Conquering the Retirement Mountain
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #156
Conquering the Retirement Mountain
Retirement planning and climbing a mountain may seem like vastly different endeavors, but there are several intriguing similarities between the two. On today’s podcast, Steve and Gabriel share how in both cases, setting clear goals, careful planning, perseverance, and adaptability are the keys to success.
- Conquering the Retirement Mountain:
- Preparing for the climb.
- The ascent to the top of the mountain.
- Establishing base camps.
- Reaching the summit.
- Descending safely.
- Adapting to the unpredictable changes.
- Getting to Know Steve and Gabriel:
- Have you ever disliked something and then changed your mind about it later?
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Podcast Transcript
Announcer: You’re listening to Our 2 Cents with the team from SGL Financial, building wealth for life. Steve Lewit is the president of SGL Financial and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest and financial news trends, strategies and more.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, hello. Welcome to our show today. It’s Gabriel and Steve, and we are excited to have you join us here for Our 2 Cents.
Steve Lewit: I’m excited this morning to do the show more than usual, and I don’t know why.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, probably because it’s November 1st.
Steve Lewit: And it’s the day after Halloween.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s the only thing I could think of that would be different.
Steve Lewit: Did you trick or treat with the kiddies?
Gabriel Lewit: I tricked. I treated.
Steve Lewit: In the 25 degrees snow snowstorms?
Gabriel Lewit: I froze.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Officially, we had probably around 16 of us walking.
Steve Lewit: Oh, that’s nice.
Gabriel Lewit: Parents and kids.
Steve Lewit: That’s really nice.
Gabriel Lewit: Walking up and down the streets, getting bag fulls of candy.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I think that’s great.
Gabriel Lewit: By about halfway through I was fully frozen. So cold.
Steve Lewit: What were you dressed as?
Gabriel Lewit: I was dressed as a warm father.
Steve Lewit: Oh, you didn’t put a costume on?
Gabriel Lewit: I did not, no.
Steve Lewit: Oh, man.
Gabriel Lewit: Nope. Nope. Hat, coat, gloves.
Steve Lewit: I used to love doing that. When I went with you, I would wear a costume.
Gabriel Lewit: Well…
Steve Lewit: And you were proud of me, man. You would say, “That’s my dad”.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m sure I was.
Steve Lewit: In that goofy costume.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, and we were talking yesterday about how, I don’t know, some of the candy, I’m just shocked, is still giving out. I can’t imagine anybody who actually likes it. But for example, Tootsie Rolls. Does anybody actually like Tootsie Rolls? If you do email me, I’d be very surprised. You can email me at glewit@sglfinancial. I’m just looking for one person to admit that they like Tootsie Rolls and then one of my kids got a giant Tootsie Roll as if the small ones aren’t bad enough. Now you got giant Tootsie Rolls.
Steve Lewit: You know, I don’t understand this at all. You’re my son and I love Tootsie Rolls.
Gabriel Lewit: No, you do not.
Steve Lewit: I love Tootsie Rolls.
Gabriel Lewit: You do not. Nobody loves Tootsie Rolls.
Steve Lewit: You sink your teeth into cardboard that tastes like chocolate.
Gabriel Lewit: It doesn’t even taste like chocolate taste.
Steve Lewit: Dig it in.
Gabriel Lewit: And it gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.
Steve Lewit: It does.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s just not a tasty treat. I’m sorry. Now peanut butter covered M&Ms not peanut butter M&Ms, peanut covered M&Ms, the large M&Ms in the yellow pack, now there’s a treat that I can get my hands around.
Steve Lewit: That is a treat. Okay. Yeah, I used to give out Twix.
Gabriel Lewit: Those are good. Those are good.
Steve Lewit: Big Twixes. Those are really great. So I’d give out one and I’d eat one. Halloween was like my night to indulge.
Gabriel Lewit: I was going to eat some candy before we headed out for Trick-or-treating from our own bin and then my wife got all this all-natural candy. I’m like, “Nobody wants this.”
Steve Lewit: Nobody wants that.
Gabriel Lewit: I mean, to be fair, they’re like healthy Skittles and they’re actually not bad. But you kind of want that Twix or that name brand.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Oh, got to have it. You got to have it. Yeah. So what do you got for us today?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, good question. We’ve got, of course, many topics available for us to talk about on our shows. I think today we’re going to talk a bit about climbing the retirement mountain. We’re going to talk about how retirement planning is a journey and where you are in that stage will depend on your age and different criteria we’re going to get to here. But how you think about it can be very easily related to climbing and descending a mountain.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m not sure if we’ve ever used this analogy before, at least in depth.
Steve Lewit: I don’t think so.
Gabriel Lewit: Possibly not.
Steve Lewit: I don’t remember that because I think that’s something… Because I’d love to climb mountains, but being fearful of heights, I can’t. Even though I’ve done that, it’s crazy. It’s a long story, but I don’t think we’ve ever used that analogy before.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we might’ve touched upon it, but we like to use analogies, guys and gals because I think it helps people to visualize things in a different way and allows you to wrap your arms around something in an easier to digest manner. Hopefully that’s what we’re going to accomplish here today, is giving some insights into the world of savings and retirement planning via climbing the mountain.
Steve Lewit: Well, I’m sure everybody can see this visually, is that you’re 45 or 50 and you start thinking about retirement and it’s out there and it’s up there because you need more. In many ways it is like climbing a mountain.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. In fact, you start even before 45.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: In your preparations.
Steve Lewit: Well, you should, but a lot of the… I stand corrected.
Gabriel Lewit: You could climb your first mountain at 45.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. But when you’re 45, 50, that R word starts to pop up, I think a little more. You’re a little bit more aware of it and the kids are out or getting out and you’re looking at your spouse or you’re looking in the mirror and you’re say, “Wow, what am I going to do now? Maybe I want to retire.”
Gabriel Lewit: Yep. I definitely can understand that. I hear a lot of people very young these days ready to retire that are a long ways away, funny enough. Not just 45 year olds, but all right, so let’s kick this thing off, huh? Shall we? Let’s put our boots on, our hiking boots.
Steve Lewit: I thought we just did actually, but that’s okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, the actual meat and potatoes of our topic here.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Or hiking poles and boots.
Steve Lewit: You mean gather the equipment?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Let me give you a pop quiz.
Steve Lewit: Uh-oh. Yes sir.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. If you’re going to… Let’s use Mount Everest, because everybody knows Mount Everest. It’s a big mountain. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, it is a big mountain.
Gabriel Lewit: A lot of people climb it. Weirdly enough.
Steve Lewit: They have traffic jams on this mountain that people are climbing.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. We’re going to get off topic. Did you see that picture where there was a line of 30 guys all waiting to summit the top, in a row?
Steve Lewit: And get their picture taken, right. It’s ridiculous.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Kind of weird. Okay, but let’s say you’re going to climb a large mountain.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Whatever it might be. What’s the very first thing that you do? Don’t cheat to look at my cliff notes. I’m giving you a pop quiz here.
Steve Lewit: The first thing I would do is determine what equipment I need.
Gabriel Lewit: You looked.
Steve Lewit: No, I didn’t.
Gabriel Lewit: You looked at the sheet.
Steve Lewit: No. No, I really did not. Because if I’m going to climb a mountain, well, I guess the first thing I do and say, “What path am I taking?” But let’s say we did all of that. The next thing is, “Okay, when am I going?” Okay, but then it’s, “What do I need to take with me?” Because even climbing little… Look, if you go down on a day trip or a two-day trip hiking at the National Forest, you want to take your mirror with you and you want to take a whistle with you and you want to take these little things that are important if you get into trouble.
Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Steve Lewit: So, equipment to me in hiking is very important.
Gabriel Lewit: Would you say that it’s important to start to map out your journey, so that you will be prepared for whatever would come your way?
Steve Lewit: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Can I give you an example?
Gabriel Lewit: You sure can.
Steve Lewit: Because when I was younger, I’ve mentioned this before. I hiked in the Austrian house.
Gabriel Lewit: You were younger one day. Yes.
Steve Lewit: I was many… This is just after the Civil War, I think. I’m hiking in the Austrian house, fearful of heights, which is another story altogether, but my backpack was 70 pounds and it was loaded. The guy I was hiking with was an expert hiker, and we had everything in there because you could get into-
Gabriel Lewit: Flintlock rifle?
Steve Lewit: I didn’t have a gun, which is interesting. But because we got caught in thunderstorms, we got caught in lightning storms, high winds, cold heat, everything on that mountain. You had to be prepared.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t think you caught my joke.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: When I said the Flintlock rifle, it wasn’t that you had a gun.
Steve Lewit: Oh, the Flintlock.
Gabriel Lewit: Sorry, I had to point it out.
Steve Lewit: In those years we-
Gabriel Lewit: You said the Civil War. I was just going.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, yeah, we used to load it. We’d pour the pellets in, we put the powder in the muzzle and stuff it in. Right.
Gabriel Lewit: The powder in the thing, yeah. There you go. There you go. Did you have your slingshot?
Steve Lewit: My slingshot was with me, right, and my bow and arrow. Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: There you go. There you go. Okay. Well, so folks, let’s say you’re going on your hike, whether it’s the Alps, Mount Everest, your local hiking hill, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, you got to be prepared. Let’s say you’re in the early stages of your retirement planning journey. You haven’t even started on the hike yet. You’re just out of college. You’re twenties, 25, 26, whatever age, somewhere in your twenties. you say, “you know what? I want to start preparing for this retirement journey.” What do you do? You got to think about the right amount of savings. Maybe that’s the gathering your equipment, right? Taking stock of what you have.
Steve Lewit: It’s Like the food.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, your food. you’ve got to take stock of what your income is, what you’re able to save. You’ve got to look at the terrain, get a map of what you’re going to be hiking. getting a sense of the financial landscape. It’s interesting, I don’t want to spend too much time on this because most of our listeners aren’t in their twenties, but a lot of the young kids I talk about, my gosh, they know absolutely nothing. I mean, you take it for granted.
Steve Lewit: Nothing about what?
Gabriel Lewit: What’s a mutual fund?
Steve Lewit: Oh, financially deficient. They’re financially deficient.
Gabriel Lewit: What do you mean the markets crash? These things, you have to really start from the beginning is almost as if you’ve never knew anything about investing and because they’re not really being taught about this much in school or in college, and so for them, it really is starting to get a lay of the land before they head out on that retirement planning journey.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, but even, I’ll go back to my person in the forties or fifties, it’s the same. You might know more about the equipment, like I know I need savings. I know I need income when I retire. I know I need, but I have to go and research it and figure out what to buy and what are the best tools to use to climb. That’s where an expert comes in. If I didn’t have a friend that knew all about hiking to hike in the Alps, I wouldn’t have known. I would’ve been like, “What do I?”
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think you’re spot on. Yeah, if you’re hiking your local thousand-foot elevation hill, you don’t need a Sherpa. But if you are hiking a little more difficult terrain, you want to find a hiking buddy, would you say?
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Sherpa, your guide, a friend, an experienced friend.
Steve Lewit: A friend. I would say, this is just my thought is that most folks do not realize how difficult the terrain can be in retirement.
Gabriel Lewit: Or along the way to retire.
Steve Lewit: Or along the way to retirement.
Gabriel Lewit: In this example here, the idea of having a friend or an advisor could be your financial buddy. It could be someone really experienced if they really knew what they were doing. You got to be careful there, but ultimately someone to help you understand what you’re doing, who’s done it before that can point out the risks in advance so you don’t have to learn from mistakes and really help you be more successful on that climb towards retirement. That’s of course where we can come into play, naturally as being here to help you. But the next thing is when you go to hike, especially a bigger mountain like Mount Everest, do you go from the bottom to the top all in one day?
Steve Lewit: No.
Gabriel Lewit: No. You are going to set out for your first what, Mr. Lewit?
Steve Lewit: Base camp.
Gabriel Lewit: Base camp.
Steve Lewit: Got to have a base camp.
Gabriel Lewit: In financial planning or retirement planning, this would be a milestone.
Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, so you don’t just want to say, “Okay, I’m going to save up for a million dollars or $2 million by the time I’m 65.”
Steve Lewit: Too big of a bite.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m not going to circle back and look until I’m 65.
Steve Lewit: It’s too big of a bite.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. You’re going to set up some milestones. I want to put away $20,000 this year, max out my 401k. I want to have 150,000 saved by the time I’m 30 years old. So you try to set up smaller milestones.
Steve Lewit: Pay off, pay off the mortgage.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. I want to switch to a 15-year mortgage to get that paid off by 45 instead of a 30-year mortgage that’s paid off by 60. What you want to do, and the reason you’re doing this is set up these goalposts, these little goal sticks or mile markers to help you feel like you’re making progress.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Right? And to give you a little sense of satisfaction. You can pause, you can reflect, you can change course
Steve Lewit: And celebrate.
Gabriel Lewit: You can celebrate.
Steve Lewit: “Hey, we got to this first goal, we’ve got this saved, or we close, or we’re over.” That empowers you to go on to the next step.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: It’s like in a real base camp, why do you go to base camp? So you can rest and get empowered for the next asset. Financially, I love this idea of having…
Gabriel Lewit: What did you call it?
Steve Lewit: Ascent. Ascent. Ascent. Did I pronounce that… Folks?
Gabriel Lewit: You put the emphasis on a different syllable.
Steve Lewit: Ascent.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s how I would say it.
Steve Lewit: Well, I assented ascent.
Gabriel Lewit: There you go.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Sorry, we got off course.
Steve Lewit: Katie is breaking up on this too.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, yeah.
Steve Lewit: I am getting stereophonic laughter here.
Gabriel Lewit: On the ascent, you have a-
Steve Lewit: I have ascent.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, you’re funny. Yes. You have different base camps on the ascent that you want to check in on. Make sure everything’s okay. Now, of course, I’m going to just globalize this. There’s two parts of mountain climbing. There’s the ascent and there’s the decline, right?
Steve Lewit: No, that would be the descent.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I didn’t want-
Steve Lewit: Not the decline.
Gabriel Lewit: The descent. Right? It is descent.
Steve Lewit: Descent. Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: The descent.
Steve Lewit: Descent.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. So you have your two parts, the ascent and the descent. In retirement planning, using our analogy here, you’ve got your accumulation phase where you’re saving up for retirement. You reach the peak when you hit that point where you’re about to retire.
Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: Then you’ve got the descent, which is the decumulation phase of your assets. You’re starting to draw down from those and both present unique challenges. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Well, what’s interesting, I think you know this about mountain climbing, is that more people die on the descent than they do on the asset.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re correct. You’re saying you’re correctly this time the accent.
Steve Lewit: Mm-hm. Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re cracking me up. Yes. There is a lot of data to support that. Why? Because one slip, right? And down you go.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, and you’re done.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re facing forward. Or in many cases or back, it’s just very different.
Steve Lewit: Tougher on the legs going down.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s tricky. It’s very tricky.
Steve Lewit: Very tricky.
Gabriel Lewit: I’ve never done something of that nature where it’s that dangerous to descend a mountain, but…
Steve Lewit: Even if you’re hiking up to the top of Mount Washington in a local mountain.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, it’s your weight, right?
Steve Lewit: Going down is…
Gabriel Lewit: If you’re leaning forward and you slip, you fall forward.
Steve Lewit: Forward. Yeah. It’s always to-
Gabriel Lewit: Onto the hill, right? If you’re going down and you’re leaning forward and you fall, you’re falling off further.
Steve Lewit: When you move from the accumulation stage where you’re climbing up the mountain to the decumulation stage, it really is a different challenge. It’s not the same thing. A lot of people underestimate the difficulty of going down, which mountain climbers do.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, and there’s one other spot that people underestimate as well. Do you know what it is, Mr. Lewit?
Steve Lewit: The summit?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. You’re almost there.
Steve Lewit: Oh yeah. Right.
Gabriel Lewit: Before you even get to the descent, you see the summit in front of you. It’s right there. You start thinking, “I’ve got it made.”
Steve Lewit: I got it made. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m there. I made it.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Whoops and then big mistake happens and well-
Steve Lewit: And then the snowstorm comes.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So what are we talking about here, guys and gals? If you’re nearing retirement, you’re nearing the summit of our proverbial mountain. You have to be extra careful. Okay? In retirement, the market could drop out from under you right before you retire.
Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: Then you had to push it.
Steve Lewit: That’s a big deal.
Gabriel Lewit: It happens. We’ve heard it first and foremost from-
Steve Lewit: Well, we’ve seen it.
Gabriel Lewit: We’ve seen it, heard it, and talked with clients that are feeling that way even right now that the market has pushed them further away from their planned retirement date.
Steve Lewit: Well, the same thing happened in 2001 and ’02 when the market dropped and people were retiring. In 2007, Gabriel, you and I had people retiring, and what did the market do? It dropped 51%.
Gabriel Lewit: And if you weren’t prepared and got caught off guard, this could really be detrimental for you. As you’re nearing that retirement date, I sometimes have some potential clients that I talk with that say, “When I retire, basically when I get to that peak, that’s when I’ll call you to work through a plan to descend the mountain.” But keeping in mind that one of those riskiest points is in that period of time right before you retire, I would always argue that you start that process of planning sooner than later on your ascent towards retirement planning to that target retirement date. Not just when you reach-
Steve Lewit: When you get there.
Gabriel Lewit: Right when you get to that retirement date. Yes.
Steve Lewit: What should I do now?
Gabriel Lewit: Exactly.
Steve Lewit: I’m on the top of that.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Well, what do I do now? Well, I’d better figure out a way to get down.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Yes.
Steve Lewit: Too late.
Gabriel Lewit: This is the idea. When you get to climbing down the mountain, there’s many different income distribution techniques when it comes to financial planning. We’ve talked about those on many different shows. It’s not all just one size fits all, right? There’s many different routes you can take of how to decumulate your money and to do so with safety. The way that we plan for income in retirement is kind of like having safety nets at every stage along the descent of the mountain.
Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: Right? You can never fall off. We’re being extra careful. We’re not going to take high risks when you’re climbing down the market.
Steve Lewit: Guardrails.
Gabriel Lewit: Guardrail, safety nets, whatever example you want to use. That’s I think the most important part when it comes to decumulation, is you’ve got to have a safe and secure retirement income plan. A lot of people think that the only solution is a heavy stock market based portfolio to generate income.
Steve Lewit: Well, that’s definitely an issue, because that’s what most advisors do is focus on the stock market. But in retirement that is, I’ll say this globally, is usually it’s least efficient way or the most dangerous way of coming down the mountain.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Because you’re subject to all kinds of changes in weather. And like you said, your body is against you. The gravity is against you, everything is against you. You get a big storm market goes down 40% or 30 or 22% and the wind’s pushing at your back, and all of a sudden you’re falling a lot faster and longer and quicker than you thought you might. Now you’re struggling to keep up your income, make your money last for your lifetime.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. There are people, when they climb down the mountains, they diligently stake in their ropes every few feet just in case a storm comes our way. That’s what we mean by taking a safe and secure route. You might move a year or two worth of income into a short-term bucket. We call it bucketing. It’s a way of providing more safety. You can have additional milestones and posts where you check in along the way that provide more safety. Lots of different things that you can do to make that descent not so dangerous and in fact, a very successful one. You can look back at your mountain climb and say, “Wow, that was a good one.”
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I think this gets a little nostalgic or romantic, but at the end of life, which I wouldn’t know about not yet.
Gabriel Lewit: You haven’t died and gotten resurrected yet?
Steve Lewit: No, not yet. Getting closer though. You want to look back and say, “I did a good job. I took care of the things I could take care of and I let go. Or I was prepared for the things that I couldn’t prepare for.” A good plan, which is why you and I plan, a good plan does that. It prepares things so they work well, but it also gives a security that if something goes wrong, there are these guardrails that will kick in and protect you.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, indeed. That’s to summarize everything. Going back to how you would prepare for this journey, you’d have a very detailed plan and it would account for all the ups and the downs and your base camps and your strategies and what you bring and what happens if the wind or the storm blows your way. You can be prepared well in advance for all your retirement planning, both accumulation, de-accumulation phases, well in advance. You’ll do so by generally working with someone that’s done it a thousand times.
Steve Lewit: Now, why do all of that, Gabriel? What’s the end game for all of that?
Gabriel Lewit: You know. Peace of mind.
Steve Lewit: Peace ff mind. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Not worrying about it.
Steve Lewit: I’m sorry, I thought you were going to say something.
Gabriel Lewit: That was all I said.
Steve Lewit: To me, it’s number one. What does everybody want? I think everybody wants peace of mind. Our slogan is, “It’s not about the money, it’s about life.” Money is just a way of getting there. It’s feel for the journey. If we can organize it like a mountain climber, if we can get all, like you said, all the tools in place, the path in place, envision the weather, take care of all the different kinds of storms that could happen, you go to sleep at night and you put your head on the pillow and you sleep like a baby. I’m good. Market collapsed 20%. I’m good. I don’t like it, but I’m good.
Gabriel Lewit: You sleep in your little tent.
Steve Lewit: Your little tent.
Gabriel Lewit: Dangling off the side of the mountain. Have you ever seen pictures of that?
Steve Lewit: I can’t imagine.
Gabriel Lewit: Folks, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google tents on side a mountain or something like that. You’ll see what some of these people they sleep in, they got their tents crimped to the mountain side,
Steve Lewit: Not the mountain side. A vertical wall.
Gabriel Lewit: A vertical wall.
Steve Lewit: Of thousands of feet.
Gabriel Lewit: Thousands of feet below them and they just sleep in this thing.
Steve Lewit: And you wake up in the morning and they look out and say, “Oh, it’s a nice day.”
Gabriel Lewit: They sit on the edge; their feet are dangling off. Let me take in the morning sunrise.
Steve Lewit: Do you know my knees get weak just looking at that on the TV?
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, my gosh.
Steve Lewit: I don’t know how they do it.
Gabriel Lewit: Well…
Steve Lewit: They’re prepared. They’re prepared.
Gabriel Lewit: Let’s put it that way. Mentally and with the right material and supplies.
Steve Lewit: I would say they’re crazy, but they don’t think they’re crazy.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, that’s one experience I don’t think I want.
Steve Lewit: I don’t want it.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. I’m okay with it.
Steve Lewit: No feet dangling for me.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. If you have questions, of course on retirement planning, no matter where you are, accumulation deaccumulation, you’re looking for a Sherpa or a guide to help work through these details. That’s what we’re here for.
Steve Lewit: We should get those fur jackets and wear them here.
Gabriel Lewit: There you go. For winter or big branded fuzzy hoodie-
Steve Lewit: Like with the fuzzy hoods.
Gabriel Lewit: Like the ones you wear in Antarctica expedition?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, Sherpa jackets. We should look like Sherpas.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, we should.
Gabriel Lewit: I see.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Call us anytime, 847-499-3330 or go to sglfinancial.com and we would of course love to chat with you. Meanwhile, we’ve got a little bit more here on our show today.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Your personal Sherpa is waiting.
Gabriel Lewit: And speaking of personal Sherpa, I’m going to get you the scoop.
Steve Lewit: It’s our new tagline.
Gabriel Lewit: The inside scoop on what kind of Sherpa Steve Lewit is. Okay?
Steve Lewit: Yes. Katie, can we use that? Your Sherpa is waiting.
Gabriel Lewit: Sherper? Sherper.
Steve Lewit: Your Sherper is assenting with you.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. All right. Mr. Sherper.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Have you ever disliked something and then change your mind about it later? We’re going to do a get to know Sherper Steve.
Steve Lewit: Oh, Sherper Steve. Yeah. Yes, I have.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: Now you’re going to ask me specifically what it is.
Gabriel Lewit: I certainly am, Sherper Steve.
Steve Lewit: Well, let me think. There are a few things. There are some people that-
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we’re not talking about disliking people and then liking them later.
Steve Lewit: Why not? It said-
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I did say something, but I-
Steve Lewit: Something. People are something
Gabriel Lewit: We’re not going to do people.
Steve Lewit: We’re not going to do people.
Gabriel Lewit: No. No. No people.
Steve Lewit: Okay. No people. Yes. I disliked-
Gabriel Lewit: Being the Zen Buddhist you are, you must love everybody.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I do and don’t. I did not like jazz for a long time. Oh, no. I got a better one. I did not like hip hop for a long time and now I listen to the hip hop channel. I think it’s pretty cool. What does that bring a smile to your face, Gabriel?
Gabriel Lewit: Opera man listening to hip hop, just cracks me up.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I actually go back and forth.
Gabriel Lewit: Everybody knows you do.
Steve Lewit: I actually go back and forth.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s an interesting combo.
Steve Lewit: Hip hop is so ridiculously honest if you really listen to the words. Some of them pretty vile, but it’s okay because what they’re expressing is real stuff. Eminem is my favorite.
Gabriel Lewit: Going back old school, huh?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Oh, did you ever read anything he wrote?
Gabriel Lewit: No. I’ve watched his Eight Mile movie. I thought that was good.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. But his writing is poetry, so I’ve become a big fan of Eminem. I listened to the Eminem channel, by the way, on Sirius. Yep. Yep
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. All right. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I like chocolate covered peanut M&Ms.
Steve Lewit: Just letting you know. Now, what do you listen to?
Gabriel Lewit: I like chocolate covered peanut M&Ms, but I think we’re talking about different kinds.
Steve Lewit: What about you? What have you liked and not liked?
Gabriel Lewit: When I was a kid, I didn’t like chocolate.
Steve Lewit: No, I don’t remember that.
Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm. Yep. Hated it.
Steve Lewit: Really.
Gabriel Lewit: I would only… If you got the, what’s it, Neapolitan, what’s the one with the three flavors? The strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. If I got even a little bit of the chocolate on there, I was like… Then I remember there was times when I was at camps or school and they would give out little cups of ice cream to everybody and they would either be an assortment of vanilla and chocolate. I would always somehow end up with the chocolate one and I was really disappointed because I didn’t like it and I wouldn’t eat it. Nowadays, I will eat anything and everything chocolate. Yeah.
Steve Lewit: When did that switch? Do you remember what turned your taste bud corner?
Gabriel Lewit: I have no idea. I also didn’t like avocado for a very long time.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Now I like avocado a lot, although I can’t have it, because it gives me very, very bad heartburn.
Steve Lewit: Really?
Gabriel Lewit: Very oddly enough. Yes.
Steve Lewit: That’s odd. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: What else? Well, your turn for something else. We’ll do two.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: We’ll get to know Sherper Steve size two.
Steve Lewit: The accent man.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, what else are you? What else didn’t you like that you now like?
Steve Lewit: You want more? I thought you were going to ask me a different question.
Gabriel Lewit: We’ll see what we got for time.
Steve Lewit: Okay. What else didn’t I like? Well, I never liked opera until I started singing it. I would hear opera and it was like, “Ouch,” and then when I started singing it, I started to appreciate it a lot more from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Of course I became an opera singer, so I loved it. But early on in my life it was like, “What? Whoa.”
Gabriel Lewit: Interesting.
Steve Lewit: I do think it’s an acquired taste.
Gabriel Lewit: Very much so. Yes.
Steve Lewit: I know how you feel about opera.
Gabriel Lewit: You probably couldn’t pay me to go listen to an opera.
Steve Lewit: I have to take you to one someday.
Gabriel Lewit: Maybe. We’ll see. We’ll see.
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: I just said, it depends how much you want to pay me.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Well, for me, I distinctly remember, I don’t know when, but I remember watching a football game when I was a lot younger. I’m like, “What is this terrible?” This is like this dude’s like… It was just run into a pile in the middle and tackle, run into a pile. It was just run, run, run, punt. Right.
Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: And I distinctly remember watching this football game. This is the most boring thing I’ve ever watched in my entire life. Then you fast-forward today and I won’t miss a Bears game, even though they’re terrible right now.
Steve Lewit: Terrible.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: That’s interesting. You see, you start to see stuff from a different perspective.
Gabriel Lewit: You sure do. Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s the same-
Gabriel Lewit: Looking down from the top of the mountain.
Steve Lewit: Financially, how many clients come in here and saying, “I hate annuities,” and then we teach them the pros and cons and where they fit and where they don’t fit and all of a sudden they like annuities.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. People that say, “Why would I need life insurance when I’m in retirement?”
Steve Lewit: Yeah. What do I need that for?
Gabriel Lewit: Why do I need long-term care for? Then we go through data and statistics and stories. Yeah. It is good to kind of take a look at things that you maybe didn’t look at in the past and try them again.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: You never know.
Steve Lewit: Revisit because you’re a different person than you were in the past.
Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Well, that’s our show for you today, our friends, if you have questions, comments, thoughts, anecdotes, stories, anything you’d like to share with us, you can email us at sgl… Or no, info@sglfinancial.com. Or you can call us, 847-499-3330 goes to our main line to talk to Sarah E. and ask to speak with Gabriel or Steve. Let’s see. Otherwise, we hope that you have a very wonderful start to your November.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: And we will talk to you on the next show.
Steve Lewit: Stay warm.
Gabriel Lewit: Stay warm. I think it’s going to warm back up a little bit. Stay warm nevertheless.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: And we will talk to you soon. Bye now.
Steve Lewit: All right, stay well everybody. Bye.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at 847-499-3330, or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com and be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.
Prerecorded Voice: Investment Advisory Services are offered through SGL Financial LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Insurance and other financial products are offered separately through individually licensed and appointed agents.
