Intelligent Investing #77 Glenn Leest, How Glenn became an Financial Advisor & How to be an Intelligent Investor

In this episode, Glenn Leest takes you on a personal journey through his career and shares how he became a senior investment advisor. But this episode isn't just a tale of personal growth; it's a roadmap for anyone looking to navigate the world of investing. So, whether you're a financial novice or a seasoned pro, tune in to discover how Glenn got to where he is today and why the path to becoming an intelligent investor is so important for your financial future. 

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Glenn Leest
Senior Investment Advisor
WT Wealth Management
Office Phone: (928) 225-2474 Office
Email: intelligentinvesting@wtwealthmanagement.com

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Transcript

That's why it's better to prepare than to predict. Glen can help you strategically position your portfolio based on where you are in your financial life. Making emotional decisions is not a good strategy. It leads to selling at the wrong time and waiting too long to get back in when turnarounds happen.

Glenn and his team help you build a portfolio that fits you like a glove. With an investment strategy that targets capturing upside potential while mitigating risk during difficult markets. Glenn's a fiduciary who shares your values. Call Glenn Leest for a complimentary portfolio review at 928-225-2474

Glenn and his team have an investment strategy to give you confidence. No matter what. Curve ball, the market might throw, call Glenn least at 928-225-2474. You're listening to the Jeff Ford show business spotlight brought to you by Len least at WT wealth management.

All right. Welcome back. Jeff Horvitz here. Um, another business spotlight. I like doing these at the end of every week and Glenn least from WT Wealth Management is here with me, Glenn. Uh, welcome back to the program. How are you doing? Good. Good. I, um, I wanted to pick your brain on a few things, especially the do's and don'ts when it comes to investing and things like that, because I think, you know, on the other day on the program, we were talking about interest rates and things like that, and you're optimistic right now.

The way things are going, especially with inflation finally coming down a little bit. So, I thought it was a good time to hit the kind of do's and don'ts and experience you've seen out there. But I wanted to remind listeners because you've shared a lot of stories over the years. Glenn, how did you get...

into the investment. Yeah. Into the investment advisory. Is that, is that the right terminology investment advisory industry? Yeah. So, before I did this, I was a paramedic for several years. Yeah. I worked in the ER for a little bit, worked in a substance abuse detox facility for a while. And, uh, really it was just looking for a change.

Um, I realized that was going to be a hard career to provide for my family and be gone a lot. So, one of my family, uh, friends, his dad had been in the industry for years and, um, you know, I knew them quite well, would go up to the lake with them. And, you know, I'd had asked him multiple times, like, hey, can I come in and just learn about investing?

I'll shred paper, all mop floors. I just want to learn. And finally, in about 2013, he was like, okay, let's, uh, let's talk more. And so, he, um, you know, put in the word for me, the good word for his employer, um, which they hired me on his recommendation. So, I got started in 2013, you know, kind of, that's how I got into it.

My friend's dad helped kind of pave the way. Um, and then it's been, so it's almost 10 years now. Um, the first like five years of the industry are extremely difficult. In fact, I think there's a 90 percent washout rate in the first three years, meaning, you know, 10 people that get into the industry, only one is left after three years.

It's even more after like five or six years. So, to be 10 years, I've kind of beat the odds, if you will. But there's a lot of situations where in times where my wife and I just struggled tremendously, and it was not easy and not for the faint of heart. So anytime, you know, if people think like, oh, that business owner, that people got it made, you're like, yeah, but you don't know how much they sacrificed to get them.

They're going on vacation or this or that, or it's like, but they haven’t seen each other for 20, 30 years. We've gone so long, my wife and I were not doing any vacations because we were just, you know, we had to, you know, do that to get the business up and going. And now it's like, okay, let's hopefully buy back some of that time that we sacrificed.

But yeah, so in the industry for about 10 years, um, really had started just with the insurance side of things, uh, in the first two years, uh, life insurance and disability. And then after that, I graduated and started doing the, um, the investment side of things. So, investment advisory, um, which is the bulk of my business, 99 percent of what I do.

A couple of points here, Glenn, and we're talking with Glenn least. I think first, A lot of people don't want to mop the floors or like you said, shred the papers or pick up the trash or whatever to start off with. There are so many people nowadays that just want to start, I got this degree, or I did this, or I have this experience, so I'm starting right at the top and it's, they miss so many opportunities because they don't get in there and they don't, and then you went to someone and said, hey, I want to.

A lot of times you almost pester people who are in the know or in an industry and say, “I want to learn, I want to learn. And people like that want to be mentors and bring people up. Yeah. Yeah. So, you, that, that, that, uh, that terminology that I might describe that as is a. Grit, right? Is that just pure will to like, persevere and do what it takes to, you know, get to your end goal and to sacrifice and put in hard work.

And there's not a lot of people that are willing to do that. And that's fine. This, you know, this industry is not right for everyone. It's a great setup for me. But, um, you know, there's nothing in life that comes easy. Nothing worth having at least comes easy in life. So absolutely. All right. I think it's a good time to talk because you're, you're feeling optimistic right now.

You don't have a crystal ball, but a little more optimistic than maybe a few months ago when it came to the market because of interest rates and potential interest rates, maybe. raising, maybe not even lowering, but just stop raising at this point. Yeah. So, the federal reserve, um, is the one that controls the, uh, interest rates.

And they look at a lot of the, um, CPI numbers to determine whether they're going to continue raising rates. And, you know, it came out this week. CPI numbers are. You know, much lower than expected, which is good news. Um, because previously, before those numbers came out, the federal reserve signal, they're going to do a hawkish pause.

What does that mean? Right. To me, that means they're probably going to raise it one more time at quarter percent. So, I think there's, the probability is high that they'll do one more interest rate rise and. July of quarter percent. And then after that, they'll be done. Um, and usually when they're done raising interest rates, they finish the, the, uh, the tightening cycle.

If you will, the markets usually do quite well. The next 12 to 24 months, you know, extremely well as far as the equity market. So, I think the worst is behind us. Um, as far as that goes. And then the other data points that are really, um, optimistic is the unemployment numbers are solid.

You know, everyone's working, which is good. And then everyone's spending, still like the consumer spending numbers have just continue to stay strong. We had a little bit of a blip during the pandemic, but they're, they're right on track to where they were before. So, um, 70 percent of our economies on the consumer anyway, to think of that.

There's still money out there because so many people seem like they're tapped out, but it's amazing that the resiliency sometimes I'm just like, yeah, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but somehow, it’s kind of all keeps going. Well, I think it's a good time to look at do's and don'ts because you talk about that a lot, Glenn.

And one thing. is taking this time right now, I guess, to kind of set up your goals, have those financial goals because I think a lot of people, they don't, they don't sit there. They might know like every sporting event going on or every actor or every, you know, how many tweets someone sent out, but sitting down and taking the time to set up your financial goals.

Yeah, no, that's not something that everyone is going to be in the high priority for the most entertaining thing for sure. Um, and a lot of times people dread, you know, kind of doing that because maybe they know in the back of their mind, they're not where they want to be, and they must be honest with themselves.

But. Yeah, taking the time to map out your goals and, you know, start putting some, some pen to the, you know, pen to the paper into the paper. Like you must start, you must paint a picture, you know, paint a target, you know, otherwise you're, you're just aiming, you know, aimlessly. So that's where a lot of the work that I do comes into play as I help people.

You know, you know, flush out some of those goals and, and really brainstorm together what's important and, and realistically, you know, I've been doing this for so long that most people have similar goals. You know, there's not that many, you know, goals that I, you know, are, are super unique, you know, and I want to say for retirement, I want to, you know, help.

My kids and my grandkids. I don't want to work forever. I want to live a good lifestyle. I want to maybe give to charity or, you know, X, Y, Z. So, a lot of people's goals are similar, but helping them define that and then map out a game plan to get there, I think is extremely crucial when you get people coming in, are they.

Honest with themselves. Do you sometimes see a pattern of what is that? You know, is this really where you're going to be out for retirement or investment goals? So, there's unfortunately more than I'd like of people not necessarily being honest with themselves. Um, and usually it's regarding the amount of risk that they can take.

Um, you know, people will come in and say, Oh, I'm super aggressive. I love taking risks. But really what they mean is they only want risk on the upside, not on the downside. And, and that's not how investing works. I mean, it's, you must ride the entire ride on the roller coaster. You can't just get off halfway.

So, I think that's where people are maybe not honest with themselves or honest with me is, is how much they can, um, withstand. And so, part of my, my job is to really educate them, help understand the dynamics of the market, how investing works, and then make sure that their level of risk is tied in, you know, is meeting, you know, what their comfort level is.

Um, some people when they go it alone, you know, they. They may be much more aggressive than they want to be because they just don't understand. Um, or there may be too conservative and so that's where someone like me, like, okay, so the work that we do, we get paid for, right? Um, you could go do the, you know, online financial planning for free or investment, you know.

Pick a bunch of investment funds for free. Um, there's always something cheaper, but you pay a premium or you pay a cost for the service because you see the value in what we do. And they've done studies that show the average advisor will add an additional 4 percent of performance on top of your portfolio every year.

It's compounded as yeah. Yeah. And so, my thought is, is like, yeah, you're going to be paying a cost, but you're still going to be net ahead. And you're going to have a whole lot less stress and you're going to have a advocate in your corner who's truly an expert. So, so I think some people are not, uh, honest themselves in that aspect too, to say, hey, you know what?

There's a lot of value in what they do. And um, this should be one area where I, I'm willing to pay, you know, and it's, it's a good thing that I am paying because I'm getting good quality stuff. Yeah. And the free, you get what you pay for sometimes when it's free. Nothing's free, right? Yeah. Exactly.

Nothing's free in this world. When you talk about diversifying, when someone says, Oh, I want to, there's some people who invest and you think of the big, you think of like Warren Buffett and people like that, they'll go out and just pick 10 different things and there, they're very laser focused. But then I think even someone like Warren Buffett has said, if you don't know what you're doing, you better diversify.

Um, because. Uh, we're talking about people who are going out and picking, they're trying to pick randomly a stock or something. Warren Buffett spends an enormous amount of time doing that. Uh, a planner is going to spend time doing stuff like that. You spend time doing stuff, but you still recommend diversifying because Um, sometimes you get it wrong if you pick it, if you put it all in one, all the eggs in one basket, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

People got it wrong in Enron. Um, yeah, it was, I thought that was the thing. Yeah. So, and, and especially those that worked there. So, their paycheck was tied to Enron and their buying stock, which, you know, they both collapsed. So, their retirement account was, yeah, yeah. So, diversification is really a great way to spread your risk across multiple different Thank you.

Um, investments or asset classes. And so not just different companies, but what size companies, where are they domiciled? Um, maybe real estate, maybe commodities. You know, when I think of diversification, it's not just stocks. Um, it's, it's a whole myriad of different investments and they, a lot of them, you know, work independently of each other.

They work differently. So, I heard this quote one time. Diversification means there's always one thing in your portfolio that you don't like. Let that set in. There's always one asset class that you're like, oh, I just don't like that one. It's underperforming. But when everything flips around, that's the one that does well.

So, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So, what about timing? Because right now we've, we've had that kind of that bad period, and you had people that sat out. You have now things have been kind of cranking again, uh, before that, during, I wouldn't have guessed during COVID when things went insane, that would have been in time when I was like, dump, dump, dump, because the world is about to end.

Maybe the world did end, and we went through like a wormhole or something to, um, Glenn, I don't know that everything did change, but anyway, timing it because I would have picked a sell everything at this point with COVID and it's, it's, it's a psychological game. Yeah. So, they talk about the importance of investing if we should be more focused on time in the market, like how long.

Am I invested for my money's working for me as opposed to timing of the market? Um, because frankly, if I could time the market, I wouldn't have any clients. I would just sit there at my desk all day and trade stocks and make a million dollars a year, but that's, that's not how it works. Um, and so I always recommend my clients don't try and time the market because almost every time I've seen clients try and do that, they're worse off than they were if they just left it.

In there, you know, because they get out, you know, when the market's going down and then it hits, you know, a bottom and they don't get back in then. And then it starts to come up and they get back in at a higher price than when they left. And you're like, well, what was the point of that? And all the stress, the psychological stress.

So, um, I tell my clients like, look over, you know, the next two to three years, we have a better idea of what the market's going to do over the next two to three months or two to three weeks. I don't know. I mean, that's kind of just a coin toss. Um, but we, yeah. Yeah. So, like you said, you'd be able to, you'd be, you'd be billionaire if you could time it that good.

And there are people that can do that. They sit there all day, and they look at it. There, you know, there's some very specialized people that are, you know, have big, uh, hedge funds, perhaps that, that, that, I don't know, you know, you disagree. Oh, well, I mean, one of our, you know, one of them founding members of ours.

The company was, you know, working with hedge funds for years. Yeah. So, we do have some background information on that, but that's a topic for another show. Let's save that one. Yeah. For, for another time. Yeah. We've got more do's and don'ts here, but we're just about out time. Um, Glen, I, I always appreciate it.

It's, um, I, I hope things turn out good here. I know you're more optimistic now than you were just, um, even, even a few weeks ago. A few months ago. Yep. So that's a good sign and mm-hmm., uh, despite, I'm shocked at how resilient. Um, to be honest with you, the, the U S economy is, despite the insanity that we see all around us, the guy that hired me into this industry, um, he, he'd been doing this for like 30, 40 years.

And he said the one thing that always shocked him in his entire career was just how resilient the U S economy can be, you know, cause exactly like you're saying, like, how could we recover and how can we be so, um, resilient? Um, I think never underestimate the power of the U. S. economy because it's very robust and you can go through quite a bit.

All right, Glenn. Appreciate it. Talk with you soon. All right. Thanks, Jeff.

Waiting until a recession becomes official would be very late to make any constructive changes to your portfolio. Jeff Horvitz here and Glenn Leist and his team at WT Wealth Management know that predictions about what the markets might do are often wrong. That's why it's better to prepare. Glenn can help you strategically position your portfolio based on where you are in your financial life.

Making emotional decisions is not a good strategy. It leads to selling at the wrong time and waiting too long to get back in when turnarounds happen. Glenn and his team help you build a portfolio that fits you like a glove with an investment strategy that targets capturing upside potential while mitigating risk during difficult markets.

Glenn's a fiduciary who shares your values. Call Glenn Least for a complimentary portfolio review on 928 225 2474. Glenn and his team have an investment strategy to give you confidence no matter what curve ball the market might throw. Call Glenn Least on 928 225 2474.