Financial Lessons from the Rich and Famous

Our 2 Cents – Episode #189

Financial Lessons from the Rich and Famous

Welcome back to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. On today’s episode, the hosts discuss some memorable companies that have closed their doors throughout the years. Then, they break down some valuable financial wisdom from the most unlikely of sources. Listen in now using a link below!

1. Gone Out of Business:
   • Uncover which of your favorites companies have gone out of business and the reasons behind their downfall.
2. Celebrity Financial Advice:
   • Explore some insightful quotes from famous celebrities that we transform into thoughtful financial takeaways.

Request Your Free Consultation Today
847.499.3330

Podcast Transcript

Announcer: You are 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 in financial news trends, strategies, and more.

Gabriel Lewit: Welcome back to Our 2 Cents. Sorry. You’ve got Gabriel here with Steve Lewit on the show.

Steve Lewit: He clears his throat to sound mellow and-

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I was rushing to eat my lunch because I was running a little late to start the show.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, you were. You gobbled out lunch down like in about two minutes.

Gabriel Lewit: It had spicy chicken and yeah, my throat’s still burning.

Steve Lewit: You downed that pretty good.

Gabriel Lewit: I can eat fast if I need to. Old survival instincts.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. My goodness. Well, I hope you’ll last through the broadcast here.

Gabriel Lewit: Oh, yeah. No worries. No worries.

Steve Lewit: All right.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, we hope you’re doing great. And of course it generally feels like fall now, so I think summer’s over. Now, do you know when do we fall back on the hours? Anybody know?

Steve Lewit: Oh, good question. It’ll get dark really early.

Gabriel Lewit: It’s already getting dark super early.

Steve Lewit: But it’ll get darker… I really don’t know why they do that.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, let’s see. We’ve got November 3rd, 2024 coming up.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. So last year I made a mistake. I thought they passed a law that said they’re not going to do that, but apparently that law has been on the books for tentative voting and it never passes.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, well, most people would prefer that the time zone doesn’t change, or the time doesn’t change. I guess the zone doesn’t change.

Steve Lewit: Well, they claim it’s bad for kids that are traveling on the streets or in school and stuff because it should be lighter in the morning.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So, there’s arguments on both sides. But anyways, that’s coming up on the horizon here in a couple of weeks.

Steve Lewit: Yes. Welcome-

Gabriel Lewit: Halloween’s coming up. That’s Producer Katie’s favorite time of the

Steve Lewit: Year. I was going to say, hello darkness, my old friend. I was going to sing it, but I decided not to.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, that’s your choice. We won’t stop you if you’d like to.

Steve Lewit: Not today.

Gabriel Lewit: Not today. All right. Well, we’ve got a good show lined up for you. We are going to talk a little bit about, first and foremost, businesses that have gone under.

Steve Lewit: A very positive topic this morning.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, you just start this off with hello darkness, my old friends.

Steve Lewit: Right, right.

Gabriel Lewit: So, I guess this might be right in theme with that.

Steve Lewit: Right along the dismal line. No, this is really interesting. We mentioned it on our last broadcast.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So, we didn’t do a broadcast last week. It’s my fault.

Steve Lewit: You’re totally, totally your fault.

Gabriel Lewit: I was gone. I was in Vermont.

Steve Lewit: Oh, you weren’t gone. You were in Vermont. That’s different.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I wasn’t here in the office, and so we couldn’t do our show. And by the way, if you’ve never been to Vermont for fall foliage or what they call leaf peeping season, I learned this.

Steve Lewit: Amazing.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes, leaf peeping.

Steve Lewit: Yep.

Gabriel Lewit: It’s a true thing. That’s what they call it. People are like, “Oh, you’re here for leaf peeping.”

Steve Lewit: The mountains are on fire. Literally, weren’t they?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, it wasn’t all red. We had a nice smorgasbord of colors as we peeped the leaves.

Steve Lewit: So, you are peeping a little early. Folks, New England in full bloom red. I mean, the mountains are literally totally red. You’ll never see anything like that.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. Producer Katie didn’t believe me that it was called leaf peeping. So, she Googled it and top stories say, “Leaf peepers are flocking to see New England’s brilliant fall colors.” Well, you better go quick because you’re going to miss them.

Steve Lewit: And you was one of them.

Gabriel Lewit: I was one of them. Anywho. Well, yeah. So last time we talked about a couple of things, but one of the things that we brought up-

Steve Lewit: I love the fall. I’m sorry, I’m not finished with that topic. I just love the cool weather. It’s so invigorating.

Gabriel Lewit: You’re funny. I’m laughing because you didn’t say anything about leaf peeping, which I thought you would really climb onto. You just kept talking about the fires of the mountains being red or something like that.

Steve Lewit: Because it’s beautiful, leaf peeping-

Gabriel Lewit: And then we’re moving on and you’re back to the mountains.

Steve Lewit: What can you say about leaf peeping other than some clever person thought that up?

Gabriel Lewit: Can we move on?

Steve Lewit: We can.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. All right. Our listeners want finance.

Steve Lewit: I understand.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay.

Steve Lewit: We’re getting there.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So, we had talked about businesses that have gone out of business and we said, “Oh, we should pull up a list of those.” And so we did. All right. And we’ve got, actually, thanks to Producers Gabby and Katie, a list here of 15 of the favorite old companies that have gone out of business.

Steve Lewit: Now, these may not be the biggest companies that have gone, but these are old favorite companies.

Gabriel Lewit: These were for many people considered top businesses, best in class. A lot of people were shocked that these businesses went out of business, but that was the whole point of when we brought this up, is from a planning perspective, individual stocks, individual companies have a lot more risk than a ETF or a mutual fund that has a basket of companies. Why? Because individual businesses can and do go out of business.

Steve Lewit: They have life cycles.

Gabriel Lewit: And that’s really what you’re going to see here. Okay, so let’s talk about one of the favorites back in the day, Borders Books.

Steve Lewit: One of my favorite hangouts. I love Borders Books and I loved it better than, what’s the other one?

Gabriel Lewit: Barnes & Noble?

Steve Lewit: Barnes & Noble. It was homier. It was just easier to negotiate. I used to sit there and get their mochaccinos and read. It was just fantastic.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay, well, that sounds good.

Steve Lewit: Why are you smiling, Katie? You’re jealous.

Gabriel Lewit: It’s funny because as you take more writing classes for your book, you start speaking like you’re writing and all this verbose-

Steve Lewit: It gets worse.

Gabriel Lewit: … attention to detail. “I was at Borders having a mochaccino.”

Steve Lewit: It gets worse and worse. Anyway-

Gabriel Lewit: “When the Chill of the fall air-

Steve Lewit: Who would’ve ever thought-

Gabriel Lewit: … wafted upon me.”

Steve Lewit: That’s pretty good. Who would’ve ever thought that Borders would go out of business?

Gabriel Lewit: At the time, yeah. Not a lot of people. And yeah, people think it might’ve just been the size that they expanded. They lost some profitability. Amazon started really becoming big onto the scene.

Steve Lewit: Huge. Right.

Gabriel Lewit: And which of course Amazon started with books and that might’ve been the beginning of the end. Now Barnes & Noble made it. Okay, but Borders did not.

Steve Lewit: Barnes & Noble is a finely managed company. Borders was not, obviously there.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yep. Now some of you might remember this, Kodak.

Steve Lewit: Oh, I remember Kodak. My father-

Gabriel Lewit: Producer Gabby, do you know what Kodak is? A camera is. Okay, so she’s a younger one.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Do you know what a typewriter is? Oh, she knows a typewriter. How about a-

Gabriel Lewit: All right, let’s talk to our audience-

Steve Lewit: So, Gabriel, you don’t know this, but your grandfather, my father, worked for Kodak.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. And when he passed, there must have been 20 Kodak cameras on his shelf, which were amazing and worthless because Kodak went out of business.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, yeah, they are no longer around. And now you use your Apple iPhone for your camera. Who knew?

Steve Lewit: So, think about it. They started in 1888. When did they go out of business?

Gabriel Lewit: 2012.

Steve Lewit: 2012. This is a company that was a forever company that could never go out of business, gone.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, this thing here says that they attempted to pivot into other things. Cryptocurrency, commercial printing, cell phones, tablets, and producing generic drugs.

Steve Lewit: Well, that fits right into film.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, this was as of last year. I haven’t heard about the Kodak drugs, so maybe that didn’t succeed either.

Steve Lewit: Okay. This next one is another one. I mean, this is like nostalgia road for me.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Everybody liked Blockbuster.

Steve Lewit: Love Blockbuster.

Gabriel Lewit: There’s I think documentaries talking about what happened there, but yeah, that’s gone.

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Blockbuster is gone.

Steve Lewit: Think about it. When you were in Blockbuster… Well, I don’t know if you had kids, you didn’t have kids yet.

Gabriel Lewit: In college? When I was working at Blockbuster.

Steve Lewit: But I used to take you to Blockbuster.

Gabriel Lewit: In college?

Steve Lewit: No, when you were a kid, and we would spend hours just looking for film and it was a lot of fun.

Gabriel Lewit: It was.

Steve Lewit: Must’ve killed a couple of hours with your kid.

Gabriel Lewit: There’s always something you’re trying to do. Right?

Steve Lewit: Right.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Then we had Sports Authority. I used to love Sports Authority and now DICK’s Sporting Goods is, at least around here in these parts of Midwestern US, is the go-to sporting store. Used to be Sports Authority. I think they just, who knows? That’s kind of the challenge here. When you buy individual stocks, you assume based on the fact that they’re popular, that they’re going to do well. But this goes to show a lot of these places still went under.

Steve Lewit: That is correct.

Gabriel Lewit: You had Radio Shack. A lot of people remember old Radio Shack, which attempted a revival at one point to call themselves The Shack, which did not succeed.

Steve Lewit: And they had the best, what was it? What are those radios you carry on your shoulder? Boom boxes. I used to buy all my boom boxes at Radio Shack.

Gabriel Lewit: Boom box.

Steve Lewit: You don’t know where to boom is?

Gabriel Lewit: On your shoulder?

Steve Lewit: Yeah, you carry it on your shoulder, on-

Gabriel Lewit: We were walking around with boom… I know what a boom box is. I was picturing you walking around with a boom box on your shoulder.

Steve Lewit: Oh, it’s so cool. On the beach.

Gabriel Lewit: What are you talking about?

Steve Lewit: That’s so… 33rd street in Rockaway. That’s what you did.

Gabriel Lewit: Rockaway Beach?

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: With the boom box?

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: At Radio Shack?

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: All right.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, I miss it. I forgot that.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, now you know, folks. I wasn’t super into this one because I’m a dude, but Bebe, right?

Steve Lewit: Is it Bebe or Bebe?

Gabriel Lewit: Bebe.

Steve Lewit: Bebe?

Gabriel Lewit: Bebe, right?

Steve Lewit: Bebe. Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Bebe was a women’s retail store, closed in 2017. Same with American Apparel, closed in 2017.

Steve Lewit: No, that’s not one I know. Do you know that one, producers? Yeah?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So I just remember seeing them in the mall. I never went in there. But yeah, malls are dying out and who knows if they’ll see a comeback. Apparently they’re turning all the mall space into pickleball courts. I don’t know. Everybody’s-

Steve Lewit: Well, they’re certainly turning all the tennis courts into pickleball courts.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, you had Toys “R” Us. That was a sad one. I used to love Toys “R” Us. I’m going to get through the rest of the lists here. Payless Shoes.

Steve Lewit: Never shopped there.

Gabriel Lewit: You don’t like to pay less?

Steve Lewit: No. I just never shopped-

Gabriel Lewit: You went to Pay More Shoes?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. You know what they’re killing here? Not only the stores. You know what I keep thinking is I spend hours with my kids in these stores.

Gabriel Lewit: There’re other stores that people can spend hours with their kids with these-

Steve Lewit: You go to Kohl’s at Target now and stuff like that.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Gymboree, Dress Barn. Pier One Imports. I remember Pier One Imports. Now it’s available online only, apparently.

Steve Lewit: Like Bed & Bath.

Gabriel Lewit: Stein Mart. Barneys New York.

Steve Lewit: Oh, now folks, if you don’t know Barneys New York, because I grew up in New York. Now Barneys… They’re all laughing at me. I don’t know why. Barneys is the place to go to get your suits and sport jackets in New York for years and years and years. And when you went in, it was special because they greeted you, you had a fitter. It was like they treated you like royalty. And I love Barneys. I didn’t know they went out of business.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, 2020. Another one that’s not on this list, but I know I looked into it, Boston Market, the food chain.

Steve Lewit: Isn’t the one up here still open?

Gabriel Lewit: No. I think that’s one of the last ones left in… It was one of the last ones left in the country, the one here in Buffalo Grove and I believe that’s closed now too. Yeah. So Boston Market. But look, what do all these have in common? I think in the peak of their heydays, do you think you would’ve looked at that, walked in that store of any of these stores or restaurants and said, “Oh. Yeah, this place is going under.”

Steve Lewit: It’s hard to imagine. It’s hard to imagine when you get into the bigger companies like Apple or Nvidia or any of these huge companies, the Targets, that these have the possibility of going out of business. And they do, because the world works in cycles. Everything is cyclical. Nothing will lasts forever.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. So, it’s very interesting, and I think in many ways important to recognize this about businesses. It’s not just how you feel, right? There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes in the business, and I bet you many business schools do case studies on these companies and what happened that caused them to go out of business? What was the key strategic change that they could have made that they didn’t, that resulted in them going out of business?

And I think when you’re buying stock, individual stock, that’s the risk you got to be okay taking is that these companies may or may not make it, no matter how well you feel about them. There’s also data that shows that by the time somebody buys a stock that’s reached, let’s say the top 10 in market cap, those same companies tend to underperform in the future because businesses, as you mentioned earlier, have cycles. They can start to lose to competition, to new innovation. They get too big to change.

Steve Lewit: Or they start growing at a lesser growth rate. Their growth rate starts to slow down, and that reflects in the stock price.

Gabriel Lewit: Stock prices could come down. They might have a lot of debt that they then can’t figure out how to pay for. So sometimes these things can just really spiral down quickly when they start to underperform.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. That’s not to say you shouldn’t own individual stocks, but to understand the risk involved.

Gabriel Lewit: Correct.

Steve Lewit: And not to get infatuated or intoxicated with the future.

Gabriel Lewit: Right. I’ve heard a lot of people tell me, “Oh, so-and-so’s stock will never go out of business. It’s only going to go up.” I’m like, okay.

Steve Lewit: Well, let’s see.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, let’s look at some of the data.

Steve Lewit: Or let’s hedge that bet.

Gabriel Lewit: Yep. All right, so we just thought that’d be a little bit of a blast from the pass down memory lane for you. And our next topic here… And by the way, I don’t know if you would have questions on that, but of course as a little interlude, if you have any questions we can help you with, give us a call here. (847) 499-3330, or go to sglfinancial.com and click contact to us. People here on the show probably knew I worked at Blockbuster before, when I was 20 years old in college.

Steve Lewit: I think you mentioned that quite a long time ago. Yeah, you did. But you also worked at Subway.

Gabriel Lewit: That was even before.

Steve Lewit: Maybe Subway you mentioned. I don’t think you mentioned Blockbuster.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. At one point when I was in high school, I spent over 30 hours a week working at Subway. Sandwich artiste.

Steve Lewit: Sandwich artiste.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes.

Steve Lewit: Were you fast?

Gabriel Lewit: I was super-fast. No, no joke. I could make four subs at a time. Cook cookies, baked bread. Start soups.

Steve Lewit: When you were in Subway, the competitor was Blimpie.

Gabriel Lewit: Not around where I was. But yeah, Blimpie was a thing.

Steve Lewit: And there you go. Blimpie was a thing and went out of business.

Gabriel Lewit: Blimpie is now gone.

Steve Lewit: Gone.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. At least I’m pretty sure it’s gone, right?

Steve Lewit: It is gone. Yep.

Gabriel Lewit: Yep. Poor Blimpie.

Steve Lewit: Poor Blimpie.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Is Quiznos still a thing? Yeah. Quiznos is still around.

Steve Lewit: Not a big deal though.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, they used to be… They were growing for a little bit. Subway, I have a feeling, could be… I mean, they’re so everywhere and I’m a big Subway guy, obviously, because I just like them because I worked with them way back when. But if they’re not careful, they could go out of business.

Steve Lewit: I think Starbucks has a bigger downside potential than Subway because their menu is so complicated and their audience is so, a lot of teens now. It’s a teen place to go with Starbucks. So keep your eyes out. Starbucks, great company, but maybe not.

Gabriel Lewit: Who knows?

Steve Lewit: Yep.

Gabriel Lewit: All right, so our next topic here, we’re going to give you some advice from celebrities, and we might only do one or two of these today. And then on our next show, we will possibly continue the rest. Okay. But why are we talking about this? It’s just kind of fun. Some of these advice points have nothing to do with money, but we’re going to connect them to money in our own unique way.

Steve Lewit: So, celebrities come out with these phrases and some of them, when it applies to money, are pretty interesting.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Yeah. We did this once with, who was the one guy? Way back when, the Yogi Beary-isms.

Steve Lewit: Oh, Yogi Berra.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. That was a good show. But all right, so let’s talk with Mean Girls. Everybody’s Mean Girl favorite Lindsay Lohan. By the way, did you ever watch the remix, the musical?

Steve Lewit: No.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. I didn’t know it was a musical before I watched it. And then I was severely disappointed. And that, by the way, is the same reason why the Joker part two that you’re hearing all over the news is bombing. Literally this is what happened. I heard that there was a Joker part two and my ears perked up. I’m like, “Oh, that’s great. I’m looking for a good new movie to watch.” And then I kept reading, it said it’s a musical and my interest level just immediately sank to zero.

Steve Lewit: Is it a musical?

Gabriel Lewit: It is.

Steve Lewit: I didn’t know that.

Gabriel Lewit: A Joker part two musical.

Steve Lewit: The hot one now is The Penguin.

Gabriel Lewit: Oh, that’s a TV show.

Steve Lewit: TV show.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, this is the Joker movie musical.

Steve Lewit: It’s really dark.

Gabriel Lewit: Which apparently the world agrees for the most part because-

Steve Lewit: Should not be a musical.

Gabriel Lewit: … it’s about to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. This is very financial, Gabriel.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay, so Lindsay Lohan says, “I’m my own worst enemy, and I know that.”

Steve Lewit: Yes.

Gabriel Lewit: Now, she’s not talking about money when it comes to this.

Steve Lewit: No. Not Lindsay.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay. But what does that phrase, if you had to connect that phrase to money, “I’m my own worst enemy and I know that,” what would you say that means when it comes to money?

Steve Lewit: Well, I think it means we know we are doing something in life, we know we’re doing something we shouldn’t do. That certainly happened to me in a lot of different areas of life, but in investing, you know you’re taking a chance that you really shouldn’t take or you’re way over your budget, but you do it anyway because emotions are more powerful than thoughts. So, that’s what it means to me.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I would concur with that. I just had a meeting with a client very recently that, we had a budget and they were actually tracking it, which is great because you don’t often see that. And then we did a budget review.

Steve Lewit: Oops.

Gabriel Lewit: And they said, “Well,” I knew how it was going to go when they started off, “Well, we tracked our budget.” You know where this was headed, and they were spending much more than their budget. So, that’s another example where you can be your own worst enemy is you’ve got a game plan for some part of your money, but then you’re just blowing right past that. Whatever that is.

Steve Lewit: So, if you’re really aware of that, you can really see yourself doing that and you don’t want to, that’s where you enlist help. That’s what we do, Gabriel, is part of what we do is coaching people so that they’re not their own worst enemy. We help them stand up against their worst emotional drives.

Gabriel Lewit: Right. Yes.

Steve Lewit: That makes sense?

Gabriel Lewit: It does make sense. Okay, let’s talk about our next guy, Charles Barkley, or gal. This case is a guy, Charles Barkley says, “I don’t create controversies. They’re there long before I open my mouth. I just bring them to your attention.”

Steve Lewit: And I love that. I love that because we think controversies just happen. But I think they’re there for a good part all the time. So it’s not like, what did he say? I don’t create them, I just open the window to see them. And that’s very valuable to see a controversy before it comes or while it’s coming, instead of getting caught by surprise.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And I think what he’s really referencing here is he’s bringing things to the surface, right? Those things still exist or he’s just talking about them. So, let’s say, I’ll use my example from before. Pretend you don’t have a budget problem, but you know really overspend, you just don’t feel like looking at it. The problem’s still there, right? You just haven’t brought it to the surface yet to bring attention to it.

Same with, I think when advisors oftentimes talk about the stock market, I think a lot of clients, I worry that they think, “Hey, this guy’s trying to scare me,” right? Well, what if the market goes down? Well, we’re bringing it to your attention. Why? Because the market does go down and it does have a big risk on your retirement income when you’re in your accumulation phase of life. It has a risk at any point in time of you being uncomfortable or worried about your money. So, it’s not that that’s something we’re bringing up. Some advisors unfortunately, use it as a scare tactic.

Steve Lewit: A fear tactic.

Gabriel Lewit: But we do bring it up as a way of addressing risks systematically in your planning and bringing it to your attention, because that risk is still there whether you talk about it or not.

Steve Lewit: Gabriel, this is interesting, I think. I had a client in the other day, a husband and wife, and they have very different views on how aggressive they should be in the market, which is a controversy that exists, right? But they don’t want to talk about it. It’s like, “Hey, guys, we really need to talk about this.” And they’re saying, “No, we don’t want to talk about it. We’ll just get into a fight.” And say, “No, we really need to talk about it.”

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Usually the more controversial or challenging or difficult something is, the more important it might be to actually talk about it. Okay?

Steve Lewit: Yep.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Let’s pick one more of these here and then we’ll probably save the rest for next time. But I’m going to choose Rosie O’Donnell says, “Anybody that you put on TV for five hours a week is going to say something stupid at some point.”

Steve Lewit: That’s true. I’m trying to make the application to financial advice.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think the way I look at that is if you are getting advice from the news, financial advice from the news, you may want to be careful of all the advice you’re listening to because some of that advice may not… Would be stupid advice, right? Not good advice.

Steve Lewit: I’m very happy I’m not on TV five days a week.

Gabriel Lewit: Now, any advice you hear from an Our 2 Cents podcast is always excellent.

Steve Lewit: Excellent advice.

Gabriel Lewit: Excellent advice. Top tier. Top shelf advice.

Steve Lewit: Well, that’s because we do one hour a week, so how can we make a mistake?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but the other thing too is if you are talking about something for that much, right? Five hours a day every day, I mean-

Steve Lewit: Sooner or later, you’re going to say something that’s inaccurate.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. You’re trying to create content, right? You’re trying to drum up something to talk about or stir controversy. And that can come back to impact you because you’re going to say something that you maybe didn’t even really feel that passionate about, but you’re just saying it because you got to have something to say.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, like I read a lot of the newspaper… Not newspaper, but online, the weekly or the daily commentaries of famous people, financial people, and I cut them slack because every now and then they’ll say, “Nah, that’s not right. Nah. You missed that one.”

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Actually, we’ll do one last one here.

Steve Lewit: What are you going to do?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, you pick,

Steve Lewit: Well, I’m not going to do Snooki because I thought that was Snooki and I never watched this show, right?

Gabriel Lewit: Snooki.

Steve Lewit: Snooki, right?

Gabriel Lewit: It is Snooki, yes.

Steve Lewit: Folks, do you know who Snooki is?

Gabriel Lewit: From the old Jersey Shore.

Steve Lewit: No, you gave it away. You gave it away. I’m going to do Mike Tyson.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay, yeah.

Steve Lewit: Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Gabriel Lewit: Very famous quote. Yeah. Used lots of places.

Steve Lewit: Very famous quote. And I think that’s really very important because look, Gabriel, we create financial plans for people and we tell them that when you walk out the door, that plan is already starting to age. It’s going to change because the world changes and everything changes. It’s the same thing with war plans. When you go into war, it never goes as you plan. When you live life, it never goes as you plan, you start a job, it might not go as you plan. We do a podcast. It never goes as you plan.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, today started a little late. We got punched in the mouth today.

Steve Lewit: We got punched in the mouth.

Gabriel Lewit: But yeah, I think the biggest one is people that say, “Oh, I don’t worry about the risk. If my portfolio goes down, I’m fine with it.” Well, portfolio goes down and all of a sudden they’re freaking out. “What do I do?” It’s like, “Well, clearly you weren’t ready for that.”

Steve Lewit: “You mean I lost money?”

Gabriel Lewit: Right? So that’s a good one to keep in mind is you have a plan, but then when you really get into the thick of it, will you be able to stick to it? That is, in fact, one of the main values of advisors that they bring to the table is they really help you avoid panicking if you get proverbially punched in the mouth with some big financial events.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s a way of negotiating through issues that, go back to that other quote, that are going to appear in your life that you may not have known were there, but they’re there.

Gabriel Lewit: Exactly.

Steve Lewit: You look like you want to run.

Gabriel Lewit: We got to wrap up. Well, it’s my fault. We’ll have to end a couple minutes early because I started a couple minutes late today.

Steve Lewit: I was really enjoying myself here.

Gabriel Lewit: I know.

Steve Lewit: You’re cutting-

Gabriel Lewit: We’ll continue more on our next one.

Steve Lewit: You’re cutting my fun-

Gabriel Lewit: We’ll leave the listeners wanting more.

Steve Lewit: You’re cutting my fun short.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Well, folks, thank you so much for joining us today. We had a great time with you. Tune back to our next one. We’ll continue some of these great quotes and more, and if you need anything, give us a call. (847) 499-3331. Or 3330, sorry.

Steve Lewit: Enjoy this wonderful weather, folks. Great to talk to you.

Gabriel Lewit: Yep. Have a great rest of your day.

Steve Lewit: Stay well, everybody.

Gabriel Lewit: Bye-bye.

Steve Lewit: 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 Adviser. Insurance and other financial products are offered separately through individually licensed and appointed agents.