Financial Advice From Celebrities

Summary:

Men’s Health recently released a series of videos around a “men’s wealth” theme. In these videos, they interview celebrities about their financial troubles, advice, and lessons learned through their life. These celebrities range from NBA players like Dwayne Wade, to rappers and even K-pop stars. In today’s show, we will discuss some of the interesting highlights from these videos.

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Podcast Transcript

Daniel Wendol 0:00
Men’s Health recently released a series of videos around a “men’s wealth” theme. In these videos, they interview celebrities about their financial troubles, advice, and lessons learned through their life. These celebrities range from NBA players to rappers and even K-pop stars. In today’s show, we will discuss some of the interesting highlights from these videos. And because I know some of you are wondering what it means, Tony is going to demonstrate exactly what a K-pop Star is.

Hello and welcome to another dolphin financial radio. I’m Dan Wendol, owner of Dolphin Financial Group. Alongside me is is soon to be K-Pop star Tony Shore. Tony how are you doing?

Tony Shore 1:15
Yeah, that is funny…me a K-pop Star. Hey, what’s that fat old white guy doing? Why is he trying to sing K-pop?

Daniel Wendol 1:24
Why don’t you tell the listeners what K-pop means?

Tony Shore 1:28
I believe it stands for Korean pop.

Daniel Wendol 1:31
That’s right. Yeah, I mean that’s simple. What’s your favorite green pop song?

Tony Shore 1:36
I have no idea. I don’t I don’t listen to it. But I do know that my favorite group is BTS. I don’t know what that means by the way. I’ve never heard them but I know they’re huge.

Daniel Wendol 1:49
So did you get a chance to watch any of these videos?

Tony Shore 1:53
I did, Dan. And before we get into that I have a question. Does anyone know where I can get some toilet paper? I went to six stores. My wife and I are almost out. And at lunch and on my way home. I work at the radio studios about a half hour from where I live. I stopped by every store in between, and they’re all sold out of toilet paper. And I’m not trying to go to hoard it. It’s just we’re almost out.

Daniel Wendol 2:27
Well, I did see somebody post that they have a bunch of mismatched socks. So that should be your fallback plan. Everyone’s got some it’s mismatched socks.

Tony Shore 2:37
I saw an article with a photo of a Costco or Sam’s and people had carts full of napkins, like white dinner napkins, like just you know, paper napkins, right. And the interviewer, the news channel said, why are all these people lined up here and they went up to somebody and they said, well, they’re out of toilet paper. All the stores are out of toilet paper. So, it’s getting weird out there. I just I had to mention that. But anyway, back to the topic. I watched the Dwayne Wade video. Dwayne Wade is famous NBA star right out of college when he was like what 20-21 and went into the NBA and made millions and millions of dollars. And you might want to be saving this one for the summary, but my favorite line of the whole thing is, he said, “the best money I spent was the money I didn’t spend.”

Daniel Wendol 3:39
I did write that down as one of the key points.

Tony Shore 3:44
That’s a good one. I’ve never heard that one. But it really is good when you hear what comes before it, because he spent everything at first.

Daniel Wendol 3:53
Yes, and that seems to be a common theme. I watched a bunch of videos and Dwayne Wade’s a good one. I watched his first and you liked it, so we’ll use his as the example. But I’ll pepper in some of the other stars that were interviewed, what kind of lessons they learned, but I think it’s fun. We’ve done a show on millionaires and lotto winners. Remember that?

Tony Shore 4:22
Yeah. And how they blow their money.

Daniel Wendol 4:24
Right. I think that’s very similar to this. Not that they’ve won the lottery. Oh. and we did a show on Allen Iverson- Remember that? Winning the lotto is very similar to becoming an NBA star. Besides the skill level of course! I’m talking about the wealth going from nothing to millions of dollars a year.

Tony Shore 4:54
A lot of them come from really poor households, but their talent gets them the scholarships and they really make something of themselves. Whether it’s from some small farm town and the parents are poor farmers, or some of them come from the inner city, it’s a, it’s a big mix, but a lot of them come from nothing. And that coupled with the fact, Dan, that they’re so young, when they get so much money,

Daniel Wendol 5:22
I know. And for the listeners, we’re referencing some videos, and these are probably five minutes, so you should take time to watch them.

Tony Shore 5:31
They’re very interesting and yeah, packed full of good information.

Daniel Wendol 5:36
And they’re all different. They’re all different people. They’re on Men’s Health, and they call it “Men’s Wealth.” So I found it very interesting. So Dwayne, Wade…we’ll start with him. I mean, he became a millionaire overnight. He even said it himself. And so when they ask them questions, and the whole thing is him talking about different financial things, which is fascinating, because, you know, people don’t talk about financials, especially not celebrities. So they asked him these things and one of the things he said was his original plan was, he was making he said like two million dollars right out of the gate. And he came from having nothing. His original plan was “like, if I could save a million of this, I’ll be okay.” And how much did he save?

Tony Shore 6:20
None. Zero. He spent the entire 2.4 whatever million dollars.

Daniel Wendol 6:26
Right! He said family needs and then he went into the logistics of how he just wasted a lot.

Tony Shore 6:33
Fancy Cadillac, Escalades and all this clothes and crap.

Daniel Wendol 6:39
Right. They asked “what was your regret?” And he said, “I never asked for help.” I never asked for financial help. That was his biggest mistake. He actually has a financial advisor now and he was touting how that woman turn his life around. He went on to say, he sat with his financial advisor and he said, the advisor asked him, “What do you want?” And he’s like, I just want to have the same lifestyle when I stopped playing basketball. So then the financial advisor said, Well, this is what you need to do. And he had never had anyone tell him about that. And I think this goes with mostly everybody in this country. The financial literacy is really low.

Tony Shore 7:22
Yeah, it is. I speak from experience.

Daniel Wendol 7:27
We don’t learn this in high school. Chris Paul, was another interview in this men’s wealth series. He’s another NBA player. He said that he just didn’t want to learn. He would hire people. That’s what he did. I don’t need to learn this stuff. He’s like, but when it comes to financial stuff, you must take some responsibility and learn this yourself. You can’t just rely on other people. But in terms of Dwayne Wade’s situation, he said, You know, I realized, you got to get someone smarter than you about this stuff and make sure you’re listening and working with them. And in each of the videos, they asked what the worst money they spent. In other words, what was your biggest waste? Dwayne Wade’s was playing poker or cards.

Tony Shore 8:18
Yeah, gambling. He wasted a lot gambling? Yeah, yeah.

But you know, there was something about that that struck me. He said that the team would play on the planes. And there’s a camaraderie thing there. There’s a social pressure there that I think would be very difficult to overcome. And it’s very similar to the average person going out for happy hours, I would say, you know? Come on, everyone’s going! And you might be spending money that you shouldn’t but if you can figure out a way to budgeted in, that’s probably better than not going. So I’m not saying that he should lose millions playing poker. I’m saying that he should have had a better strategy on how much he could lose because he said he lost a lot.

Right? He lost a lot. And usually the more you gamble the more you lose as far as dollar amounts.

Daniel Wendol 9:15
Gambling is just a losing game anyway. Well, poker is not necessarily gambling like slots. But you know, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you could throw it away. Chris Paul, the other NBA player, they said, what was the worst money you spent? He said, as soon as he signed, his agent gave him a $25,000 check. Welcome to the NBA, here’s money. $25,000. He immediately went to the mall with his wife or girlfriend or whatever. He bought a watch. He’s said, I just felt like I need to watch. He’s said I couldn’t even tell the time because it had too many diamonds on it. He couldn’t see the hands. He admitted that was such a bad decision. Such a bad decision. A lot of them did that. A lot of them bought cars. Dwayne Wade said, well, they said what was the best financial advice you ever got? Do you remember what Dwayne Wade’s response was to that- the best financial advice?

Tony Shore 10:12
I forget what he said.

Daniel Wendol 10:13
It was to get rid of 16 cars.

Tony Shore 10:16
Oh, yeah! That’s right. He had more than 16 cars. Get rid of 16 of them. See, that’s ridiculous.

Daniel Wendol 10:25
Yeah, right. He has one car now. And he’s like, that’s all I needed. But at the time, I wanted this and this and this. And, he’s like, but what do you need it for? Kevin Gates. He’s the rapper that they interviewed. He said, he bought so much stuff, jewelry, cars, all that sort of stuff because it made him feel good. But he’s like, really It was bad because I just was trying to make up for something internal, you know, I was trying to, I was trying to feel good because I was feeling so down and depressed internally that buying stuff made me feel good, but it didn’t last. And he said, You know, I would go through my stuff now, there’s tags on this clothing a shirt with a 1,500 dollar price tag. He’s like, what was I doing? What was I doing? You know?

Tony Shore 11:20
Yeah. Yeah, that’s crazy. I mean, yeah. And I actually know who that is. I mean, not personally, but Kevin Gates, the rapper was huge for a hot minute. And, you know, he probably made a lot of money very quickly, and spend it all and the problem is they can rise and fall. There aren’t too many, you know, rappers out there that have longevity, you know, and I mean, that’s not a common thing in the hip hop world. And so, again, they’re usually young when they hit and they usually spend all their money, you know, on their posse, and clothes and style cars and then it’s gone. And then what you know?

Daniel Wendol 12:07
Exactly. You can relate this to the the average person by winning a lottery or getting an inheritance or selling a company hitting big selling the company and then if you’re not smart with that pool of money, you’re going to wind up back where you were. One thing I thought that was very interesting was both of the NBA players have kids and, and they asked about…Oh, actually, Kevin Gates had kids, he said when he hit bottom was, he wound up in jail, literally. And he had spent all his money leading up to it. So when he was in jail, he wasn’t able to earn any money. And his wife and kids were on the street because they didn’t have enough money to live while he was in jail.

Tony Shore 12:50
And he made millions previously.

Daniel Wendol 12:55
They asked Wayne Wade about his biggest parent financial regret. And he describes something that I think is so true for all of us. He would buy the kids stuff at Christmas or holidays and they would play with the box.

Tony Shore 13:14
They played with the boxes in the bags, right? The packaging. They would play with his shoelaces, he said. I could have just bought him shoes with shoe laces and let him play with them.

Daniel Wendol 13:28
Chris Paul said that he his lesson from that, because he said the same thing. He said, I buy my kids stuff and they don’t remember it. He’s said, I switched to experiences. If I’m going to spend money on my kids, I’d rather spend it on experiences that they’ll remember versus stuff that they don’t even care about or will forget about in a year or even less.

Tony Shore 13:50
Wow. Yeah, exactly. You know, after a few times, playing with it just goes in a junk pile. You can buy simplier and less expensive things. You don’t need a $200,000 car, I think you can get by with just $100,000 car. I could get by with that. You think you could live with that Dan?

Daniel Wendol 14:19
Well, the interesting party is that they all kind of alluded to the fact that they came from nothing. The K-pop Star that was in there, his name is Kevin Nam. He said he didn’t have a car, he never owned a car, he couldn’t afford it. And when he finally got one, he bought a really expensive one in Korea, because I guess it’s more expensive to buy a car in Korea than it is in the US due to the taxes or whatever. And that was the first first thing he did and he doesn’t regret it because he still drives it around. But to think about it, a lot of these guys come from nothing and they all said “oh if I had a million dollars, that’d be all I need.” Then the next thing you know that got five million, and they blow it all. So a lot of people have good intentions. It’s not until they actually have that money…that’s when they get tested. And most people fail. Most people fail. We talked about that most lotto winners go broke. It doesn’t have to be a $5 million lotto. It could be a $50,000 lotto ticket and they usually spend it all right away.

Tony Shore 15:22
Yeah, yeah, exactly. They do they usually blow it we’ve talked about that. I think the reality is age has something to do with it. But not always. Some people are you know, married with kids and should be mature enough to handle it. They should be able to handle it. But they don’t. They make bad decisions. We can all make bad financial decisions and I’m sure at some point in our lives everyone has. We have our financial regrets. But the key is no matter where you’re at in life, to start changing now. I know you tell me, you’ve told me before, Dan, that you hear this from so many people that you meet with- “I wish I would have done this sooner. I wish I would have known this or worked with you so much sooner, years ago.” Yes, because I’d be a multi millionaire by now. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s crazy. And I kicked myself all the time. You know what I mean?

Daniel Wendol 16:24
Yeah, of course, I have financial regrets. I’m the same way you know? We all do because life gets in the way sometimes. What they all seem to have is a common theme -they learn something along the way. I want to get into some of the good decisions that they made or their lessons learned too. But before I do, I want to point out that a lot of them didn’t have that knowledge. They came into the money and then they learned the hard way. Same can be said about today’s stock market volatility through this global pandemic in early 2020. The markets are tanking. People are panicking. They’re a lot of people haven’t been in the situation before. We had one day that was the worst since 1987. So who’s really been through that? Not many, even Warren Buffett said, you know, it took him 89 years or whatever it was, 79 years to see this. People don’t know exactly what to do. And so they usually make a poor decision. They need to surround themselves with people that are a voice of reason. Sometimes you learn the hard way, which is what all these guys seem to do. It’s a tale as old as time, I guess. But let’s move on to some of the good decisions or what they say is the best money they spent. Because that was one of the questions they all got asked- What was the best thing you did?

Tony Shore 17:51
I was impressed. You’ve got to be happy watching this. A lot of these NBA stars said getting a financial advisor is one of the best moves I’ve made and that helped me save money. So I mean, a lot of them went right there. You know, asking for advice from a financial professional was a big part of the good aspect of it. What are some of the other positives especially that they did with their money?

Daniel Wendol 18:16
Definitely. Dwayne Wade was really big on his financial advisor. That woman really must have changed his life. Just having that trusted advisor to guide you is probably all he needed. You know, Kevin Nam, the K-pop Star, he said the best money he spent was giving the money to his father. Not just giving the money away. but his father acted as a financial advisor for him and invested it and grew it. He said, I don’t know how he did it. He’s said, I knew nothing about it. He was in his 20s, just out of college. His dad had that experience and knew. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be legitimate financial advisors, just someone that were more experience or someone with a bigger, broader view that, will say, hey, maybe we should do something like this. So I thought that was very interesting. They all kind of said, Yeah, you got to get someone to help you. The other best investment that they made, they all seem to relate it to real estate. Dwayne Wade said the best thing he did was was buy his parents homes, because that was a lifelong dream. He said I want to get my parents out of the inner city. He felt really good about that. Chris Paul, him and his brother bought a house down the street from his parents. He said he felt good about that. Kevin Gates bought a blueberry farm. And he said, I stock the fish in there and in the worst case scenario, I can eat fish all the rest of my life. He felt good about it. And I think what was really interesting about those guys, is they all came from nothing. They all had a lot of money and spent it on junk. And they realized, you know, jewelry and cars were meaningless. They felt that owning that tangible property was much more beneficial to them. They felt good about it. And I think the reason why is because it’s still there and it still has some value. It allowed their parents to live. A blueberry farm is an investment in himself or his property that he can turn into money, passive income, whereas the jewelry and the cars, they depreciate dramatically, They realized that didin’t need things. Having an investment that is going to have and retain some value was very important to them. And I think that’s great advice.

Tony Shore 20:45
Yeah. Oh, that’s huge advice. Yeah.

Daniel Wendol 20:47
It’s not all about buying stocks. Dwayne Wade said the best money he spent was the money didn’t spend. Just having the money in the bank. There’s something to be said about that.

Tony Shore 20:58
Right. Yep, that’s true. That’s true. Just knowing that you have money to fall back on, and you have to have money in savings. So many of these guys blow through it and don’t have anything and are left with nothing. I mean can you imagine being a top rapper making you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars and then shortly thereafter you know your family is on the street homeless? Literally sad. Yeah. So get a plan is the best thing. Start saving now. Start to get disciplined. Have a written plan. And I’m trying to think of who could help them with that.

Daniel Wendol 21:40
Well, I don’t have any NBA or celebrity clients, but I have a lot of people that have significant wealth. They come into inheritance or retirement even, you know, a lump sum from their 401k. What do I do with this? It’s tempting to start spending it all. I want to end this show Tony by highlighting the biggest lesson or as they called it – What was your best advice you received? Or what would be the best takeaway or slogan, your financial slogan? I’m going to go through everyone’s just to show youwhat they say if they had to tell someone. Everyone should watch these. They are very interesting. I found them to be conversational. So, I think it’s worth watching. We’ll start with Dwayne Wade, because he was very interesting. He said, the best financial advice was tell me to get rid of those 16 cars! But he said the secret to financial wellness is to have a plan and a budget. He said, it wasn’t until I met with that advisor and came up with a plan that I knew what I was doing. Now I feel good about making purchases or not making purchases. Kevin Gates, said the best advice was the 10% rule. He said, If you can’t buy it 10 times you don’t need it. And that’s kind of a play off I think it was Jay Z that said if you can’t buy twice, you can’t afford it. I like Kevin Gates’ better, which is if you can’t buy it 10 times you can’t afford it. So if you don’t have 10 times the money in your bank to pay for that, then don’t buy it. I think that’s great. At least be mindful of it. Kevin Nam – his slogan- Think long term. This was interesting coming from a 20 something year old.

Tony Shore 23:22
Yeah. Yeah, most 20 somethings aren’t thinking long term. I know I wasn’t when I was in my 20s.

Daniel Wendol 23:29
I think that’s because he referenced his dad talking about investments and long term investing versus short term investing. So I think that’s his dad’s kind of rubbed off on him. And he started to think long term, which is great to have that long term philosophy as a 20 something. That’s huge. But they all really were saying to plan. To think about it. Don’t just just live in the moment. We just did a show last week call “don’t save for retirement because it’s a waste” You just live off Social Security.

Tony Shore 24:13
Aren’t you contradicting yourself? But it all depends on your situation.

Daniel Wendol 24:21
I will say this, Dwayne Wade will not be able to live the same lifestyle that he’s living now on Social Security alone.

Tony Shore 24:28
Right? That’s true. Yes. That’s very different. Yeah.

Daniel Wendol 24:33
Right. Yeah. He has to invest. If that’s what he wants to do is live the same lifestyle. He’s got to put some money aside to generate the income, to supplement Social Security to be able to do the things he’s doing.

Tony Shore 24:43
Plus that’s age dependent, and how much money you have. It’s based on your individual situation, obviously, last week when we said, you know, some people may want to just live on Social Security alone. That’s after they’re 75 you know what I mean? I mean you got to have money to live on besides that, up until that point until you’re at least I’d say 70 right? I mean, you have to have savings for that until that time.

Daniel Wendol 25:13
Right. Like you said these people could be short lived. A running back in the NFL, the average career is three years maybe. They get beat up so bad. So yeah, you got to plan long term if you don’t, you’re going to be on the street. Same with everybody. Your job is not promised to you. You might have a great business right now and then all of a sudden, something like coronavirus comes in, no one’s buying your stuff. No one’s showing up. You have to be able to plan for these things. It’s tough. It’s a tough life. So financial planning is huge. But I would be remiss if we didn’t end the show on what I promised Tony which is you’re going give us your best K-pop impression.

Tony Shore 25:56
Let me warm up the pipes…Uh no…I’m not doing that.

Thanks for listening to Dolphin Financial Radio based in the Clearwater, Tampa area.