634: Fearless Wealth: Money Mindset, Question the Obvious, Find Extreme Stability and Implement Powerfully Simple Investing with CFP and NLP Expert RC Peck

Speaker 1 0:05 Marketer of the day. Episode 634, fearless wealth, money mindset question the obvious. Find extreme stability and implement powerfully simple investing with CFP and NLP. Expert, RC Peck,

Speaker 2 0:27 Hey everyone, and welcome back to the marketer of the day podcast. We're chatting with RC Peck from fearless wealth. And RC Peck is a CFP, and he sits at the intersection of money and human behavior. And for over 20 years, RC has helped people hear what their money is trying to tell them, and his struggle with dyslexia watching his parents life savings get embezzled, and his background in neuro linguistic programming, NLP taught him to question the obvious, and now RC Peck uses his ability to see what others can't see, which brings clarity and insight into a world that is often described as confusing, as overwhelming, and now we're going to figure out what it means to listen to our money and get the life we want. So RC, glad to be talking to you.

Speaker 3 1:14 Yeah, good to be here. Thank you

Speaker 2 1:15 very welcome. So, so can you kind of unpack a little bit about what you do make what makes you stand out unique? What makes you special?

Speaker 3 1:24 You know, probably the thing that makes me stand out or unusual is I think of myself as a heretic, and the word heretic, it's Greek root, means able to choose. And I realize that most people don't realize they have a choice when it comes to investing. They're, they're basically offered two flavors and and then they're like, Oh, I guess I'll do that. And so I think the thing that's most unusual about me is that I think of myself as a financial heretic, right? Someone that says there's actually a better choice. There's a better choice than, you know, the big box advisor or the pick of the month newsletter world, which is kind of the two choices people are given and and I want people to know that there's other choices which, which, I will just tell you that I don't get along necessarily with Other financial advisors, because I think a lot of what they teach is actually not that valuable. And I mean, teach beyond what you could find out from a Google search, like, how much can I put away this year? What are the limitations on that? Like, if you're going to an advisor for something, you could just type into Google, then you know, you really know that person, not really just kind of standing up for what might be best to you. So I come at it from a very skeptical point of view.

Speaker 2 2:52 Okay, so that sounds really interesting. So can you tell me? So what there's, there's two basically mainstream options. You said, there's the big box advisor and the pick of the month thing, and then a lot of the information that a lot of these advisors just kind of say the same old stuff, right? The same old stuff from the Google searches. So what is the better way? What is this outside the box thinking? What are some of these ideas that you have?

Speaker 3 3:21 So the main, the main belief system coming from the big box world is investing is incredibly complicated. It's incredibly complex. The economy is complex. And they build this story, this narrative, how complicated the world is investing in. And they say, because it's so complicated, the solution or the answer has to be equally complicated. But don't worry, Robert, we'll, we'll swoop in as the hero of your day, and we'll manage the complexity of the complexity that we created. Right? So they're creating this narrative of confusion, overwhelm and but we'll swoop in. So I kind of call BS on that, because the problem or the question can be complicated, but the solution oftentimes is simple. And so the first thing I'll just say is most advisors, ie almost all of them, when it comes to the world of actually growing money, they greatly underperform what I call the free market rate of return. So they're not really adding the value that they kind of prescribe that you need. They're mis prescribing. They're misdiagnosing, and a lot of them don't even know it, because they've never actually spent the time and done the deep study or the deep dive on markets. As weird as that may sound, their limitation of understanding is actually very shallow. So that's just one group, and they say, Stay passive. Make. Yourself the center of your investment universe, and your has to do with your age and your self described risk times, and none of that is actually what's best. So I go up against them and say, Well, look, investing is not about you. It's your money, but it's not about you. Why don't you just find out what is going higher, right? Once you just learn the asset class. And this is super we don't need to get into the weeds. And obviously there's nuances, but like, there is a super clean and simple and implementable way to be like, Oh my gosh, this is what's actually best for my money. And oftentimes it's that free market rate of return, which is just the s, p5, 100. So their whole theme is passive. Is the answer. The world is complicated. We'll never know when the next 50% drop. We never know. Now flip that, and you have this other group that says, No, it's not passive investing. It's active. You got to be active. It's the staff pick. It's all these picks. You got to find the right picks. You got to do the right research. And that's the pick of the month newsletter world, right? They say, do it yourself, and we're going to help you do it yourself. But what ends up happening again is you put yourself in the middle of this whole investment universe, and you're literally getting triggered your your sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight nervous system, is literally getting triggered and turned on, and your amygdala is freaking out. You do not want to go into growing your money with your amygdala lit up and your sympathetic nervous system fully triggered, but that's what the pick of the month newsletter world is doing. So I needed to just quickly, just say, I kind of offer this unusual third choice, which is most of the time. You actually should be passive, probably, you know, 75 80% of time. But there's these periods of time where the market clearly has to go into a major correction. And if you just study that one hand off between one asset to another, which once you see it, you can't unsee it, you then go, Oh my gosh, I've over complicated this. So literally, I'm pulling the curtain back and in some ways, putting these people out of a job. Because once you see how it can be simple and implementable, you go, Oh, I probably don't need those other people.

Speaker 2 7:31 Well, the way you describe it, it sounds like the two options that don't work. Sound like the two extremes, right? One extreme, I'm doing very little. I'm mostly waiting around the other extreme, I'm just fight or flight all the time. And so it sounds like what you're saying is mostly be passive, but then wait around and pounce for the right time so that you're being more strategic and thinking things through and not just going through the motions.

Speaker 3 7:58 Yeah, most things in life do not work at extreme. And when you hear it, he goes, Yeah, that probably makes sense. Like you have to have some moderation. You look at any accomplished marketer or entrepreneur, and if they don't have it at the beginning, they start moving towards that moderation in their life. It's the same thing with investing big box advisors go extreme on this passive and complexity and confusion, and the big box world goes extreme on, active, active, active, active. And in fact, people don't know they have a third choice, because the third choice is not as easy to market. It's not as exciting, and it takes a lot of dumping the brain trash, really, dumping a lot of trash in the brain, and be like, really, can I just really have the third choice? So there's a, there's it's a much harder story to tell.

Speaker 2 8:57 So when you're working your magic and you're figuring out what exactly that third choice is. Do you have a process like, or is it depends on the changes based on the person, and it's different for everyone. Or what is your thought process like when you're trying to come up with that third solution?

Speaker 3 9:17 So the third solution is the same for everyone. So I want you to think of it this way. Think of the stock market as an ocean, right? And so if you've ever gone out on a boat, a good a good captain is really looking at two things. He or she is looking at the water, and they're looking at the sky. Now the water is in response to the sky. So if the sky turns black with cumulus Nimbus clouds, and they're super black and stormy, the water is going to start acting differently. Right? Wind comes out of the sky that's going to start making the water act differently. So the water is the stock market. And what I'm suggesting is, you turn around, you've been taught, most people have been taught. That you put your back to the ocean. Go. Just ask me the year you're born. Hey, what year were you born? Oh, 71 Okay, 1971 No, no, no, don't look at the don't look at the ocean. No, no, just turn around. Okay. Answer these 30 questions about these risk tolerance questions, which they're so weird and odd. You answer them. What I'm suggesting is the third option is turn around. Look at the ocean. If you don't even need to be a sailor to look at the ocean and go, clouds are dark, waves are 20 feet. Probably not a good idea to go in. Even if you're born in 1981 or 1991 or 1951 probably not a good idea. Like you would know this instinct, your instincts would go, that looks kind of dangerous. So all I do is teach people to turn around. I'm using, obviously, the ocean as a metaphor, but I'm telling them turn around, look at the ocean. Okay? And I literally can show them in minutes how to look at the ocean, because I know I'm using a metaphor right now. And so once I show them, they go, Oh, well, that actually looks safe. Yeah, it is safe, and that's actually the safest place to be, even if you were born in 1940 now, I'm leaving some things out to prove the point, but the third option is to turn around. Open your eyes. Stop reading, right? Stop looking at words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters, which is the kind of a 19th century way or the 20th century way of learning. It's like, you know, factory learning. And my suggestion is, let's get rid of the words, and let's put some pictures in. And let me show you pictures of what safety looks like. So when I would show that to someone, their brain would go, Oh, I thought it was dangerous to be in the stock market because of x, y and z, but actually the ocean's glassy. There's nice six knot wind to our back. And what's actually best is to be out on it. So by reframing words to pictures as an example, they go, Wait a second. I don't have to be passive and I don't have to be active. Those are just constructs. Like, what are those words even mean? Like, are you passive or active? Robert, right. Are you good or bad? Are you a Democrat or Republican? It's like, whoa, whoa, Wrong question.

Speaker 2 12:19 Yeah. It depends on what it is. And in any cases, it's neither. It's

Speaker 3 12:25 neither. It's like, what are you I'm a scare of the ocean. And when the ocean's good, I'm on it, which is not aggressive or conservative or moderate, it's like, I'm a sailor for 80% of time, and let's say 20% of time, I'm in safe harbor, and then I'm a lander. I'm hanging out on land. I'm not one or the other. I'm just doing what's best for my money. But I'm using different words.

Speaker 2 12:49 Well, I'm doing a lot of NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming in your like, you know your your metaphors and your visuals, and you're talking about the amygdala. So how did that aspect come about? How did you get an interest in that, and how did you decide to plug that into your financial planning? Continuing training.

Speaker 3 13:15 I had a client. I remember the moment I had a client in 2003 and I was working with him and his wife, and I was asking what others would call RC questions, because how does that happen? Like, when do you know to get into a fight with your wife? Like, like, you weren't angry at her five minutes ago, and then she mentioned the credit card came, and I want to talk to you about it. Like, how did you know then to get angry at her? And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Do you know? NLP, I'm like, No, I'm just curious, like you weren't angry five minutes ago, your wife. And I say this to people, I say to Mike, do you love your wife? She goes, yeah. First of all, you have to have a lot of reporters say that kill man in front of his wife. So I said, So you went from loving her to being super angry because she said, credit card statement. And he goes, and he said, and he was an NLP Master Practitioner, goes, you it may value. You may find a lot of value in consciously learning NLP so you can unpack people's behavior even more to find out the crux of what's really causing people financial harm. And so I did a deep dive, and I'm still a student of it, but I did this two year course when I lived in the Bay Area, was in Marin, maybe it was two and a half years. And basically NLP taught properly, is an owner's manual to how the brain operates, and one of the key components is words. Create emotions. Emotions create behavior. Behavior creates Action. Action creates what you have in your life. So it's like, wow, if I change the word from conservative, aggressive, moderate to what's the ocean look like? The brain? Loads of different experiences,

Speaker 2 15:04 interesting. And I've come across like a little bit of the that, that weirdness, how that emotion is tied to money, and then many times, in order to get what we want, we have to reframe that, and just speaking from my own sort of experience, I went through maybe a decade of this being emotionally tied to money. When the money coming in was good, I felt good, but also a little bit nervous, and when the money was doing really bad, I beat myself all up. I felt terrible about myself, and sometimes I'd go through phases where, even when the money was good, there were like, you know, a lot of taxes, kind of expenses, or there was, you know, the investments going up and down. And I would definitely go through that fear of being even afraid to go and check the bank account, being afraid to go and check the investing portfolio. So have you experienced any of that with your clients, where they're just they're even afraid to look, or they're just afraid to take any action, or the how well the money is doing ends up being linked to their own self esteem.

Speaker 3 16:19 I mean, the thing about money is so all humans are always in one of four emotions, always at all times and and this may sound controversial at first, because, like, no, no, I'm not almost always feeling mad, sad, glad or afraid, but the answer is, yes, you are. There's only four emotions on the planet, and our body is always running one of them as a front emotion. Now they may be running it quietly or dimly or always running one of it, right? So if you have kids, or if you've been around kids, they say, I'm bored. Well, that's a different word for I'm mad, right? So they're running mad. And so the neat thing about money is, if you if you know how to listen to it, and it's not once you know how to it's obvious. But money can be like, Okay, first of all, identify the feeling, right? So let's say for you, okay, have money. I now feel happy and safe and excited. Okay, so that would be glad. Okay, so how do you know to be glad? Well, I look in my bank account and I see a certain dollar amount, okay, but what is it really? Because money is more of a reflection or a mirror on what's really going on. So everyone, every regardless of their income or their wage or their height or their pedigree money, when, when known how to listen to, it tells you really which direction to look, how to think, right? So you not wanting to, or someone not wanting to open up a statement, right, or looking to an account, right? What's really going on is there's a feeling I don't want to feel. And most humans don't want to feel the feeling hurt. That's the sad. It's another word for sad. They just we've been designed, over the last million years to not want to feel the word to not want to feel hurt. And the hurt thing is actually a new thing over the last 50 or 100 years. I mean, it's been there, but, you know, 1000 years ago we weren't worried about being hurt. It was like, live or die. So you think about, huh, I should probably go check my statement. Okay, then you go, Well, I can't, because if I do, what just happened was you loaded up, maybe a feeling of hurt. Well, you were taught by society to not feel your hurt, so you loaded up instead of hurt. Maybe scared. Well, scared is another feeling that, especially if you're male, you're not allowed to feel so you start coming online feeling hurt, not allowed to feel hurt, okay, well, go to scared, because that's slightly more allowed. Okay, now I'm gonna go to feeling scared. Wait, I'm not allowed to feel scared. Why would I want to feel this feeling? I don't want to feel scared. I'm gonna make a lot of money, so I don't have to feel scared. Yeah, I'm gonna make a lot of money, so I don't have to feel this feeling. Now, I'm not saying this is what's going on in your brain, but I'm just kind of turning up the volume on what's going on in the brain. And so you go, Wait a second. I don't want to feel this feeling anymore. So guess what you do? You go have lunch because you don't want to feel scared. I totally get it. And so people go months or quarters or years not looking at their statement because they don't want to feel the feeling called hurt or scared, and then it turns into mad. And so what's so powerful is once you get the owner's manual, my company is called fearless wealth, because I learned that people are pinging between two types of deep scaredness. You, and it wouldn't be good marketing to call stop the scaredness wealth. Just like the two fears are, the fear of losing, the fear of not belonging, the fear of losing, just really losing, losing out on the parade going by, or fear of losing out or belonging to my family. But there's this fear of losing, and it's super deep, and it happens at conception. And then the other fear is literally the fear of just of losing, actually something like losing money, like being lost. And so we ping between these two fears. And so I was like, Oh my gosh, if we can manage the fear, or at least notice which fear is running we can go like Robert could go five years ago. Oh, wait a second. I'm feeling super hurt. Hey, that's weird to even say. Okay, now I'm going scared. God, I'm so scared. Okay, where do I feel the scaredness in my body? Oh, my gosh. It's in my throat. It's in my stomach. God, I don't really want to open up my 401 Hey. God, this is super scary. Okay, well, you know what? I'm gonna go pour a glass of wine, or I'm gonna go take some breaths, I'm gonna go open it up, and you go through this process of literally surviving the scaredness, because Robert, you don't die, right? Have you ever heard of anyone dying by opening up a 401, page statement?

Speaker 2 21:20 No, hope that's never happened.

Speaker 3 21:23 Well, I don't think it's ever happened in the history of the world, but, but our body doesn't know that. Our body actually thinks I'm using using as an example, but you me were the same. We're more wired similar than that. Our body doesn't know that if we open that up a 14 foot king cobra isn't going to spring out and bite us in the face, because that's the type of chemicals that are literally getting flooded on in your brain. You're getting flooded with cortisol. Your sympathetic nervous system is absolutely I'm red alert level five. The thing is running at me. It's got teeth. It's accelerating. And I, you know what? Why would I ever open up that account? Now I'm turning up the volume on this feeling, and this experience is happening deep inside your body. So I'm turning up the volume so you can hear it, and others can hear it. But once they get like, oh my gosh, you know what, even if they don't believe that, or they think My language is weird, and they pretended that this is true, even if they pretend this and do it, they go, Wait a second, my money's starting to grow now. Wait a second. You know what? I think I was scared to have money, because it's one thing to get money, it's a completely different experience to keep it. And so I find a lot with entrepreneurs. I call it the entrepreneurial brain, is they're able to get it, but then once they get it, other feelings come up, and they go, get rid of it. Got to get rid of it, and they'll get rid of it, maybe in accessible ways, right? Going to weekend courses that are 10 or 20 grand that aren't what's best for them, or buying things to get rid of it, right? They're buying very risky investments to get rid of and so then they get rid of it, and they're like, I was close. I almost got stability in my life. Now, I'm not being disrespectful to them, but that's what's going on deep in them, because they've never survived extreme stability as an example. And so, yeah, that's an example

Speaker 2 23:36 that's really goofy to think about, but also I think it hits home for me, and I think it hits home for some people I know, and maybe even some people listening to this of that, that sort of self sabotage and being almost in one way or another, addicted to the instability. And then when things settle down and get normal, it doesn't feel good. So I need to take the these actions that hurt me in the long run, that end up throwing everything out of whack, back into the chaos. And I love always hearing about the NLP aspects of things, because it's weird, but in a good way, and it's fun, and it's a new way of looking at things. And I just love that, advice you have there of instead of just letting the outdated software, the caveman brain, do its thing, or even the 100 year ago update of the software, where it's a little better, but we're still not talking about our feelings, instead of ignoring things, because, like you said, number one, it's not going to go away on its own. And number two, it can actually get worse if you keep living in denial, or you keep letting the cycle control you. So we identify that feeling and actually think for a second about, well, what are we feeling? Where is it in our body? So that that way we can instead of dealing with this huge problem of. Being overwhelmed, being living in fear. We can I get up, I can split up the problem into smaller pieces and just attack little bits of the problem like I'm not trying to solve my whole life right now. But let me just open up this envelope and look at this one statement. So I love your way of thinking here, and I love your advice so that where we can survive the scared feeling, and go through it and become better people. And as you're beginning to wind down here, one thing that I really liked about what you mentioned there was about how you had that thing about how keeping money is harder than making it. So is there anything else to that, other than besides that whole kind of emotional self sabotage, like, what's the secret for all of us to keep our money and not have to scramble again and again?

Speaker 3 25:48 Yeah, so it's very different to make it and keep it. That's the first thing. Like, I just, I'll answer it this way, the making of it. Think of it like professional baseball, right? The teaching of it, figure skating. So I just want you to think about, oh, it's different. It's a different sport. I mean, they're both sports. Earning money has the word money in it. Keeping money has the word money in it, right? So they have both have the word money. But the first thing I just want you and everyone to hear is, it's a completely different things, professional baseball, figure skating, astroturf, ice cleats, ice skates, sequence outfits, non sequence outfits. So the first thing is to notice, wait, what got the money is not going to keep it. It's got to be a different behavior. And so I think the first thing I would just have someone just start to notice is this is a different thing. I can make 50,000 a year, or 50,000 a month, or a million a year, and it's not going to be the same behavior that's going to keep it. So that would be the first thing I'd just leave people with, is that this is a very different thing to keep it, and the laws around keeping it, once you learn the laws to keeping it, it actually can accelerate you getting it and generating more of it. So the answer, though, it might feel like a letdown some people, is first noticing, just keep going back to figure skating and professional baseball and go, Wow, two different skills, two different skills. But once the keeping it skill is starting to layer in the growing it and the getting it, that starts to accelerate

Speaker 2 27:42 Interesting. Well, what I'm hearing a lot of from your advice today is that we could all be a little more dynamic and know when to switch gears and know when to act in one way or act in another. And it keeps making me think of that whole term of Thinking Fast and Slow, right where, if we're thinking fast, we're in a crowded room, we're trying to find one single person, where our eyes are darting around versus thinking slow, where maybe we're trying to think about what we'd like to have for dinner tonight and what would sound what would you know, be good to us? And so yeah, I really liked that all of this advice that you have for us today, and I think you've given us a lot to think about. So when people are maybe climbing into bed tonight and they can't get that visual of the baseball versus the figure skating out of their head, and they're about to fall asleep, and they jump out of bed, and they run to the computer, and they're like, I need to go and contact RC Peck. I need to check out his website and check out his books. I need to contact him, maybe for some kind of services. Where should they go for that sort of thing, and where can they find out more about you?

Speaker 3 28:48 Yeah, thanks. The next step for that person is super easy. There's no there's not a boundary in front of there's not something they need to get around. It's super easy to get access to me, and there's one place they can go, and they'll just notice when they hear it, that it's easy to remember, and it's fearless wealth. Fearless wealth, calm. It's been my home for 20 years, and if they go there, they'll see that they can opt in easily. They also see that there's a phone number that they can call. So the next step for those people who want more and who want that, you can call it extreme stability, which is kind of an oxymoron, they'll just start noticing, you know what? I actually want more of that stability. And the next step is the easiest, and that would be fearless wealth, calm. So thanks for asking.

Speaker 2 29:37 Fantastic. You're very welcome. So fearlesswealth.com is the place to go right now, and go there right now. If you're calling on the phone person, whip out your phone, call that phone number, have a quick chat with RC. But either way, don't leave that website before opting and that way you can always stay in touch. Because I'm sure we've all dealt, especially as entrepreneurs, with those highs and lows. Of making money and and just that weirdness of money being its own beast, and something that we can either work with or have to fight all the time. So if you're finally ready to stop fighting, to stop making it so difficult on yourself, then go right now to fearless wealth.com. Opt in, see all the amazing things that RC has built on that website over the past 20 years. Opt in, call the phone number and check out all the resources that are there. And thanks so much RC for really tickling our imaginations and for making us think a lot about all these things about those four emotions, the mad, sad, glad, afraid about how to better manage our money, how to grow it, how to make it, how to keep it, a lot of the money, mindset stuff to think about. So I appreciate you hopping on and being honest and sharing your uniqueness and your weirdness in a good way. So thanks for doing that.

Speaker 3 30:59 Thanks so much, Robert, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 31:02 Have you had a chance to rate and review the show yet? If not, go right now to marketer of the day.com/itunes, click View in iTunes and click the ratings tab. We would really appreciate a five star rating for whatever you think is fair, plus a quick one sentence review to tell us how we're doing. Thank you very much and have a wonderful day. You.