Episode 1
WELCOME TO THE $HOW!...TIME TO JUST START.
Episode Description
In the inaugural episode of The Big Bo $how, Big Bo (a.k.a. Jason Blumstein, CFA®) provides an intro to the show, himself, and core values. Discusses 3 passions in Finance, Football, and Food. Topics Discussed:
- Why it's important to Just Start when it comes to building sustainable wealth
- Miami Dolphins letting go Brian Flores
- NFL Playoffs preview with Big Bo's thoughts on who will make it to and win Super Bowl
- First ever town Smoked Brisket Contest results
Hope you enjoy the $how!
Episode 1 Key Takeaways:
00:00 Who is Big Bo and what is The Big Bo $how?
02:35 The three core values The Big Bo $how and Julius Wealth Advisors are built on.
09:25 Alarming financial statistics for Americans — and the best way to avoid becoming one of those statistics.
12:34 How the best NFL teams harness consistency and discipline while sticking to a plan.
23:40 A quick story on chicken wings, community, and life's simple joys.
Episode Transcript
Welcome to the first-ever Big Bo $how. That's show with a dollar sign. I'm your host Big Bo, also known as Jason Blumstein, the CEO and founder of Julius Wealth Advisors. I can be reached at info@juliuswealth.com. 201-289-9181 and www.juliuswealthadvisors.com
Let me introduce this show to you. This show will be about three things. We'll eventually be adding people as guests to talk about three core items: integrity, knowledge, and passion. But before I go into those three core items, let's give a brief explanation of who Big Bo is. Growing up, I was a two-sport athlete in South Florida. And when I was little, I was always a big kid. My dad ended up nicknaming me Bo Bo, and then I grew and grew, and that name eventually got old because when you're as big as I got up to, you can't really call a big guy BoBo. I got shortened to Bo. All my friends growing up only knew me as Bo through school, through sports, and even got to a point where I had to write my name down on a Scantron test and I forgot my real name for a second, which was Jason. In my professional life, people mainly know me as Jason, and that's why I want to introduce you to how the name came about since people in both phases of my life, growing up as a child, and now my professional life, know me as two different names.
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But this show is mainly about my core values, and those three core values are integrity, knowledge and passion. Let's talk about integrity for a second. Call me old school, but when you look someone in the eye, you tell them they will do something. I will do it. Been working in the financial services industry for the past 17 years, have always been interested in it since the age of 10. And I was at a conference earlier, well, I guess at the end of last year in December, and they held up a presentation and in that, it showed the trust index across all various industries in America. And not surprisingly, the financial services industries lost, ranked last for 10 years in a row. I would maybe say duh because I've been working in this industry for so long. And when I tell people this is wearing the trust industry, when you're dealing with people and their money and their finances. That's how people are gonna remember you. And that's my mission. I want to change that. I want to change the fact that this industry does not have a lot of trust and integrity within it. Second thing is knowledge. I've always been a person that likes to learn and constantly wants to learn. Mainly, I like to learn about the things I'm passionate about which are food, football, and finance which we'll get to later in the show. I've always believed in the phrase that the second you think you know everything is the second, you know nothing. The final part is passion. Passion is extremely important in life. You have to be passionate about what you do. If you're not passionate about what you do, you're going to go through life and you're going to wake up 20, 30, 40 years later. You know, look back, potentially feel empty about who you are and what you've done, and I've always lived by the thought that my grandmother passed out to me. Is that there's one thing in life that you can take and that's your name."
And if you don't have a good name, then people won't remember you very well when you pass. You can't take your money, you can't take your job titles. All you can do is take your name. In the show, I want to dive into all three of my passions and also invite others to share their passions and what brings them unquestionable joy in this world. So, as I touched on earlier, my first passion since the age of 10 has been finance, investing, and personal finance. If you go to my website www.juliuswealthadvisors.com, you'll see the background of how I got into this industry, from my grandfather to leaders to my name, my firm, after when he bought me my first five shares of Goodyear Tire, five shares of Pepsi. I'm not going to go into that story. Now I invite you to go onto my website www.juliuswealthadvisors.com and read the blog, "The Ten-Year-Old Investor." But the one thing that I've noticed throughout my life is that most people that I come across lack basic financial literacy. And this upsets me, and this is what motivates me and makes me want to start this firm: to try to pass on this knowledge of financial literacy to others.
I was fortunate enough to learn this from my grandfather, the importance of this, and it's no wonder that most people do not have financial literacy. I always joke around with people in a serious manner though that the average education in America is through high school. I don't know about you, but when I was going through school, there was zero mandate on taking anything to do with money, personal finance, or anything like that. In school, I had one year of an elective, 1/4 of an elective, and ended up taking it because I was interested in it. There were about 20 other kids in that class, but besides me and those 20 other kids, no one got any knowledge on financial literacy throughout school. But for some reason, we're mandated to take things like social studies and history, which are important. But the last time someone came up to me and asked me to name the 50 state capitals of America after I took that test, it was zero. Yet, every single day we have to deal with money. There's not one day that goes by that you're not dealing with money, whether you're buying milk at the grocery store, opening up a bank account, investing, what have you? So, I'm on a mission to change that and educate people on finance, personal finance, and get rid of this endemic where people essentially learn about personal finance by making mistakes. And I've seen this, I've seen those very, very smart people, whether they be people in my own industry, doctors, lawyers, engineers, CEOs, entrepreneurs, athletes. We all are learning from our mistakes. And the worst thing someone could do is think they know everything. You have to give up what you don't know. A good example of this is when my wife asked me to do something around the house. I am the least handy person that you know. So what do I do? I researched it. Ultimately, I try to bring in someone that knows more than me to help me out, to fix the problem. The best thing someone could do when it comes to finances and personal finance is just start. And what I mean by that is take that first step to start to get educated, to start putting money away, to reach out to someone that knows more than you to help you out. There's seemingly this anxiety or this embarrassment when it comes to talking about money and talking about wealth in this country.
But here are the facts: The facts are that people are struggling. The facts are that 40 percent of Americans can't afford a one-time unexpected expense. The facts are that the percentage of millionaires in this country hasn't changed on a real basis in over 20 years. So, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to continue doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results? That is the definition of insanity, my friends. We have to change that.
The best way I help explain this to people is through the power of time and the power of discipline. Now, when I meet people who haven't really saved up anything, they are living a fair life rather than a wealthy life. They may make good money, but they spend almost every dollar they have and find themselves on a perpetual hamster wheel. Maybe they put away $500 a month or $1,000 a month, or whatever they can at the time.
So, after a year of putting away $1,000, maybe they have $12,000 saved up. And let's say they get a 10% return. Now, they made $1,200 after a year. It might not seem like a lot of money to some, but okay, they're up to almost $13,000. And then they give up.
In my opinion, that's not the right thing to do because creating wealth is like a snowball effect. If you have that same 10% return on a $12,000 portfolio, you're only earning $1,200, which might not seem like much. But fast forward and do this for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and now your portfolio is $2 million due to the power of time and disciplined compound interest. You make that same 10% return on a $2 million portfolio, the same percentage return, but now the amount of wealth you grew is $200,000. This is what I call The Snowball Effect. The only way you get into that Snowball Effect is if you just start.
So, the best thing you can do is give up what you know and just start. Whether you hear this podcast today and contemplate it, or you put away your first hundred dollars or first thousand dollars, whatever it may be. I hope that in 10 years from now, when you go back and listen to this podcast, you have a large snowball and can live the wealthy life you want to live.
Now, let's move on to my next passion: football. Football is very similar to building wealth. In football, you have to put in the time to be a champion. You can't just show up on a Sunday or Saturday in college or Friday if you're in high school and show up and think you’re going to win the game. You have to put in the time day in and day out, and eventually, you'll see the result.
I saw this for myself. I ended up going to my local high school, put in some of the work, and got noticed by a powerhouse private school. I went there, played offensive line there, thanks to a friend who turned me on to the school. I put in the work, put in the work, and eventually, my team won the state championship in high school. And eventually, I got a full scholarship to play football in college.
The same thing goes into building wealth. You have to put in the time today. You might not see the result tomorrow or the next night, but eventually, you will see the result. And you will thank your previous five year old self on the work and sacrifice you put in.
Now the thing that I’m a little bit perplexed with is how my favorite team, the Miami Dolphins, think about this. As many of you have probably heard, they decided to let go of a coach that I thought was good — that many people thought was good. If you look at the Twittersphere of people or the reactions, everyone is kind of shocked by this. And listen no disrespect to Mr. Ross, the owner of the Dolphins, who obviously knows a lot about developing real estate, but at this point as a loyal Dolphin fan for almost 40 years, I'm starting to question if he knows much about developing a football team.
He points to Flores' 24-25 record as a coach, but he doesn't point out that his first year, the front office was purposely trying to tank to get a good draft pick. So if you actually look at the last two years, when he had the pieces in place to turn the team around, he actually had a 19-14 record, almost making the playoffs twice. And I’ll tell you just being an athlete, playing on teams, having a coach, you don't have a team that starts off at 1-7 and then wins the last eight of their nine games if the team doesn't respect their head coach. We now have had four coaches under Ross. Or since he’s taken office as the owner of the team, we have a new coach every three years. So In my opinion, I'm questioning is he a real estate developer or a house flipper? Just like building wealth, a football team or a franchise — any team —needs consistency. You need a cohesive planning and you need to stick to that plan and block out the noise. That's one of the things I respect the most out of Tom Brady. A lot of people question oh being a Dolphin fan, how can you like Tom Brady? Because the guy has a plan. He has a plan and he does what it takes to win, whether it means throwing for 400 yards and four touchdowns or throwing for 100 and no touchdowns and letting the running game do the work.
You can see this when he was on the Patriots and now in Tampa Bay. You can also see this consistency with other franchises whether it be the Steelers, the Packers, the Seahawks. Consistency. Discipline. Having a plan. Sticking to it. Letting the plan unfold. And I just wish my Miami Dolphins would have this consistency so we could start to win a championship at some point in my life.
But enough about the negativity on the NFL. Let’s talk about the positives. The positives are we have the NFL playoffs coming up. The two number one seeds are the Packers and the Titans. There are many great storylines going into the playoffs this year. You have Aaron Rodgers seemingly versus the world with what's been going on with him. This year, you have Mahomes who most people wrote him off in the beginning of the year when they started off slow. I know firsthand, I had him and Travis Kelce and my fantasy football team, which was the worst season I've had in my history of playing fantasy football. You have Belichick. People were questioning. Was it Belichick? Was it Brady? Well we saw what Brady did last year. Belichick had a bad year last year. Now this is his first year back in the playoffs without Brady so I'm sure Belichick’s trying to show people what he can do. You also have Big Ben Roethlisberger, who if you watched the game on Sunday night, the Raiders Chargers game would have been kind of crazy to see Big Ben end his career based off of a tie. I wasn't rooting for a tie. I thought it would be interesting if one took place. I'm glad to see Big Ben make it into the playoffs and see if he can ride out into the sunset.
You have young quarterbacks on the scene. Joshua Allen, Kyler Murray, Joe Burrow and the baby Bengals. One of my favorite dark horses and teams that I've been keeping an eye on myself with with what they've done and Joe Burrow and what I like to call swagger in the way that he operates. And then you have Tom and Tompa Bay. Will he go back and win his eighth overall? So a lot of good storylines for the NFL playoffs. We'll see who wins. I'll go into who I think will win and being a former offensive lineman, I may be biased on this, but if you look at football and especially playoff football, they say the game is won in the trenches. And if you look at playoff football again, the teams that typically can run the ball and also stop the run are the teams that typically pull things off. And I look at it — the team in the NFC that has stopped the run is the Bucs. The Bucs are ranked third in the league in run defense. You obviously have Tom Brady and it's very tough to go against Tom Brady with everything that he's accomplished in his life. By far in my opinion, the greatest of all time. Also known as the GOAT, which is the nickname that these youngsters are giving to people these days. So I'm not going to go against Tom, again last year, I didn't think he was going to make it to the Super Bowl, never mind winning it. So I'm going to pick the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to come out of the NFC. Moving over to the AFC, there's only one other team in the playoffs and this is a surprising stat to me because I never thought of this team of having a decent defense. There's only one other team left in the playoffs that has a better run defense than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and that's the Tennessee Titans. Then if you also look at which team has the best running game left in the NFL playoffs, that is also the Tennessee Titans and they're getting their workhorse running back in Derrick Henry just in time for the playoffs. Now, he might not be 100% but they were able to run the ball without him. And even if you get Derrick Henry at 80%, 70%, 80%, it's still better than the vast majority of running backs in this league at 100%. So with the Tennessee Titans ability to both run the ball and stop the run, I'm going to take the Titans to the AFC.
So we're looking at a Titans Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl. Shameless plug here, first time ever in my life since they added an extra week to the NFL season that the Super Bowl falls on February 13th which just so happens to be my 40th birthday. So please reach out and wish me a happy birthday on that day and hopefully my picks of who went to the Super Bowl come to fruition. Now who wins in the Super Bowl? Again, very tough to go against Tom. Brady, however, I will go against Tom Brady here because I think the Titans have the ability to get after Brady from a defensive front perspective and also run the ball to take the ball out of Brady's hands and control the clock. You also have their head coach who actually used to play with Brady. So I'm sure he knows a lot about Brady on the other side of the ball being a linebacker himself and I think he'll pull it off and take down Tom. Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So I’ll take the Tennessee Titans to win the Super Bowl. Yeah, my dark horse though, however, is the Cincinnati Bengals. That's a really fun team to watch. Probably too young, too inexperienced to go all the way this year. The other ironic part about the Tennessee Titans winning it all is that their quarterback is a gentleman named Ryan Tannehill, which brings it back to my friend, Mr. Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, I recall him trading him away in 2019. But I digress.
So moving on to my third passion. My third passion is his food. Being a pretty big guy growing up and currently I've always had an interest in food. I’ve always watched shows like the Food Network constantly and got into smoking food like briskets, chicken, things like that thanks to my brother-in-law who bought me a smoker for my housewarming gift. So on this episode I want to talk about a fun time we had in my neighborhood a couple weeks ago. We had the first ever uptown smoked brisket contest. Five guys from my neighborhood who all have smokers, we all have our own little group chat talking about different techniques and different ways pellet vs wood chips vs coal. I’m definitely not a pellet guy. So we have this contest the first weekend of the year, five guys, only one guy came away victorious and I'm sad to say that was not me. I do think that I had a good effort. I think I got voted the best as the most traditional. I had people over my house beforehand to enjoy it, they all loved it and it put a smile on their faces, which is, which is really, all that matters to me. And I think the true test and in this, in this social media driven world is someone one of my neighbors tuned me into someone that posted about buying a smoker and and as I was getting older and is that the last phase is when you know, you're getting older in life? And I tweeted out a picture of my brisket to him and the finished product. And I got back 5 likes of my brisket and I’m not sure if anyone else that entered that contest would have gotten the same. So with that said, I think I might be at least in my mind the true winner of that contest. But it's all in good fun. We all had a good time and enjoyed ourselves and looking forward to the next contest to bring people together about our passions and enjoying life, enjoying friends and enjoying family because that's at the end of the day is like I said, is what it's all about.
So with all this said, I hope you enjoyed the first taping, an episode of The Big Bo $how. I plan on putting this out once a month. Welcome feedback on it pros, cons, always open to constructive feedback on the show. You can reach me again at jason@juliuswealth.com or or info@juliuswealth.com. Phone number 201-289-9181. Website www.juliuswealthadvisors.com. I thank everybody for tuning in. Enjoy your life, enjoy your passions. Have integrity, build your knowledge, build your passions, and enhance the financial literacy of the people around you. All the best until next time.
Disclosure:
The content is developed from sources believed to be providing accurate information. The information in this podcast is not intended as tax or legal advice. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. The opinions expressed and material provided are for general information, and should not be considered a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. Julius Wealth Advisors, LLC (“JWA”) is a registered investment adviser located in Englewood, NJ. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. The publication of The Big Bo $how should not be construed by any consumer or prospective client as JWA’s solicitation or attempt to effect transactions in securities, or the rendering of personalized investment advice over the Internet. A copy of JWA’s current written disclosure statement as set forth on Form ADV, discussing JWA’s business operations, services, and fees is available from JWA upon written request. JWA does not make any representations as to the accuracy, timeliness, suitability, or completeness of any information prepared by any unaffiliated third party, whether linked to or incorporated herein. All such information is provided solely for convenience purposes only and all users thereof should be guided accordingly. JWA is neither your attorneys nor your accountants and no portion of this podcast should be interpreted by you as legal, accounting, or tax advice. We recommend that you seek the advice of a qualified attorney and accountant.