Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Courageous Leadership with Dr. Travis Yates Podcast examines what it means to be a Courageous Police Leader. Join us weekly as the concepts of Courageous Leadership are detailed along with interviews with influencers that are committed to leading with courage. You can find out more about Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates at: www.TravisYates.org
Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Financial Wellness with The Millionaire Cop
John Drozdowski, known as "The Millionaire Cop," shares how financial wellness is the overlooked component of officer wellbeing and reveals why pensions alone won't secure a comfortable retirement for law enforcement professionals. Travis and John discuss how the traditional academy mindset of "you'll never be rich, but you'll live comfortably" limits officers' financial potential and keeps them trapped in unhealthy overtime cycles.
Check out John's content on Instagram @TheMillionaireCop or visit his website at thedrozdowskigroup.com for more information on financial wellness for law enforcement.
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Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates:Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored you decided to listen to us or watch us or wherever you happen to be, and I've been waiting to talk to this guy for quite a while. It's John Drozdowski. He's a 15-year law enforcement veteran and I know him on Instagram as the Millionaire Cop. He's on some other platforms. We're going to get into all wellness, finances, leadership, all of the topics that we're all thinking about in our head that nobody is saying out loud, john, and you're saying it out loud, I guess, before we get started. Man, how did you get here today? I know you've been 15 years in the profession, but sort of walk us through your career and why you decided to get out in the open with this content to help the profession.
John Drozdowski:Well, travis, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I mean doing this is an honor to be here today. And the way I started. I grew up in Philadelphia, born and raised. I used to see the baby blue police uniforms walking down the street, or if they were on my street, and I just always thought, wow, that'd be a really cool thing to do is be a cop.
John Drozdowski:Growing up I wanted to be in the Marines. I was like you know, I want to be a Navy SEAL. You know I'm young, I could do all this stuff. I got the strength and mom dad said hey, you're going to college, all right. So I listened to him and after college I kind of rethought what do I want to do? And it got to the point where I was like, well, I don't want to be a Marine anymore, because then that means that I got to wake up at like three in the morning and someone's in my face and I just kind of want my freedom, you know, to do whatever I want. So then got into corporate world, tried that for a little bit and just got really, really bored of it. You know, even got laid off when it came to 08, 09, during the recession. And then I really said to myself all right, I'm not getting any younger, what am I going to do with my life? And that's where I decided to get into police work, signed up for Philadelphia, and the story goes on from there.
Travis Yates:And so you're like me. I mean, you went to the academy. I know I went to the academy in the 90s and of course you're later than that. But I can remember in the academy they sort of sold of a spill of goods right, like hey, man, listen, we have this pension, you don't have to worry about it, you stay 20. You're going to be good. That's the benefit of the job. You'll be in your 40s or early 50s. You won't have to work again and then come to find out that was all a lie. I mean, I don't know if you got that same bill of goods given to you Now. The pension is not a lie.
Travis Yates:But I think you said one time you know your pension is just a participation trophy. I love what you said about that, because everybody that retires and you're not quite there yet, john, but that's exactly what you feel like you get to the end. You're like whoa, hold on here. I thought you said that a lot of things change in those 20 or 30 years. So kind of expand on that little pitch we get in the academy versus reality.
John Drozdowski:Yeah. So the academy teaches you a lot of things and then, especially when you're younger, you believe every single thing they say. Especially when you're younger, you believe every single thing they say. So I remember somebody walking in the academy class and say everybody's going to sign up for the police and fire credit union. Right, we all did it, that's what we did, and then, if you were lucky, obviously everyone talks about your pension and they're oh, you just work your 25 years and your pension is going to be fine, no problem, that's all you got to do. That's pretty much all you hear.
John Drozdowski:And one of my favorite sayings that you hear all the time and it's probably the saying that people have been saying throughout time is you're never going to be rich, but you're going to live a comfortable life. Right, and it sticks in your head. And one of the reasons that I think it sticks in your head is because we're all born, for the most part, from blue collar families. You know, maybe your mom and dad are doing blue collar work and you see them growing up and you have your generational police officers and see your dad being a police officer. So you want to be a police officer and you kind of live the same life that they're living financially. You listen to what they say and your dad's telling you maybe the same thing, like, just do your 25 years, you're going to be set. Look how we lived. And you're like, wow, that's a perfect life to live and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just there's so much more out there for us. So in the academy I got the same thing and then that was pretty much it in the academy, right, there was no other financial courses at all.
John Drozdowski:When I went to the academy back in 2011, I heard there's academies here and there that are kind of thrown in like a two hour block, but nothing really hardcore. They, they, they kind of go through the motions just to say they checked that box. When I got out of the academy. That's where you start talking to some of your older officers and they're like, hey, you got to throw, you know, 5% into a 457 or your deferred comp or whatever your, your, your department has. And they said you do that, you're good to go. And I thought to myself okay, I understand what you're, you're where you're coming from, you got your pension and maybe you're doing another five percent. But it was kind of like they said that five percent was was a one-size-fits-all deal for everybody and that it just doesn't work that way. That was maybe worked for that person, but they come to find out it didn't even work for that person. They just thought it did because that's what someone before them told them yeah, and I got something a little extra in the academy.
Travis Yates:You may not have got this. We had this little ponzi scheme in my agency, to where, uh, I forget how they described it, but they basically came in and said yeah, you're going to join the credit union and you're going to participate in this 50 a month ponzi scheme where we all throw into it and then when you retire you know when your time comes up you just get that money. I think at the time it was a 12 year wait or something. I ended up being a Ponzi scheme and ended up going away and and, of course, we put into it for so long.
Travis Yates:But a lot could happen, john, as you know, like when you're 20 something years old in the academy and you hear these things and it sounds great, but a lot happens. From point A to Z. You know what I mean. You've got life and divorce and kids, and all these things happen, and come to find out your little 457, which is a 401k to you civilians that may be listening to this or your pension. It doesn't exactly give you the lifestyle that is in your head and I totally agree with you. I think that we go down to the expectations that we put on ourselves, and that's why I love what you're saying online, which is you can be so much more. You don't have to stay in a department you don't like, you don't have to not have wealth, you don't have to not succeed because we're brainwashed by our agencies, because we're made to believe there's some good brainwashing in our agencies. I love the team aspect. I love the camaraderie aspect.
John Drozdowski:But at the end of the day, they make you believe this is all you are. Is that your experience? Kind of, kind of, and maybe I thought that too when I first came out that top life's for me and it still is. I love being a police officer. Some people that I work with now I don't know what they feel as far as do they want to be police officers, do they not? I know me personally. I do. I enjoy the job itself. I talk to police officers all around the country now. I talk to police departments all around the country now, which is a pretty cool thing. You get to see what other places are doing, how other people feel. Is it just what I feel versus maybe what the East Coast officers feel or the West Coast officers feel? It is different all around, but I do feel, especially when I was in Philadelphia. Now, I had fun. I'll say that Going to work to me wasn't work.
John Drozdowski:It was kind of like a baseball game is the way I like to say it. You knew you were going to have an exciting game. Every time you showed up, you put your uniform on, you played your nine innings. Most of the time you went in the extra innings. They called you in for extra time.
John Drozdowski:So I can't say that I was 100% into everything they told me. But after a few years being in Philadelphia, I mean I thought I knew everything about policing. I was like, wow, I know how to you know check in guns and I know how to you know do all the drugs. And I kind of actually have it all down pat and it was like running and gunning every day and you thought you were doing a really good job and you thought you were actually helping the city and I still felt that I did. But then when I start looking back and kind of looking at the macro picture, I'm like am I just going to be doing this every single day and nothing's ever really going to change? And that's kind of the way I pictured it.
Travis Yates:You know, going down the road, so I want you to speak to. You know you're on 15 years. Let's speak to the officers that they just maybe they're out of the academy or 10 years in or whatever it is, and they think they're doing fine. They think the pension's there, that's going. They're pulling a little bit in the 401k. What advice would you give them? Just general advice.
Travis Yates:I know this isn't an investment show or anything like that, but you've got some great ideas out there. I can tell you one that I failed on which I had a guy come in one time. Every time you get a raise, take half that raise and up your investments Every time. Now, it's one thing to get told that. It's another thing to be in the middle of three kids at home and trying to pay your bills and trying to pay your mortgage. But I really think, at the end of the day, that if we had that mindset, we probably wouldn't even miss the money. I mean, are there any just quick tips of advice you would have people do during the middle of their career right now?
John Drozdowski:So back to the academy you talk about when you're a rookie. Now, I assume. Now when I got out of college I was like, all right, I'm going to make a lot of money. And when I got out of college I was like, all right, I'm going to make a lot of money. When I got out of college that was not the case at all. My first job was $30,000 working at a nursing agency doing staffing. To me I thought that was a lot of money, but then once you get your bills and everything starts racking up, you're like, man, that's really not that much. So then I went to be a police officer and I joined the academy. I couldn't even tell you what our starting salary was then, but it was at least double, if not more. So I'm looking at my paychecks. I'm going, wow, I got a lot more money than what I used to have. Now.
John Drozdowski:I grew up in a family where we just saved our money. We didn't really spend it, so I kind of inherited that from mom and dad. But when you see the younger guys, I mean as soon as they graduate the academy and I've done countless and that's one of my biggest pet peeves you got that big Ford F-150, that's like 70,000 plus dollars. Rolling in the parking lot and I'm scratching my head, going like yo dudes. You probably got all these bills. I know you're making a lot of money. Maybe you're living at home. Maybe you're not living at home, but like if you knew how to properly manage your money from the start and you didn't spend this $70,000 on that truck and do that you know thousand dollar payment, you started investing that maybe you could be in the same boat that I am right now.
Travis Yates:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is a different mindset and I love the idea of financial wellness and finance. Finance is wellness and our academy has got to do better because you know you look at the education system around the country. I mean I didn't come out with any education in finances Right, and I can remember as a young cop. This is going to blow people's minds. It was this thing called magazines and I would see Money Magazine that we could flip through Money Magazine, but to me it was just a bunch of ads. Today, john, money Magazine, but to me it was just a bunch of ads.
Travis Yates:Today, john, and I think a reason why you're here is the internet and YouTube and Instagram. You can get a doctorate level in finances and investment for free right online. Now you got to kind of wade through some of that to make sure it's not a bunch of scam trust this and scam, trust that but a kid in their 20s today has the opportunity to be a millionaire in their 40s without doing a whole lot. I want you to talk about that and what resources are out there for them to do that.
John Drozdowski:So tons of resources. And I fall victim of all that too, because when I started working and I saw what my mom did, I saw what my dad did it was hey, put your paycheck in. You got a financial advisor, they winded up, they go, and every year you put 5% in or whatever it is, and it's more of like a set it and forget it kind of thing. You would get the statements in the mail back then, before they did all the electronic stuff, and they would look at it and they're like, oh well, I mean that's what the advisor says. And it was 100% faith in your advisor, in your money, in your retirement, in your future. And then what happened was and my story gets a little interesting so when my dad came down with lung cancer at a fairly young age, same time I got laid off from the first job I ever had in the business world first job I ever had in the business world and when I was taking them to the treatments they had CNBC rolling in the morning every time. I'm watching Jim Cramer CNBC for hours while he's doing his treatments and I thought to myself all those rich guys could do that on TV, why don't I take a stab at it and I didn't have much money at the time, but I was learning and I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning too, but I was learning and then, before you know it, my learning became an obsession. So it was yes, I'm watching TV. I started not watching sports as much because now I'm watching CNBC and then late at night when the Phillies will come on, I'd be watching all the aftermarket stuff going on and I'm on YouTube and I'm Googling stuff. Before they had chat, gbt and I just start learning how to do things. And it was more of like the internet and the computer.
John Drozdowski:I'm not saying it took the financial advisor away, but it was kind of like you could do this yourself. You just got to put a little legwork in to understand how all this stuff works. And I hate to say cops are cheap, but I mean cops know where they're getting all their discounts. When I go to breakfast, lunch and dinner, they know everything. They know the guy where you got a flat tire. You take it to that garage and they'll give you the cop discount. But when it comes to saving money, we're so quick to throw our fortunes, our retirement funds, to advisors that they're charging a quarter percent, half a percent, sometimes even more, and I'm like if you do the math throughout your whole career, you're talking 100, 200,000, 300,000, depending how much you're putting in. You're just giving all that money away. You just learn to do that stuff yourself. The one example I use is an S&P standard 500 fund. There's thousands of them out there.
Travis Yates:I like Vanguard. Baby, I like Vanguard.
John Drozdowski:I mean, vanguard has a lot of low fees compared to everywhere else, so it's pretty good. But if you use just that and you start looking at your computer, which before advisors, had all this information at their fingertips, we never, as regular people non non advisors had this information. So when you look at it and you're like, wow, the S&P gets 11 percent throughout pretty much the history of the S&P, and my advisor's got me in something at like 6% that's making per year. He's charging me a fee, plus I'm paying higher expense ratios and obviously most people don't even know what that is because they don't see it come out of their pay stubs or anything like that. So, just like you just want to play the odds and find out your own information, I'm like, well, I'm just going to start doing this myself. And that's kind of where I did it.
John Drozdowski:I was calling my advisor and I forget who I had at the time. It might've been I'm dating myself, maybe it was Wells Fargo or Wachovia at the time. I forget which one it was, but I would call him every year and say, hey, listen, I want to do my $5,000 Roth, what should I put it in? And I felt like I was getting some entry-level advisor. Yeah, just put it in this. Okay, I didn't know any better. I put it in there and then I'd say, what about all my other funds? Like, are you want to move them? Do you want to change them? Nah, they're good. They would never call me. They would never say, hey, you ready to put in? We saw the last couple of years you put in your money in October. So, as a salesperson, I want you to call me October 1st and be like hey, you're going to put your money in this October.
John Drozdowski:So I kind of thought I just got lost in the system and they just took me for granted and granted. I didn't have much money. So it's not like I'm a big, big fish that they're trying to to go after. But it was just on the phone one day I said can I do this for free? And that's when they started coming out. I think it was like 100 free trades at that time, before robin hood took off and changed the game for the trades. But they said, yeah, you could do it, you could set up your own, uh, self-directed roth for free, 100 free trades. And I was like, okay, sold.
Travis Yates:And then I just went from there yeah, uh, one of the things that you, you know, I didn't. I'm speaking from a guy that did 30 years and, you know, blinked my eye and the career is over and I didn't put a lot of thought into it. But one of the things you don't really count on is is a lot of people in law enforcement. You can retire much younger than 65, much younger, and so maybe you're lucky and, like me, john, my father talked me out of the Marine Corps, so I don't have a lifetime health insurance benefit like a lot of the military has. There's some people in law enforcement that does have that. Good for you, I don't have that, and so I'm spending a significant amount of money a month in health care. I'll be doing that for the next 12 years, but that's not what bothers me.
Travis Yates:What bothers me is when my 60s and 70s, when I don't have the earning power paying that health care, even if it goes down with Medicare and Medicaid, it's even there. So one of the things that I've looked at and I'm just curious to know your thoughts is the health savings accounts, and people don't realize this. You don't have to be employed by an employer to donate tax-free in, tax-free out in health safety accounts. Now there's some rules with that, but that's you know, and I think the cap is 4,800 a year or something to that effect. That plus a Roth is one good way to save taxes. So do you have anybody that talks to you about that? Because healthcare is a significant cost in retirement. We don't always put two and two together, right?
John Drozdowski:Right. So yeah, the health savings account don't always put two and two together, right, Right? So yeah, the health savings account, it's the trifecta of tax-free money. You put your pre-tax money in, it grows tax-free and as long as you pull it out for medical expenses, qualified medical expenses, which pretty much anything in medical expenses would count towards that, it's all tax-free money. And a lot of people don't understand that, and I didn't understand that too much either. So I think the limit may be a little bit more.
John Drozdowski:I don't know if it's 7,300, 7,400 now for what it is, but if you were a rookie and you opened one up and you did it that way and then the trick is that you don't actually even spend that money year to year I mean, especially when you're younger, you don't use that money anyway. I didn't start using my HSA to all the kids and start popping up and I got married and and then you know my HSA money. I saw it coming out. But if you really want to take advantage of it, don't spend any of that money. Just let it grow tax free and then you just spend your own money for all your medical bills throughout your career and then you just spend your own money for all your medical bills throughout your career and then, like you said, you got 12 years of medical that you got to pay for. All that would have been like your medical just paid off for 12 years, maybe even more. So, yeah, if there are programs, but I say here, here's everything that we give you, and then as a cop, we're just signing stuff, throwing it back at them when we're in the academy, we're not really reading everything, and even if you read everything, do you really understand it? So there's so much out there. And even guys now they're like well, I don't really, I just know we put money into our pension. I just know we offer a 457B, all right, well, do you know there's a Roth option on your 457B? No, I didn't know that. Well, even, like you just said, the HSA do you know how to actually use an HSA? No, we didn't know that. And then another one that I go off of. Now there's so much to this right.
John Drozdowski:So, like even in finance, people are like, well, you don't know everything. I'm like, yeah, I know I don't know everything, but I try to learn as much as possible when it comes to finances, especially for police officers, think we can for retirement. And then we're like, hey, we're going to, we'll be good on retirement. But what I try to teach is stop just worrying about retirement. You got to worry about like I call it your now money. So, like, if you don't have a brokerage account on your own and you start putting a little bit money here and there because you're going to need it, you're going to need it for that house one time, when you get in down payment, you're going to need it for an emergency, you're needed for whatever. Whatever life brings you.
John Drozdowski:And what I'm finding is most cops. There's some cops that got a hundred grand just sitting in a savings account and I'm like, wait a minute, man, I'm making 1% and I know at one point they were making like 4% when things were crashing a little bit and I'm like, man, like we just talked about, you could have had your money in an S&P fund making an average of 11%. And then the last five years you're making 20 plus percent. You just gave up 20 grand for that savings account. Yeah, but I don't like risk. I'm like, eh, not really that risky. When you look at the maps and you see 30 years of history and how the market's going. It's really not that risky.
Travis Yates:If you've got 10 or 20 years ahead of you, there's literally no risk in the S&P. I think we can all agree with that. Yeah, that's golden right there. And you know, I think in a sense, john, overtime hurts us mentally because we can click our fingers and make as much money as we want oftentimes and we get used to that overtime, the overtime also. There's a cost to it. There's a cost to our wellness, there's a cost to our family, there's a cost to our time.
Travis Yates:And I think law enforcement we talked about this before we started recording. I think we're marching down a disaster if we're not careful, because the average large city department is down 15 to 20 percent in staffing. I won't even go into corrections. They're down even more than that. This isn't a debate about that, it's just the way it is. And what agencies are doing to backfill those spots is it's money. There was a guy in Minneapolis that made $600,000 last year. There's people making crazy money on overtime, but there's a cost to that and you're going to turn what would be a 20, 25-year officer into a burned out crispy chicken in five or six years. And law enforcement, I don don't think is thinking ahead. I always say leaders aren't thinking about that thinking. They're just thinking about filling the beach today. They're not thinking about what's going to be in those beach 10 years out. What are your thoughts?
John Drozdowski:on that. Yeah, so I mean you raised the, I guess the main thing, the main reason or one of the main reasons that I tried to start the company, and it's not to be a financial coach and it's not to be. I can't be an advisor because I don't have all the certifications and that's a whole nother story, because you have to work in the industry in order to get all your certifications and get adopted by by companies. But when it comes to mental health, now the industry in general slowly snails pace, better than nothing. They're getting into physical health and they're getting into mental health, but no one's talking about financial health and I'm not worried about my physical health.
John Drozdowski:Me personally. I look at myself and I say, all right, I played sports my whole life. I'm used to working out. It's kind of like a lifestyle for me Fine out. It's kind of like a lifestyle for me Fine Mentally. I can tell you I have no clue how to like, correct. Any of you know I'm not a psychiatrist. I have no clue. I just do what I like to do and I just pray that my my head's in a good space.
John Drozdowski:But when it comes to finances, I've seen what finances did to me and how, like I don't need to work overtime anymore. Now I killed myself my first. You know, six years in Philadelphia I killed myself. Um, I was working. It was like 1300 hours plus a year. I mean I'm talking like there's days I don't even sleep and I just went right back to work. And they don't care. You're right, those big departments, they don't care how many hours you sleep or how many hours you don't sleep, just as long as they have a body to fill in that uniform and they could say they had enough people for that particular shift. So you will burn out.
John Drozdowski:And for me, I was young, so I had the energy. I didn't have any kids, I didn't have any family, so that was the perfect time to do it. But I started seeing, like we talked about earlier, where you got guys that are 20 years in, 25 years in, they're still doing the same thing and they're talking how they're on their, their second wife, their third wife, they have kids that they don't even see. And then you start scratching your head man Like yo, is that going to be me in 20 years? Is that going to be me in 30 years?
John Drozdowski:And I started seeing like it did affect relationships that I had and even my wife she wasn't my wife then, but she, you know, she's like how are you going to keep on doing that and you're going to expect to have kids and you're going to expect to, to, to enjoy things? And it really made me think, and one of the reasons that I left Philadelphia was for that reason that I knew that if I stayed in that environment where I kept getting a phone call and they said, hey, you want to work, hey, you want to work, hey, you want to work, and I was having fun, so it was hard to say no, because I was doing cool stuff when you were doing your overtime. It's not like I was just watching it paint dry. But I said you're right, I don't know if I'm going to have the willpower to tell them no every time, knowing I'm going to know extra 500 bucks in my paycheck. I don't think I could do that. So the easiest thing for me is I left. I said whether the grass is green or not on the other side, I'm at the point and at that point I had some money towards the. I had money towards the end, so I wasn't super worried about it, but I didn't have the willpower to say no. So I had to leave and separate myself from that environment just so I could get away from it, and I see how much it's helped me as far as you know. Listen, I worked out anyway.
John Drozdowski:But imagine if you're working all those hours and you weren't working out and now the weight starts to add up and then your mental health starts to go because you're out of shape and you know it, and it's just like a trickle and youle and a spiral effect when it comes down to it. So I know most guys and I don't know how it worked in Tulsa. But when they hand you like an EAP packet or they say, yeah, we provide our officers with certain benefits, I've never heard an officer call EAP. I don't even know what the number would be Like. To this day I still don't even know. I couldn't pick up my cell phone and say, hey, I want to call our EAP and see if I could utilize them.
John Drozdowski:So I know financial wellness works for me. I'm not saying it's going to work for everybody, but if, if our, our physical programs and our mental health programs are not working, why not hit it from another angle and try financial wellness and if that starts to work. Maybe it frees up time for you to work out, maybe it frees up some mental space for sure, like, all right, I got my finances in order, I'm not as stressed out at home, I'm not as stressed out as work. Maybe mentally, that helps you out. So I'm just trying to hit it from another angle that most people never even touched or even think about.
Travis Yates:Well, and let's just be honest. At least I'll be honest about it I think I've seen some of your content, john. I think you'd agree is much of our mental health training is nothing but check the box. Our leaders are doing it, to say they're doing it, but most cops are not partaking in it. If they don't trust your leaders, they're definitely not partaking in it, and I agree with you. All the studies that I've seen show finances at the heart of divorce, at the heart of mental health issues, at the heart of a lot of things. Not that it's all of it, but it certainly is a big component. So I applaud you greatly for doing this.
Travis Yates:If you're just now joining us, we're talking to the Millionaire Cop. You can catch him on Instagram at the Millionaire Cop, and of course, he's on LinkedIn and other places as well. Catch him on Instagram at TheMillionaireCop and, of course, he's on LinkedIn and other places as well. John, I've got to hit you on this because, as someone that knows enough to be dangerous, I've seen some posts with you about crypto and crypto to me. I understand what it is, but every time you hear somebody talk, they seem to be saying something different, and then half of them seem to be like some nasty Ponzi scheme get rich quick scheme.
Travis Yates:If somebody wants to go into crypto with common sense, as risk averse as possible I know it's risky Is there any way to start to kind of get their feet wet, to get them going in crypto? Because we all I think, as we're filming this, in 2025, the year I retired inflation went up. 22%. Immediately means 22% of what I was making, no more, and so I look at that in the future, in the future, in the future, and there has to be a hedge on inflation. We're not going to talk about gold or silver, let's talk about crypto. What's your thoughts on that?
John Drozdowski:So I'm going to bring gold and silver into the conversation. So when we had gold and silver now I've never invested in. I'm 43 years old now and what I found out through my investing experience and talking to other investors? That your older generation investor, that was their version of crypto, gold and silver. It's backed by the dollar, I forget what year. At one point then they ended that and it was no longer backed by the dollar. Your older investors said to themselves I'm not getting in crypto. Crypto is too crazy. I don't understand it. It's a big tech bubble. Who knows when this thing's going to come crashing down.
John Drozdowski:18 years later, bitcoin's still around and there's tons of other coins too. Now there's too many of them to even focus on. For me, it's really just like the top three or four coins that I would even consider buying. But for all those investors that are like well, you got to look at the experience of cryptocurrencies. It's made people millionaires. It's made people a whole lot of money for almost nothing, just to get in early. And you see all these companies about it. There's some bigger companies than not. You see how the government's getting involved in it. Trump's signing all these executive orders for cryptocurrencies and I forget which state just launched a stable coin. So digital money is the future, it's coming, it's pretty much already here. It's just not everyone's accepted it yet.
John Drozdowski:But if you take the timeline from when Bitcoin started to now, I mean everybody's talking about it. I mean Vanguard, I know, for example, and I don't understand how Vanguard's not. It doesn't allow their investors to get into cryptocurrency at this point. They say we don't trust it for whatever reason, and we don't want our investors to start. But then you start going to all these other places. You're like all right, well, then I'll just take my money somewhere else where I can invest it. So how you invest it is totally different. You could go with your standard Coinbase. You could actually buy the, and some people like doing that. The other avenue that you could do is buy like an ETF, like an iBit, and you could go that route. That works a lot easier, especially for people that are too scared of like why would I buy Coinbase, then buy the cryptocurrencies like I set up another account? So for me, an ETF is so much easier like anything else. I mean I'm not saying dump all your money into it, but there's articles out there saying and coming from large institutions.
John Drozdowski:These days, blackrock's in. You know, like 10 years ago, blackrock, they were all everybody was telling you, forget about it, it's not going to work. Well, now, all of a sudden, everybody's jumping, jumping on board. So I think, your investors, there has to be some piece of your portfolio that probably should go into it. It doesn't have to be a large piece. I mean, it could be 1% of your portfolio for all I care, but to see the growth that it's had over some of these other companies, I mean for you not to start learning about it. And that's the big thing.
John Drozdowski:A lot of your older investors never want to learn about it because we're kind of and myself too like when we get new technology at work, I'm like, oh man, we got something new. Now I got to learn this new technology. Well, that's the same thing with cryptocurrencies. All the investors were so stuck on gold and silver and that's what made them money for 30, 40, 50 years. Why would I jump into something new at this point? But all your younger investors now, that's all they're talking about. They're not investing in gold anymore. So you kind of got to look at both sides and, yes, there's risk in anything you take, but I don't think the risk is as crazy as it used to be 18 years ago, the way people were talking about it.
Travis Yates:Yeah, I think the difficult thing for me in my mindset is I have a story that most people have. I got a call in 2013, 2014, about this from a friend, right, and I thought he was crazy, and I won't even tell you what a thousand dollars in Bitcoin today would be today, right. And so I guess my question to a lot of people are thinking, if they haven't got in the crypto game yet I think I know your answer here Is it too late to get in the crypto game?
John Drozdowski:I mean easy answer is no, it's not too late. But most people, and even cops you bring it back down to police officers. I don't want to say we're like gamblers and in nature, but we like that thrill. So we all know those police officers that are trying to hit this crazy penny stock and make millions off of it. We all know that police officer that that goes to buy lottery tickets every single shift and like you're looking at him, you're like yo man, you just spent 50 to a hundred bucks a day on lottery tickets. Like, are you, you insane? Like you do that every day and some, some of them do.
John Drozdowski:So what I try to tell some of the others if you want to get rid of that, that, that uh, I guess that uh addiction of your money and throwing it away on things like lottery tickets, why not try crypto and look at the track record? Again you say, listen, all right, throw that 50 bucks a week instead of lottery tickets into cryptocurrency. See what happens. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't, but your lottery tickets aren't working out. So I I think everybody should get involved in it. But again it all goes back to that. You got to do your own homework. Yeah, I mean, you do your own homework and you're like, all right, this thing ain't as crazy as I thought it was. Or maybe you just stick to like bitcoin and ethereum and you don't go on like um, they were saying I guess they were calling, calling them Doge coins and they were calling them shit coins and all that stuff for a while. But just don't pick those crazy coins, just stick to the main ones and see what happens. So there's a place in it. Your younger investors are definitely more involved in it. I mean, I've had guys call me and that's all they want to do is just strictly crypto.
John Drozdowski:And I scratch my head. These these days I'm like I don't know if you're necessarily wrong, because like to buy a bond and to buy, uh, treasuries and and you know government debt and you see what they're doing as far as debt's concerned and they're never paying it off. At what point is that going to blow up? Yeah, yeah. So I think cash and and crypto they're, they're the same thing. Now there are people that come in all the time that are like, hey, someone scammed me from you know $10,000. And then I get people that come in and say, hey, someone scammed me for $10,000 of crypto. But the thing is it was their fault, like somehow they let that scammer into the system. It's not like they just magically took your crypto without you doing something to invoke that fraud, or same thing with cash. Your cash just doesn't disappear. You have to click that email link or you have to set up an account with that scammer that's on the phone with you for them to access your stuff. So I think it's all safe as money these days.
Travis Yates:So, john, we're about to wrap this up, but I know you talked a lot about leadership. Any last message for law enforcement leaders out there? I think everything you said, I think leaders should listen to this. I think it's the wellness of your officer, the financial wellness of your officer. You're going to get a better officer if they're financially well. But any last message to leaders out there that may be listening.
John Drozdowski:Yeah, for me it's a struggle when it comes to staffing and I'm kind of old school, even though I haven't been in the game that long enough when it comes to policing. But I'm kind of old school where, when I first got hired, there were thousands of people taking these tests to get in these police departments and you didn't have a pick. It was whatever police department picked you first is the one that you went to because you couldn't wait for another offer. Picked you first is the one that you went to because you couldn't wait for another offer, even if you didn't want that police department. Like, I have to get it now because I may not get another chance at being a police officer, so you take whatever one you got.
John Drozdowski:This day and age police officers have depicted a litter wherever they want they can apply to, as long as they pass everything, they're pretty much getting hired. And when it comes to leadership, they're pretty much getting hired. And when it comes to leadership, there's a lot of departments that are short staffed and the general census around the United States, especially for the departments that are short staffed, or well, that's a nation problem. Everywhere's down, everywhere's short. And I scratch my head and I say you know what? I can understand where you're coming from. That's an easy excuse to say that everywhere is down, but there's a lot of police departments that aren't down. There's a lot of police departments that are fully staffed and nobody's looking at those police departments and saying, well, why are you fully staffed? Because most of our leaders they're in that era where they've been on the job for 30, 40 plus years and they're they're stuck in the. Well, we used to have thousands of people showing up for our test. Well, the game's changed. The only people that haven't changed is your leaders. Are running the show the same exact way. And if you don't start changing something up and for me, I always use the example of when it comes to salary pilots and you go to airlines and they always like every five years, you always see like, hey, we're short, like 20 percent pilots. And then you see a massive boost in contractors are getting like 50 percent pay raises over the course of the five years and then, before you know it, there's no pilot shortage anymore.
John Drozdowski:Policing is going a different route where we don't want to pay the police officers. The risk isn't worth the reward anymore. I mean, yeah, we're all making a hundred grand plus, depending where you're working. But I mean, think about it. Like all the stuff that you get in trouble for, I mean you should be making half a million dollars. They're going to throw you in jail for something that you may have done right, but you still may get prosecuted for that's insane to me. So if the risk isn't worth the reward, a lot of people just are going to say no.
John Drozdowski:But back to what you were asking and I was getting at is police departments. If they don't change something, they're not going to change the money, because we know most places just don't have the money to give police officers more money. Personally, I think if you're at a hundred grand, they should be paying about a hundred and fifty. They should bump it up drastically and you'll see quality people come through the door. The thing that leaders are doing differently is they're saying well, we can't get approval for the money, whether it's through politics or whatever avenues they have to go through. So they're just lowering their standards now. So now their standards are getting lower and lower and lower. But they're filling the uniform a little bit better, but your officer's not as good. But they just don't want to pay the money, so they're willing to take an officer that less qualified, doesn't really fit the mold. You're kind of like, yeah, you're not going to make a good police officer, but we need somebody in that uniform and you're willing to work, so they're taking you.
John Drozdowski:So in my mind, long 10 years, 15 years, I'm retired by then. I don't want cops coming to my house and I'm going to look at them and be like we were so desperate house and I'm going to look at them and be like we were so desperate that our profession just went to shit at this point. I mean, we just went all the way down because we want to lower our qualifications and we don't want to spend any more money and you get what you pay for. And I'm starting to see that now and I talked to other officers and I just I look at them like it's just changing. It's just changing. So I think leaders have to look. If you want police officers and you want your police departments to grow and you want the profession to be around, I think the profession is always going to be around. Just what's the quality of going to look in 10 to 20 years?
Travis Yates:Well, listen, I I limit what you just said. I don't think we have a recruiting crisis. I think we have a leadership crisis. I think, when you look at all the surveys from all the private industry, people stay at jobs because of leadership and support, and we saw a lack of loyalty in the last 10 years when we were accused of a bunch of crazy stuff and nobody really stood up for us in leadership ranks, and so people are going to start looking around.
Travis Yates:In fact, I would say this there are agencies that wouldn't be around today if it wasn't for state pensions. Why would you be in Minneapolis, minnesota, working today if you weren't 15 years in a 20-year pension? You wouldn't be. And so, where the private industry people typically jump from job to job in the private industry, law enforcement locks them down with sometimes an isolated pension at that department within that state. That has saved many departments. So I would just say leaders have got to start leading. You start leading again. Everything else seems to work its way out Now, john, I can't thank you enough for being here, man. Where can people find you? How can they contact you?
John Drozdowski:Do you find me all through online? I have multiple different social media platforms that I do. So if you have social media, just type in a millionaire cop, I'll pop up media. Just type in a millionaire cop, I'll pop up my websites, the drozdowskigroupcom, and, uh, you could I tell everybody you know. Whether you're looking for just any kind of help, shoot me a message. I'm always trying, I always answer questions. There's always something I could try to help you with. You may not want to go through, you know, full coaching courses and it may not be for you, but if you have like just little questions, I mean never be afraid to ask. So online is easy and I answer all my emails, so just you can find me there.
Travis Yates:John, I can't thank you enough. You've been watching or you've been listening. Thank you for being here and just remember lead on.
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