How Best to Handle the Markets! {during these crazy time} - Rocco Carriero

Rocco A. Carriero is a comprehensive Wealth Advisor specializing in working with Business Owners, CEO’s and Entrepreneurs. He is a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, Accredited Portfolio Manager Advisor and holds an MBA in Banking & Finance with over 20 years of experience. Rocco has appeared on Fox, NBC and his financial insights have been featured in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Wealth Management Magazine as well as many other local and regional publications. Rocco is a member of the Columbus Citizens Foundation and has served on the board of directors of The American Heart Association, Southampton Business Alliance, East End Hospice, and Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center and serves as the Vice President of Integrated Medical Foundation. Rocco lives and works on Eastern Long Island, NY with his wife Heather and their two children Ella and Luca.

Transcript

rocco: 0:00

That's a great question. Because I get that question a lot where people say, Well, this is my situation. This is what I earn. What should I do? And I asked goes as people will, more importantly, to the as is you just shared me share with me about your the reality? What do you really want for yourself? So what do you what is it that you would want for yourself? You know, 1020 30 years from now.

intro guy: 0:29

Welcome to the Josh Bolton show. interesting and inspiring conversations. And now your host, Josh Bolton.

Josh Bolton: 0:42

But yeah, that's interesting. So then what else do you do other than your coaching and financial advice stuff?

rocco: 0:52

That's what you know, pretty much what I do is I work with people on developing like strategic financial plans, and then and then after the planning is clear that we place the investments for people in the markets, okay.

Josh Bolton: 1:09

We do that every day. So is more of a vise or do you actually manage their money too?

rocco: 1:15

We manage their money, too. So it's advice first, and then we implemented the investments. Okay.

Josh Bolton: 1:23

So for those who don't have like a high risk, but they're the they're not completely conservative, would you $1 cost average for the s&p 500? We wonder that you would advise,

rocco: 1:34

well, you know, the s&p 500 is considered to be, you know, that's an aggressive asset class. When you start talking equities. Equities are not conservative, never fall to the basket of conservative even the s&p 500. Right. So conservative and equities are, are the polar opposite. So start mentioning conservative you want to buy CDs, treasuries, certain bonds. You know, when you start talking about equities, you start moving to moderate, moderately aggressive and aggressive.

Josh Bolton: 2:10

What's the most aggressive in your scale? For

rocco: 2:13

I would say, you know, somebody's buying, like, small cap and mid cap equities would be the most aggressive. And but if somebody's dollar cost averaging into those asset classes, you know, the tenure at you know, when you look at it from a decade perspective, they usually do pretty good.

Josh Bolton: 2:32

Yeah, usually, it'll be like we were talking about earlier. It'll, it'll be interesting how this plays out currently, what's going on? Totally.

rocco: 2:42

I think I think a lot of I think this has just been a really bad year. I think that next year. I'm hopeful that you know that things are gonna get better. Yeah.

Josh Bolton: 2:57

Me too. So then I'll chop all that out. How do I properly say your your

rocco: 3:04

name? Rocco is my first name. My last name is career row. So Rocco career rose, my

Josh Bolton: 3:10

arrow. Okay. Jump on that out. Welcome, everybody. Today we have Rocco Carrera. So he I see there, right. But we're going to talk about some awesome stuff. We were just chatting about investing in trading, especially on a recording of this on the sixth of October, how the markets just whipping everywhere are different points of views, but he has some great takes on business and advice and just life in general. Take it away.

rocco: 3:44

Well, Josh, first of all, thanks for having me on your show today. Thank you. Yeah, I think the one of the things we wanted to talk about today is his book I wrote called The three chords approach to life, and wealth management for business owners. And the book really takes a look at a person's business life, slash financial, their life as a family person, and then their life as an individual. And the three chords approach really is is another way to look at comprehensive planning. So the book goes over financial planning strategies, if but uses a three quarter approach to make all those different things happen.

Josh Bolton: 4:25

That's interesting. Can we go into the first quarter of overall? Sure.

rocco: 4:31

So now, everybody's, so everyone's like, well, what's the first chord? You know, each of the chords are equally as important. They really are. And so there's no there's no right or wrong way as to what somebody might say the first quarter, the second quarter, the third chord is and so for our purposes in this conversation, let's kind of take a look at the first chord being business right? And so take a business person first quarter, you know, having having a strong business, having things set up financially, in a way where you're really strong is really important. And so all as well as your financial matters. And that's, that's usually achieved through doing good long term comprehensive financial planning. And this is planning, so that that represents so business and finance is the first chord.

Josh Bolton: 5:24

Okay. So then, on the note of business do, do you talk about the, the aspect of work life balance, because an entrepreneurs life is very, it's either it's all or nothing kind of thing at times. Yeah.

rocco: 5:37

So we do talk about that. And, you know, it's very hard, you know, it's very hard to do everything well at once. So in the book, we kind of talk about, you know, when you're, when you're focused on business, you want to try to be focused on business as much as possible. When you're focused on family, to be there for your family, when you're focused on yourself. You're, you're, you know, you're paying attention to what you're doing on your own. And, and that's really the concept, you know, you can't do all three, well, at the same time, you got to have periods of like, when you're doing things. So if you're working in your business, you grown your business, you kind of want to be there fully for your business, right? If you're there with your family, and your your kids soccer game, or make sure you're at the soccer game, and that you're not on your I product, texting or, you know, talking to somebody. And then the last piece, of course, is you know, yourself, right? So it's, you got to make the time to do the things for yourself and make sure that you're healthy, mentally, physically, spiritually, all of those different pieces.

Josh Bolton: 6:41

Yeah, that's the biggest one, as I've talked to different entrepreneurs, the some said, we learned this lesson way too late in life and forgot to prioritize ourselves.

rocco: 6:52

Yeah, yeah. You know, that is, you know, I've met, really, you know, I've been working with highly successful CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners for 25 years. And, and, you know, a lot of times, you know, it's not intentional, but business owners really focus the majority of their time on their business. And then sometimes what happens is that their family takes a backseat to it. And that does impact things later on down the road. And also, let's say you kick a business owners got a really successful business, but they're there for their family, but then they don't pay attention to themselves as far as taking care of their well being. Or you got a guy that's really terrific at at being a family person, they're really great and looking after themselves, but they're letting their business just go to the wayside. So all three are important. All three, you know, each chord individually is not as strong as when all three together, it's a really important point. And the three chords separately, could snap, but it's when you put all three together, you basically now you're on a rope. And that makes things really strong.

Josh Bolton: 8:03

Yeah, I was gonna say, when you wrap the three together to rope, it's hard to break it impossible. It is at times. So then, what are some of the other aspects that you go into with your book.

rocco: 8:17

Other aspects of, you know, we kind of talk about my background is, you know, getting into business. You know, I learned a lot about business. From my father, basically, my, my dad had a tailor shop and my, our local hometown and, and while I was at the tailor shop, I got to see how he worked with with his customers. And he never, never wanted me to learn how to be a tailor. I literally, unfortunately, can't even sew a button onto a shirt. And he wanted me to sit at the desk and watch how he dealt with his customers. He wanted me to read and he wanted me to write and he wanted me to do math, he said, you know, you're not going to touch these machines, you're not doing any of that. And, and, you know, I really didn't understand that at the time, I kind of was actually kind of angry saying, why won't you let me use the press machine? Why don't you let me do these different things. And he was very adamant about me not and, you know, and, you know, I guess it kind of worked out okay for me, by folk by by focusing on the things that he told me to focus on.

Josh Bolton: 9:26

Yeah, I'm sure he was seeing. He's like, my industry, my business, it's not going to last. So I learned a trade that's going to disappear eventually.

rocco: 9:37

Totally. That's basically what happened. You know, you know, now people they rip their pants and they just throw them away. Go buy another one, you know, years ago, people go to a tailor get the pads fixed or whatever. And now it's we live in this disposable societies throw things out and go get another pair.

Josh Bolton: 9:54

Yeah, yeah. Although when I repent, it's the it's usually at the seams. So it's not aren't really easy to repair.

rocco: 10:02

Because he should go out and buy a new pair.

Josh Bolton: 10:04

I would say that one is like, Okay, I'll go buy a new one. But yeah, like different shirts. For the longest time, I would patch them up to.

rocco: 10:10

Yeah, that's, you know, and, and so yeah, that's so you know, my, I'm a product of I'm a first generation American, my parents came from Italy, and they came in the early 1960s. And I'm very proud of our heritage and very proud of the lessons that I learned and proud of the culture the you know, the, you know, Italian people telling people are very hospitable. You know, they like to eat and hang out and socialize. And, you know, it's one of the things that I was around my whole life. And that too, has been a great, great thing we so I kind of talked about that in the book, too. But book is really a financial planning book that's focused on doing financial planning, and then takes the three chords approach and kind of wraps it into it.

Josh Bolton: 11:02

So then, what are some of the strategies that you go into for the financial planning of the book?

rocco: 11:07

Well, you know, first thing we do is we kind of have people take a look at their, their assets, their liabilities, their income, their expenses, their risk management, their estate planning, kind of where they stand today. Okay, and then they talk about, okay, this is where I want to go, and then, you know, so let's say a person has, you know, $500,000. So like, Listen, I want to have $3 million, by the time I retire. And then we build out this plan saying, Okay, well, if you do this year, in year out, by the time you retire, you will get to that $3 million mark. And that really ties in with what we do with people every day in within our practice.

Josh Bolton: 11:49

That's impressive. So I'm just curious, for me a profile for 29 year old working minimum wage job has a Roth IRA, what would be a strategy you would recommend to that?

rocco: 12:03

That's a great question. Because I get that question a lot, where people say, Well, this is my situation. This is what I earn, what should I do? And I asked what was asked people will, more importantly, to the as is you just shared me share with me about your the reality? What do you really want for yourself? So what do you what is it that you would want for yourself, you know, 1020 30 years from now. And, and once that's clearly defined, you said, you know, I'd like to work to be optional. I'd like to live comfortably off of my resources, I'd like to do all these different things, then we could really help you help to build out a plan that's going to help you get there. So if you said, you know, I need this much income, then I, I would suggest, you know, if the if the income that you're earning now, cannot fund the retirement goal, I'm going to suggest to you that you go out there and do something different to earn more or less. Yeah.

Josh Bolton: 13:05

That very good point. And yeah, it was like you were saying earlier, I guess my goal is to get to the point where a fork is optional. If I want to take a week off, I can, because my assets are paying me enough. And the thing? Yeah. Okay, yeah. I get the picture. Thank you. So then, for getting back to my case, let's say it's a person earning 60k A year can set aside at least 20 Just needs 40k a year to get by there. Clearly, they're not in California, because I like I like that

rocco: 13:39

person, that person seems very financially responsible. Okay.

Josh Bolton: 13:44

What would be some of the strategies from the book, but also from you that you would recommend to put that 20k to work?

rocco: 13:51

Well, first thing is, if they're working someplace that have access to a 401 K plan, they could put like, you know, 19,500 into their 401 K plan, maybe get a company match depending on the company's plan. But that's kind of a homerun right there. They bank 20 grand they choose if they can bank 20,000 bucks a year, for a while. They'll they're gonna be they'll be really, really great shape and retirement. But you know, let's see if they could bank 20,000 a year over the next 20 years, they'll be in great shape.

Josh Bolton: 14:23

Okay, so yeah, I would just think of an avatar where they can reasonably set aside that much money. Okay, cool. What are yours? Do you also in your practice, help people figure out? I wouldn't necessarily say run their business, but advise them in different ways to optimize it.

rocco: 14:48

Yeah, yeah, I did that this morning. That was my first appointment this morning. Okay, and we work with business owners on structuring a team, who the business owner surrounds himself with who's their risk manager. levels of insurance was their attorney who's their accountant who's their banker, who's their financial advisor, who's their estate planning attorney. So we look at, we look at all those different things and make sure that business owners really have a sound group of people around them, to help them achieve their, their, their financial goals.

Josh Bolton: 15:19

Interesting. So then was what was without giving too much information away, what was their biggest critiques that you pointed out to them that they didn't even see coming?

rocco: 15:30

They were, they were a young couple, and they didn't have risk management? Well, you know, three kids didn't have any life insurance. That's, you know, they had a great business making lots of money. However, the if something happened to the primary earning person in that relationship, they're in big trouble. And so, you know, that was I said, before you really do anything here, we need to get risk management in place.

Josh Bolton: 15:56

Interesting. So would that be like terminal life for them?

rocco: 16:00

You know, it depends on their cash flow, but probably be a combination of both some term and some permanent. And that's really the, you know, the be part of the idea. Okay,

Josh Bolton: 16:13

do you also recommend if they go the whole life route, they get the bank on new certified insurer, so they can also pull out on their life insurance? Or is that more?

rocco: 16:22

Yeah, so people like to use that, you know, the cash value life insurance and turn it into retirement income life insurance strategies? Definitely, you know, but first, you know, we want them to max out their 401 K plan. And then after that, if they want to use retirement, if their cash flow is good enough, we then would, you know, have them use retirement income life insurance. Okay.

Josh Bolton: 16:44

So but that's a more once everything's establish than you do that strategy. Yeah,

rocco: 16:50

but you know, once everything established, but the, you know, getting the getting the term insurance set up quick, is something for them. I said, you know, you really got to get this going. So interesting.

Josh Bolton: 17:04

Very interesting. I just want to touch on something earlier, you mentioned your D Italian family, can you give us a little bit of a like a up and coming story, like you told us about your father and your family, but what were like the events that led up to you being where you are today.

rocco: 17:21

Um, I would say that, so I've always liked helping people. So I've always had that interest, even from young child and I, I liked helping people, I liked business. I liked looking at companies and understanding why they were or why one company was better than than the other. And, and so, I, when I was in college, I enter in the business, and I can't really got kind of a better idea as to how it works with security selection and doing that, and, and I but I also decided, I knew I didn't want to be an analyst, because I like working directly with people, or a portfolio manager. So I liked, I really liked the idea of sitting around the table and talking to people, and people telling me their problems, and then me coming up with solutions, and I had to help them achieve those financial goals. And that's kind of how I ended up in this world. 25 years ago, it was just

Josh Bolton: 18:27

was it the a lot of people were asking you, oh, you know, this, can you help us with our finances or you like, bumped into some person that puts you on this path?

rocco: 18:39

You know, I was, I knew that I wanted to be. I knew that I wanted to be in the world of financial services. Actually, my first thought was that I was going to be an investment banker, and I was going to travel the world and raise capital. But as I told you, your first generation tie in America, close with my parents, I knew that that job would require me to travel a lot. And I did not want to be more than 2530 minutes away from my home. So being in the world of financial services, you have to work in the world of retail, in order to basically be able to work in you know, suburbia Ville, right suburbia. This me now there's so much more technology where people could trade from anywhere. But, you know, 25 years ago, you would work with the retail market, the individual people, and that allowed me to be close to home.

Josh Bolton: 19:35

Yeah, yeah, especially 25 years ago. I think online trading was just starting, but it's still kind of clunky.

rocco: 19:41

Yeah, just start. Yeah, yep.

Josh Bolton: 19:44

Yeah, I've heard some horror stories of people when they were first using E trade. I believe it was and there were some of the people I have a zoom call every like two weeks and they're like, oh my gosh, we lost so much skin off our back because of that E trade because it wouldn't execute when we needed it. Do

rocco: 20:00

ya? Still probably, you know, when you think about, you know, all this online trading if your system goes down I mean, you know, people got to be careful a lot. A lot of this stuff with technology is much better now.

Josh Bolton: 20:11

Yeah. And there's a lot of server based stuff now. Like my TD Ameritrade, I just placed an order it's on the server excu when my rules are activated? Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. So was it because you were you had to be more in suburbia? Was it? Because the clients or did you have to be close to the trading area?

rocco: 20:35

No, I, I wanted to be suburbia because I wanted to be close to my hometown and where my parents were. So you know, I could become a wealth manager for people in New York City. But that would, you know, that was gonna get me like an hour and a half commuting every day. So I wanted to spend my time in the office and working with clients didn't want to spend my time on a bus or train or the car. And so I was still living at home with my parents at the time. And so, you know, this type of work was like, the, the ideal space for me.

Josh Bolton: 21:08

Okay, so then, well, tying back to your three chords aspect, how did you balance yourself with your rules that you have now? What would you recommend to your younger self? With the three chord principle?

rocco: 21:25

I'm definitely to put more into my physical self, right, you know, so, I would tend to start and stop with exercising. And like, right now I'm doing pretty good that exercise it for a couple of weeks, every day has gone great, but but, you know, during the younger years, it was like, I really didn't have time for anything. But really, my work and my family and, and I really didn't, I did a lot of professional and personal development. They just wasn't in the physical space. Okay,

Josh Bolton: 22:01

so it would be the focus on yourself and your, your well being on top of everything else.

rocco: 22:07

Yeah, absolutely.

Josh Bolton: 22:09

I'm just guessing here, I'm sure you skipped a lot of code. You had a couple of sleepless nights

rocco: 22:15

I still have sleepless nights. I mean, I still do you know, I worry about my kids, I tend to worry and you know, think worrying is a is this human element thing that we were programmed in as humans you know 1000s of years ago right? And you know, the kind of protected us from from doing crazy things right? So yeah, that's basically but I still do worry I worry about different things that I'm worried about 20 years ago but worry you know, I think worries is not in a not as bad as people like to make it out today. Think some worry is good.

Josh Bolton: 22:58

Yeah, gives you a little edge but not too much. And I have to agree with our ancestors. Were he was good because if you heard a bush fruit shake, you weren't alert of it. It could have been a lion that just jumps out and kills you kind of thing. Exactly. We don't have random lions jumping out and killing us at least here in New York and LA area. Maybe Montana you might have that problem though.

rocco: 23:19

Sometimes in Southampton we got some we got some bears locally but I'm just joking joking about that. But But yeah, that's that's you know so I think the human body was brain was programmed to as a defense mechanism to you know, have some worry and had the sleepless nights but obviously during the caveman days they were worried about the same thing so we don't know we all worry about to that

Josh Bolton: 23:45

Yeah, cuz we got our food relatively in check we got our shelter. So it becomes the hierarchy system like Okay, now we got to worry about this and this, which was Yeah. So what are you doing? Currently because you said you you're exercising at least daily are you doing like going to the gym riding your bike,

rocco: 24:07

I kind of gym at home and I you know what I've been really doing recently which I really like and it's kind of fun is I've been working on a rebounder. So a little trampoline. And not a spring based trampoline. It's got like these, these cords on it and give them a little plug it's called belly con is the company and they make a premium little trampoline, and I jump on it for I think if you jump on it for 20 minutes like it's equivalent to like being on the treadmill for like over an hour. And because when you jump up and down as you're you're using certain muscles that you don't normally use and that your boat your body gets double the efficiency because you're even though you're not working when you're coming down your muscles are flexing. So I found it to be a very efficient way to exercise is using the the trampoline

Josh Bolton: 24:59

it also gives you the benefit of moving your lymphatic system to.

rocco: 25:03

Yes, yep. Yep. And which is great, too. So I like it, it's fun, it's different. And yeah, we continue to do it.

Josh Bolton: 25:14

That's awesome. So then I'm just curious for you, if you're exercising, I'm just assuming you're, you're slowly incorporating more healthier foods or have been eating healthier.

rocco: 25:27

You know, I go through phases with that sometimes they, you know, eat really good, keto or clean diet, or this or that, and, and, you know, it's the red wine that actually kills me. It's, it's, you know, those are like, unnecessary calories, but, but I do try to eat good, as much as I can. And I've got to do a better job of that as well.

Josh Bolton: 25:53

Is it more like the red wine in a passage, just like your kryptonite kind of thing?

rocco: 25:59

You know, I read, you know, bread, red wine, pasta. You know, I spent a lot of things they don't like, but um, but it's, you know, trying to stay away from those. Those complex carbs. sugars, right. So the that's inside of wine, bread and pasta. But we're working out we're working on it.

Josh Bolton: 26:25

Yeah, that is the hardest part. Because we especially because it's so hard for the body to digest it just see how you see insulin, just on a whole gnarly level. And you're just, our bodies were meant to use sugar, but not to that caliber.

rocco: 26:40

Not to that caliber, right? I mean, I'll eat some chocolate. But, you know, you know, that's, that's another thing I just, you know, we just got to where you put energy usually see results. So if I put more energy into the diet, more energy to the exercise, you would think that you would see more results. So I just need more energy in that space.

Josh Bolton: 27:04

So then tying into that, how would we? How would you advise people to structure their lives and give more energy towards dieting?

rocco: 27:18

Yeah, I would say that they got to develop a model calendar. And what a model calendar really does is it helps you to kind of lay out your day, every day, you got to put it in there and when you're gonna have your meals, and what you're going to eat got to make it as easy as possible. Right? Okay. You know, eating at, you know, 711 136. And this is what I'm going to be eating, you know, if you make it if you make it as easy as possible, it, you know, tends to actually happen.

Josh Bolton: 27:49

Yeah, yeah, that's the biggest one. As I've talked to different entrepreneurs, they're the one of them it was a lady, my earlier one she jokingly was telling me, she's like, Yeah, my day is so busy. I have to literally scheduling when I have to take a restroom break. I'm like, you rent your bells don't work that way. Like, oh, you only work from 2pm to 3pm. She works for me. Like, that's funny. But yeah, but that's the biggest one. All the different entrepreneurs I've chatted with, they're like, yeah, like, have the schedule, even if it's a rough outline, and just follow it.

rocco: 28:23

It's hard. This old stuff is hard, you know. But, but listen, if you know, life's gonna pass regardless, so we're going to do it. Try to do the best job we can.

Josh Bolton: 28:34

Yeah, try not to have as many regrets as possible. Just just live life. Honestly, I'm actually running out of questions to talk about, is there anything I might have missed that you wanted to chat about?

rocco: 28:47

No, I think you covered everything and he did a great job. And thank you very much for having me today. Kind of talking about up. People want to know more information about the book. They go to my website, which is Rocco a career row.com.

Josh Bolton: 29:02

Wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on. This has been an absolute honor. Thanks, Josh. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.