Intro to Money, Finance, & Investments with Mr. Will

An introduction to what the podcast is about and a brief background about Mr. Will, the host.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

When it comes to money, there is no limit to the advice you give from family when television not imagine the internet where they say. So money is the product. What we can do with it is best by the start of more than just so that then you can understand why money takes a profit what we do with it. And that's why we're totally doing here right now for another genuine 2 to the 100th episode of this podcast. Whether you're just starting your financial journey or you've been around the box, welcome to Money, Finance and Investment with Mr. Will.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

That's right. I am officially launching my new podcast, and I'm excited about what's to come. So I want to just go ahead and take this opportunity as a way of letting you all know what to expect, uh, what type of podcast it's going to be, and all of the various things that are going to come along with this. So this is an introductory episode. So I'm not going to get into a lot of uh specific financial details today, as I will in the future. This is just kind of me introducing myself to those of you all who are not familiar with me. I have done uh shows in the past, and um I've been offline for a while, and so I thought it was time for me to uh get back in the saddle, and so here I am. And so this podcast obviously is called Money, Finance and Investments with Mr. Will, and we're gonna address pretty much everything that you can think of when it comes to money and finances and investments. Uh, we're going to have guests that are going to bring their own expertise. I'm going to have episodes where it's going to be conversational with me and one other person. And I'm going to have episodes that are going to have a group of people where it's a dialogue and questions are being asked and answered. So there's going to be a diversity of things to come. And it's going to be live. It's going to be real. When I say live, I mean it's going to be, you know, transparent. It's going to be uh from the heart. You're going to get what you're going to get. Uh, it's going to be clean. So I don't believe in uh putting on something that's not of moral excellence. So you don't have to worry about that for those of you all who may like to uh be a part of things where you know you're not going to hear offensive uh type of communication coming at you. But uh it is going to be a uh podcast where you know my personality is gonna be my personality, and those who I incorporate into the show, they're gonna be themselves. And I think that's the best way to be. Um we're gonna discuss, again, everything that you can think about. You know, we're gonna talk about investments, we're gonna do a lot of what is, you know, what's a mutual fund, what's an exchange traded fund, what's the difference between the two? Uh, what's a direct participation program, what's a hedge fund, right? What what's a um um a QLAC? Like things that you may not have ever even heard of. But we're gonna get into a lot of different things. We're gonna talk about how things work. You know, the what's what's the difference between the NASDAQ and the SP and the Dow Jones? Um, you know, what what what are they measuring? Uh what's what's what what moves them, right? We're gonna get into foreign exchange. Uh not gonna talk too much about crypto um in the sense of getting into details, but we will speak about it in terms of generically as it pertains to something that people are investing in, right? Um what's the risks? What's the rewards? You know, what do you think is going to happen as it relates to cryptocurrency over you know the next three, four, five years or something like that? So uh there's really not going to be anything that we won't discuss. We'll talk about the banking system and uh understanding the banking system. We'll talk about things like leveraging money. How do you leverage money? Right? Uh, of course, we'll get into some basic things and uh budgeting and how to be successful financially, and we'll get into principles and and and attitudes and mindsets as it relates to money and you know things you should do versus things you shouldn't do. We'll talk about things like how to plan. Like how do you actually plan your financial life as opposed to just operating on a whim? So um, and there are many other things that we'll talk about, um, you know, mortgages, taxes, uh, how to use lines of credits, you know, uh credit cards as a source or resource, should I say, of capital to help with different ventures. We'll talk about business and and how to do things as it pertains to being a business owner and you know, leveraging or using money or growing your business. So there's gonna be a wide variety of things that we discussed uh on this podcast, and hopefully it will allow you to get some nuggets that you can apply to whatever your particular endeavor is and whatever your particular uh focus or goal is in the realm of you know being successful financially and those types of things. So, why why why this podcast? Obviously, there are tons and tons and tons of financial podcasts out there. So, why this podcast? Well, years and years and years ago, I started a financial coaching program, and I started that program because I was in the insurance industry. And in the insurance industry, at that time, going back into the early 2000s, I noticed that people who were earning a very good amount of money, both individuals and households, I noticed that I was spending a lot of time chasing down bounced checks or you know, payments that didn't clear. Of course, we're again talking about in a time period where things were a little bit differently, you know, pay the PayPals, the Zells, the Cash Apps, and all of those things that we know now wasn't as prevalent back during that time. Uh, direct draft wasn't as prevalent as it is now. Where pretty much now insurance companies and institutions and you know, car dealerships and stuff like that, for the most part, they want to set up everything on a direct draft. Well, the reason why that is pretty simple is because they have found over time and statistically that people who have direct drafts are less likely to miss or not have the money to pay for something than people who send in checks. It's like I don't know the exact number, I'll have that for you at some point in time in the future. But it's a crazy high disparity between the success rate of companies getting paid for insurance premiums and car notes, things of that nature, compared to manually sending payments in. So back during that time period, that transition occurred. But what I noticed, of course, before we got to that point was I was going back, driving all over the beltway in the DMV area here where I live, telling people, hey, your insurance payment didn't go through. I need to get a new check. And so after doing that for a couple of years, I realized that people have a real problem with managing their money. And they have a real issue with understanding money and the financial system and how to put themselves in the best position to be successful financially and not have these recurring issues, which ultimately affects their credit and other kinds of things. So that motivated me to start a financial coaching program, which I did back during that time period, going around to around 2010 or something like that. And then ultimately it translated into uh me now coming full forward and writing a book, which um has been out for a couple of years now, and then of course now leading into this podcast because ultimately I like to make a difference, and I'm a people person, I like to help people, and uh one of my gifts, if you will, is I have the gift of of teaching, and I just love doing it, and so I thought, you know, what better way for me to gain some fulfillment out of doing stuff for others than to do it through financial literacy, and so this podcast is another way for me to do that. Uh, so that's the why, as it pertains to this particular podcast, not that I'm gonna be talking about something that's so unique from what anybody else talks about, because that's impossible in the time that we live in. You're not gonna find a podcast where there's somebody who talks about something that nobody else talks about, you're just gonna get it from my perspective, and uh I think my perspective has value, and we'll get into you know uh a lot more details along the way as it pertains to me and my personal situation, but um that was or is the why as it relates to me doing this. So, who am I? Well, I'm a licensed financial professional, uh I am in the DMV area, I've been in the financial industry since 2005 as a licensed professional. So uh I've been doing this for a little while. I got into becoming a financial professional because back years ago when I got out of the military and started participating in a 401k with my employer, I called up a, I'm not gonna give the name, but I called up a financial institution that was the custodian for my 401k plan. And I spoke with an advisor, and I asked the advisor for help or for advice. And the advisor said, Well, I can't give you advice. Now, me coming from a background that doesn't know anything about financial advisors or the financial industry, and I hadn't been taught about how to invest and how to manage investments and all those types of things, I was completely green in that sense. So when the person said that to me, I was like, that don't even make sense. Because I was told to contact this organization to get help with my 401k plan, and now I'm talking to you about getting advice, and you're saying you can't do that for me. Well, guess what? They can't. So if you have a 401k plan and you call any one of the uh institutions that are the custodians for your 401k plan, and you ask for advice, unless they are a hired personal financial professional to you, they can't give you advice. What they can do is give you information about your 401k plan. They can tell you about the different funds that are available: American funds, Janice, BlackRock, uh, Fidelity, uh Schwab, uh or whoever else that that may be a part of your plan's options. They can give you information about those investments. They can give you information about performance, they can give you information about risk, they can give you all kinds of information. But what they can't do is they can't give you advice on what you should do, on how you should allocate your portfolio, on um what your investment strategy should be based on what your particular goals and interest and timelines are. They can't give you that again, unless they are hired as your personal financial advisor. Um, there are all different reasons for that, which again I'll get into at some point in time later, but that prompted me to try to figure it out on my own because the person couldn't give me any advice. So I started learning and studying and and doing things and trial and error, and I actually ended up doing pretty good, which led me into becoming a financial advisor over time. And uh I am glad that I did that. So I'm glad I that that that phone call um you know was lemon, and I had the presence of mind to take that lemon and figure out how to make lemonade out of it because it put me in the position that I'm in today as a person who um is what I would consider to be financially independent. Okay, and again, we'll get into stuff like that uh a little bit later as we go along uh throughout the different episodes of the podcast. All right, so that's a little about a bit about me and my background. And uh again, at the end of the day, my motivation for doing this is um I like making a difference. Um I uh obviously I am a professional, and so you know, part of my motivation, if I'm gonna be genuine and transparent, which I said I will be, is to also you know create another level of expos another level of exposure for what I do. Um and uh ultimately uh this gives me the opportunity to do that. And so as we go along the way, again, uh I will be uh providing a variety of different uh uh scenarios uh through the podcast. Um I will never solicit anything uh through this podcast. Uh I will not promote any specific types of products or services as it pertains to um specifics. You know, I may say something in general, like, you know, yes, I think that everybody uh should consider having life insurance unless they have the ability to self-insure, you know, for the risk of their loss and the impact on their family. So I may do something like that, but I'm never going to say, yeah, you should buy ABC life insurance product. Because I'm not here to promote any specific products, uh, I'm here to promote how to live your best financial life, um, which is one of the goals and and the and the sub line in my title of my book. And so living your best financial life means understanding how to make good decisions, understanding how to do things in a way that are going to serve your best interests. And that's not something that's taught a lot in the society that we live in. Um we're we're taught how to do things haphazardly, we're taught how to do things emotionally, we're taught how to do things to get immediate gratification, but we're really not taught how to do things in a way that promotes financial success. And then here's what's so crazy about the times that we live in. We have uh evolved into a time period and a society where it's cool to talk about mental health issues. It's almost treated as a badge of honor for a person to come out and openly acknowledge they're struggling with mental health issues, whatever those particular mental health issues may be, or you know, some type of trauma that occurred to them, you know, in their childhood or even adulthood, or you know, they were mistreated or they were molested or whatever the circumstances is, it's it's it's it's it's kind of a badge of honor for people to come forward openly, especially if they are a celebrity and somebody who's famous. It's it's it's a badge of honor uh to do that now. But here's what I notice. It's not as common for people to come out and talk about how bad they are with money. It's not as common for people to come out and talk about how they need help being better at managing their finances. For some reason or another, that is not as popular. So part of what I want to do is not necessarily not necessarily make that popular, but what I want to do is approach this in a way where people are willing to acknowledge the need to be better at how they do what they do financially, because the world we live in is constantly promoting behaviors and constantly promoting mindsets that are not in the best interest of us as individuals being successful financially. Okay, so if you got all of that, then I want to again uh welcome you and uh invite you to come back and join us. Uh we're going to be uh be uh featured on Fridays and Fridays probably around noon is the time that um I will do the shows and um from time to time I may uh promote a um opportunity for there to be interaction with uh a live audience. And we'll see kind of how that plays out. But I don't want to be in any kind of a box in terms of what we do and how we do it. I want to create an opportunity for people to connect and be involved and ultimately get blessed from what happens through this podcast. So I appreciate the time that you spent with me today, and I look forward to the next opportunity to talk to you about money, finance, and investments with Mr. Will. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

This has been another episode of Money, Finance, and Investments with Mr. Will. For more information, check out his book, Money Ain't the Problem. What we do with it is so that you can learn how to live your best financial life. In the meantime, be sure to check out our next episode of Money, Finance, and Investments with Mr. Will.