Ep 16 - The Writing Was on the Wall: Leaving Your Mark in a Family Business with Liqui-Mark CEO, Josh Goodelman

•  Liqui-Mark’s growth shows how calculated risk, resilience, and long-term thinking create staying power in manufacturing.
• The skills that build wealth in business can backfire in investing, where patience and discipline matter more than control.
• Strong leadership means acknowledging emotion while keeping decision-making grounded in rational inputs and values.

Disclaimer: [00:00:00] The following podcast by Fusion Family Wealth, LLC Fusion is intended for general information purposes only. No portion of the podcast serves as the receipt of or is a substitute for personalized investment advice from Fusion or any other investment professional of your choosing. Please see additional important disclosure at the end of this podcast.

A copy of Fusion's current written disclosure brochure discussing our advisory [00:00:15] services and fees is available upon request or at www.fusionfamilywealth.com.

Voiceover: Welcome to The Crazy Wealthy Podcast with your host, Jonathan Blau. Whether you're just starting out or are [00:00:30] an experienced investor, join Jonathan as he seeks to illuminate and demystify the complexities of making consistently rational financial decisions under conditions of uncertainty. He'll chat with professionals from the advice world, [00:00:45] entrepreneurs, executives, and more to share fresh perspectives on making sound decisions that maximize your wealth.

And now here's your host.[00:01:00]

Jonathan Blau: Good morning everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Crazy Wealthy Podcast. I'm happy to have a good friend, uh, founder of Liqui Mark Pen Company. Um, I shouldn't say founder, second or third generation. We'll get into [00:01:15] that. But CEO of Liqui, mark, certainly. And, uh, the man who makes it all happen and has continued the, the family legacy and expanded it successfully.

So Josh, welcome to the Crazy Wealthy Podcast. I'm appreciative of you joining us today.

Josh Goodelman: Thanks, John. [00:01:30] I'm excited to be here and, uh, and all those good things that you've said. Yeah, that's so nice. That's great. I'm excited about this.

Jonathan Blau: All right, good. That means that you don't have much going on in life, but that's,

Josh Goodelman: oh, nothing.

You know what I love? I, I gotta tell you something. I gotta tell you [00:01:45] something. I love when things are on my calendar like this. This is like, you know, this is, uh, no, no pressure. There's no pressure. No. Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess so.

Jonathan Blau: So I wanna talk about a few things. I want, I want to talk a little bit about, um, to [00:02:00] begin, uh, the origins of the business and, um, the story about your, your, your grandfather.

Um, I guess on your mother's side, right? Yeah. Uh, be being the originator of the, uh, family's introduction to the pen business, [00:02:15] and then how, uh, it evolved from, uh, from that to your, your dad, um, creating a company and, and you guys getting involved and then the, uh, the information about which member of the family has been in the Penn business the longest.

So [00:02:30] that, that, that won't be what people expect.

Josh Goodelman: Yeah, sure. You, um, so. It's a, it's a pretty wild story. It's a great entrepreneurial story. I'm, I'm proud of, always have been. When my, uh, my grandfather was in the Penn business, I mean, his whole career from the [00:02:45] fifties, sixties, you know, and, and the seventies and, and some, and when my parents got married in 1972, my grandfather, my mom's dad said to my father, come, I want you to come work for me.

Come on Stu. Come work for me. You can be a salesman. I'm gonna teach you about the [00:03:00] pen business. So he did. And he was doing something totally different. You know, he was in sales and, and, uh, and, uh, you know, he, he was doing that for a couple years and about two years in, uh, someone approached my grandfather to buy his business.[00:03:15]

And, uh, he was in his, I would say my grandfather at the time was probably about 56 years old. He saw, you know, he saw dollar signs and, uh, you know, sold his business, sold his house in, uh, in on Long Island and moved to Florida. Um, and my [00:03:30] father continued to work there and he was on a sales call, uh, and, uh, upselling up in the, in the upper Midwest selling what we know as Kmart back then.

And, uh, he went to go on a sales call and my [00:03:45] father was 24 at the time, and the buyer was probably more than twice his age and said to him, Stu, I like you, but I don't like the company that bought your company, the company, you know, the company you work for. So I want you to go start a company. I'm gonna, and my father [00:04:00] looked, he says, what, what, what do you want me to do?

He said, and he was selling pens. I think

Jonathan Blau: at that point your father saw the writing was on

Josh Goodelman: the wall. Yeah. He said, yeah, for sure. You know, and, and he saw you selling pens and coloring all school supplies. Right. You know, writing instruments. And, uh, he says, how am I gonna do [00:04:15] that? You know, I just got married two years ago, you know, I, my, my son's, you know, not even a year old.

This was my brother at the time. I, I have an older brother, Craig, and he, and he says, if I'm lucky if when I get home, my wife didn't spend all the money for me to pay the rent. You know, and he said, listen, I'm putting [00:04:30] you into business. I'm gonna give you an order for a million packs of coloring markers and, um, we're gonna private label 'em with our own brand and uh, we're gonna do it for back to school and go figure it out.

I'm putting you into business. He, you know, he left the meeting and went to the [00:04:45] airport and called my grandfather down in Florida on a payphone collect, because it was, you know, the seventies, some of

Jonathan Blau: our listeners at

Josh Goodelman: the younger, I don't even know what that is,

Jonathan Blau: right. That means, right, yeah.

Josh Goodelman: You called collect.

So you picked up the phone, you dialed the operator. You said, I wanna make a collect call, and then they had to [00:05:00] accept the charges on their bill for the, whoever answered the phone.

Jonathan Blau: Well, by the way, just a funny story when we used to do that with my grandparents in Florida. We made a collect call to them, not from a payphone or from our house.

'cause my mom was, uh, was frugal. So she'd call, they would [00:05:15] reject the call, that would be the signal, and then they'd call us, said that the, the bill was on them,

Josh Goodelman: you know, can you imagine? So, uh, he, my father called my grandfather collect and said, you know, I got this situation. My grandfather said, okay, you know what, I'm getting on a plane, [00:05:30] uh, and we're, I'm gonna come back to New York and then we're gonna get on a plane and we're gonna go to Italy.

And, uh, so, and that's what they did. And they went and he said, I'm gonna lend you the money. I'm gonna lend you some of the money. And he lent them, you know, money to help, uh, procure the order. You know, and [00:05:45] back then there was no infrastructure in Asia and China to buy these products from. And it, Italy was a, a, you know, a big, uh, in Torino, Italy was a capital of the world for, you know, molds that were used for pens and markers and, and [00:06:00] even cosmetics, right?

Similar sizes and. Um, and he, they went to Italy and they, they met with the factory and they, you know, pro produced the product there. And Somar got started, um, and they imported it from Italy, the product. And [00:06:15] then, uh, within the next two years. And my father, he needed to legitimize himself. He rented a desk.

In my great uncle's, uh, car rental company's office in Hicksville on Old Country Road. And, you know, and then, uh, a couple years later, you know, the business [00:06:30] continued and he didn't want to import anymore, and he built molds and bought machines and opened up a factory in Brooklyn, in, uh, Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

And that's how the business got started. This

Jonathan Blau: person. Who convinced your dad to, uh, to leave that company, saw something in him that [00:06:45]

Josh Goodelman: that

Jonathan Blau: was real, know

Josh Goodelman: he did. And it, and, and that's, and then that's how Manu the manufacturing started, you know? And, uh, within a couple years, um, you know, and we, uh, to this day we still have.

Many of the original machines that are running, you know, our [00:07:00] company's now in, in Long Island. We're in Hop Ho and, uh, in this facility we, you know, we're, we're making ink, we injection mold, plastic parts. We assemble print, package and ship. And we sell major retailers. We sell, uh, school and office, you know, school and office products, [00:07:15] distributors to sell to the school and office products world.

And then we have a promotional products division that we started about 25 years ago. When I first jumped

Jonathan Blau: in, and is, is everything done in the us?

Josh Goodelman: Not everything, but I would say, uh, about half our product line is made here in the [00:07:30] us. Uh, okay, cool. And then, you know, we have molds that we've built over the years as we evolve the product line that we have overseas, whether it's in China, uh, most of it, most of it is in China.

We do business, you know, we bring product from all over the world. Um, uh, to [00:07:45] compliment our product line on all divisions of the company. And, uh, you know, but we still make product here, you know, and, and, uh, just a couple years ago, you know, when my father bought machines, he had to hire, he used to fix the machines himself and he had to hire a mechanic.

And that gentleman, uh, [00:08:00] worked here for 47 years and he just retired a couple years ago. And, uh,

Jonathan Blau: that's great.

Josh Goodelman: Well, that says a lot

Jonathan Blau: about

Josh Goodelman: you guys.

Jonathan Blau: It's

Josh Goodelman: pretty wild story. Yeah, it's a pretty wild, it's a pretty

Jonathan Blau: great story. So, so tell me a little bit about the company in terms of the number of clients that you serve.

Uh, you know, there's not, there's [00:08:15] not a small, uh, business that, you know, like a stationary store. You No,

Josh Goodelman: no. It's, we're a, we're a manufacturing company, so we manufacture the finished product. You know, I should, I should probably have product here, but like, for example, here, I'll grab something to show you [00:08:30] so you know.

This is what we make. We make coloring markers, you know, washable coloring markers for kids. Okay. Yeah. Great. And we sell under our brand and we sell under the private brand of, of major retailers. So sometimes you can walk into a CVS or a Walmart and it, you'll see our brand or you'll [00:08:45] see their brand, the store brand.

Right.

Jonathan Blau: But it looks like your product,

Josh Goodelman: it looks like our product that's made here or made with within one of our products that we make, one of our molds that we make overseas, depending on the item. So on the re on the retail side, we sell major retailers, [00:09:00] um, you know, and, uh, so there's, there's several dozen of those to customers to sell.

You ask about the quantity of customers on the promotional product side. There are thousands and thousands of customers to sell. So we sell through a network of distributors. [00:09:15] We would work through a marketing and advertising firm, you know, as our distributor, who would then sell you directly, and you would go to them and, and and, and come say, here, I wanna use, you know, our fusion logo and we want to have it on hats and shirts and pens and, and Frisbees and [00:09:30] drinkware and, and you know, they would help you with the creative and the artwork and.

Procured from all the manufacturing suppliers like us, and we would drop ship to you. So that's that business. It's a great business. And then there's the school side, you know, the school side is we selling, we don't sell school districts [00:09:45] directly either. You know, we, we work through a network of distributors if they're all, you know, a lot of 'em are government contracts, things like that.

Jonathan Blau: Well, one of the things that I've, uh, you know, I met you through, through your friendship initially with Amy, my wife. Yeah. And, um. She, [00:10:00] she always, uh, told me I'd like you and I, and I, and I do like you as I got to know you each. The more I get to know you, the more I like you. One of the things I always liked is you're in a, in a successful business that's, um, really I guess third generation, what I've seen in [00:10:15] my business over the years, dealing with people and their wealth, uh, that they've created either in business or as executives or inheritance, um, how to, how to handle their emotions generally and deal with, with the wealth.

In a way that's different than the way it was [00:10:30] built, right? So to build wealth in a business, you often need to be willing to, and sometimes forced to take big outsized risks and, and you want things to happen quickly and you want to be in control of something. If you have a division that's not doing well, [00:10:45] sometimes entrepreneurs want to spin that division off and put more resources into a division that's doing better.

And we feel we need to control all these things. And when you're investing, uh, after you build a wealth, the the skills that you, that [00:11:00] you, uh, had. As an entrepreneur, you actually need to unlearn. 'cause instead of being, wanting to get things done quickly and be in control, uh, and, and take outside risks, you need to do things slowly and be very patient and not take very many risks at [00:11:15] all and let compounding happen.

Yeah, and what I've found is a lot of entrepreneurs, um, and I've been guilty of this, is we, we, we, we assume that our skills. Not only need to be different when we invest, but that the skills that we have, [00:11:30] uh, acquired our success through entrepreneurship with are transferable and, and can lead to success in investing.

And, and in fact, what happens is it's, it's the opposite. We get overconfident and, and, and we tend to make [00:11:45] missteps. So along those lines, do you feel like you've seen in, in business, um, uh, any, any decisions that you've had to make? Where you've seen emotions creep in, you know, may maybe the timing of the decisions [00:12:00] or, or, or, or something like that, uh, where emotion crept in and, and you, if you look back and say, well, I can think of those things and maybe what would you have done differently?

Josh Goodelman: Yeah, definitely. To

Jonathan Blau: slow it down. Right? To slow down. I mean, decision, process.

Josh Goodelman: I think that, you know, one thing I think I learned [00:12:15] from my father, like, you know, just his whole, you know, even just how his, the onset of how he started the business was he wasn't afraid. He was never afraid to take a risk. You know, it's like rolling he roll, he rolled the dice, he took a chance on himself, you know, and then he proved, I think he proved right away that taking that chance [00:12:30] was, you know, well worth it.

You know, when we, um, you know, and, and I'm not ashamed to say, you know, when we, we were in Brooklyn for, you know. Uh, for a very long time. And then, you know, we moved, uh, the company moved to, um, to [00:12:45] Long Island, not in the building we're in now. We were in Westbury for 11 years and we had to move the, we rented a building.

We had a great deal on a building from somebody my father knew. And, uh, and we were outgrowing the space and he wanted his building back. So we, you know, my father wanted to take a, [00:13:00] he wanted to buy a building, you know, it was a good investment. Real estate's a great investment, right? But it was a big risk.

It was a big number. You know, we, we bought a 30,000 square foot building in the hot pug industrial park, and, uh, I, I kid you not, I remember, you know, no more than five minutes after [00:13:15] closing on the building, we lost our biggest account, our biggest customer, and it was de it was, it was a detrimental time for our business because, you know, we had, it was, uh, you know, we were, had a, a tremendous amount of expenses and move, you know, infrastructure moving as [00:13:30] a tremendous cost.

And now we had, you know, this higher operating cost of, you know, uh, of paying a mortgage draw for, for a, a piece of real estate we had to still operate and less revenue

Jonathan Blau: available

Josh Goodelman: business and less and now less revenue. So yes, like was did, but do I [00:13:45] think that I look back on it and I remember, you know, I was the earlier stages of my career, like this, this is can't be good, you know, and I was still learning and I wanted to learn.

And my father said, he used to, he used to tell me like, don't worry, we're gonna figure it out. It's gonna be fine. We'll be fine. It'll be, we'll [00:14:00] figure it out. That's great.

Jonathan Blau: So it

Josh Goodelman: was actually calm

Jonathan Blau: attitude.

Josh Goodelman: Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Jonathan Blau: And is that the crisis when we talked recently that you said about 20 years ago?

Josh Goodelman: Yeah.

Jonathan Blau: He had a crisis.

Josh Goodelman: That was it. Yeah. Then you know, really the truth is like at some point, like, you know, my father and his and his business partner, I [00:14:15] mean, they were putting personal money back into the business and it was. Scary, you know, but they, they didn't, they had a lot of faith. They were never scared to, they always had confidence in themself.

And my father, you know, and I was watching it and I was, this is crazy, you know? And, but you know, and I look back on that and [00:14:30] I, and I see that he had faith and like, not to take those risks and, you know, roll the dice, right? Because he had confidence in himself that he'll correct it. And, and, and he did. We all did.

You know, we all worked there.

Jonathan Blau: That, lemme ask you a question. As an investor. If you remember, because I know you [00:14:45] lost your dad, what, about five or six years ago?

Josh Goodelman: Seven. Seven. Seven, half years ago. Yeah.

Jonathan Blau: Yeah. And I, and I know how close you guys were you close family in general. And do you, as an investor, right, with, with his wealth, do you feel that he had, [00:15:00] um, the same confidence, right?

So in other words, if he invested in the capital markets, did he have the same confidence when the markets. Were going through challenges, whether it's because of, he wasn't around, but the pandemic or things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Or, or did he feel like 'cause [00:15:15] he wasn't in control? I, I wish I didn't have much outside of my business.

Josh Goodelman: You know what I think, I think. Yeah, I think he was, if I, you know, I look back on, I gotta, you know, think about it, how he,

Jonathan Blau: yeah,

Josh Goodelman: it's tough around tough chances, those things around. Yeah. Like, you know, he did, he, he took the [00:15:30] risk. He was willing to, he always roll the dice. He did. He always was willing to roll the dice he took to take the chance.

You know? So think so.

Jonathan Blau: He was a good investor too. He wasn't

Josh Goodelman: like he was, he was, you know, he was, I think he was, but he was also conservative. You know, he took some, sometimes he took a conservative [00:15:45] approach, I think, in investing, and I think that he learned that, you know. Diversification was good, I think, and I think that, you know, as time went on, you know, making that real estate investment, I mean, it was, it was a big number, you know, a bigger, you know, much, much more of a [00:16:00] risk to take on, you know, buying a piece of commercial real estate.

Having had never having, had never done that previously. No

Jonathan Blau: experience with it. Right.

Josh Goodelman: No experience, but just knew that in the long term of it had, you know, if, you know, you make it right. If we, okay. You know, in [00:16:15] his, in his, his eyes was, look, this, hopefully this'll be a good investment for my retirement someday, you know, we'll pay off the building and, you know, it'll be a stream of income for me to live on.

You know, that was really what, how we thought, you know, and

Jonathan Blau: No, it's, it's interesting because what you said [00:16:30] about dad being conservative with his investments. I see that with a lot of entrepreneurs, even executives when they retire. 'cause executives are similar to entrepreneurs in one sense. They, they're, they feel like they're in control.

Yeah. And, and so now when they're investing [00:16:45] after they retire or they sell a business, they're not in control. And we say being more conservative, usually people mean they're gonna buy more things like bonds, right? Things that don't fluctuate. And that gets to the heart of. Entrepreneurs versus investors.

Where for, for [00:17:00] investors, the biggest threat to our money is inflation, not volatility. Mm-hmm. The industry thinks it's volatility and, and when we're in business, volatility hurts. Right? If, if, if the tariffs are, I don't if you guys got impacted by the tariffs. Right.

Josh Goodelman: Course. Yeah.

Jonathan Blau: Very much. Can't control that, so, right.

It hurts. [00:17:15]

Josh Goodelman: Oh, it

Jonathan Blau: hurt.

Josh Goodelman: It hurt. It hurt everybody Big time.

Jonathan Blau: Right. It hurt everybody. So, and you try to do something about it and there are limitations. But in investing, what we try to do is we try to preempt the volatility by going into bonds to control. Or mute [00:17:30] volatility. And what happens is bonds actually are the carrier of what I call the disease of money, which is inflation.

So they freeze our money. If I buy a 10 year bond at 8% a year in, in 10 years, I need 12% a year to buy what? 8%. I don't have that. And my, and my million dollars and I put in [00:17:45] the bond is still a million dollars in 10 years. And I, I need a million, 1,000,004. So, so it, it's just, it's. Most people need to be, um, reframing when they retire, when they're investing.

How they think about risk. Risk is, [00:18:00] is the erosion of the permanent value of my money to inflation, not the temporary fluctuation and the number of my dollars. So it's just interesting to hear that you said that, that he was conservative. 'cause that's in line with what I see. Um, because they don't control that in their mind as much, right?

They're [00:18:15] relying on an intangible. So they tend to make a decision that's actually. Going against what their long-term goal is, which is to protect their purchasing power. They don't understand it. Uh, by the way, you do, you have, you got, how do you think about those things?

Josh Goodelman: You know, I mean, I, I [00:18:30] think that in a very similar way because that's how I, you know, that's who I learned from, and I, and I look at it and I've learned, you know, even in business decisions that I've made, you know, in the last several years that I've taken those risks, I'm willing to take those risks.

I'm willing to throw. You know, money at a new product and product [00:18:45] development or, um, you know, uh, a marketing campaign or an investment in a customer. Uh, you know, so a lot of our customers require us to make certain investments in, uh, their own marketing. You know, if you, it's kind of, you have to ba kind of buy into the.

To [00:19:00] the customer. Right. You know, I And they wanna

Jonathan Blau: show you have skin in the game.

Josh Goodelman: Skin in the, yeah, exactly. It's a better, yeah, great way to say it. You know, it's, they want, they wanna see that you have skin in the game and, you know, and, and there's times I say no, you know, and I'll say that this, uh, you know, I don't feel, you know, my, my gut instinct is, [00:19:15] uh, this isn't gonna work.

You know, uh, if I'm questionable on it sometimes, you know, I think a little differently where I'll say, you know what, what's the worst that can happen? We made a little bit of an investment in trying something we, we have to prove to ourself if it's gonna work or not. If it doesn't work, then we go back to what we were doing previously, you [00:19:30] know?

But

Voiceover: yeah,

Josh Goodelman: sometimes I've learned that you take those risks, you know? Um. It's the same thing like you mentioned about the tariff situation. I mean, it was a detrimental time for a lot of businesses. Right. You know, and it, I, I would tell you this past May was probably one of the more stress, more stressful for [00:19:45] me, you know, uh, managing that aspect than when I had to, when, when the COVID situation started and we had to close our company for six weeks, you know.

Was stressful. You know, if we're not shipping product, we're not generating any revenue. And how are you paying your employees?

Jonathan Blau: And the costs aren't going away. [00:20:00] Right.

Josh Goodelman: They're not, the costs don't go away. Right. Right. So, you know, navigating these things and taking certain risks and making certain decisions, you know, um.

I think that, you know, I've had a similar approach where, uh, you know, I, I, I make a, [00:20:15] I I think I've always made a pretty calculated, you know, everything in life is a calculated risk, right? So, you know, I, I think I've made a pretty calculated risk. I can't say I know that I'm always gonna be right, or if I feel like I'm gonna be wrong, you know?

But no, you have to take those

Jonathan Blau: chances by the way, you, what you, what I [00:20:30] call what you just said. When I, when I try to, um, have a, a new, uh, potential investor. Is we talk about decision making in a way that compounds, rationality. What I mean by that is we can't control the outcomes. We can only control [00:20:45] the inputs.

Yeah. As which said, you're taking a calculated risk. That's what you're talking about. Yeah. And so at the end of the day, for, for example, I had a client last year who sold the business for a lot of money, and they were ready to start their plan. That we, that we imp that, that we, uh, [00:21:00] devised for them. That they said, should we be investing the equity money like all at once or should we.

Put it in over a number of quarters or a number of, so I said, look, there, there's two answers to that. The, the answer is if you're appealing, um, to your emotional wants, you don't do it [00:21:15] at once. But if you're appealing to your financial needs and that needs of your family financially, you do it at once.

And so what I explained is, is there's over 1100, um, 12 month periods going back to NI 1926, so January 26 to December. [00:21:30] February 26th to to January 27 and so forth, over 1100, they call rolling 12 month as opposed to annual periods. And so 75% of those or so are positive. So I said to them, by you holding back [00:21:45] any money.

You, you, you got a three to one odds bet against you being right over the next year. 'cause seven and over three years, it's like 85%. Right? So the point is, 25% of the time when you do that, when you invest your money by nightfall, the day you have it, you'll, [00:22:00] you'll be wrong. But 75% you'll be right. So compound rationality, the rational thing to do is invest it by night.

All the day you have it and it, and always behave that way. Yeah. And it's the same thing you're saying, right? Take a rational. Approach to to, to an opportunity [00:22:15] or a problem, and always do that. And sometimes the outcome isn't gonna reflect what you hope for. It's the way it works.

Josh Goodelman: You're right, you're right.

And, you know, so I think I've, you know, and you know, I guess the, the easy answer to your question is yes, I've, I've followed the same approaches, you know, I've [00:22:30] learned to take those risks and, and, and make those investments and, you know, in the business and in people and in, you know, and take those chances because, you know, if you don't take, you know, if you don't take the chance, you don't know what the result is gonna be.

And. I would say more [00:22:45] times than not, the results are positive. The results are good,

Jonathan Blau: which, right, that's it. You're compounding rationality. You're taking the rational approach. You're not, you're not abstaining from making decisions. You're making what you feel are rational decisions, and knowing sometimes even though they're rational, they might not [00:23:00] work.

And then you learn from it,

Josh Goodelman: and you learn from it, and you can only beat yourself up so much. Right.

Jonathan Blau: Yeah. Well, you know, you know, it, it, so what it was Wayne Gretzky said, you, you miss all the shots.

Josh Goodelman: Yeah.

Jonathan Blau: That you never take. Right,

Josh Goodelman: exactly. It's, it's, it's hundred of, it's, it's true. You know, and, uh, [00:23:15] you know, we, we work in an, in an environment, you know, we sell retail on, on a big, on big side of our business and.

Retail's brutal. You know, I mean, it's not just, you know, I have friends that sell retail and I'm sure you have a lot of, you know, your network and people that you know of or some, somehow some way is [00:23:30] connected into the retail world and in some, some capacity. Yeah. And it doesn't matter. I have a friend who's, you know, manufactures a totally different product line than me in the apparel world, and.

And, and it's just brutal more now than ever before. And it's interesting. But, you know, the thing that I can [00:23:45] say is I've never been afraid to just, you know, open up my mouth and reach out to, you know, a buyer and have a discussion. And, and, and even if it's something, you know, you get, you do, you get rejected.

And those are calculated risks too, you know, at one point. Of course there's a lot of, there's a lot. I know you talk a lot about your, your [00:24:00] background in psychology. We've talked about this, right? And, and you know, there's a lot of psychology in sales. You know, there's, of course I might say something that's gonna piss them off or, you know, I may some say something that's going, you know, make them more interested, you know, so, uh, those are risks [00:24:15] too.

And,

Jonathan Blau: and sometimes you don't know, right? You're

Josh Goodelman: the time, most of the time you don't know, right?

Jonathan Blau: Most of the time you, you don't know, know if, if what you're saying is gonna trigger one thing or the other. So, Josh, as, as your, your business risk appetite reflects dads, does your [00:24:30] investment approach where he was, you saying, be more conservative?

Does that also reflect ads?

Josh Goodelman: I would say,

Jonathan Blau: like do you find that that's the same

Josh Goodelman: thing? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I think that I've learned to diversify myself too, you know, and take some risks. You know, I recently, [00:24:45] uh, I recently bought another home as you know, I'm, uh, your neighbor. I know that congratulations.

And that was, you know, a big risk for me. You know, that was a big, it was a risk, and it was also, there's a reward behind it. And, you know, I took myself, uh, I have a, a friend, a family friend who once told me, you [00:25:00] know. You gotta put yourself outta your comfort zone once in a while. And he, he did a similar thing a long time ago and took the risk and it paid off and made it, you know, it changed your life, you know?

So that's why I did it. Um, you know, and that put me a little outta my comfort zone. Still, still does, you [00:25:15] know, I'm getting

Jonathan Blau: Of course. Look, that that's, that's always the case. It's also changed whenever we have a big change like that.

Josh Goodelman: It makes fun. But I feel like that was also a good way to ask about like, you know, from an investment standpoint, it's also an investment, you know?

Yeah. Uh, it's definitely an investment and I think [00:25:30] that was one of the, the, the biggest changes I've done in my approach to investing and, and, uh, that would say that maybe, maybe that's considered conservative or maybe that's totally the

Jonathan Blau: no. Well, that's also an investment in quality of life, right? Yeah.

Like the, the homes we buy, like our [00:25:45] house in Montauk. It could be an investment, but you know, every year I'm putting money into taxes and upkeep and Sure. Then you

Josh Goodelman: get the, then you get your, you get all your electric bills come at once for all these different

Jonathan Blau: reasons. Right. You know what I mean? That's what really, that's what my reminder isn't Investments.

Yeah. But, but it's an [00:26:00] investment, certainly in the quality of life. So, Josh, one of the things that, that you talked about is your grandfather, your father, and you and your brother. Are the active, um, hi historically and present the active participants in this business.

Josh Goodelman: Yep.

Jonathan Blau: And there's [00:26:15] one member of the family, your mom, who was never active in the business.

Josh Goodelman: Yeah.

Jonathan Blau: But yet you tell me that she's the one that has the most experience of all of them in the Penn business.

Josh Goodelman: She's been in the, you know, it's, it's funny because, uh, a couple months ago, you know, I don't [00:26:30] use LinkedIn as probably as much as I should, and somebody had, we were talking about using LinkedIn.

Engaging in one of the challenges we have on, you know, I was explaining one of the challenges I have on the, the retail side. Every, you know, we're with major retailers, whether it's Walmart or, or Target. You know, you're [00:26:45] connected to all these people, but you can't get their attention. To, to establish a rapport like we used to.

And somebody had told me, you know, sometimes it's good to use LinkedIn to post something maybe a little bit more personal, you know, which I would never, [00:27:00] you know, never really post much too personal to begin with, I think in social media, but that's just by choice and in LinkedIn and everybody looks at it as more of a business networking.

So one day it just, I was drinking my coffee on a Sunday morning and it just, I was thinking about that conversation I had a couple days [00:27:15] before. And how to use LinkedIn differently. And it dawned on me, I said, you know, I had, I had taken this screenshot of my mother. I, she, you know, my mother will FaceTime me, you know, at least 10 times a day.

There's no exaggeration to that either. And I'm, I'm, I'm good with [00:27:30] it. I, I actually, I, I, I love it. Um, I had taken a screenshot of us on the phone and I, and I, uh, I posted that picture 'cause it all, you know, kind of hit. And I said, my mother's been in the pen business longer than all of us. Her whole life since the day she was born, [00:27:45] she was born, you know, my grandfather was in the pen business, he wasn't in the business for so long.

My mother's gonna be 75 in June, 75 years. She's in the pen business, you know,

Jonathan Blau: see

Josh Goodelman: that. And, um, you know, she, and, and I could tell you, she knows all about the business. You know, [00:28:00] she, we still. We, we discuss it, we talk about it, but she lived it, you know, from even working trade shows, you know, and, and, uh, hearing who the people are taking, you know, she would go with my dad and, and take clients out.

My clients, my who became my [00:28:15] friends, they, they know my mom. They've met my mom, you know, um, and have built a relationship with her. And, and, and the truth is, is she's been in the business longer than all of us. And it's, uh, and you know, she's lived it, she's lived the, the, the, the, the [00:28:30] constant discussion of business at every dinner table, uh, every holiday meal, um, you know, on a Saturday afternoon at my, uh, on, on the, on the soccer field, my niece or nephew's soccer game, or baseball game, whatever it [00:28:45] may be.

Somehow something's coming up. You know, dad, I got an email from this customer, you know, whatever. And you're just sitting there. It's constant discussion. Um, so she's been in it for longer than everybody. And, uh,

Jonathan Blau: and Josh, you, you're in the business still with your brother?

Josh Goodelman: Yeah.

Jonathan Blau: Um, what, you know, [00:29:00] family businesses.

I have a couple of clients who run family businesses and they all come with, um, uh, a balancing act that's needed. Right. So, so how do you, uh, and your brother manage the business together? What are the biggest challenges, the biggest rewards of [00:29:15] working with family that you've, that you've found in your experience?

Josh Goodelman: I've, you know, I've, you know, to me it's like the greatest. It's like the greatest feeling to know that I can work, you know, work with my family. I have, I mean, you know, I, I certainly, you know, miss my dad and, you know, that was [00:29:30] always like an incredible thing to work with him and, and learn from him. And teaching both my brother and I, and to continue on and, you know, work with my brother.

It's one of the most rewarding things that can happen, you know, and you see. You know, um, the people that, [00:29:45] that work with us, uh, who've been working with us for a long time, who've become, you know, we're all part of our family, you know, and we're all, we're all working for the same cause to, you know, listen, at the end of the day, we all need to earn a living.

Right. And you're trying to make people's lives better. [00:30:00] And I watch my dad give people opportunities, you know? Um, I've seen we still to this day have some incredible people that work here that, you know. Came to, came to, came to the front door of the building to come in and on an interview to prove [00:30:15] themself.

And were working here for 27, 35, 40 years. And it, it's mind blowing to me. I think it's important that you find the balance of, you know, um, of responsibility, you know, and in, in what areas each person [00:30:30] focuses on, you know, but collaborate and, you know, and coordinate together to make decisions. Um, you know, sometimes, you know, uh, sometimes I think it's good when one person's, the half, the, the glass is half full and one's the half empty, [00:30:45] uh, approach because, you know, the optimist doesn't always see may, doesn't always look at all the risks or doesn't

Jonathan Blau: consider all the risks.

Along those lines, we call that in behavior is confirmation bias. Right? So the optimist in [00:31:00] business is only doing a Google search for, uh, articles that confirm their biases to what they should be doing. They never look at the, they never search with terms for the half empty scenario. So they're only.

Fueling the fire to be more [00:31:15] and more, they're support, they're

Josh Goodelman: supporting them, they're supporting their own choice and decision,

Jonathan Blau: their bias, right? They, they're confirming their biases, right? Yeah. Instead of challenging them and saying, Hey, is there something I'm missing here? Sure. And so it, so when, when I, I say that to the audience, so when you find yourself, um, without [00:31:30] someone in a business situation or, or any other situation in life that can counter your optimism, if you're overly optimistic.

Optimism bias. Uh, then you don't, we wanna make sure that you check confirmation bias activities that when you're doing [00:31:45] searches and you want to challenge your thoughts and then come up with a decision, it slows you down and reduces, um, overconfidence a little bit. Uh, what, what you, one of the things I always admired about you, Josh, is um, you're in, in, in, in [00:32:00] my business, I've come across a lot of families.

They're either in business or they're inheriting money, and I always refer to as, as the, uh, generation, uh, the, the younger generation. Yep. They, they were born on third. They think they hit a triple.

Josh Goodelman: [00:32:15] Yeah.

Jonathan Blau: And they act like that. You never acted like that. No. You are, you're, you seem to have very good values and so what, what led to that?

What, what, what is it that shaped your value system? I know you mentioned, you know, mom had a stroke at one point and dad, and, and that helped. But [00:32:30] curious to hear that. 'cause you really, you know, to me it's remarkable. You're so humble and so caring and, and, and I know you're genuine 'cause I know how close you are with your mom, that you do welcome.

10 or more, probably more than 10, uh, FaceTime today, of course. But talk about what, what [00:32:45] shaped your value system that

Josh Goodelman: way. And I appreciate you saying all those nice things. Say, you know, I watched, I thank you. I, I watched, you know, I, I did. I was two years old. My mom had a paralyzing stroke. And at the, my father was, you know, he was within [00:33:00] the first five years of, you know, establishing his business, you know, and, uh, I watched him.

I watched him firsthand, you know, take care of, you know, my, my mom who was paralyzed, you know, and, and had to go through a tremendous amount of [00:33:15] therapy and physical therapy, speech therapy, um, to overcome and, and, and, you know, live a normal life, uh, at all while, you know, running, uh, running two businesses.

'cause at one point my father, you know, we have a [00:33:30] business partner and he, they, they merged their companies together and he was running two businesses, traveling the world. Schlepping back and forth every day from Long Island, you know, from Westbury to Brooklyn. Uh, you know, and he still came home to coach, you know, two little [00:33:45] leagues of two kids who were five years apart.

And my father used to tell me, he's like, you know what a pain in the ass it is to coach a 12-year-old and then coach seven year olds. It's two different worlds. Right. And I was like, that's your biggest complaint today. You know, that's, that's, but I, [00:34:00] but I watched, uh, you know, I watched him do all that and, you know, um, and he worked hard until, you know, he worked hard.

And even when, you know, he, he, he pushed himself to work and always worked hard and even, you know. My father, you know, we [00:34:15] financially, you know, it took a long time for him to feel financially comfortable and sound even after when he did, and then had to take all these risks and we had some financial struggles in our business.

You know, he, um, he was always. Modesty is a good policy. Right? [00:34:30] And, and I watched him work hard and I watched him get his hands dirty and you know, and he never, you know, it didn't matter who, you know, who was respected people. And my father, uh, even last week I was at a trade show on Sunday. I went to the toy fair and I ran into a, I ran into a [00:34:45] manufacturer from Italy who knew my dad and like it humbles me.

And, and you know that they talk about him in the way they do. He was, people knew him all over the world. And it makes me feel, I'm proud of that. He worked hard and we, you know. Yep. Um, people [00:35:00] ask, you know, what do you do for a living? I work. I work, that's what I do. Right. And, and that's, you know, but

Jonathan Blau: what's nice is you, you took all those great qualities and

then

Josh Goodelman: Yeah.

And we do, and we're very involved. We're, you know, I, I, I, I too, similar to what you said, I've seen. Similar scenarios of people [00:35:15] and, you know, family or generational businesses, and they kind of ride the coattails of it. And, and if that's their thing, good for them, right? Um, no, but

Jonathan Blau: you know what I see in you as you're a happy person, you know, you, you're happy, you spend time with your mom.

You like cooking, you do all the things [00:35:30] you like, you like your, you

Josh Goodelman: gotta

Jonathan Blau: find a balance in life,

Josh Goodelman: right? Yeah.

Jonathan Blau: Well, but you're happy because of your attitude. In other words, one of the things about happiness and money is it's true what they say. You know, money. If, if money is what's motivating people and, and, and [00:35:45] they're constantly, um, living in a world of comparison instead of a world of what's good for them.

Uh, so they're, they're looking to, um, what I call their external benchmarks. To show the world I have this as opposed to the internal benchmark. This is, I'm doing this 'cause it's important to [00:36:00] me. You're living life to the internal benchmarks. And because of that, those people are generally much happier.

Whereas when you're living to the external benchmarks, there's always gonna be someone with more and bigger and better. Yeah. And so you're never happy. You're always chasing the next dopamine rush. I wanna buy the bigger car, the new car, the bigger [00:36:15] house, the new house. And so that to me is one of the reasons, just knowing what I know about money and psychology is why you're a well grounded and happy person who also can be running successful business, uh, side by side.

Those two things, [00:36:30] you usually don't go together or often don't go together. So I want to finish up with a couple of questions. One of the things I, I've learned sitting with entrepreneurs over time is that once they win the game, whatever that means to them, right? Business is good. They, they've achieved a lot of what they're gonna achieve.[00:36:45]

Or what they wanted to achieve. The real challenge tends to become not overplaying it. And does that resonate at all with your experience?

Josh Goodelman: Definitely, I would say, you know, it's, you know, I just the other day had to introduce myself to a new buyer and, um, you know, I had to [00:37:00] explain who our company is and what we do and, you know, and I was saying, you know, you know, I manufacture coloring markers for kids, but we're not Crayola and I and my end, I, I'm not Crayola and I don't want to be, I don't need to be.

Jonathan Blau: Right.

Josh Goodelman: You know? Um, is that similar to what you just said? You know, I, I, right? Yeah. [00:37:15] You know, I, I, you know, um, uh. If, if, if we can, you know, in my approach in, in, you know, leading this business and running this business over, you know, several years since my father passed away, and I, you know, learning from [00:37:30] him is to, you know, if, if everyone can make an honest living and, and live a good life, and we can have a great, you know, great employees, encourage them for growth and, and, and do a good job and be profitable.

Then, you know, we did a good job. That's it. I don't [00:37:45] need to be, uh, greedy. I, you know, I don't, I don't need to be a, I don't, would it be nice to have our business to be 10 times the size of what it is? I suppose it would be, but it comes with 10 times as many problems too.

Jonathan Blau: Right.

Josh Goodelman: And you have to hard 10 times as

Jonathan Blau: many people

Josh Goodelman: and Yeah.

And that's deal with [00:38:00] all of that stuff. And that's not an easy, that's probably one of the hardest things you can do in running any business, you know that Right. Is is people. Yeah. Right. No,

Jonathan Blau: abso Absolutely.

Josh Goodelman: So I would say that would, that would be, that would be, I would say that, you know, I'm, it's finding the right balance of.

How to keep keep a healthy business. [00:38:15]

Jonathan Blau: One of the things I always try to teach people, a lesson I learned is, um, no matter how much money someone has or what size business someone has, that's multiple times the size of my business in what I do or your business or what you do. [00:38:30] You have to, as the smaller business owner or the, or the less wealthy person, have to always recognize that you need to always be able to have something that, that that bigger business and wealthier person can never have.

And that's enough. 'cause once you don't have [00:38:45] enough, you keep moving the goalposts and, and problems start to happen. And so that, that's what you, you kind of just said you have enough. I have enough. I I, I'm not looking to be Goldman Sachs. I have a great business. I love my clients. Um, we, we do something special for them [00:39:00] relative to the big firms.

And I don't want to be a big firm. Of course, it'd be nice to have a big firm like you said, but, but that's not, but it come, the stuff that comes with that. It's good to

Josh Goodelman: find that level balance. Just a balance where you can feel good, everybody's happy, everybody's [00:39:15] making a good living, and you can cruise along.

I mean, I know that may sound like a very basic approach, but I'm okay with it. I'm okay

Jonathan Blau: with it. Basic works, you know, you don't wanna lose getting to that bigness. I find often means losing your authenticity, your integrity to some degree, and, and, and some [00:39:30] of your principles and values that we talked about for sure.

So there's, there's nothing big enough that's worth trading those things off. So the last question I have for you is, is, um, if you were advising someone who's building something meaningfully a business now and is now thinking of how not to [00:39:45] undo it emotionally or behaviorally. What might you tell them to watch out for?

Josh Goodelman: Yeah. I, I would, I would say, you know, you, you do, you do have to take the emotion out. It's hard to take, it's hard to remove emotion. Right. I, I very, you know, [00:40:00] I, I was, I, at one point I felt ex maybe too emotionally connected to this business. Right. And, um, you know, and I've, I've learned to take some of the emotion out of it.

Um, and I think that, [00:40:15] you know, emotion should play a role in every decision you make. But it shouldn't, it shouldn't overpower your decision. Uh, you know, you have to, we're, we're all human. We're gonna have emotions about everything. We, we, we do, we see, we hear, we think [00:40:30] about, we react to. Right. Um, and you know, if, if, if you're talking about somebody who's in a, you know, somebody who's in a family business, a generational family business, I think it's, that can be harder.

That's definitely harder to take emotion out of it because there's a [00:40:45] longevity of investment in that and family investment in that. Yeah. You feel

Jonathan Blau: like you're gonna let down the predecessors on top of everything else,

Josh Goodelman: you know? And I think, you know, I think that, I think I had a good, you know. Um, you know, and I, and my father did, you know, at one point, you know, before he passed away, [00:41:00] he was, he had some issues, but it wasn't expected.

But, you know, he did say to me, he says, you, you know, I want you guys to do whatever you want to do with this business and never feel. Like you have to be. It's something you have to do forever. You know, it's whatever you decide to do with it at some point. If you ever [00:41:15] wanted to sell it, if you ever wanted to merge, if you ever wanted to keep doing it, it's you'll never let me down and I don't, I want you to, you know, he, he, some, some people need to hear that, you know, and that gave me a lot of confidence to know that whatever I, I wouldn't feel, you know, I wouldn't feel guilty that [00:41:30] if, if I were to ever make those choices one day.

And I think that that was important. In, in a generational business, in a succession plan. It's good. The leader should say that to the next phase of who's taking it on because,

Jonathan Blau: no, that's a great, that's a great, uh, [00:41:45] message to leave to the audience. A hundred

Josh Goodelman: percent. Yeah, because you never, you don't, you know, you don't wanna leave too much emotion in it.

So,

Jonathan Blau: yeah.

Josh Goodelman: Until then, I gotta, until then, I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing.

Jonathan Blau: Keep doing it. You're doing it well, by the way. Thank you. I'll, I'll leave off with one, with one thought for those listening. So what I [00:42:00] found is the hardest part of wealth. Is not in the building of it. Right. Taking the risk to all the things we all do as entrepreneurs, um, but it's unlearning the behaviors that helped us to build the wealth through the business and then become better [00:42:15] investors because the behaviors we need for that are, are, are oftentimes not just different, but the opposite.

Um, so, so that's, that's, that's the last thought I wanna leave the audience with and I thank you so much for Thank you John.

Josh Goodelman: Joining Josh, this is great. I'm, I'm, thank you for all the nice things you said about me. [00:42:30] Um, uh, and it was really, really sweet and I enjoyed doing this with you. I always enjoy listening to your podcast.

It's great. And, um, and, uh, I can't wait to hear what Amy has to say about it all.

Jonathan Blau: Yeah. She'll be in the closing act, you know [00:42:45] that. I know. Thanks so much, Josh.

Josh Goodelman: All right,

Jonathan Blau: John, Emma, I look forward to seeing you when you're coming down to Florida.

Josh Goodelman: Yeah. All right. You got it. I'll let you know.

Jonathan Blau: All right.

Josh Goodelman: All right.

Jonathan Blau: Thank you for ha joining us on this episode of Crazy Wealthy Podcast. You can get all of our podcasts on your [00:43:00] traditional podcast venues as well as on the crazy Wealthy podcast.com site and fusion family wealth.com. Stay tuned to hear Amy's calling for the recap of today's episode.

Amy Blau: Hi honey.

Jonathan Blau: Hi hun. How [00:43:15] are you?

Amy Blau: I'm good. I'm just getting ready to go out on a Friday Eve.

Jonathan Blau: Me too. Coincidentally.

Amy Blau: Coincidentally. So I heard you had a conversation with my best buddy Josh today. [00:43:30]

Jonathan Blau: I did. Josh Goleman. What a nice guy.

Amy Blau: He is the nicest guy, but funny, funnily enough,

Jonathan Blau: I say second nicest, but that's just my

Amy Blau: right. Well, that's true.

That's true. But he is the nicest guy. But we met [00:43:45] having a fight with each other, fighting over a spin bike. 'cause he said he had one spot. I said I had that spot. And turns out, of course I was right. But it turned into a beautiful friendship of many, many years. So how is that conversation today? [00:44:00]

Jonathan Blau: It was great.

You know, he followed the, uh, conversation I had with Samantha Bird, whose grandmother founded Lady Bird Cosmetics. He's basically a manufacturer of makeup and, um, they sell it to, uh, to different people who want a private label, and [00:44:15] that, that's Josh's basically in the same business. So his mother's father started in the Penn business, and then when his father, Josh's father was 24 and got married, the, his father-in-law said, why don't you come work for me and be a salesman?

[00:44:30] And, um, and so that's how it started. It's really, Josh is the third generation, just like, um, Samantha Bird is the third generation of her ma and, and it's a manufacturing business manufacturer, markers, you know, reasonable markers and things like that.

Amy Blau: So what are the similarities you saw between the [00:44:45] two conversations?

Jonathan Blau: Well, the two things I saw is, um, the amount of like love and respect that Samantha has for her grandmother who's no longer around is the same that Josh has for his father, who's no longer around, [00:45:00] and they weren't motivated by money. They were motivated by seeing great people that they revered. Um, laying out a, a foundation and they wanted to continue it, you know, they, they, they were proud to be able to continue it.

So that's [00:45:15] what they were chasing. They were chasing, carrying the legacy forward. And they're both just such good people who are giving and, and, um, and just, um, see, see the good in everything. And I just, uh, I saw that as a similarity between them.

Amy Blau: Well, I personally see [00:45:30] that in Josh all the time 'cause I don't.

Recall many conversations where his father's name doesn't come up or his mother's name, and we know he's a phenomenal son. Um, but he has so much respect for his father. How does that. [00:45:45] You know, in your business, when people have so much respect for their elders and they make money decisions, how does that affect how the younger generation makes money decisions?

Jonathan Blau: What do you mean? How did [00:46:00] the way the father made money decisions,

Amy Blau: how does that affect, how does that affect how Josh,

how

Jonathan Blau: Josh makes it?

Amy Blau: Yes.

Jonathan Blau: Yeah. Well, in Josh's case, 'cause he really respected and, and, uh, admired his father's. Uh, demeanor and success and everything. Josh, I [00:46:15] think, like you said, his father was a risk taker.

Roll the dice. Josh, I think has the same attitude. So I see that it, um, it was, it was like, uh, nurture over nature, right? He, he followed what his father did. Um, the interesting thing is his [00:46:30] father started the business because when his grandfather had the pen business, I think a couple of years after Josh's father started working for him as a salesman.

He got an offer to sell the business and Josh said he saw dollar signs. And then Josh's father was like the [00:46:45] salesperson he was selling to, I think a Kmart. And the person who was the buyer, they said, I like you. I just don't like the company you guys sold to. So I'm gonna give you money and I want to help you start your own business.

And that's how Josh's father started his own business.

Amy Blau: Wow. That's crazy. [00:47:00] But like going back to something that you do, for example, if, if, um. Josh's father, and we're just using Josh as an example. If Josh's father held certain stocks, do most people who revere their parents [00:47:15] continue to hold those same stocks?

Jonathan Blau: Well, you know, there's a lot of behavioral aspects to it, so there's something called the endowment bias. So we value something that we own, like our house. If it, if we were putting our house up for sale and our broker told us your [00:47:30] comparable houses are selling in your neighborhood for 1,000,002, then what we would do is we would, we would say, if it's selling for 1,000,002, the comparables, I'm gonna ask 1,000,002 to 1,000,004.

Voiceover: Right,

Jonathan Blau: because I own the house. But if they, if you were bidding on the same [00:47:45] house, you would, you would bid a million. So you value the same thing more if you own it than if you had the opportunity to gain it. And so when someone, you know, if Josh likes inherited stock from his father because of the endowment bias, even if it should be sold to diversify, [00:48:00] he might not sell it.

'cause he, he might not go out and say, oh, if I had a million, I'd buy this stock. But if my dad left. Be a million worth of it, I'm gonna keep it right. You see what I'm saying? So it's a same that. And the other thing is regret aversion. So if you sell the kind of things that your dad owned, right, [00:48:15] instead of keeping them and then the outcome isn't as good as the outcome your dad had, by holding those things, you're gonna regret that.

And the long term regret never goes away. So to avoid regret, I'm just gonna keep the same types of investments my dad had 'cause that's what always worked.

Amy Blau: But that's not always the best thing to [00:48:30] do. We know that

Jonathan Blau: no, normally not. That's an emotionally driven decision that's not rational and it's actually a bad thing to do.

But that's what we do as human beings.

Amy Blau: So how, as an advisor, how do you overcome something like that?

Jonathan Blau: Well, you, you know, you have to, in that example, for example, I would say [00:48:45] to the person, if dad left you 2 million worth of, of X, Y, Z stock, and you don't want to sell it, if I gave, if he instead left you 2 million in cash, would the plan be the next morning to go out and buy 2 million worth of X, Y, Z stock?

And they're gonna look at you and say, of course not. And then they [00:49:00] realize that they're making an irrational decision that's not in their interest.

Amy Blau: Got it. Got it. So that

Jonathan Blau: if you make them answer the question right in a different way so that they see through the emotional part of it to the rational side, I get it.

Amy Blau: I get it. Well, [00:49:15] I hate to cut you short, but I have a date with someone who's on the other end of this phone, and we're gonna be late if we don't get moving soon.

Jonathan Blau: All right, honey, thank you for the

Amy Blau: call. I'm glad you had a great conversation with Josh. And let's, let's talk to some more, uh, [00:49:30] third generation businesses and if you haven't listened to the Samantha Bird.

Conversation. Go back to Crazy Wealthy Podcast and listen to it. It's a great listen.

Jonathan Blau: It is. Okay, hun. Thank

Amy Blau: you. Have a great week. Bye.

Jonathan Blau: You too.[00:49:45]

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