What Fathers Can Learn About Fitness, Discipline, and Financial Peace

Roderick Richard II: All right, welcome back to the Forfitt Fatherhood podcast, a podcast for fathers by fathers. We're talking about the four pillars of fatherhood, which are faith, family, finance, and fitness. And guest today isn't actually a father, and we've done this before because I feel like that, ⁓ you know, being father obviously, you know, resonates with the majority of the audience, but we're also men and we're men first, right? And a lot of us are husbands, we're husbands first, and we're bosses, we're employees. We experience world the same way. Uh-huh, wait, wait, before you go. Now I know I mentioned this earlier, but one more time, because I know you forgot because you were locked in on the episode, but this episode was brought to you by Baseline Performance. For fathers who want to get back to their baseline and perform a purpose every day. The link is in the show notes. All right, see you next time. All right, that's it, fellas. Listen, if this episode gave you something to think about, send it to another father or another man who needs to hear it. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. and if you haven't started getting your fitness and your finances in order yet, let this be a sign to now. I'll catch you on the next one. Today's conversation is with Jared Stein. He's not a father yet, he's a man who understands discipline, pressure, rebuilding, and what it means to prepare for the future. We talk fitness, retirement, estate planning, and the kind of consistency men need to lead well. We have the same kind of weight on our shoulders. so talking to another guy, you know, besides just bouncing ideas around our own brain, it can be extremely helpful to hear things from a different lens. Maybe something sparks, you a fire within us to go out and approach the world in a different way. So my guest today is Jared Stein. Jared, how you doing, brother? know the show is starting to get rolling, but I had to drop in and let you know that this episode is brought to you by Baseline Performance. Baseline Performance was built for fathers who train with purpose, not for hype, not for complicated stacks, and not for guys who are chasing every trend. Just clean, effective supplements that help you show up ready. Ready for your workout, ready for work, and ready for your family. Because when your baseline is off, everything feels harder.

Jared Stein: Great man, how are you?

Roderick Richard II: I'm doing well, man, I'm doing well. talked a little bit pre-pod, you got your workout in already, which something I advise the guys as much as possible. You can get up and get it in early. Not everybody's schedule fits that, but if you can put yourself first, of like taking care of yourself first, first thing in the morning, I think it's the best time to do it. And I actually just mine up, so I'm probably gonna be sweating through this one. This hoodie is unforgiving right now. It's cold everywhere but here now. ⁓ baseline is right, everything starts to move better. That's what Baseline Performance is about. Simple support for dads who want to train hard. recover well and stay consistent. If you're ready to get back to your bassline, check out Bassline Performance. The link is down in the show notes. All right, now back to that episode.

Jared Stein: Yes.

Roderick Richard II: you see me take off my hat and wipe my eyebrows is because this sweat is pouring into my eyes ⁓ But but I'm feeling good and to rock roll with you brother So so tell the guys ⁓ a little about who Jared Stein is

Jared Stein: I get it. Awesome. I am the husband to a beautiful wife. My wife's name is Kate. reside out in Phoenix, Arizona. ⁓ here since 2021. Left New York City during kind all that COVID madness when my businesses were shut down and ruined. was a former gym owner. We had ⁓ five CrossFit gyms and one big box gym in New York City. Best job I ever had until I found the one I have now. Currently, I'm the COO of Strategy Financial Group and we provide retirement services. Really, we're a family office for people who don't have, you know, 20, 30, $40 million in net wealth. So we've of democratized the family office for people need help.

Roderick Richard II: Awesome, awesome. So kind of went through a similar situation. I wasn't the owner of gym, but I was a general manager here in California. We had five gyms at the time. And when COVID came, know, California shut down everything, especially in Southern California. So, you know, went from me bouncing around from gym to gym on any given day to, all right, we're going to run these Zoom classes. ⁓ They were not attended. It was a very

Jared Stein: Yep.

Roderick Richard II: I don't know what's gonna happen. We survived, we lost a couple of in the wake of that, man, that was turbulent times for gym owners for sure.

Jared Stein: it was. It was not easy financially, emotionally, physically. It was just a really tough time to be in that space and watch people kind of decline in their health, both mentally and because of the absence of gyms.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interestingly enough though, and you kind of said it yourself, is ⁓ for me, as devastating as that time was, it kind of opened me up to where I am now, right? Like took that opportunity to refocus. I had been so busy, like managing other people and ⁓ running and all the things that go with it, as I'm sure you understand. And I wasn't as intentional as I was about my time. I just wasn't spending enough time with my family. when the gym shut down, was home all of a sudden, right? And I'm home all the time. And I realized how much I was missing out on it, which kind of pushed me into this. And all really actually started because of that timeframe, right? It's like, man, I'm ⁓ time the people who are most important with me. ⁓ And I'm for sure I'm helping people get healthy and change lives. And I'm helping athletes become better athletes and championships and all these things. And then... I go home and they got inside jokes I don't know about. like, what the heck is going on? Like I'm doing this for you guys and you guys are like, why are you here? And so, you know, ⁓ as as that time was, I like to lick at that kind of silver lining of it that positioned me to be where I'm at right now. And it sounded like kind of similarly, you're in a position now where you are grateful for what you're doing despite how you ended up there.

Jared Stein: 1000 % Dante's Inferno is one of my favorite books and the lesson we learned from that is the only way out is through and you have to go through a whole lot of pain and suffering to you know, see the light of day again and you know in that moment it sucks, but truth is

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

Jared Stein: You're on the mat and either you're going to throw in the towel or you're going to answer the bell. And, know, what choice do you have? Right. You have a family, right. You have responsibilities. You're not just going to give up and go That's that's not, you know, in our ethos. And I had answer the call. I just didn't know. If I was going to get sucker punched again or if I was going to, you know, get my hands up ⁓ and start some jabs and ⁓ and when stopped feeling sorry for myself, I started making moves and.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

Jared Stein: I allowed myself time to wallow a bit and it was ugly and gross and I wasn't proud of the person I was during that moment. But I got it together and realized, hey, you gotta keep going, I just gotta reinvent myself. And it wasn't the first time I've had to do it and I'm hoping don't have to do it again. But if life comes at you like that, you fight back.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, Leaning into the fitness aspect of it just a little bit to kind of that point home a little more is like, if you've been to the gym, right, guys that are listening, obviously you have, I have, but guys who've been to the gym know that there's some struggle and there's some pain in that, right? But through that struggle comes strength, right? Like that last set that you gutted out that, like you said, you're on the mat, you can either stay down or you can get up.

Jared Stein: Mm-hmm.

Roderick Richard II: you know, going to the gym on a daily basis, doing something hard, struggling and overcoming, ultimately providing more strength is like you kind of prepping that muscle for when life hits you with it, right? When it's not a barbell, know, when it's not a dumbbell, when it's actual life things, you've built up a muscle of struggling strength. So I'm gonna go through it, right? I'm not gonna quit. I'm gonna continue pushing. And you find, it's very funny, you find on the other side more energy, right? Like more ability.

Jared Stein: ⁓ yeah.

Roderick Richard II: You know, and you get back up, you find that you ⁓ a little bit more umph to you, right? ⁓

Jared Stein: 1000 % and you know whether I'm a CrossFit guy and whether you're a strength and conditioning guy, power lift or whatever the sport or variety of fitness you're doing is you're building capacity in some domain or another and that capacity is transferable. And we talked about getting up and getting after it early. I wake up at 430 every day to make sure that the hardest part of my day is done before I get home, before I be a husband, before I be a boss at work before I can help and serve, you know, the families in our communities. I want to make sure that my capacity is at an all time high and you know, those skills are sharpened and that like the hardest part of my day is done and whatever is going to get thrown at me is not going to put me in zone four. not going to make me feel like I'm about the, you know, throw up in the bucket. It's not going to make me, you know, on the floor, you wailing. So, you I think we learned a lot of lessons from the gym or from sport in general and ⁓ know, tenacity is part of it, you know, building that capacity to handle anything is made in that gym. It's not made in the office.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting that we, when things like that happen, when we get kind of caught off guard by something or life, you know, like I said, life happens, we don't immediately connect to the that we've had that can like propel us forward, right? Like you said, ⁓ and did something similar, right? When it first happened, I was, you I felt sorry for myself. It like, man. Because the reality is we didn't know when it was going to be different. Right? And I was just like, man, I built this career and now I've got to try to coach people online, which I had done a little bit, but it wasn't the same. It's not the same. It's not the same. Like getting in the trenches and giving solid spot, giving some encouragement, being in the fray is very different than, you know, let me check your workout log and send you a voice memo about the lift that you missed or didn't do.

Jared Stein: It's not the same. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: know ⁓ mean? ⁓ some cool parts to it where you'll get a client video back and they're like, ⁓ man, look at what I did and all that, but it ain't the same, man. It's not the same. And so we kind of, I had to learn, and I've had life experiences that should have prepared me for this, right? But I had to learn that like, hey man, this is a pivot point, right? This is like, okay, it kind of knocked you off your block, but now let's get back into it. And again, building that muscle of doing that.

Jared Stein: ⁓ Right, right, it's true.

Roderick Richard II: every day, you know what I mean?

Jared Stein: 1000%. You discipline isn't something that you learn over, you know, a day or a week. It's a skill that you develop over the course of your life. You can't teach somebody discipline. They have to do it. when, you know, the teaches that too, right? It's like, okay, like this is like you walk in, you know, like it's gonna hurt, it's gonna suck. And I'm gonna do it anyways, because I'm gonna be better for it.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so let's kind of go back to what you're doing now as a career. It's kind of like estate planning. it like, can you kind of lay that out what it is? Like if I were to come in and I'm coming to see Jared Stein, what would I be coming to see Mr. Stein for?

Jared Stein: Yeah, so you wouldn't be coming to see me, right? I'm not a financial advisor, not a CFP. Our firm is though. And so what our firm does we ⁓ retirement in, you know, five pillars. So estate planning is one of them. And it's usually the first thing ⁓ we people to come in and see us for because especially here in California, probate laws in different states are really ugly. And the worst moment someone's life, right, your your spouse or your family ⁓ is when you

Roderick Richard II: Okay. Okay. Gotcha.

Jared Stein: pass and all your stuff has to go through probate, which is a really ugly process that between eight and 12 months. So when we build an estate plan, we make that that worst day is kind of consolidated to that day and that you feel safe and comfortable and protected ⁓ so that loved ones can move on and live their life with the assets you've provided them. The second part healthcare. So a lot of our clients are retirees. Medicare is a big thing and it's really sticky to navigate. So you need some expertise and just signing up for ⁓ like when do you turn it on and what supplemental packages do you need? So we help with that. And then we also help with retirement income, investments, and then your tax strategies around ⁓ so you have one who does each of those things. Like if you were to go to like your Charles Schwab down the street, they'll just handle your investment portfolio. and you have to go to your CPA to get your taxes. And then you have to go to some lawyer to do your estate plan. We do it all in house. And that's what a family office typically does. But usually fit, you know, to get access to a family office, you need 10 to $50 million. So we do that for people who have, you know, anywhere from like 2000 and a checking account to, you know, 10 to $15 million.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. but usually fit to get access to a family office. Wow. Okay, okay. Well, that seems like something that everybody needs, right? Like I know a lot of guys, yeah, I know a lot of guys that I talk to, you know, we talk about legacy or we talk about, you know, generational wealth or like, you know, providing for our families beyond the life that we're living currently. You know, when we go, we want our children to be taken care of. We want our grandchildren to be taken care of. But a lot of that, because as you just mentioned, there's so many different pieces of it.

Jared Stein: Everybody needs it,

Roderick Richard II: it seems heavy, it feels heavy and guys kind of shy away from it. Or we just do one thing, right? Like, I got a life insurance policy through work. That's it, right? And we just hope that that's the best. we think, hey, that's better than what my parents did. know, like typically our parents left us debt. And so we just want to be a step ahead. But it sounds ⁓ there's a lot of pieces to the puzzle there. ⁓

Jared Stein: It is. Mm-hmm. Is that bad? Yeah. There are, and they don't have to be complicated or scary. And when you go to a firm like ours, we break it apart in really chunks. And at our firm is evangelical about what we do, because we all have a personal story of why we're in this line of work. And mine is, I looked at my grandmother and my grandfather since past, but they were small business owners in New Jersey. They had a great little diner that was like a staple of the community. They worked really hard for 50, 60 years. retired, sold their house, and in one day, boom, market popped in 2000. They were left with nothing. And, know, were small business owners. They weren't very well educated, you formally, so they didn't, know, have the right advice around their investments. They didn't really understand how social security worked. They didn't understand Medicare as well as, you an expert would. And blessed enough that my parents are to help with grandmother, but I don't want that for anyone's grandmother. I want to help many families as possible. our goal at the is not a dollar denominated goal. So ⁓ some firms want like billion dollars in asset management. We don't look at it like that. We look at it. many households, how many families can serve in a year?

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Okay. What is like, mean, when people typically come to your firm, are like the, I don't know, what's like the first step, what are the things that they're struggling with? Or are most people kind of finding you and they're like at ground zero and you have to kind of build things up for them?

Jared Stein: Yes, we get a mix. We get a mix of people who either don't have an estate plan or don't know what one is. And so that's usually the logical first step is that we your assets, put them into an estate plan and make sure that whatever you have currently is like safe, protected, just in case like some tragedy should strike. The thing is we look at how you to live your lifestyle in retirement. So if you want to, you know, live at $10,000 a month, $20,000 a month, $30,000 a month, or $5,000 a month, we build strategies around getting that income together and putting them in viable products so that you're tax protected, that you're financially safe, that the money's not at complete risk. So there's two types of buckets of money we operate in. One is risk money, which is putting it in the stock market. The stock market crash, that goes to zero. It is a risk. Now it's not. a crazy risk. It's not like we're investing in a Venezuelan stock market, but that money is a risk. And then the other part, we do 50-50, so 50 in risk and then 50 in safe money. And we use products like fixed index annuities that have a base of zero. So your principal is always protected. You get a 10 to 12 to something point lock on the S &P 500 and that locks into the principal. And then in a couple of years, you get to pull income from that. And it's like building your own pension. And a lot of our clients find that really interesting because not a lot of people have pensions or like a guaranteed source of recurring income. And so that's really attractive to a lot of people who like spent their whole life working and are accustomed to a certain, you know, income a month style. So we do a lot of that. And then there people who come to us with just their portfolio. say, hey, we have $200,000 in an IRA. We don't know what to do with it. We want to make sure that this is, you know, in a safe strategy so that when we want to pull from it in 10 years, that there's money in there that we can give our grandchildren or leave a legacy to a charity. a whole bunch of different use cases. But those are the three types of people who walk in. And then there's always fourth, who is like an existing client, who's like, ⁓ hey, you have done really well for me. Let's make sure this is tax advantaged. So there's a huge bill at the end of the year. And ⁓ how can we get the out of our yield?

Roderick Richard II: Okay, okay. Can we go back to estate? When you say estate planning, is that like a trust, a will, or is it something else? Like what that?

Jared Stein: Yeah, it's great. Great question. there's a will is a pretty much a piece of paper that just says I decree my assets to you at the point of my death. And the it's not it's legally binding, but it has to go through the probate process. And the state plan usually consists of two things. It's either a revocable trust or irrevocable trust. And a trust is just a legal entity that holds those assets so that it's protected from probate. And it can be It almost acts like a company. So it's called the Jared Stein LLC is the trust. And then at time of my passing, who I choose as the trustee gets to dish out those assets and it's from probate. And each state has a different probate level. And so, you know, if you own your house in Arizona, where live, ⁓ Arizona probates at So if you have equity in your house, your house is like subject to probate. And so is the rest of your stuff. So for us, it's easy to get people who've owned their home for 20 years, you know, they probably bought it for $100,000 20 years ago. Now it's worth a million. They're going to be subject to probate if they don't put the house in the trust. So it's really a very easy thing to do because it avoids a lot of the, we call them the death tax, right? The estate tax. And it makes things much smoother so that, you know, you don't have to send in death certificates to the county clerk office and you don't have to. wait nine months for some probate judge to say, okay, you can have your things now.

Roderick Richard II: What's the difference between revocable and irrevocable?

Jared Stein: Those are just like rules around when you can access it and who has access to it. So a revocable trust means that you're just alive, like you and your wife would put the trust together and you're both alive and you can add to or take things out of it as the trustees.

Roderick Richard II: you okay okay all right so it sounds like highly highly suggest getting getting a trust

Jared Stein: for everybody at every asset level across the country.

Roderick Richard II: Okay, all right. So fellas, number one, get a trust. If you don't already have one, that's number one. All right, so we got a trust now. We got, you know, we put our house in it. ⁓ What are some other things other than the house that we can put in it?

Jared Stein: Yeah. Mm-hmm. You would put in your 401Ks, your IRAs, any investment accounts you have, your bank accounts, pretty much every tangible asset you have, your cars. If you like, let's say you love your cars and you have a 67 Chevy, right? And that's your baby. You'd put that, you would deed the car to the trust so that your sons could have it after you passed and it doesn't have to go through probate. So if you're leasing your car, can't do something like that. But if you own your car, you should.

Roderick Richard II: Okay, got you, got you. right, so anything that I wanna pass down or protect goes into the trust. Okay.

Jared Stein: Yeah, so house, investment accounts, bank accounts, ⁓ gym You can put anything in it.

Roderick Richard II: Okay, all right, perfect, perfect. So all the things that I think are cool that I wanna keep and pass down to my kids or I just wanna... Perfect, perfect, perfect. Okay, all right, so get to trust. Now I got to trust and then we start talking about, and this is something I'm actually, my wife and I, I'll be 43 in two weeks. She'll be 43 in like a month and we're at an age now where we start talking about retirement, right? My oldest daughter is 13, so she'll be in high school next year.

Jared Stein: Yeah, anything you want your kids to ask.

Roderick Richard II: My youngest is 11, we gotta start planning for college. And then we're like, okay, college and retirement, we're starting to work on both at the same, I mean, we've been working on retirement for a while, right? Like putting money away and all that kind of stuff. But like now that college thing is gonna start competing with the retirement thing. So do you guys also work with like that kind of planning? I mean, obviously work with retirement planning, but is there something that maybe everyone should be looking at when we're talking about retirement planning versus. you know, also trying to plan for these other things? Should we be clearing up debt first? Like what do you suggest in your professional opinion, I guess?

Jared Stein: Yeah, so again, just for everyone listening, I am not a financial advisor or a planner. You got to call their guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is this is just one man's opinion, but definitely come to the firm and to talk to the guys because everyone's situation is different. But there's a couple of different ways to slice that apple. One is good debt versus bad debt. Bad debt would be like credit cards ⁓ and like that that pile up that have really high interest rates. Good debt would be your house. Right. Hopefully you a fixed rate mortgage.

Roderick Richard II: And this is not a financial advice. Yeah, I got you. Yeah, protect yourself.

Jared Stein: and you're building equity in the house with every payment. The second part would be planning for retirement and There's different vehicles. ⁓ One, have IRAs and ⁓ Roth If you you want to put it in a Roth IRA so that it's ⁓ what we qualified money. ⁓ So when go to pull it, it's tax free. It's already been taxed. ⁓ You have for income. The second, and you to max those out every year. And I've been doing that since I'm 18. I had someone. pulled me aside when I was a freshman in college and gave me a chance at an internship and was like, this is the one thing you got to do. And I've been maxing it out since I'm 18. So the 20, almost 20 years, right? Or no, sorry, longer 22 years. Then there's the college stuff, which is, you know, a 529 account, right? There's tax advantages to putting money into a 529 and being able to pull that for your child's education. And if you're a father of young kids, the sooner you open that up and start loading it in, we've known that colleges has gotten exponentially more expensive in the last 20 to 30 years. Keep that in there. Try to get as much as you can in, because if you don't use it, you get to pull that out and you can have that cash. not gone forever. And so what I would say to someone, know, sporty three who's you know, kids on the verge of college and still looking at retirement, you need a ⁓ full family plan. you and your wife would come in, you would say, okay, we make this amount of year. This is our monthly expenditure. We can expect this much in taxes. And we know in five years, we have these payments of 20 to 30,000 to 40,000 for college. And so then you start building from the ground up.

Roderick Richard II: so then you start filming in the ground up. Okay, okay. And then I know you just mentioned when you started early, if you have a kid you wanna start early, but I know some guys that maybe weren't as lucky or as blessed as you to find out early. Is there a such thing as too late? And I kinda know the answer to this, but I just wanna make sure they hear it from somebody other than me.

Jared Stein: No, no, start now. If you haven't started, start now. I've been what I'd call a very cautious spender or saver, depending on which side of the coin. I've always lived by the rule of my rent. was never 20, more than 25 % of my monthly income. And so I've held out to my mortgage as well. And I've always socked away 25 % of my paycheck. So in saving, so I can live, I should be able to live and do the things I want to do on 50 % of my monthly income.

Roderick Richard II: so we need to get to that number or something similar, right? Like if we figure out how we work that down or what it is we need to do and it may not happen right away, right?

Jared Stein: Or something similar. Yeah. Yeah, and ever. Right, right. And everyone's situation is different, right? You have kids and they cost a lot of money. So maybe saving 25 % is not a real real thing. And but but if you say 5 % or 10%, it's better than zero. And, you know, every every dollar you save now has an opportunity to grow eight to 10 % per year while it's in the market. So better way than never.

Roderick Richard II: Right. Okay, okay. shift gears a little bit. Let's talk fitness. We got some finance stuff out of the way. Let's get into fitness. So we a little bit about those kind of early hours of getting the workouts in and you're a CrossFit guy. Have you dabbled in other, because you mentioned like strength and conditioning or things like that. Other than CrossFit, have you done some other stuff? Or have you been? ⁓

Jared Stein: Yeah. Yeah, I did MMA for a long time when I was in my youth, right? So from like 17 to 25, loved doing martial arts and all the disciplines that came with That was really great. I've tried to do some power lifting some endurance stuff. I've tried my hand at cycling swimming. But the ultimate peak, the pinnacle of the cross-swing methodology is sport.

Roderick Richard II: Thanks.

Jared Stein: I like to go do the sports, right? So if it's, all right, we're gonna go golfing. Like I wanna be fit enough to go golf. If we're gonna hike, I wanna be fit enough to put a ruck on and get up the mountain. Up until a couple of years ago, I was playing softball four nights a week and that was like a bunch of fun too, right? I just wanna be fit enough to do all the things in life that I wanna do.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, awesome. My brother and sister-in-law are really into CrossFit. She's actually gonna hopefully be competing in the games this year. We'll see how that goes. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, she's coming off a back injury last year and then a baby the year before, so she's working her way back into it, but she's a beast. It's embarrassing. You know what I mean? Like, come on, Tracy.

Jared Stein: ⁓ that's awesome. get it. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: Take it easy. No, I don't want to go work out with you guys. Like get out of here. Like you're just going to show out. I don't want that. Like, yeah, get out of here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's an animal. He is too. He is too. But she, she makes us both look bad. You know what? We, my wife and I, we, we cross-fitted a million years ago. I want to say it was like 2007 to like maybe 2009 out here in Pasadena. And what I loved about it was the

Jared Stein: Yeah, they're just fit people. Yeah, early days, yeah.

Roderick Richard II: the family feel, you know? Like you go into a, go into the box and it's like everybody knew everybody, everybody had a similar struggle. Like we were all gonna struggle through this workout. Like there's some people who were phenomenal athletes and they were getting crushed and I'm getting crushed and we're all in it together. And I think that was, that was one of the things that like kind of made it explode, right? It's because there's that shared experience of we're all in this together. on the whiteboard today is ⁓ to get us all ⁓ we got to, we got to.

Jared Stein: Mm-hmm.

Roderick Richard II: We gotta fight to survive together. And I think that that kind of ideology or that thought process is important for, and important for men to understand that we're all gonna be faced with kind of the similar things in society. Like we're all at different stages of life and different scenarios. And so it may affect us in different ways. Like I'm a father, you're not, but we're still into, we're the same world, right? We're dealing with the same situations, all the same things. are affecting us because at the core of it, we're just men, right? But ⁓ can kind of talk a little bit about how you're getting, or maybe keeping fitness kind a priority in your day and how you kind of work that out?

Jared Stein: Yeah. So been in gym since my my mom used to teach like ⁓ Pilates and Zumba and TRX and step and you name the class. She taught at the local gym. ⁓ So I introduced to the gym kind of as like a babysitter when I was 12, 13 years And, know, a guy took under his wing, you know, he was like, Hey man, you're a little young to be here. Let's leave the weights on the side and you're going to hang on pull-up bar until you can do, ⁓ you know, three strict pull-ups. And that's all I did every day. And I was just hanging on that bar and he taught me how to do pull ups and move my body in a safe way. And it was like a really cool feeling of community and everyone was behind me and there were like these big dudes that were like cheering me at 13 year old on for getting a pull up. And I was like, that's awesome. Like, this is so cool. And that cascaded, like it was just a really good energy and it made me feel really good. So I always wanted to be in there. And as I went through high school sports and college sports, was just, I really love the training more than I love the game. it was kind of wild, right? I like practicing more than I liked being the field doing the thing. And ⁓ that's I realized like, I really just like being in the gym. This is a lot of fun for me. I like the people around me. I like the that I'm doing this with. And I like the results that I'm getting like the way my body feels. And I know that after working out for better of 30 years is that if I don't take care of myself ⁓ first thing in the morning before my other responsibilities, I'm not going to feel good. not going to have the right energy with the people around me. I'm not going to show up great, ⁓ know, for my wife. I'm to be cranky and I that, you know, as men, need that like release that, that energy like to get out and ⁓ you you to put that energy somewhere. And for me, that's the gym. And I always found solace that when I got shown CrossFit.com in 2008.

Roderick Richard II: you. I'll see you time.

Jared Stein: I didn't know what it was. It looked like a really short workout and I was like, what is this? so like we do it and it awesome. And we had so much fun. And then I was like, okay, what's next? And then we'd do a lifting piece and more traditional strength and conditioning. ⁓ And what always craved was that feeling of at the end of it being like, wow, that was really hard. And wow, we really did that together and cool. Like now we're better for it. We're going to do it again tomorrow. And when I finally myself in across the gym in 2009,

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. so much fun. Mm-hmm.

Jared Stein: was like first time I walked into like an actual affiliate. Everyone knew everyone's name. Everyone was doing that same workout that you were talking about. the end it, everyone's doing high, like I'm laying on the floor, wiped out and people are like high fives, good job. Like that was awesome. Let's talk about it. And you let's, you know, we'll walk back, you know, I know you live on the East side, so let's walk back that way and we'll grab a coffee. was like, I've been here for 10 minutes. Like this is, this is cool. Like you guys just like me because we're doing the same thing. Like, ⁓ and know, you get to foster those relationships.

Roderick Richard II: See you later. Yeah.

Jared Stein: And so as that evolved, just, you get addicted to that feeling of, okay, I know this is going to suck, but I know I'm to feel better afterwards. So like you're chasing that. I'm going to feel better afterwards. And even when you're having a bad day, like today, I wasn't the best I've ever been in the gym today. I had a 30 minute piece. Could I perform better? 100%. And I just, you know, I listened to my body. I'm getting up there in age. I'm almost 40. And I was like, okay, I'm just going to dial it back a little bit, but I'm still going to feel good afterwards.

Roderick Richard II: but I know I'm gonna feel better after we're through this. you

Jared Stein: I'm injury free and I got to see all my buddies. Like all my friends are at the gym today and I was so happy to see them. And it didn't matter that like I just suffered for 30 minutes. We're just gonna, we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna hang out. I'm gonna feel good. ⁓ got, you know, driving home. I'm just like, wow, that was awesome. And I just, ⁓ you get addicted to that feeling and it's something that I've always prioritized because I like that feeling and I'm gonna continue to prioritize that because one, know it's good for me.

Roderick Richard II: so happy to see them and it didn't matter that I just stopped for 30 minutes.

Jared Stein: And, so that's helpful. But two, I like the way it makes me feel. And, you know, three is the vanity. It's like, ⁓ I like having muscles. And I like being able to carry the groceries out of the car for my wife or, you move ⁓ the package that she got from Amazon inside the house or, ⁓ you today she had me rearrange some pool furniture. I'm like, yeah, I can do these things because I'm fit enough to do that. I'm fit enough to take take life on.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, I like heavy muscles. Yeah, yeah. I think that that's a really, really important part to kind of lean into is that stuff you're doing in the gym, it isn't for the gym, right? It's for life, right? Like it ⁓ makes life easier, right? Sitting down and standing up becomes a lot easier when you're in the gym, right? Moving the furniture, that list of things your wife has you doing not going to put you ⁓ underneath bed for the week.

Jared Stein: No. Yeah. Right

Roderick Richard II: Right, like you just feel better about everything that you're doing. And I think that's important because a lot of people will shy away from going to the gym because, I'm going to be so sore. Or just that mindset of I'm not ready yet. Right, like, oh, I need to start working out, but I'm not ready to work out, you know. Or they do, but they go, you know, two hours, I'm going double days. I'm going double days. I'm going get up early, I'm going go do this, and then in the evening I'm going do that. And before you know it, they burn out. And I think it's really important what you said is like. today isn't going to be or may not be the best possible day that I've had at the gym. Like there's for sure times where I went in and I was way better. But I listened to my body, I went in, I got some movement and at the end of the day I feel better for it. ⁓ And what it's all about.

Jared Stein: Yeah. And I think people put too much pressure on themselves to perform in general. Right. So if you're new to the gym or new to fitness, you know, the expectation isn't that you go grab the hundred pound dumbbells. Everyone starts on the left side of the rack. You're grabbing the fives and everyone in the gym knows that and no one cares. The only one who cares is you. Right. And so like, is it cool that I can do bring muscle ups and, you know, backscrub 500 pounds? Yeah, I think it's cool. But like, does anyone really care? Not really, no. But like, you know, on the days where like I got to pick up something really heavy, I'm like really glad that I have the capacity to do that.

Roderick Richard II: No, no, yeah. Right, yeah, yeah, cause the other side of that is like the Amazon package comes and you're like, okay, yeah, can you help me come move this? Yeah, and the resilience to injury, right? Cause you mentioned, I'm about to be 43, you're about to be 40, we're getting older and that working out, some of the stuff that like I've got a buddy who his back goes out like just.

Jared Stein: I'm stuck. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, man, I was putting on my shoe today and now I'm in the bed for the rest of the week. I'm like, what happened to you? you, you know what mean? Like he, played ball and he played ball in high school. We didn't play together, but he played ball in high school. And I mean, you didn't have that many collisions in high school where you should be like, you can't move. know what I mean?

Jared Stein: No, as we get old, as we as we pass 30, right muscle deteriorates and atrophies like some crazy percentage point per year. then, you know, same thing with investments, right? It compounds. And so it just compounds in a negative way in this sense where, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it. And I didn't realize that was true. You know, in my twenties, I was just like, ⁓ I'm just going to be fit and, you know, I can just maintain this and all that. And the reality was, no, I got to work even harder in my thirties to maintain it so that When I hit my 50s, I'm still fit. And when I'm 60s, it's not a problem. I'm, God bless my grandfather, lived till he was 92. He a wheelchair. I'm praying I don't.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think some of that comes with, like you said, listening to your body and finding out what is the method that you're going to use. Because it's not gonna be the same, right? Some guys listening to this are not, CrossFit is probably not the best for them, right? It definitely has all of the benefits, but high intensity, varied function, that may not work for everyone, right?

Jared Stein: Yeah, right.

Roderick Richard II: variety if you haven't been doing anything forever and then all of a sudden you get you know you get a chipper thrown at you it might it might crush you yeah so that might that might not be your way to get it done but there is a way out there right and it may be it may be you just yeah

Jared Stein: Jump in and it's gonna hurt. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, there's a thousand ways. And it doesn't have to cost nothing, right? You could go for a walk and get 10,000 steps and then, you know, do a bunch of air squats and pushups and you're going to be fitter than 90 % of the people out there. you know, if you were to ask me 10 years ago, I was, I was an ideologue about it, right? I was evangelical about CrossFit. If you weren't doing CrossFit, you were nuts. And as I've gotten older and more mature, I'm just like, who actually cares? Cause what is CrossFit, right? It's varied functional movements over, you know,

Roderick Richard II: Right, right.

Jared Stein: different time domains and capacities. And you can do that without being in a cross gym without a barbell without a dumbbell, you can move your body just fine and get pretty jacked and stay pretty healthy. And you don't have to spend any money doing it.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah. And that again, important fellas. I hope you're hearing this, right? Because I know a lot of guys I talk to are like, I just don't have time or I just don't have, I don't have the space, I don't have the equipment. You don't need much. You don't, you really don't, right? Like if you just show up.

Jared Stein: No, I'll give you I'll give you a perfect example. My my best friend, my oldest friend, I've known him since were in preschool together. And a high powered exec at the NBA. I mean, youngest executive at the NBA ever. ⁓ And he's two kids. He's got a very demanding job. And you he sends me a text like, I don't have time to work out. I'm like, wake up 20 minutes earlier, do 200 air squats. There's your workout. And you know, he's been doing it. He you know, didn't God bless him, right? 20 minutes, 20 minutes a day. That's all I asked him. I was like 20 minutes a day, three days a week. Lunges, push ups, air squats. You can do it in your bedroom before the kids wake up. Pop in the shower. Your wife won't even know what happened.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, that doesn't sound like much, but when you compare it to nothing, it's a whole lot. And like you mentioned, just like finances is compounding, right? Like every day, you may not notice it the first day, you may not notice it the first week, but like as the time goes on, like, oh man, this 20 minutes ain't so bad, right? Or this set of 20 pushups is, oh man, let me do 25. No, let me do 30. And before you know it, like your body is starting to make these adaptations.

Jared Stein: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Roderick Richard II: and you're like, 20 minutes, might, let me get 30 minutes. It ⁓ to get infectious and you start really wanting to do it. ⁓

Jared Stein: Right. Right. And and we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the other dials and switches. Right. You know, for me, pyramid starts at nutrition and then for me, it's sleep. And then it's my fitness, because if my nutrition is not great, it doesn't matter what the other two do. And if, you know, nutrition is good and my sleep shit, I'm not going to be any good in the gym either. So like I've made a point that, you know, I got to eat clean most of the time. You know, I'm not perfect. I'm not a saint. But I try hard. I make sure I get eight hours matter what period. You know, as I've gotten older, I realize it's way more important. And I get my fitness in and I've my schedule around those things so that I can show up properly for my wife, for my boss, for the families we serve, for my friends. those are just, know, some of those dials and switches you can, you can toggle really easy that don't cost any, any extra money.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, like sleep ⁓ is the number one PED out there. If you can figure out how to know, your life in a way that you can get eight to 10 hours of sleep.

Jared Stein: Mm-hmm.

Roderick Richard II: It is amazing what it does for literally everything else. nutrition is the same way, right? Like if you eat like crap, you feel like crap. It's the, you ⁓ you what you eat in the sense that it was in the 80s, ⁓ It's you don't eat well, you don't feel well. That's the, are what you eat, right? And so you gotta fuel your bodies. ⁓ Again, especially we get older, you have to fuel yourself with the right stuff so that you can operate at an optimal Right? And again, that's not going to be elite athlete level unless you're an elite athlete, but it's your level, you know?

Jared Stein: No, doesn't have to be. Mm-hmm. No, totally agree.

Roderick Richard II: So I got a couple of questions I do for you and you can answer these or maybe answer these both, right? Fitness and finance. What do you is the most overrated advice online in either fitness or finance?

Jared Stein: The most overrated advice is that you gotta kill yourself to look good. You you don't. mean, you know, you know, me, CrossFit's been the amalgamation of ⁓ skills over last 20 years. And so for I have expectation of myself that I have a baseline level of capacity. I have a baseline level of skills. ⁓ So for me, my may be a little higher. And I know that I don't need to, I'm not trying to go to the CrossFit games. don't. need to go do four hours of work. I know I need you know, 60 to 90 minutes to keep my baseline where it is. And I think you know, there's a lot of stuff out there that you need to be in the gym two, three, four hours a day training killing yourself and taking all these different you know, whether it's a peptide, whether it's a supplement, whether it's, you know, some magic pill, there's no pill, there's no magic switch. It's really just hard work and if you do it for an hour, you're gonna be fine. You do it for 20 minutes and you're going from zero to 20, you're gonna be unrecognizable in eight weeks. And then you add the 30 minutes and 40 or whatever. And I think that one of the biggest wake up calls was like, you don't need to do all this volume and all these things and take all these peptides and supplements and start with nutrition, ⁓ sleep, and 20 30 minutes of movement. see how far that takes you. And then if you want to talk about like next level stuff, you can unlock that door then, but you're not going to take like a peptide and a protein powder and be jacked and fit, you know, a week is just not realistic. ⁓ then on the finance side, there's a lot man. Crypto think is the biggest, ⁓ you biggest nonsense ever. And that's that may be a hot take.

Roderick Richard II: stuff like you can unlock that door then. It's just not realistic. Okay.

Jared Stein: because of where Bitcoin's been. But if you looked at historical perspective of macroeconomics over the course of the last 500 years, this a lot like a tulip mania ⁓ in in the 1700s, ⁓ where were buying tulip bulbs and they were trading at some crazy back when the Dutch were the seas. And then it all away. It was like the emperor had no clothes. And the reality is Bitcoin doesn't buy you anything. You always have to trade it into a currency. So if I went...

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

Jared Stein: to go buy Bitcoin, I have to trade my US dollars, buy a Bitcoin, whatever that is. And then if I want to go buy something with that Bitcoin, I have to turn it into dollars and go make the purchase. So I don't think there's actually any real value there. I think this was a really good attempt of democratizing currency as opposed to a fiat currency, which we have in the dollar or the euro or the yen. But one day the carousel is going to stop.

Roderick Richard II: Mmm, okay. Mm-hmm. Okay, all right the crypto bro is gonna be at you on this one man

Jared Stein: And look, there's a lot of guys, my cousin's one of them, made a ton of money in crypto. I'm like, awesome, dude, I'm glad you didn't lose your shirt. I'm happy for him. I'm like, but don't tell me this is like a sound and safe asset. It's not. There's no physical thing it makes. Warren who's probably the best investor ever, he had ethos. He's like, I don't invest in things I don't understand. And so there may be people who understand Bitcoin really well.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Right.

Jared Stein: Let them go do that. Let them trade in that. But Warren Buffett invested in Coca-Cola because he understood what Coca-Cola was. He understood what a ball bearing was. So he invested in ball bearings. So I think that would be the of investing in something you'd, I would say only invest in things you understand.

Roderick Richard II: All right, that's good, that's good, right? And I like the analogy to the tulip mania. And then also you're right, right I ⁓ can't anything. I can acquire Bitcoin, but I can't do anything until Bitcoin becomes something else, right? It has to have to turn it into, right? And ⁓ then always gonna be affected by the value of the fiat currency, right? And so that part of it does make it kind of ⁓ tricky,

Jared Stein: Right, you have to liquidate it. It makes it really tricky.

Roderick Richard II: ⁓ So, okay, all right, cool, cool, cool. kind of alluded to it already in fitness, right? You talked about like just taking that 20 minutes, but what is like one boring move, like something simple, easy, we would say it's boring, a thing that we can do. And if you want to stick with the 20 minutes in fitness, then we'll take that as, and we'll leave that as it is. But then in finance or in family planning or protection, ⁓ What is that boring thing that I can do to just like, it's the biggest bang for my buck.

Jared Stein: Yeah, the basics are always boring. Right. And I believe in if you practice perfectly, you make improvements. And so whether we're talking about the gym where like you got to your squats, your deadlifts, your pull ups, your push ups dialed in. Those are the basics. They're boring. Well, not for me, but like I enjoy those movements, but a lot of people find them boring. If I said, hey, go do 30 pull ups, they may get bored and it may not take long and they're still going to get bored. But there's no better bang for your buck. right? You're gonna do 100 air squats, you're gonna get bored. It's doing the same repetitive movement over and over again, you're gonna get bored. But the basics, they're the most effective. And the same thing goes for finance. And when you're investing in things that are and new and hot, and you know, all ⁓ the NFTs, remember when NFTs were big, people were dumping them? ⁓ one knew what an NFT was. was it was hot and exciting. And people like lost their shirt, buying image of some thing and it

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

Jared Stein: didn't materialize anything. would say, you know, some things apply. Things really, you know, the S &P, if you were to if you were an investor in the S &P in 1988, when the market crash will pick a low point on Black Monday, and you started your investment account that day, and you wrote it all the way through into now to today, right? You would have had a couple bad days, right? You would have the pop in 2000. You had 2008, which was pretty ugly 2008 2009.

Roderick Richard II: But then the market rebound started, you know, climbing again.

Jared Stein: ⁓ But then the market rebound and started, you know, climbing again. And so if you stay the course with the boring stuff like the S &P is real, like diversified, boring, it's not exciting, you get to track it every day, you can learn the companies that are in it. You exposure to a whole bunch of different industries. The boring, the basics, that's where I

Roderick Richard II: Okay, okay. Yeah, I think that's like we were always told, keep it simple, stupid. just, you know, some of that stuff ⁓ very exciting and NFTs was one of them, right? The world was going into a virtual space and we needed to buy digital ⁓ estate and build houses on it and ⁓ the things, right?

Jared Stein: It's true. Right. And what did it amount to? Right. And that's not to say that there are other ways to make a lot of money in finance. Right. We could hours talking about options strategies. But that's really risky stuff. And the risk reward profile is wild on that kind of stuff. And you don't that particular stock and those options strategies like ⁓ straddles and hugs and ⁓ and long calls and way out of the money options. You're going to get your shirt taken from you fast because there's guys out there that are experts that spend all day doing this stuff. we about 2008 for a second, that credit default swap mess that took down Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. Those were really smart dudes. Like little rocket scientists designed that stuff and were trading that stuff. And then got democratized and people were bundling mortgages and ⁓

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

Jared Stein: They were selling out the door to retail investors who didn't know what they were looking at. Market went to boom.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah. Yes, keep it boring, fellas. Get your 100 air squats in. know, save for 25 % in. You know, like do all the things, right? Max out your IRA, do all those things because you can be risky with some portion of it, right? Like just if you want the fun and the excitement, like you can definitely go, you know, just your first day working out, you're going to decide that you're going run a marathon. You can definitely go, like go, go, you go balls to the wall if that's what you want.

Jared Stein: Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm at it, yeah.

Roderick Richard II: you know, that's a part of it too, right? Like there is some part of it where yes, we do wanna just do the boring things and they're consistent, but there's kind of like that flow chart, right? Where it's gotta be enough to challenge you so that you wanna do it, but it can't be too challenging where it crushes you or kills you, right? Like it's gotta be somewhere in that midpoint for you to stay consistent or to find that like inspiration and motivation to do it consistently. But if you just want to get the result, just keep it boring. Yeah, said it and forget it like they used to say it, you know the Ron Popeo, right? Just drop it in there and just and walk away Do you find that there's anything that like? Just kind of talking to guys either, you know on social media in your inner circles, you know people with work Is there something that like is a general thing that guys, you know You find the guys are struggling with like one one thing everyone should try to avoid and that's hard right because there's a bunch of people

Jared Stein: Getting more master of the basics. Yeah, that's right.

Roderick Richard II: But like something that kind of comes up often that, know, let's just avoid that and it fixes most of our problems or include that and it fixes most of our problems.

Jared Stein: I said the exclude list is easy. Exclude booze, right? As I've gotten older, the more and more of my friends stop drinking and they just feel better because it affects your sleep, it affects your mood, it affects how you show up the next day. the inverse of that is you get better sleep. And when you dial in your sleep, you're going to show up better and be better every day. look, I'm not sober. I mean, I am now, but you know, I a whiskey. Like it's one of my passions, but I don't go crazy. I try limit my booze from Friday night Saturday night. And then, you know, I to try to be a good boy in between. That's not to say you know, if there's a special occasion, I'll have a cocktail, but you everything in moderation. But the more I hear, you know, either or, you know, in my friend group here at the gym, less and less people drink and ⁓ I think they're better for it.

Roderick Richard II: Okay. Yeah, I'd agree. I'd agree. you're in your 20s, days and life kind of revolves around going out and drinking and hanging out. And then you get older, you get further away from that, right? You come around to it every once in the holidays are like, but your orbit gets further and further away from, or should, maybe I should say should probably get further and further away from that, right? Like when you're young, it's in your atmosphere. It's everywhere. It could be a Tuesday night.

Jared Stein: They do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, and it's harder to say no when you're young.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree, I agree. And it does affect so many different things that, know, physically, emotionally, situationally, right? So, okay, all right, cool. Hey, look, before we go, man, like I said before, and I said this to you before we started the podcast, I appreciate you coming on. If guys are wanting to share appreciation, they wanna reach out to you, they wanna say thanks for the episode, high five, that kind of stuff, where should they reach out?

Jared Stein: on Instagram at Jared underscore s underscore Stein. And they need any help with their finance stuff, Jay Stein at strategy financial group, I will set them up with a free, you all of our appointments are free. We don't charge people for, you know, the advice. So, you know, shoot me a note ⁓ and I'll you with the right advisor, you know, based on your situation and we'll, get you a plan.

Roderick Richard II: Okay, and they can do that virtually? Or do they have to be there in person? Okay, perfect. Perfect, perfect, yeah. Fellas, listen, if you don't already have your affairs in order, I highly suggest that you reach out and start at least looking at what that can look like for you. I think when you have someone working with you, multiple people working with you, it can some of the stress and some of the scariness away from it.

Jared Stein: Yeah, nope, you can do it virtually.

Roderick Richard II: And then you can kind of, you know, move on with your life and lean into the things that, you know, are right there in front of you that are maybe a little bit more important because you have, I don't want to say more important, because you have the future taken care of, you know. You can remove some of that worry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, before we go, do you have anything like last words?

Jared Stein: That's right. Peace of mind. Yeah. Stay consistent guys. gets hard, just one foot in front of another every day. Just try to get a little bit better.

Roderick Richard II: That's it, that's it. know, if you're, ⁓ like, I tell guys, you know, whenever we're working, it's not gonna be visible every day, right? It's like a tree though, right? If it's not growing, it's dying. And so if we're taking a step forward or we're taking a step in the right direction, it have to be leaps and bounds. It may not even be noticeable, but we're moving forward and we're moving forward with intent and that's what's important. All right, I appreciate you joining us and I look forward to talking to you soon, brother.

Jared Stein: Thank you, sir. Appreciate you.

Roderick Richard II: All right, my man, have a great day.

Jared Stein: Useful.