Wedding Business Solutions

Bill Cates - The Hidden Heist!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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So many of our beliefs about wealth, success, and financial security are shaped by past experiences or stories we've unconsciously absorbed, but are they helping or holding us back? Are your financial habits based on old assumptions, or have you created a plan that actually serves your dreams? In this episode, I talk with Bill Cates, author of "The Hidden Heist," about uncovering self-limiting beliefs, the power of compounding, and why we all need to rethink our approach to building financial dignity and freedom—on our own terms.

Listen to this new episode for inspiration on rewriting your money story, practical tips to grow your wealth, and why awareness is the first step to lasting financial change.

About Bill: 
Bill is a Hall of Fame speaker, entrepreneur, referral expert to financial advisors, and

author of The Hidden Heist: Stop Robbing Yourself of Lasting Wealth – An Irresistible Tale of

Financial Redemption. He hosts the Top Advisor Podcast and has been featured in The Wall Street

Journal, Success, and Entrepreneur. He’s climbed Kilimanjaro, trekked to Everest Base Camp—and

today he’s here to help us build financial stability and real wealth by writing a “New Money Story.”


Contact Bill:
www.TheHiddenHeist.com

 

www.TheOrdinaryMillionaire.com

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/billcates/


If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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Let's talk about a hidden heist.

Listen to this episode, see where I'm going.

Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have my friend Bill Kates back on this time to talk about his new book, the Hidden Heist. Hey, Bill, how you doing?

I'm doing well. Everybody loves a good heist, right?

Absolutely. And those of you that are listening, Bill just held up a copy of the book. You can find it. You'll see the link. You can go to the hidden heist.com or the links that are in the show notes over here. But I actually just listened to the book because that's what I do. I do. And I have to say, the.

The narrator was great. I really thought that the intonation and all was really done well. But just give everybody just a little quick thing. What is the hidden heist?

So, other than it being a book.

What we mean by the hidden heist are the limiting beliefs, the mistaken assumptions, the unhelpful emotions, the. The story, often unconscious almost, that we tell ourselves about money and our relationship with money. And essentially that hidden heist of ours, that story of ours is robbing our future selves, actually robbing our present selves to some degree. And so the book, we wrote this to help, number one, create awareness so people could figure out what is their hidden heist, what is, what is. Is their money story that may not be serving them as well as it could. And then some steps on how to start rewriting that a little bit. And, and some basic steps around creating not just financial stability, but financial dignity, financial freedom, which is a different definition to everybody, and ultimately, you know, lasting wealth that we all are capable of creating and deserve.

Yeah. And I love the. The parable of the book. So it's not just a textbook sit here money stuff. Because, you know, a lot of us listening have heard, okay, you need to save money, you need to do this. Don't pay high interest, yada, yada, yada. But when it's done in the parable, it's a story. And there's people in there that everybody can relate to, right? People that are making good money, people not making good money, and a bank manager who has a financial advisor, because, yes, I, I oversee other people's money, but that doesn't mean I'm good with money.

And then to say that and talking through the different stories, they're young people I love. There was one part, and this. I started to tell you this offline when my Sons each got a job at 16 when they could have a job on the books. We opened Roth IRAs. So when each of them turned 16, Roth IRAs, and remember at the bank, one of the guys was 30 years old, the guy at the bank and said to my 16 year old son, if you put away the maximum, you're allowed for 10 years and then don't invest another dollar. He said, I, at 30, if I start today, I can never catch up to you because of the compounding of that money. And I was hoping my son's heard that. My older son probably did because he's now the CFO of a company that powers the back end of crypto.

My younger son, the graphic designer, maybe it didn't sink in quite as well.

It's time is the element there. And we often call that in Financial Services. Mr. Early, Mr. Late, and could be Mrs. Or Ms. But essentially it is, is the factor of time. Warren Buffett calls compounding the eighth wonder of the world.

Those who understand it earn it, those who don't, pay it. Now, interesting, if you go on the Internet and look up Warren Buffet, not Warren Buffett, sorry, Albert Einstein, I should have said Albert Einstein. You'll see all these memes, all this eighth wonder of the world. The truth is there's no evidence that he actually said those words.

However, the, the, the, the story or the sentiment is true, right? That when, when, when you have a little bit of discipline.

And, and invest regularly, even if it's small amounts, over time you can amass a million dollars or more. We have a guide, actually that's called the Ordinary Millionaire. I'll just share that real quick. You just go totheordinary millionaire.com and you can get that. And then on the other side of, you know, the crippling nature of debt. So yeah, time's the big one. Time's the big one.

Yeah. When my older son got his job out of college, they offered him different retirement options. And I said, you know, do 10% of your income. And he decided on a Roth 401K. And those of you that don't know you're going to pay the taxes now, but you're never going to pay the taxes on the gains on that. I said, because you've not had this job before, this income before, you're not going to miss that 10% because you don't know what your net is now. You'll get net and it'll be net of that. And I said, if you do that for the rest of your working life, you Will never worry about money in your retirement.

Well, it's the truth. Now, I am going to quote Warren Buffett and he says, you want to, you know, you spend what, what, what's left after saving? Not save what's left after spending.

Right.

The edge is pay yourself first.

And you know, I know that the folks that are listening, small business owners like us, small business owners, we put money back into the business that's good. Nothing, nothing wrong with that. One of the biggest places to actually earn money and hit it big is in your own business. So I get that. And we can't just rely on that. Covid is one witness to that. Right. We, we, we, we build wealth through our business, but we also have to have other channels of building wealth.

It's a diversity of wealth building really, if you think about it, right.

And a lot of people in the wedding and event industry, I'll have people come to me and say, you know, I'm thinking about selling my business. And I say, okay, so what is the value of your business without you? And you know, solopreneurs, you know, a lot of us are solopreneurs or small business people. You are the business, everybody knows you. You have the relationships and all those. So a lot of people think that because they have gross sales of X or net, net sales, net income of X that the business is worth something. But when you're not there, that's the thing. So if you're on vacation and you're earning money and it's not relying on you, you might have some value in a business to sell. But if that income stream turns off when you go away, there may not be anything to sell.

Right?

Yeah. So there were so many great stories in there and the lessons, I loved how it was just subtly put in there about people talking about like the idea of compounding the idea of the stories that we've been told. Right. Whether it was from our parents or our grandparents, you know, some of us are our grandparents were depression era. Some of us could be our parents, some of it could be our grandparents. My wife's grandmother, you know, she would wave the tea bag over the, over the hotel hot water, you know, then put it away to use it again later, you know, because how many times could I get out of it? It's a different mentality. But a lot of us have been told things that aren't true but might have been true for another generation, right?

Well, yeah, I mean, my parents grew up in the depression, so they were very anxious, cautious about money. Now my mom well, she was anxious about everything, but. And I probably picked up a lot of anxiety. But one of her little isms was, you never leave one job until you have the next job. And how I became an entrepreneur and bought and sold a couple businesses and all that, I couldn't tell you. I didn't get it from her, but I got her anxiety. Right? So that's, that's. Sometimes we don't.

Sometimes it's the message, sometimes it's their behavior, sometimes it's just the emotion that we get that stays with us and that's. That becomes our story. That's that hidden heist. I'm talking about my dad. You know, we were a middle, middle class family. My mother was a schoolteacher. My dad worked for the federal government. We were doing fine, you know, not rich, doing okay, a little bit of slack so we could take a vacation now and then.

He saved well, but he didn't invest well. And so he missed a lot of opportunity. It wasn't until he was later in life and I started learning about money that I got him into a couple of mutual funds that did very well for him.

Increased my inheritance a little bit, I suppose. But, you know, so, so we, we get all these messages. I mean, I, I was. I've done about 100 interviews, money interviews, story interviews for the book the Hidden.

I'll tell you about Michael. Michael grew up in kind of a similar situation. Middle, middle class. But his father resented wealthy people. Always never had anything good to say about wealthy people. And so Mike picked up on that and Mike starts a business and. But Mike was struggling. And it wasn't after doing a little work and figuring things out that that was part of it.

It's like, you can't become what you resent.

Right?

You can't become what you despise. And so he had to work, do some work to get past that. Now he's done very well. So we get all that mess and then, and then the media pile and movies. I mean, here's one thing that bugs me. Look, you know, are some wealthy people, especially the ones that show up in the news, you know, often greedy and, and dishonest and, you know, less than perfect character. Yeah, but they're the ones that are showing up in the news mostly because they probably did something that does, you know, not right. So, so.

But when reporters talk about wealthy people, there's always this little hint of disdain or right, you know, you know, if filthy rich, you know, is another expression you hear dirty rich. And, and so in the book, my My co author, Jeff west came up with a beautiful phrase which is really a phrase for life, I think, for, for all of us.

Stereotypes are there because they're, because usually there's a nugget of truth. Right. Like, so are there some rich people that are greedy and, and not philanthropic and, and cheat and lie and. Yeah, they're. His phrase was some are, most aren't.

Right.

And we also talked about the flip side of that of, you know, people who, poor people, they're lazy, they don't want to work hard, you know, they want a government handout. Well, yeah, some are, most aren't. Right. And so, you know, becoming aware of this was huge for me because then it allowed me to start writing a new story. It starts with awareness and that's what we wanted the book to do, at least spark people's awareness of what is your story, what are you telling yourself on a regular basis. And I like to say to sell to people, you know, don't believe everything you believe. Right. Because it could be based on some, some unproductive messages or maybe messages that served you at one point but don't serve you anymore.

So.

Right. Or it's the social media, which is not real life. It's. It's social media life.

Exactly.

Yeah. I think about my mother in law, she's the daughter of the depression area person who was very cautious with money and she invests very cautiously. And I like you, when I took over my dad's finances, I, I invested more aggressively for him than you would think for somebody who's 90 years old. I said, because I'm not investing for you, I'm investing for me. Because if there's anything left over, it comes to me. And my sister and I started thinking that way. Now I told my wife, I said, we're not investing for us anymore, we're investing for the next generation. So if there's, if we can leave more for them better so we can, we can take more risks, we'll be okay either way.

We'll do that. But again, so many great lists. But I love that because the stereotypes, it could be, you know, Gen Z. Oh, Gen Z is lazy. Well, some are, most aren't. Gen Y is some. Right. I love that I heard you repeated that through the book.

It was great. And that again was what was so nice about the parable because it didn't feel like you were being lectured to. You were hearing somebody talk about it and you go, yeah, I can relate to that. It was the, I think it was the doctor who Felt guilty, made good money, but felt guilty.

Right.

Or the bank manager felt guilty not being good about money and needed to hire an advisor who then, like you with Michael, did right by them by showing them. No, there's a better path for you just changing.

And all of these, all the characters in the book are based on real people. So for instance, we interviewed, Interviewed a hostage negotiator. So by the way, for those of you. Don't we. I don't think it came out yet. This book takes place in a bank robbery. Right? So it's the first parable book I'd ever know that took place in a bank robbery. And it's so, And I wanted that because I wanted some, some tension.

I wanted a mix of tension and there's lots of comic relief. So there's lots of fun and humor in the book and then the lessons along the way. And so while these bumbly robbers are trying to figure out how to get past SWAT because they didn't think they were going to get caught. And. Well, the SWAT person is based on a hostage negotiator we interviewed. Okay, and then we interviewed several folks who were actually in a bank heist in a bank robbery. And we share that in the vault. You can get, if you buy the book, you get access to the vault.

And then I've done about a hundred, I've lost track, about 100 money story interviews. And so the characters in the book represent real people and their real belief or what they were taught from their parents. And you mentioned the doctor who felt guilty.

Shame is a thing around money. And I interviewed a gal named Tammy Lally. I'm actually playing golf with her on Friday, Thursday. And her money talk, her TED talk, sorry, has 2.3 million views. And it's about shame. And I didn't know shame was a thing around money. I, I knew about anxiety because I had that part, but I didn't know about the same part. And, and, and what I do know about anxiety and fear and shame and stress, it knows no economic boundaries, meaning people from.

Virtually no money to people with a ton of money.

Have this, this baggage, this stuff, this shame. I didn't, I don't. I didn't earn this money. I inherited it or, you know, whatever. So it's, it's, it's complicated. But here's the, here's, here's one of the lessons I want people to get, Alan, is because money intersects every aspect of one's life. There isn't an aspect of a life of your life that isn't touched by money in some form or way or that when you change your money story, you can actually change your life because it'll impact every aspect of your life. And yeah, so that's, that's why we wrote the book, is to create awareness and then we give some basics in there.

You know, I'm kind of the straight, straightaway guy. I'm the non fiction writer. I've written six other nonfiction books like you have, but, but I had to have a co author for this one. So that's Jeff C. West and he's, he's the parable guy, the fiction guy who brought the characters to life. And so even though the messages are coming out in the story as you're saying, I was concerned. I was concerned that when people would get so engrossed in the good story, which it is, and I wanted to make sure this parable book was a good story because there's some bad ones out there. I was afraid that they missed the lessons.

So we put three appendices in there and then we put access to a vault which is really like more appendices to make sure people got the message straight. So you get it through the fun engaging story and then you get it straight. And one way or another you're going to get it.

You will.

And you know the, the whole idea of shame but also jealousy, right?

Yeah, envy, jealousy. Yeah, you bet.

I remember reading the book the millionaire next Door. You know the millionaire next door is, is not likely the person driving a Ferrari. It's the person driving a two year old car that a car they bought two years old paid off. And you know, they, they own their house outright. They might own local businesses. It might be your local doctor or pharmacist or whoever. My wife worked for a guy like this. He owned the Goodyear tire and auto place, the towing place, the body shop, the Gold's Gym, residential and commercial real estate around town and drove around in a Chevy step side pickup truck and jeans and dirty boots.

And you'd never know until he went home to his 8,000 square foot house with the indoor pool. And next door he bought the piece of land to put up a two story garage for his car collection. Right, Right.

Yeah.

But you look at him in town and you wouldn't give a second look because you know he didn't flaunt it that way. You know, he might drive around in a fancy car once in a while, but is more likely a classic than new one.

My father, my father, when I was growing up, there were no Lexus and, and I guess BMWs and Mercedes were around, but not much. It was. So is the Cadillac right or the Lincoln right. And my father didn't like it when people flaunted their wealth. And so if anybody drove a Cadillac, he called that conspicuous consumption. Right. And just so happens I have a Cadillac.

Now I wasn't going to say that, but I knew that.

So here, here's, here's a, here's something that happened to me Al. And I think people appreciate this because a lot of people can relate to this, especially business owners and entrepreneurs types. I, I made the mistake of falling into the trap of having my net worth determine my self worth. And now the good news is.

It, it didn't overtake me, it didn't get me into trouble. So I paid myself first. I, I created my profit first funds. I, you know, I created a profit sharing plan, a defined benefit plan. I did, I did all the right things. And yet I still became aware of the fact that some of the decisions I made around money was to show other people how successful I am.

So. And look, did that hurt me? Nah. Is it good be good for me to know that. Yeah. Do I now am aware of that and maybe make some different buying decisions because of that? Yes. The problem is when you get in trouble with that. Right. And you really start to try to prove something to other people or yourself, that's your worth.

You know, I was measuring my, my self worth by square footage of my home. Not a good thing to do. And, and so I, I finally became aware of my money anxiety and I started doing some work and you know, what is financial independence? Financial independence, there's a, there's a few ways to look at it, but one way is independence from those feelings and. Right. Independence from that I'm not enoughness or I'm stressed around money or I'm anxious around money. That's, that's, that's a psychological financial independence that I think is really healthy for all of us to work towards.

Yeah. And against the comparison, you know, keeping up with the Joneses, you know, you see somebody driving that fancy car, but it could be, you know, hawk to, they could be hawk to the eyeballs.

I see it, I've worked in Financial Services 33 years and I see a lot of people, even some financial advisors that.

You know, you're right, you don't know what their, their true situation is. So that whole NV compare, you see that a lot in millennials. One of the things with the hidden heist, a lot of boomers and older Gen X's are, are buying the hidden heist for their millennial and Gen Z children to make sure they get the right messages early on. Right. And you're seeing it, particularly with millennials. There's a lot of keeping up with, there's a lot of overspending on destination. Well, destination weddings. Right.

There's your business destination, you know, bridal parties. My daughter, bachelorette parties. Yeah, she took her bachelorette party to Disney. You know, I had to pay for her cousin to be able to go on that. And a lot of these kids get into debt to having to do that. And I didn't want that to happen to my, my niece. So, you know, you see that a. That comes from the media.

It comes from. Look, are there some truly wealthy individuals on social media flaunting wealth? Yeah, there's also a lot of charlatans. But here's the deal. If people aren't really learning how money works and the really good basic principles, as opposed to the stock of the day, the investment of the day, the crypto of the day, the. If they're not learning the basics from you, the parent, or from a good book like the Hidden Heist and many other good books that are out there, where are they learning it? Well, they're learning it From Instagram and TikTok and, and may not be the best message or may not be the right message for them. Right.

Yeah, I, I was just listening to another book and they said, you know, maybe instead of teaching everybody trigonometry, they should teach them personal finance.

Well, I am, and it's starting to change. A lot of school systems are starting to do that. You know, I used to joke that, you know, they, they teach us quadratic equations and all that. But the problem is with the personal finance thing, at least where it is right now is a lot of times it's an elective. So someone who has an inclination wants to learn, they can learn. It's there, it's available, but it's not mandated. And I personally, while I have kind of a libertarian view towards a lot of things, I think our society would be a whole lot better off in the world in general if people did learn some personal finance and did learn about paying yourself first and dollar cost averaging and all the bas of saving and investing.

The world would really be a better place because everyone's financial world would be lifted up just a little bit and there'd be a little less stress and worry around that. And does money buy happiness? No. And when you're super stressed and anxious over money, it sure can, you know, create misery. I just saw a study that showed that money anxiety in the workplace. Now this is not the entrepreneurs that we're dealing with, but we can probably still relate to this causes an average of 7 hours of work loss per week. So like 20% of the work week productivity is lost because the people come to work with money stress. So, so for you, the owner of a business, if you're the owner and you have employees, 1099 or W2, help them with their money story, help them with their money stress. I mean, don't overpay, pay competitively, but then also just talk to them about the story and their thinking and their mindset.

I've got folks that are owners of books, of businesses are buying the hidden heist to actually have a gentle way into this conversation with their employees.

So guess what? So we can alleviate some of that money stress. And so people are more productive and maybe a tad happier.

So yeah, I remember when I was working for a company before, they had a little bit of a match on if you put money into the retirement plan, right? And a lot of the younger people didn't contribute and I wasn't allowed to give direct advice. And I said, listen, I'm going to step outside and say, here, I'm just somebody, you know, but let me talk about free money. Like if your company is offering to.

Match anything that is free money, that.

Is free money right now, then it's investing it wisely after that, which is the next part. But they're giving you free money and they just, they couldn't see it. And I get it because again, I think we've all been there, or most of us have been there, where you live in, you know, hand to mouth, right? There is no, there is no extra. But a little bit, a little bit, a little bit over time. And again, great lessons in there. I think, by the way, I think where people are listening to this, probably around the holidays, what a great gift to give someone is the knowledge of how to handle money better.

Thank you.

That's going to pay dividends again and again. So again, if you're an employer, a nudge, you know, somebody's having money worries, give them this as a gift, right? Give them this as a gift. Because audiobook, Kindle, you know, paperback, hardcover, all the different ways there. And because it's the parable, the story comes at you in a very, very natural way. And it doesn't feel again, like you get hit with lessons. You know, the bank manager, I'll give away. This is writing down the lessons on a pizza box in the vault. Okay, I'll just tell you that.

But it's repeating the lesson. This is the lesson that we learned here. Here's what it is. And the fact that if you want to learn about it again, there's ways to learn about money. And if you're not, or you're not good, hiring somebody who's better at it, just like we hire a dentist, a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer. Because we need someone who knows that hiring a, you know, a financial advisor, just real quick for people, because there are different types there, you know, financial planner versus financial advisor. What's the difference?

Yeah, there. There are kind of overlapping lapping terms in a sense that most financial advisors do some sort of planning these days. Some do more robust planning than others. Usually you want to do a financial plan, you want to begin with the end in mind, at least the sense of the end in mind, so to speak, or a sense of the future in mind.

  1. One phrase I heard from a colleague years ago is there's nothing worse than an unfunded dream. So maybe there's some dream you want something you want to do someday, but if you don't set money aside to do it, well, it probably never gonna happen. Right? Yeah. So now there are folks that are more investment managers. So there are a lot of financial advisors, if you will, that their main focus is investment management. So they're mostly focused at assets allocated in different investment vehicles for the purpose of creating a return.


On investment and eventually creating income in retirement. Those folks tend to do a little less planning. Those folks tend to not be aware of the other side of proper financial planning, which is protection, which is insurance. And now they often have relationships with specialists. So that may be okay. I usually recommend that when people are looking for an advisor, and I'm a huge advocate of getting professional assistance, like you said, even the bank manager has. I know financial advisors who have financial advisors. It's the old.

You can't see the picture to frame. You know, doctors, you know, shouldn't be treating themselves in a lot of cases. Therapists you almost required to go in therapy. And they probably need it more than their patients. That's another company. Anyway, so. Did I say that out loud? So anyway, the whole point here is to get someone who is well rounded or their practice, their team is well rounded so that you get planning, you get investment management, you get insurance planning, you get income planning, you get all of that. Now, with that said, you can't abdicate your responsibility while, yes, you will be leaving a lot up to them.

You can even sign documentation that will allow them to move your money around as they think they need to do it in your best interest. And I've done that with my advisor.

You're still responsible ultimately for this. And so, you know, if, if your advisor is doing something you don't understand. Well, ask, you know, and if you got somebody gives you arrogant answers, then, then find someone else. Right. So you should understand what's being done, at least to a certain degree. What's being done, why it's being done, how that fits your goals, your risk tolerance, all that. So, yeah, we, we help get someone to help us. Absolutely.

But we don't abdicate responsibility for the results.

Yeah. Again, you want to understand that you're moving in the right direction and that they are. Now, who, which one is a fiduciary? Which one? Because you pay someone for. To manager investments.

Yes.

Right. You pay someone to be, help you with your financial planning. But it's different, right?

Yeah. Well, a fiduciary, well, they're, they're, they're linked. The term fiduciary, you're hearing more and more about it. Essentially what a fiduciary is, is someone who, and there are certain standards.

Set by the government regulation agencies that the fiduciary has to always act in your best interest. Right? Right. They can never sell something because they're going to make an extra profit from it. Etc.

However, there are a lot of people that call themselves fiduciaries, but I question that. Here's the reason why. Because a financial advisor only knows what he or she knows. They only have availability for you of what they've learned and what they've been trained in and what they've been exposed to. So if they're limited in what they know, if they're working for a firm where they can only sell their proprietary or put you in their proprietary product drugs, then well, yeah, they're working to your best interest, but limited. Right, Right. So, yeah, the thing fiduciary is, is, is interesting term, but you know what? I would rather work with someone who calls themselves a fiduciary and says, I will only make decisions that are your best interest than someone who doesn't use the term. Right.

And again, even if they're limited by that, they still have more knowledge than you do. And if you're working with someone that has your best interest in mind.

Yes.

You know, you're still probably better off than trying to make it on Your own.

And there are a lot of ways to get to where you want to go and you know. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, that's, that's a whole other 30 minute conversation, at least.

Yeah. Yeah. My niece who started investing too late, doesn't really understand it. Doesn't want to understand it. Probably no matter how much I explain it, she's not going to get it. I just have her in an S&P 500 ETF. And I said over time, somebody, I heard this recently, somebody said this week, it looks like, you know, over five years, it looks like a staircase, it's going up, but it's jagged. Over 20 years, it looks like a straight line going up and as long as you.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I say the stock market is like someone walking up a staircase with a yo, yo. There you go. It goes up and down, up and down. But I'll be. So the S P 500 over the last 50, 50, 55, 0 years has averaged 11.6% return. And there are professional money managers who can't do that.

Right.

So a low cost ETF for your niece. Ideal. Ideal, right.

And that was another thing that I, I tried to explain about expense ratios. Right. You know, the expense ratio, like there's more than one ETF of the S&P 500, but the expense ratios vary and they're all theoretically investing the same way. So I have an ultra Low expense, 1. I won't mention names because I'm not trying to endorse anybody here, but you know, really, really low because any money that goes to expenses doesn't go to me and doesn't get compounding and all that kind of stuff. So again, this is a really important discussion. You know, it's a great book for yourself. It's a great book if you're in a relationship, great book for your kids grandkids.

And again, I just thought the story came through so well because of the parable. I think you're, you're your co author there did a really great job with creating these characters that, you know, everybody can relate to the idea of it being in a bank heist and the bank robbers kind of being a little bumbling. But, you know, there's, you know, there's one you feel, you feel sorry for. I'm not going to give it away because you have to read the story for that.

But, but the grows, the characters grow, which is also the sign of a good book too. Good story.

Exactly, exactly. No, I thought it was really well written. And again, great book for a gift. Bill, thanks for sharing this. Look into the show notes, you'll see the hidden heist dot com. You'll see Bill's LinkedIn over there as well. If you go back into the archives for my podcast, you'll have Bill on talking about referrals, because another really important part about the wedding and event industry is referrals. You see his book over his shoulder beyond Referrals there.

I have it on my bookshelf here as well. So Bill, thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing this, and again, thanks for writing a great book.

My pleasure, Alan. It's always good to be with you. Thanks.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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