Marie-Jo Caesar [00:00:04]:

Welcome to the Merging Life and Money Show, the live show and podcast dedicated to helping professional women achieve financial wellness by merging the emotional and practical sides of money. Welcome, listeners, to another episode of the merging Life and Money show. I am your host, Marie Jo Caesar, and today we have an exciting episode in store for you. If you ever wondered how to take control of your finances and break free from traditional banking constraints, this episode is a must. We are absolutely thrilled to have with us today, Jerry Fetta, the founder and CEO of Wealth DynamX. Jerry is not just a financial expert, but a financial education advocate who is passionate about making finances simple, true, and applicable for everyone. He has successfully helped thousands of clients across the US. Build wealth, and today he is here to share his insights with us. So Jerry, together with his wife and business partner, Lexi, achieved financial independence before the age of 30. So today they are on a mission to empower as many families as possible to do the same. And with their unique strategies and insights, they are helping people realize their dreams of financial freedom. And in this episode titled How to Become Your Own Bank, you hear me? How to Become Your Own Bank, we will dive deep into the world of personal finance and Jerry will share his expert advice on how you can take control of your financial destiny, unlock the potential of your wealth, and truly become your own bank. So sit back, relax, and get ready to transform your financial future with Jerry Feta. Thank you for being with us today, Jerry. We are truly excited about this conversation, and I am sure our listeners are eager to dwell on your wealth of knowledge. So with your unique insights and experience, we are all set for an enlightening discussion. So if you are tuning in from iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, iHeartRadio, or any other major podcast platform, thank you. Thank you for being with us today. I am delighted to have you. So without further ado, let's get this conversation on the road. So Jerry, can you give our listeners a brief introduction about yourself and your journey to founding Wealth DynamX? Now my first question to you is can you start by giving our listeners a brief introduction about yourself and your journey to founding your company?

Jerry Fetta [00:03:12]:

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me on the show today. So as you said, I own the company Wealth DynamX. And so for me, this has been an evolution and learning process on different levels and echelons of financial truth. Back when I was a kid, we grew up in poverty. So my mom and dad got divorced. My mom was raising me and my two brothers, for the most part by herself. And so when I was eight years old, all in one summer, I watched my mom and dad get divorced, the house got foreclosed on, and the car was “repoed” on my mom and dad's side. We were homeless for a couple of months, and that was all when I was eight years old. Right. So money was this thing for me initially, where I had no very bad experiences with it, no examples, no education, no information. And so as you fast forward, I got into kind of what I would call the retail or traditional financial services industry. A lot of retirement planning, stocks and bonds and mutual funds, and all those types of things. And I did a lot of learning there. But what I noticed was I would meet with someone, and they were set up for when they were 60, but they were still terrified of the next month. They didn't know how to handle their income. They didn't know how to handle their expenses. They didn't know how to handle their debt. And so really, even though it was helpful that we were making a plan for when they're 60, they were, I need solutions today. So that was a big part of what I did. And so when I was actually 21 years old, my mom was my first client. She got up to age 60, and so that's the year you're supposed to be able to retire. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer and passed away six months later.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:04:44]:

Oh, dear.

Jerry Fetta [00:04:45]:

Yeah. As you can imagine, the whole retirement planning idea, I watched it unravel and not work with someone who was very important to me in my life. And that was a paradigm shift. There has to be a better way to do that. And that's what Wealth DynamX is about, is financially funding abundance and prosperity in all dynamics of life and doing that now rather than deferring it and putting it off until later.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:05:07]:

Yeah, totally. My God, what an exciting and insightful journey that you had. From poverty to being the CEO of Wealth DynamX. Let's start with the blueprint to financial freedom. Could you give us an overview of what it is and how it can guide individuals on their journey to financial independence?

Jerry Fetta [00:05:33]:

Yeah, so the blueprint was something that it was years of just working with clients, obviously working with my own finances, and also studying historically, what did the wealthy actually do? And when I was a financial advisor, I learn a lot of what I would call the right answers. You take the tests, you learn what you're supposed to learn about how to do planning and different things. But I was seeing a difference between what I was offering to people and what I was seeing wealthy people actually do. And so as I started studying, I was seeing a lot of historically wealthy families, and I call them old, dead wealthy families. They're people who you can go read their biographies and find out from start to finish what they did. I was seeing a lot of them were doing things like investing in small businesses, investing in real estate and there were a lot of commonalities there. And so I combined that with as I started working with clients, I was seeing that people would sign up for a retirement plan and an insurance plan and this plan and that plan and none of it was often in sequence. They were very confused, disorganized, and they had all these different products and services that were done at random. And so what ended up happening was it created this confusion and financial mess for people. So the blueprint was me looking at, okay, what did the wealthy actually do? And then what's the correct sequence? It's kind of like if I'm building a house and that's why we call it a blueprint, there would be the right time and a right place for each part of that build. And if you do that, the house is easy to understand, easy to organize, and easier to construct versus randomly just putting parts together and building the windows before the foundation is done and that kind of stuff. So the blueprint really does that. It gives people a sequence to follow and it's based on historically, what have the wealthy actually done to get where they're at.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:07:13]:

So basically, you're trying to get them to build a strong foundation and place the building block in a great order that will serve them. So my next question to you is what are some key strategies or principles that you have outlined in the blueprint to financial freedom? And I heard you say people were totally disheveled and disorganized and all of that, but could you tell us more about the principles and the key strategies that you have justifying the need to have a blueprint that will take you to financial freedom?

Jerry Fetta [00:07:53]:

Yeah, with that I believe in reverse engineering things, right? If I'm looking I want to have financial independence, the first thing we have to do is define what that is. And so I define financial independence as passive income that exceeds my savings, my expenses, and my taxes. And when an individual achieves that, they no longer have the obligation of trading time for money. They have freedom and control over their time. And so if we work backward with that, we can look at, okay, then I need X amount of income per month. If I'm earning a certain rate of return, I can figure out what I need to have invested at that rate. And then I can work backward on what I need to be saving, and what my income needs to be. And that's really the basic is if I'm doing, I call it the triangle of wealth. If I'm earning, saving, and investing, that's really going to create its own progress. And then there are the different products and services that kind of come in and supplement that. I'm big into health and fitness. It's because I'm going to the gym and exercising. And also, I have a good nutrition program. That's really the main part. And then there's vitamins and there's supplements and different things that can enhance that, but they're never going to replace it. I've got to do those basic fundamental actions first. We're very big on that sequence. Education is a big key for us. First, we make sure that people are reading, studying, and learning. We have a challenge we do with our clients called the Big Three. And so the Big Three is every day an individual should spend at least ten minutes a day learning about money. And that can be a podcast, it can be a video, it can be an article, but it's that consistency factor. There's so much to learn about finances, you don't need to learn it all tomorrow, but ten minutes a day, over a long period of time, you really start to build up that base of knowledge.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:09:29]:

Can you share a success story of someone who followed the blueprint to financial freedom and achieved significant results?

Jerry Fetta [00:09:39]:

Yes. So I have a client, his name is Tim, and he's down here in Florida. And Tim, when he started working with me, had over six figures in consumer debt. He had student loans, credit cards, and he was a high-income earner. And I noticed with high-income earners, a lot of times the more they earn, the more they spend, which is a gift and a curse to have a high income. But sometimes that means the credit card balance is a little higher than it would have been if my income was a little bit lower just because I don't have that control. So we worked with him on something we called a debt buyout. So we used a life insurance policy where he was able to put money into it, borrow against it, and pay off his debt. But because he put it in the life insurance policy first, the money was still there growing while he paid off the debt. And the result of that was, rather than being debt free with no money saved, he was debt free. And he had all of his principal still growing and he also avoided the interest, he freed up those minimum payments. And so he's a success story of someone that his savings rate on a monthly basis has increased by several thousand dollars and he's recaptured all of that money that was going towards debt anyways. That's the problem with currency and debt, is when you put them together, they cancel each other out. So by putting it in that life insurance policy first, he still has all of that growth, he's got the future value of it and the benefit of having that debt gone now.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:10:57]:

Yeah, that's a great success story. And so this speaks to the strength of that blueprint, I would say, the action plan that you have in place. So tell me, how does the blueprint to financial freedom differ from other financial strategies or methods?

Jerry Fetta [00:11:17]: 

So the biggest part is the sequence, right? So when we work with clients, we're very big on getting the education first. Let's say someone's brand new starting out, get educated, and make sure you're earning more than you're saving. Then we get on a forced savings. Income is higher than expenses. We're doing a forced savings plan. We're starting to go after debt. We make sure you're protected. We really laid that foundation. And then once we get to the point where a person is what I would consider solvent, where they've got income exceeding expenses, the savings, no consumer debt, they've got their insurances. Then we start getting into things like estate planning and tax planning. And this is one that a lot of people will do backward. They'll get into investing, then they'll think about the taxes and the estate planning, and it's an oops and it's this scramble and a little bit of a mess on the back end, to be honest. So we tell people, let's do this proactively. Let's set up your entire estate plan. Let's do your tax plan, and then let's invest after those things are done. And then when we invest, we only invest in things that are going to produce passive income now. So we're not really big on deferring retirement until the age of 60. That's the lesson I learned from my mom. We would rather have someone invest in a way where they're going to earn passive income today. And one of the metrics we go after, Mary Joe, is that if you study the top 1%, historically, they save 40% of their pretax income. And for a high-income earner, that might be very well possible for the average American family. It's not. And so that's where that passive income comes in. If we have passive income, we now have more money we can save. And it gets us into that 40% rule. We can invest even more. It brings us closer to financial independence. So that's a big key difference. And the other one is ours is let's do it in five to 15 years plan, not 40 years. I'm 30 years old. I really don't want to wait till I'm 60 to be able to enjoy the wealth I've built. I want to do that now and have that happening today.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:13:09]:

That's a new generation for you. So that's good because the dynamics are changing.

Jerry Fetta [00:13:15]:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:13:18]:

Okay, so that's great. So I heard what you said and the sequences in which your model works. That's what really makes a difference so that people have a logical path that they follow in order to build wealth if I understand correctly. So tell me, you mentioned it, but for the benefit of our listeners, can you discuss the importance of having a clear plan like the blueprint to financial freedom for our financial journey? So I just want you to summarize that so that anybody who jumped in halfway through the first question would understand exactly the strength and the viability of the blue point to financial freedom.

Jerry Fetta [00:14:11]:

Totally. And I think this goes back to I think it's one of Newton's laws, right? For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And I learned when I was a kid, whether you're aware of your plan or not, you have one. Certain actions will lead to certain results. And so I can either be in charge of those and plan them and predict my future by saying, I'm going to intentionally do this and this to create a desired result. But if I don't do that, I have to realize the result that I have. Now, if I don't like that result, let's say financially, I'm not where I want to be at. I've got debt. I don't have enough money saved. And the statistics show this over 50% of Americans are stressed out when they think about finances. 66% of Americans don't have an emergency fund. 60% of Americans don't feel like their retirements are on track. 80% are paycheck to paycheck. Those are the current stats of the majority of people. And that is the result of actions that we currently take or don't take in our life. So if you think about a recipe, the current recipe that most people are following is resulting in paycheck-to-paycheck, consumer debt, low savings, and poor investing, and that is a plan. If we were to document someone's actions on a day-to-day basis with their finances, I used to do this as a personal trainer. Mary Jo when I would work with someone as a personal trainer, I would actually have them document, what do you eat on a daily basis. I want you to write everything that you eat. For the first week, we work together, and then we sit down, and we look at this log and say, okay, good. So this is the current plan that you have right now, and it's creating the current result that someone has right now with their health. And so with finances, it would be very similar where if we were to document, what does someone do for their income. How are they spending, what are they borrowing money for, what do they spend their time on, how much education do they do? It creates the result that they have. And so when we write all that down, that is the current plan, and we would just look at, okay, is that the result we want? And if not, we need a different plan. And so I think the plan is there either way. It’s just we aware of it? Are we being intentional with it? And is it optimal? Is it designed to create the result that we want?

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:16:11]:

I like what you're saying, because as with everything else, even when we talk about things, as for us, I guess in the financial space, estate planning, it's a must. And most people don't realize that they have an estate whether or not they like it or they want to accept it. The question is, is it a plan? Do you have a plan for it? That's really very important because people tend to live from day to day, not realizing that it's like everything else. If you're going to build a house, if you're building your financial house, there's a weight of doing it. You're not going to start by putting the roof up first. So now let's talk about how to become financially free. So what are the first steps that someone should take if they want to achieve financial freedom?

Jerry Fetta [00:17:04]:

This is a great question. The first step is the decision. Everything follows after a decision. And so the decision to become financially free is going to be a primary and also understanding what is financial freedom. But my opinion and experience is there is no absolute state of financial freedom. It's greater and lesser degrees of it. And so I can have more and more financial freedom or less and less financial freedom. And that can always be either improved upon or retracted from. So if I can really define that and an example of this would be a degree of financial freedom would be I have no consumer debt. Someone that's got no consumer debt would be more financially free than someone that does, or someone that has an estate plan, for example. They're going to be more financially free than someone that isn’t. That really is like a linear progression. And I think that this comes down to what does the individual wants, what does their family want? What's their goal? I think a good point on that if we're looking at it as kind of this gradual progression, a good point of that is to be financially independent, which is again passive income that I'd seize, my saving expenses and taxes. Beyond that, someone could be comfortable there and they stay there all along. Or they could maybe want to grow that phase of life and maybe they have desires to be charitable or open foundations or things of that nature where they're going to build their wealth even further. I think that's a starting point. And then step by step just what's the next best thing I can do. And it goes back to that sequence, right? A big part for me of being financially free is also free from financial institutions. And not to say that they're all bad. For example, if I can become my own bank instead of using someone else's bank, that gives me a little bit more financial freedom where I'm not subject to the whims of what happens with them. I've got more control. So it really comes down to gaining more knowledge, deciding I want to take more responsibility for my finances in that incremental way, and then looking to do things that give me more and more control.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:18:55]:

For that though, they will need to be financially educated, for one. And also, they will need to be financially literate because it's not given particularly in the state of affairs right now in America. And you did quote a few statistics as to how people are faring from a financial standpoint. So that is very important. So what I heard there is that the first step is to make a decision and define what financial freedom means to you. And from there, apply the sequence that you have in your blueprint. And of course, one of the main topics of this show is becoming free from financial institutions, which there are a number of investment vehicles available for that, which I'm sure can be the topic or topics of several more shows if we get into it. So tell me, what are some common misconceptions that you've come across about achieving financial freedom in your work? What are the common ones? Because there are plenty misconceptions when it comes to achieving financial freedom. So what would you say? Give me three of them, for example.

Jerry Fetta [00:20:10]:

Yeah, that's good. So I think the first one that I would say is that the average person does not understand the difference between money and currency. Currency is a medium of exchange. Money acts more as a store of value and can be used as a medium of exchange. Back to the triangle of wealth that I mentioned at the very beginning of our talk. We have to earn, we have to save, and we have to invest. We do each of those in different things, different vehicles. So we've all heard the phrase it's not just what you make, it's what you keep. It's also not just what you keep. It's also where you keep it. And so I should earn, when I earn, it should be in currency. Now, whether that's paper dollars or whether that's Fed now digital currency or whether that's kernels of corn, for me, I really don't care. It's what's the medium of exchange that's popular and how do I get more of that? Through producing value for others. And so I should always be looking to earn more income, but that should be done in currency. Now, if I'm not going to spend the currency, then I'm going to save it for later. And that's where it comes into. I want to go into an effective store of value. Currency is not an effective store of value due to inflation. If you keep your income in paper and see, and you leave it there, you're losing value every year. It buys less and less each year that it stays in paper dollars. Even if you put it in a bank, that's the case. So then it comes down to putting it into real stores of value that are going to keep my money safe, b preserve it to some degree, and C be liquid enough that I can then use it to invest. And that's the next point of this, is we invest. When we invest, we're investing in assets, right? And so I think that's a misconception as people will earn income in paper dollars. If we're here in the US. Right now, they'll save it in paper dollars, and then they don't really plan ahead on the investing part. So they'll save it, and the money loses value. If they do invest it, they put it in something that's not going to be available to them right away, and it doesn't really increase their income. So if you follow that sequence, I earn it in currency, I save it in-store values, I then put it into assets that, again, supplement the income, so I earn more currency. And that triangle repeats itself and continues to grow each time you go through it.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:22:13]:

Yeah. This leads me to another concept again, which is not so much the topic of today, but asset allocation and diversification and all the whole nine yard, which is very important for the growth of your asset. So in two sentences, tell me, what do you mean exactly when you say become your own bank?

Jerry Fetta [00:22:35]:

So in two sentences, when you deposit money in a bank, the bank borrows against your deposit, invests it, makes a profit, and pays you nothing. So you can do the same thing in your own life and cut them out as the middleman.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:22:48]:

Okay, I'm trying to put myself in the place of some listeners, not being very knowledgeable about assets and all that kind of stuff, okay. They work, and they earn money. Let's say that they have a budget, they have a certain percentage that they set aside in addition to what would be required for the retirement savings. And what not, what do they do? And I'm saying that because in my experience, lots of people are not financially educated. They tend to talk about financial literacy. But to me, literacy is a measure of competence. So you cannot be literate on a topic if you are not educated on it. And to me, that's the vast majority of people worldwide. So in order for them to become their own bank, what would be the basic requirements that they would need?

Jerry Fetta [00:23:53]:

Yeah, so it does start with education, right? Let's say that I'm a high-income earner and I'm currently putting money in a bank. Now, that's where I save. I get my paycheck; it gets deposited in my checking account. There's a degree of literacy that I need to have on just understanding what happens when I do that. Several years back, if you would have told me, hey, Jerry, when you get your income, you put it in your checking account, you're actually extending an unsecured loan to the bank. They're going to borrow against your money, pay you little to nothing, and then put your money at risk. And when they do that, they're making anywhere from 400% to 1300% on your dollar and paying you like 0.2 or 0.3% interest. I wouldn't have known what you were talking about, because when I went to the bank, they didn't tell me that I didn't have that conversation with anybody. It wasn't clear in the documents I signed. And it's funny now that I know that is what happens when I do have to go to the bank. That's always the first thing where this is stated. I want to see the small print; I want to figure out where they're showing and it's really not something that's present or evident.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:24:54]:

That's a moving target. As you know, inflation aiding is not making it any easier for anyone. So to me what I'm hearing is educate yourself before placing your hard-earned money anywhere. Figure out exactly what you are in for and clearly, no one expects to get anything for free. But there are a lot of costs and fees and expense ratio things that you got to be very mindful of when dealing with your hard-earned money and trying to become your own bank.

Jerry Fetta [00:25:36]:

You want to avoid jumping out of one situation you don't understand into another one you don't understand just because the new one sounded better. If you don't understand thing one or thing two, it might as well be the same. It's like I trade in a car and get a new one. It's a bunch of technology and new gizmos and stuff. I don't learn how those things work. I'm not really going to be able to drive the car. So there's definitely education and I've learned this as I've built my own wealth. This is the hard truth of finances. The more you get wealthy, the more education is required. It's not one of these things where it gets less and less. It says you've got more assets; you need to know even more stuff. Now you're going to do advanced strategies, you need even more knowledge.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:26:15]:

And every day there's a new animal coming from somewhere like crypto and all that kind of stuff. People hear success stories and say, oh, you could make lots of money but it's a balance. So again, we are back to education first and literacy, financial, anything. One thing that I want to add here, you mentioned decisions and when I hear the word decisions, I tend to align it with discipline and mindset. So from where you sit, what role do discipline and also mindset play in becoming financially free?

Jerry Fetta [00:26:53]:

I think those are paramount. Thoughts become things. Everything starts out as a thought first, right? A thought that's not followed up and that would be the mindset. What am I thinking about? What are my goals? What am I envisioning for my future? And that really is the basis of wanting to build financial freedom I'm envisioning a better future and it just happens to take money in this universe that we're in to make that happen. That's the main name of my company, Wealth DynamX. Abundance and prosperity, which is Wealth, DynamX is all the different areas of life. And if I think about that and I envision what is the ideal scene for every aspect of my life. What does that look like? And then I back that out and think about how much money it is going to take for me to live that way. The answer is not going to be a small number by any means of the concept. It's going to take money for me to eat organic and travel with my family and live in the house I want to live in and donate the way that I want to and help other people. Those things are all going to take means. And so the mindset is thinking about that, creating it, even if you don't fully know how yet. Necessity is the mother of all invention and problem-solving. Go figure out how now. And that's the discipline I,I've got the idea. And the difference between a goal and a wish, I think is the discipline aspect. I have this great mindset and I don't follow it up with daily action consistently. And it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be persistent. Some days you're not going to feel like it. Some days it's not going to be this exciting thing. It's going to be a little bit of a grind. And you're like, okay, I studied about money yesterday. I don't feel like doing it again today. But those are the moments where you do it anyways. So I think those are huge. I think discipline and mindset are both big keys behind it. And I think that's the difference maker for a lot of people on having a nice idea and a nice wish versus making that come into reality totally.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:28:36]:

So lastly, what is your number one piece of advice for anyone who wants to become financially free? And I'm saying lastly on the second question, I still have a few more questions for you.

Jerry Fetta [00:28:48]:

Sure. So I would say the biggest barrier that I see for people is actually two different parts. And it comes back to the education thing, but it's so important. The first one that I see is, and this is what I would say as advice, is to get rid of the idea that money is too complicated to learn about. There are so many times I have conversations with people, and they tell themselves the story, oh, I just don't understand money. It's a complicated subject. It's too much to learn about. And if I tell myself that I'm not going to ever learn about it because I don't think I can, it's a game where I've already decided I can't win. And my advice there would be to realize that everything financial boils down to three or four layers. The first one is words. So use your dictionary, look up the definitions of those words, and find out what they mean. Right. And especially with banking and Wall Street, they tend to make the words harder than they really need to be. So realize that it's probably not as hard as it sounds, but look up the definitions and understand what's being said. The words represent mathematics. Now, fortunately, the math doesn't go very far beyond basic arithmetic. If I can add, subtract, multiply, divide, or just use a calculator, I can understand the numbers that are involved. And then mathematics usually represents a concept or a solution. If I can understand what problem is being solved, what's the concept or solution, what is the math behind it? And then what are the words that are being used to represent that math? Money becomes very simple. And on the flip side, is also the I've heard it already kind of the I know it all mindset, that's the other thing that can happen is people are either one side of it's too difficult, I don't know how to learn about it, or they're the other side of, I've heard this before. I read that before. I watched that before. But like you said, literacy and competence, for me, I think that shows up in results. I don't have the results. I'm still missing some knowledge somewhere, even if I've read something 100 times over.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:30:38]:

Great. Thank you for that. And moving right along, I wanted to get it right. So congratulations on your new book. And I'm talking about the men in the arena.

Jerry Fetta [00:30:51]:

Yes.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:30:52]:

So can you share with us the central message of the book and how it can help individuals in their financial pursuits?

Jerry Fetta [00:31:01]:

Yes. So The Man in the Arena is a true story of an experience that I went through last year where a private fund I invested in actually committed fraud. They reported false statements. The fund had lost money. They didn't want to tell investors, so they were uploading false statements. It's not fraudulent to lose money, but it is fraudulent to lie about returns. I lost a good chunk of my investment with that, and that was an interesting one for me, is the first time I had lost money with an investment. I'd done very well with that before, and it was a fund that was a little bit more speculative than I usually would invest in as far as assets are concerned. I knew there was a risk there. But the central message of that book is recovering from loss. And The Man in the Arena is actually a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, and it's actually a speech in Paris, France. And so he talks about how life is about the ones that are in the arena, the ones that are striving valiantly. They're putting in the effort. They're overcoming their obstacles, their barriers, their failures. And he mentions that it's not about the critic. It's not about the person who points out when you fall down and stumble or mess up. And so the central message in that book is we all have our own arena in life, and not all of us are always perfect. I'm someone that's very successful, and so I gave that transparency in my story to show, hey, even a guy like me, I have failures sometimes, and here's how I handle that, and here's how I come back from it. And I really think that comeback story, which all of us have, everyone I've ever talked to has had some instance of they had a loss in life, they got up off their knees, they brushed themselves off, and they kept going. And I think that story needs to be told as many times as it can because it inspires people to keep going. And I think that really is what life is. It's continuing to pursue our goals and overcoming the obstacles along the way, even if sometimes it's a little bit uncomfortable.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:32:47]:

So how do you think that the book The Man in the Arena can change the reader's perspective on money and wealth creation?

Jerry Fetta [00:32:55]:

So one of the things it highlights is financial fraud. For me, this was the first time ever having this happen in my life that I was taken advantage of, financially, I'm a very smart guy. It was just the perfect storm of, I guess, the wrong things happening at the right time to lead up to that. And so I had to take a step back and really look at, okay, what happened there. And so as I started looking more into the kind of the financial world relating to fraud, I realized that, according to the FBI, financial fraud is a $10 billion per year problem in the United States.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:33:27]:

$10 billion problem. But I think it's a $10 billion business.

Jerry Fetta [00:33:33]:

Yeah, exactly. And it even ties in with some of the bank failures we're seeing, where Silicone Valley Bank, for example, hours before they failed, the executives wired themselves bonuses. So these are the kind of things that happen out there in the financial world. And to me, it really felt like an injustice in my case. I had done everything correctly. I was responsible. I had saved, I had invested. I'd worked hard. And because of one person's unethical decision, I saw all of that work come undone. And I realized, man, there are so many more people out there that have experienced this, and it's not really talked about that much. There's not a lot of awareness being put on it, and there's not a lot of help on the back end. For me, the FBI was like, hey, you're a victim now. Here's your rights. Here are the documents you need to have. But there was not a lot of support on, here's what you should do. Here's how you can rebuild.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:34:26]:

And as you mentioned, you are a very smart guy. You are knowledgeable in finance, and you still got burnt.

Jerry Fetta [00:34:33]:

Right?

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:34:33]:

So hence the lesson there to me is user beware. Yes. When somebody sells you something that is too good to be true, it might just be when it comes to that, particularly in an area that is obscure to you, because finance is a very broad topic with a lot of intricacies that require a wealth of knowledge. Doesn't matter which instrument you touch, although as you mentioned at the onset, it's very simple. We still look at the old textbook and the basis of finance is still the three: stock, bond, and cash. And of course, when you start expanding and you flavor them with this and that and they become other things. Notwithstanding all of that, you have to be very careful. And we are back to the concept of education and literacy when it comes to finance. So good. Can you tell our listeners when and where they can expect to find your new book, The Men in the Arena, and any other projects or initiatives you have in the pipeline?

Jerry Fetta [00:35:42]:

Yeah, Men in the Arena is on our website. And the cool thing about this book is we're actually taking 100% of the proceeds and using that towards creating awareness of financial fraud and also helping make whole those that were impacted by this fraudulent fund. It was one of those things where I knew a lot of people that were invested in it, people that were friends, family, as a referral network, very similar networks were inside of it, and they all lost money with it. That's a cool thing we're doing, is we're taking the proceeds and just using it to help make that situation as good as we can and contributing to it. You can go to Store, Jerryfeta.com and you can get a copy of that. And then as far as other initiatives, we're also launching later this year, a public charity. That's going to be the purpose of it is to create awareness of financial fraud, helping make whole victims of financial fraud. Just because there wasn't a lot for me as an investor, there wasn't a lot on the back end in that the bad guy gets arrested, the court case happens, he goes to jail, that's great. That doesn't really repay anyone. And sure, restitution can be ordered, but if you throw a guy in prison, he's probably not going to repay anyone anytime soon. That's a resource that I felt compelled to start to be part of. A solution for awareness is where it starts and I'd love to build that up to a point that when this happens to someone, they'll be able to reach out to our foundation and be able to get help, get resources, maybe even get money donated to bring some of their money back.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:37:06]:

So for the benefit of the listeners today, all that information will be in the show notes when you go on the various platforms where you can access today's episode of the Merging Life in Money show. Lastly, Jerry, again, for our listeners who are interested in working with you or learning more about your financial strategies and Wealth DynamX, what is the best way for them to get in touch with you or connect with your team?

Jerry Fetta [00:37:40]:

So firstly, I would say to follow us on social media. Back to education. We do a lot of free education. We're very big on TikTok and also Instagram.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:37:52]:

And I do have your information scrolling at the bottom of the screen as well.

Jerry Fetta [00:37:56]:

Awesome. Yeah, and I keep it pretty simple. They're just my first and last names. J-E-R-R-Y-F-E-T-T-A. On either of those platforms. So you can follow us there. And then I also have a free eBook that you can download for free. It's going to be Jerryfetta.com/bankfail. And that is how to protect yourself from bank failures. We've had four or five big ones in a very short period of time, and I've heard of more coming down the pike as well.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:38:21]:

It's only been, what, like eight weeks since the Silicon Valley bank issue arose, and we have two more victims since. I think the floodgates are slowly opening, unfortunately. But it is what it is and we have to prepare for it.

Jerry Fetta [00:38:39]:

Yeah. So this eBook gives information on how banking works, right back to, if I'm putting money in a bank, I think everyone should understand what they're getting involved in, what the bank does, and what the risks are. So you'll get that information and then also just some solutions on what you can do to protect yourself against that, to be the cause over your finances rather than the effect of your finances in that scenario so that's a free download people can grab.

Marie-Jo Caesar [00:39:05]:

All right, thank you very much, Jerry, for that. This brings us to the end of this very enlightening episode of the Merging Life and Money show. So we want to thank you, Jerry, my special guest, for sharing your wisdom and insight on achieving financial freedom. From exploring the messages in your new book, The Man in the Arena by Jerry Bella. From unpacking the strategies in your blueprint to financial freedom and discussing practical steps to becoming financially free, we've learned so much about how to take control of our financial future. Remember, listeners, that the path to financial independence is a journey, not a sprint. The principles and strategies that Jerry shared today are tools you can use to navigate your way to financial freedom. So before we wrap up, we have a few calls to action for our listeners. Okay, check out Jerry's book, that's a must to delve deeper into his insights on personal finance and wealth creation and how to avoid fraud. It is or it will be available in all major bookstores and online, I presume. And if you are ready to start your journey to financial freedom, consider signing up for Jerry's Blueprint to Financial Freedom course. And there will be a link again in the show Notes where you can have access to this resource. A very helpful, comprehensive guide that will give you the tools you need to take control of your financial future. And lastly, don't forget to stay connected with us. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast, share this episode with your friends, and leave us with you. Your support helps us continue to bring you inspiring guests like Jerry. So thank you once again for joining us today, and we look forward to bringing you more insightful conversations on the Merging Life and Money show. So stay tuned for more live shows and podcasts covering a wide range of financial wellness topics. I will see you next week. Thursday at 07:00 p.m Pacific Standard Time, 08:00 p.m Mountain Time 09:00 p.m Central 10:00 p.m Eastern, 11:00 p.m Atlantic Time and noon Friday Brisbane, Australia time. Thank you. Thank you for being here on the Merging Life and Money show. To stay connected, be sure to follow me and follow Jerry on social media and subscribe to our podcast. So let's continue our journey to financial awareness and success. I am your host, Marie-Jo Cesar. We'll be back again next week. Until then, continue merging life and money. Bye for now.