half or something. It just kept and so it's not like that anymore. And so it's hard to have that conversation because there's people listening and it's like, oh, I would love to do that, too. It's like, yeah, unfortunately, you missed that train of not that it can't happen. It just it's probably not going to happen in week three unless you're Conan O'Brien. Sure. Right. That's to me a huge thing that's changed. And so what are sponsors looking for right now? Is there like minimum downloads? Like, what are they what what stats are they looking for? So sponsors to me. And I only know from my own experience. The reason why I'm bringing this up. I have a lot of my friends that want to do this on the side. Yeah. And they're talking about sponsors. They ask me, but I'm like, I'm in a position I don't care. Right. You know, so I'm like, I'm mailing a podcast against sponsors. Right.  That doesn't that doesn't mean I'm not going to have sponsors. But the ones who have a plan from the get code to have sponsors, like, for me, it's like, OK, I've never dealt with sponsors. They never dealt with sponsors you have. Like, and you're correct. Time has changed. Like when you started, it wasn't that saturated. It wasn't that crazy.  So what currently today, what are they looking for? They're looking for an audience that's niche market specific. And I mean, I'm talking from the DIY small podcasters, which I'm one of them, right? I'm not the Rogans of the world and stuff, right? Those guys play in a different field that I don't know how that works. But with mine, people basically want to come in and test. I'll only allow people to test three episodes minimum because there's a lot of just getting them up and running. And they just want to know that. Like, to me, you can have fewer and fewer and fewer downloads down to the hundreds if you have a very like product managers for that, that, that, that. I have 350 of those. And it's like, whoa, like a couple of companies are just like, well, I will pay you. Like, you know what it means? They know what a customer's work to them. So there's that. There's a lot within the marketplace of lots of people just throwing it at the wall, seeing what works like at podcast advertising. It's like they they know that it works for a lot of companies, but it doesn't also work for a lot of companies. And so it can be hard in that way. But as a podcaster, it's just sales. And I know a lot of podcasters don't want to hear that, but I feel like I could almost sell podcast advertising for anybody's podcast. As long as it's good, as long as it's got some sort of an audience. And as long as it really focuses in on somebody, then. Outreach, sell, outreach, sell. And then it's a somewhat of a numbers game at that point. And again, I don't have to deal with any of that. I have a sponsor page and people just come through the door and ask to buy. And we're sold out till the end of the year. It's just how it is. And it just that's not fair, but it's it's the way it works. And then beyond that, it's just like a basic contract that you can find on Panda Docs or whatever. There's like sponsorship podcast, sponsorship documents at this point. That part's easy, but it is sales. Right. It's it's like real estate because there's no other show that's exactly your show that exists. There's only one and it's only worth what somebody will pay for it. And so if you can sort of make that sale, make that pitch and focus on them and their audience and making it work for them, then they'll do it. And then beyond that, you you have to then hold up your end of the bargain, which is you have to try and get them as many customers as possible. So you you should get a unique code of some sort because otherwise they can't track it. You should get a unique URL that actually says hi to your listeners. It works way better for people. If they're not willing to do that, it's not going to work and they're going to blame you for it. And that doesn't matter, but it's kind of just the shitty situation to be in.


Okay, I'm just short of here. I went on Instagram live and I used one hand to type it. I filled it I'm a degenerate. Okay guys, so let's start what topic you guys want to talk about today I guess we're gonna talk about The state of the union so happy Thanksgiving guys. We just M. I see we just had a big big cell I think it ended yesterday, but I don't really know I I'm the main educator at my see so I mean I I leave all of that stuff to other people But I hope you guys got in on this good black Friday cyber Monday guys, so I think it's still going on on a More secretive side because I don't think the I think the link is still up So if you if you're interested guys, this may be the day to get it You know if you're a little late on cyber Monday today is the day to get in on these big discounts so We haven't opened up Monthlies we opened it up for cyber Monday and black Friday. So that's why you see a lot of Opportunity because you know people people are not making much money nowadays guys So we instead of us trying to It says selling these big ticket items and stuff right because who can afford this stuff, right? So we we decided to open the monthly to help you guys and so and the monthly has been discounted greatly 200 bucks a month guys So I mean, I don't want to talk about this stuff but you guys all know this stuff so go to the black Friday page at our website guys and Check it out. So How do you make money I'm gonna do really quickly so I don't want I don't want to talk about stocks I want to talk about some How to basically become a day trader and keep keep being Being sane so that you don't go crazy because Nancy talked about it very greatly How do you how do you do it about after two decades of this stuff? I mean I it's very difficult mentally guys Regardless of making money or not if you make money is a little easier to keep doing it obviously, right?  There's no social interaction That's why we started MIC not only to help people but to to have an outlet to talk about stocks guys So otherwise, I'm just gonna go crazy. I mean, I've been doing this thing for so freaking long I just makes me so crazy, right? And that's why That's why sometimes you see a lot of traders just go nuts They drink a lot they do drugs. They do whatever needed to do is they self-medicate And that's because it's a very stressful environment anything that deals with money and lots of money is very stressful So even here I'm sitting here looking at this stuff and I'm like dude I am addicted to dopamine. Is that what it is? It's like it's like going to the casino and and every time you win a slot machine the lights come on and you feel good for that brief second The feeling for me is like maybe five seconds. I nail a trade and I'm happy for five seconds I got that dopamine rush, right and it becomes a junkie and that's why this is this is the problem with trade It's is the instant gratification all that so how do you?     I could buy, you know, I'm running out of stuff to buy I really don't need to buy anything anymore. That's why you know, you become obsessive compulsive about certain things So I have a I probably have a hundred black t-shirts I think I black Friday what I did was I bought like five more seven more Just plain black t-shirts from my favorite store, which is Eddie Eddie power, right?  Yeah, we're the same clothes I have to have like a hundred outfits of it right and so so do what it takes for you to get rid of anxiety guys Okay, so with trading trading is huge anxiety to begin with hold on. I have anxiety right now I got a place of more trades I'm not gonna tell you which one obviously because I don't want you to be a degenerate like me, but You know, so the whole thing with training is you need to get rid of as much anxiety as you can Okay, because you know what trading is anxiety filled written, right? So one of one aspect of anxiety is you know the simple things you can get rid of is clothes Clothing right.   I can't wear a red shirt because it's like I'm gonna lose money I can't wear a green shirt because it jinxes me for making money You know, so my brain is all screwed up and so the the reason why people do these lucky things It's because it it gets rid of anxiety So so you have the feng shui like we talked about that guys.  So for my process is if I need to wake up at a certain time I'm a very So I all my alarm clocks with if you see my feels they're like eight sorry That's the Asian good luck number eight, right? And so I wake up and I have alarm clocks at four forty eight Not joking four forty eight five oh eight five thirty eight You know, I have a bunch of alarm clocks that I set up and so whatever it may be to ease your anxiety guys So the end of the day man, how do you how do I keep going? I mean, I'm a complete wreck when I lose focus on process If you ask every successful individual they have a routine, okay routine builds consistency So you need to have a routine guys. So training starts the day before you even trade You have to have a good night's sleep last night. I fell asleep. I think I Nine or ten I took an edible. I think I just passed that day loud And then I woke up in a panic at literally like four a.m. This morning. I'm in California, right? So I'm like I've missed work. Oh my god. Oh my god.  But next you know, dude I was so tired. I went to sleep too early and so going to sleep too early made me panic And so but I woke up early And so when I woke up too early it kind of threw me off my routine as well So as eager as I am to trade I need to have a consistent schedule of sleep of Whatever I need to do guys because if you deviate that's one thing that's gonna affect you mentally So how do you this is, you know, these are things that people are never gonna tell you Okay, success is based upon routine. Okay, you have to have a routine to become consistent Same thing with baseball players golfers. You notice when they step into the box to swing They have the same routine the same thing curry Steph Curry Before he threw shoots of free throw. He checks his feet to make sure it's on the right place He does his little hand thing to make sure his wrist is, you know working out That's not because he's gay or anything, right? Oh, he's waving some some side girl, but but you know So a golfer, you know, they do that practice swing. It's all about routine guys So if you screw up your teen your hope it causes anxiety, so So just try these little things guys to alleviate as much anxiety as you can Get as many massages as you can whatever it may be. Okay. Um, and so I'll give you examples So we're doing after the cell we we're doing a live trading guys for you guys the next week on Tuesday So Alex and I is gonna come on For a lifetime members. It's not too late guys hit up Tosh. I'm hit up M. I see we'll get you in Live training for lifetime members next week and Alex goes. Let's do it on Monday. I'm go. Oh wait Wait, wait, wait, wait Monday may not be good It's because it's after the weekend and I know myself like on Sunday I have mine my nephew's piano recital whatever it may be on Sundays We are the only ones I have to wake up at 4 a.m. 5 a.m. In the morning at day-day trade on Monday You know other people come to work at 10 right on the Monday And so I told Alex day I don't want to screw up my routine because uh Mondays are very difficult because you go from the weekend And you're trying to calm down from hanging out on the weekend And so Monday, you know is that's why Monday a lot of people do very poorly on Mondays Trading because they they're still in the partying or or resting or family mindset of the weekend And so you know these things right guys so over time you build the routine around your schedule And so for me I need to I need to just take my edible pass the hell out to make sure I don't get any Distraction if you have my solid five hours eight hours of sleep, whatever it may be guys, so you know So routine is very important. Do whatever it takes to alleviate Anxiety and then get back to business and in these markets.    It's already starting. I already warned everybody already that it's coming And so the good times you need to save for the bad times So I'm gonna post it on Twitter once again guys because it's been a long time since we have recession I call it feast or famine trading is feast or famine feast meaning like abundance of food Famine is you're freaking hungry. There's no food to be had trading is exactly like that guys when you're making money You're feasting.          I'm experienced mature old man and So, you know like so how do you survive?  All the crypto guys are being caught a scammers FTX s that motherfucker SBF has been caught.   They're all posse schemes.  It's not too late guys.  There's money to be made every day.  Okay, you can make a very fine living every day every day Let me let me show you man. Let me show you So this is a start for So yeah until I'm sort of like life coaching.   You think you can make 200 dollars today Damn right. You can make 200 dollars a day. It's not hard to make 200.  That's the that is the bottom line. We can all make money How do you stop yourself from being greedy?  Okay, if you get in the habit of taking money out every week Or stopping at a certain time zombie hours Following the rules if you keep do building these habits habits are routine It becomes instinctual. You wouldn't need to start thinking more But the moment you start to think all this stuff you deviate from your routine Okay, when you do that, you're screwed. This is why humans need humans Okay, so I'll give you an example How do you stop yourself from losing money? By having hard stops, but how do you even put a hard stop on? I don't want to put a hard stop on No one wants to put a hard stop on you need to be forced to do that That's what you have to max daily loss at the broker level auto at auto liquidation.  I'm not going to talk about these idiots.    He went from 20,000 days being a scratch day Uh, oh, it's I barely made money. He made 20 grand angel calling because he's a cocky motherfucker, right? I don't use hard stops. Um So now he's so happy making 2000 bucks a day. Thank god. He still has money to make $2,000 a day But I'm not bashing him. I'm just bashing the mentality of of people thinking that they can make money for the rest of their lives insane Insane numbers It's it's not realistic guys It it when this is not a salary paid job, right guys So it's feasts or famine when things are good.   It's the same routine for me every day You can check out my twitter to see that guys But risk management is not training wheels.  Okay, I've been there guys. It's either through technology Force yourself to have a max data loss at the broker level auto liquidation Okay, set it to one or two days max So you never give back most and they'll lock you out Number two is get a trading accountability buddy a tab join community like m. I see he's gonna so you run your trades by the You know, you have a accountability buddy to track you.  But even a trade so your body has a max data loss. You cannot drink until you die You know me I can't well. I drink until I pass hour and throw up, right? Yeah, that is my auto liquidation That's literally auto liquid liquidation when I drink too much I throw up and you pass out That's your body of having a hard stop right guys. So if your body can do it you can do a trading too So let me bring someone on let me see um here. I saw a hand here This is a brand new person I've never seen. Okay. How did I add fuck? Okay, how did how did I? About about it Um, I can't I can't bring you out.  Someone else raise your head and see if it worked Um So weird, how do I how do I how do I get people to uh To join I can't see anybody says go live. Okay. Some people I can see some don't I think you might have to be on your phone I think All right guys, raise your head Who wants to come on? I'm trying to get someone to come on because uh, this is gonna be a new format Uh, this is the first one of the format. So Raise your hand.  My shit's finally coming in.  Sorry Raise your hand. Okay. Here we go. I'm gonna bring out someone I've never seen before What what's cool? Uh We see Trader rip They work. Let me put on someone else. Um Um Trader infinite trades infinite Trans infinite trans infinite. What up? Is this mr. Trans infinite? I'm from california. What's your name, buddy? Where you from? I miss I miss bring people on man Roger. Oh, wow man. That's pretty cool. She looks like you're famous. What's your name, sir? I'm in so Cal between la where San Diego is a little town called Temecula. It's like a wine country Yeah, everyone come. Oh, I know where that is man. That's a great place. Exactly.  So show us where you got there and tell us, uh, what's bro like I was just uh Like going through the lives I seen you on here. I was like, dang.  I was just scrolling through the lives and then you popped on Because you're you're on that uh suggested where they suggest you to to, um When a live ends It suggests different lives and yours was on it Yeah, so we are a day traders brother Roger we are day traders we're living so you see all my screens. I am I'm here teaching educating how to How to uh show us what your picture is man. Have you ever trained? Have you ever thought about training? Have you talked about you said you don't have to this is not this is not teaching about day trade This is basically telling people how to To become a special whatever it is and it comes out. Yes, and I'm actually trying to get better at routines You know, that's one of the things that I'm focusing more on And it's it's starting with like, you know doing push-ups, you know doing jumping jacks, you know doing little things like that You know just like every day I'm doing just a little bit for my health, you know choosing the right things to eat You know get my body right Show us your art as an artist and tell us your routine as an artist Because now we don't really know what you do. Yeah, so I want to give an example to the world like, you know, it could be an artist could be Right, whatever I have a native american friend who I do artwork with and so The routine as far as the art because this is just one facet of what I do I have other things I do like I sell gems and cacti and things like that And I mean it goes down to going online and mingling with Different artists mingling with different people that are into art as far as the the crystal and gem realm The community I go on lives with them and do Sell gems online and things like that So let uh, let me give you a shout out. Uh, tell are your art for sell? Where are you from? Why don't you show us something so that whoever's interested could just uh, follow you man? What's your ig is? Yeah, definitely show us something so that you know, I just want to say Give you a shout and I appreciate you, you know starting something like this where you know, you can just ask anybody to go on and then Show a little bit of their life Yeah, I love this man. I think I'm gonna start doing this weekly that way. I know and that's what's fun like yesterday I was uh hanging out with Japanese people. That's what we're all about guys. Yeah three in the morning out here.   I'm gonna be deez. I'm actually literal But uh, Roger Roger I thank you for coming on brother.  I didn't know that We reached this wide of an audience to get uh an artist, which is pretty cool. Roger. Appreciate you, man Um, someone raised their hands and then we'll next week. We'll we'll do it again, man. It's been very it's fun It's been a long time since I've done this That was dope David literally he I want some dope too Um, that was really dope.  Let me uh, okay Julio, is this julio? Julio going live with Julio Denton court, is that it? I can't see my my eyesight's really bad Hello, my friend tell us who you are what your name where you're from all that good stuff I live here in Atlanta for seven years right now I'm from Brazil. Uh, where are you from? Where are you living again? I'm sorry.     You're a baby On my vesting club live I I I just joined you to see you talking because you you You talk a lot of stuff that uh Helps me a lot And uh, I'm gonna be very sincere. I I I was like uh a little bit depressed um Some time ago because I tried to make a living for that because let let me show you what I do Can you see this kitchen? Yeah, yeah, I'm a painter You can see that. Oh, it's nice. Um, I'm a painter And uh, I'm 51 years old and then what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to To make a living with something that actually can Give me a way to live Without to work on my body because I'm I'm become old I'm become old and and and uh when I started trading. I saw a lot of people from uh my family like they uh They are gossipy About me trying They're bullying me because hey, you're you're not gonna never gonna make this because you are you're old and stuff like that but Uh, I'm I'm really like struggling to to see if if I can make it and I really want but the thing is When you try to make the things uh alone I I'm I'm very It was very hard when I wasn't at my seat to try to find a tab. I don't know because I think people I I'm from brazil, uh, then I don't speak english too well And I tried to find a tab, but I couldn't find no one and this Lifestyle is very hard because if you uh, you like, uh, I was looking you tell that people get anxiety When they they try to start to trade and I got that a lot a lot a lot. I was I was trying to I was uh short Traded but um base. I do what what you you normally do that that is more comfortable for me. I don't do long Long trades because for me, uh, then that comes the anxiety But I try a lot, uh, to try to find someone that could guide me Like that someone that I could talk I could actually uh Be with the this person like in a video or something like that and unfortunately until now I I I couldn't find and and That's why I I stopped a little while to trade because got me Really depressed because I could like refine Everything that uh, I had I tried to see the videos and and and everything But um, I don't know man really what could actually Let me let me uh, let me let me be honest with you. Okay. This is the brutal audience. There's nothing to trade whatever so, um This this is a normal thing don't don't feel yourself as anything different This is you are the majority of the people. Okay, and that's because I tell you something in order for you To trade well Your life has to be in order because if you're live your personal life is in chaos So when you're trading that's the anxiety part. So my advice to you this I don't know anything about you This is the advice I would give to anybody right because I see what you're doing and based upon what I see So what happens? Everybody has a day job. Everybody has what they've been doing for a long time So you've been doing this for a long time. You're the master when you're doing all this stuff And now you want to switch but in my opinion You don't just go away everything that you've done Up until now what you need to do is find a way to to have What you're doing in your day job Set it up so that you can have time and and freedom to start learning to trade Otherwise if you just stop working you're gonna be very stressed because there's no money You have to pay the rent the bills all this. So this is my advice to everybody out there guys everybody out there I'll give you an example who you Why don't you find a meant someone to mentor in your Like like an assistant I'm just making this up right and so if you have an assistant you teach that assistant that assistant can now Help you work with freeze of time that you can learn to trade You know And now maybe that person that you teach is going to start doing the jobs for you now You have two employees three employees. Those are the things that you do. That's what I did You know my goal is not to make the most money anywhere My goal is to make enough but have enough time to do what I really want to do You may make less but you have time so that you can change your career I'll give you an example. I used to be an engineer and I was a software guy I was very busy that I had a lot of programming to do all that stuff. How do I learn to day trade? What I did was I took a job that may have paid less but gave me more time So same thing, you know, and then I taught other people to do my job for me So I freed up more time for me, you know, I had assistants or whatever it may be and so soon Maybe you can have a Only person now you have an assistant Let me show you. This is the guy that worked with me Okay, uh, I have a cabinet painting company and uh My only struggle is struggle right now Is to find a tab that actually Can help me because I I I can make time to to study definitely Hey, hey, Edson. Are you here? We have a we have some great guys in brazil actually Edson, uh, and also we we have a We have a moderator too. Anybody anybody from brazil raise your hand. I don't know when you join Are you back in it in my seat? We have a I want to be back uh to am I see i'm gonna do that and uh My my struggle is is is to find somebody to to help me to talk with I I would do this man. We we have a black friday special use join for the month It's only like 198 bucks. We don't have to join for a year join for one month You know go go to our uh black friday page and just sign up for the month and then I will help you find a tab I guarantee I'll find you hit a tap. Okay.  There's also a bunch of people from atlanta too So yeah, my word man, you know my instagram because dm me No, no, no that's 198 bucks one month if you don't like it. I'll give back your money It's only 198 Right and I I will help you find a tab I love you talking about the tab because you need someone like that to work with because humans learn from other humans And I I tell you man, uh the way I became successful because I always had someone like uh to work with me because it's a very Lonely existence even when you're painting alone, you know, you have someone to talk to you eating alone Living alone, especially trading alone So do that send me a dm. I'm gonna have uh, I'm gonna assign I would have met because it's in there. There's a bunch of people that are brazilians I would love to work with you man. So I appreciate you coming on and and this is uh uh Dude, we all uh, I don't know what was the last time you joined him. Is it a couple years ago or We've changed a lot since then so steven is now part of the discipline workshop Here traveled guy There we go traveled guy. So let me let me assign uh, you to to steven. Okay, so send me a dm I will have steven personally reach out to you. Mm-hmm. It would do it. This is great. He started what's called the discipline workshop Okay, and so he's this is we we have a whole new different way of educating now You know, it's a very it's like a classroom curriculum as well. So thank you, Nancy Uh for for doing this along with uh, everybody else moderating everybody helping so send me a dm I just I'm gonna end on this good note, man. I thank you. So anybody out there guys This is a very classic case. Okay, everybody needs a different thing to help them started So you need a tab. I need a tab. Thank god at alex. I have everybody else. This is my tab, right? And I will assign you guys one so anybody out there guys if you want to join m. I see it's not too late We have that black Friday's going on join us a month man. We would help you find a tab Okay, that's my that's my promise to you But send me a dm guys. I'm gonna end it with this very good note You know, we're gonna make it happen guys humans gonna help each other humans You know, there's a month by month. There's no commitment. It's only 198 bucks. Thank you What better way to meet people around the world? All right, so every send me a dm guys Thank you guys. I'll see you guys later and thank you for coming on my friend. Good luck with your pain. It looks beautiful Happy holidays. Happy Thanksgiving guys All right. Bye. Bye. All right guys. I'm gonna end it here. Send me send me dm guys If you guys want to look for a tab guys, this has been this has been great. Thank you guys


Hello everyone, my name is Mauricio and today I'm going to talk about debugging Kubernetes E2E test with DELB. One of my first tasks when I onboarded my team was to run the Kubernetes Storage E2E tests using a CSI driver installed in a cluster with a Windows node pool. My mentor Jin had the time, gave me enough instructions to do this and after some time with her help I could create a cluster with Linux and Windows node pools. The next steps were to install a CSI driver and run the E2E tests. After I read the instructions, I learned that you can compile the E2E tests into a binary and run the test with Qtests. With this I could run all of the Kubernetes tests, however I was interested in running only the storage tests. Jin suggested to use the focus flag and with that I could run a single storage test. However, I saw that this test would sometimes pass and it would sometimes time out and fail and I didn't know why. This suspect that it was related with Windows and suggested to go deeper. In this diagram we can see what I was looking at in the cluster. I would run Qtests sometimes and the test would pass, sometimes it would fail, sometimes it would pass and fail or fail and I was not sure why. I had a few things in my mind to debug it. I could read the test source code and try to correlate it with the test logs and in the meantime I would try to see what was happening in the cluster. There were a lot of objects created and deleted in the cluster and this happened too fast for me to understand what was happening. Another option was to add a few statements like slips or printfs in places where I suspect that the test code would be failing, however for every little change I had to recompile the binary. I thought that there was a better option to do this and the option that I thought was to instrument the E2E test binary to run in debug mode with help. The advantages are that we can set breakpoints in any line, analyze the test objects that are defined in the code, analyze the cluster objects and if I make this, this would be a one-time setup, however there were no docs in coordinates about how I would do this and I was not sure if I would have enough time to do it. I also have a lot of questions about Qtests and I didn't know that even if I could compile the binary in debug mode, if I would be able to run it with help successfully. My next step was to find out what Qtests does under the hood and what it's doing, it's calling a few shell scripts which in the end call the E2E test binary through the Ginko binary and the idea that I had was what if we called it E2E test binary with Delve instead. I copied all of the flags that we had from the previous command. I compiled the binary in debug mode and I executed it with Delve instead of Ginko. And with that I could see the Delve command prompt and I could enter a few statements like break and continue. Break in this case is stopping at one line in the volume expansion code in the search test suite and what this test is doing, it's installing the CSI hotspot CSI driver and it's creating a pod and a PVC. After the test run, it stopped at the line that I wanted to debug. And at this point I thought it would be a good idea to analyze the cluster. I could see that the pod was created and I could also analyze it in the Delve prompt. In this case, I'm trying to print its name and check if it matches what I'm looking at in the cluster. This is just a simple example of what are the things that we could do with Delve. After this, I understood what was happening. The pod was getting scheduled sometimes in Linux and it would pass and it would sometimes get scheduled in Windows and it would fail. So my mentor suggested to add a note selector so that we could schedule the pod to run in Windows all the time and hit the issue and debug it. And I thought that this learning could be useful for everyone and I added a new M-bar that everyone could use to run their tests in debug mode. But we can continue adding more debuggers. We can instrument the Q-controller manager, which in this case I'm running on the right and I'm connecting to it through my editor on the left. We can also debug components like the Qubelet in this case through the same commands. I added a breakpoint in the volume manager reconsider. So let's add a debugger to all the things. Thank you.