Animal Spirits Podcast - Live from Future Proof 2025 (EP. 429)

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

On episode 429 of Animal Spirits, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael Batnick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ben Carlson⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ discuss: how to build a successful RIA, the flywheel effect, using "there he is" as a greeting, and more. Learn more about Sprott ETFs , Visit SprottETFs.com or call 1-888-622-1813 for disclosure and prospectus information, containing investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses, which should be read carefully.  ALPS Distributors, Inc., is the Distributor for the Sprott ETFs. Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thecompoundnews.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find complete show notes on our blogs: Ben Carlson’s ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A Wealth of Common Sense⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Michael Batnick’s ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Irrelevant Investor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Feel free to shoot us an email at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ritholtz Wealth Management⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Animal Spirits. We are live from Huntington Beach, year four, at Future Proof, and we are excited to do the show in front of the best audience of fans in the world. Today's show, From the Beach, is brought to you by Sprott ETFs, looking to add some shine to your portfolio. An investment in the Sprott Silver Miners and Physical Silver ETF, SLVR may help you do just that. Silver is not only a precious metal with value as a currency, but... That's right, Ben. It's not just a valuable currency.

It's also a critical material for energy, electronics, health care, automotive technology and more, visit Sprottetefs.com, or call 1-888-622-1813 for disclosure and prospectus information containing investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses, which should be read carefully. Alps Distributors, Inc. is the distributor for the Sprott ETFs. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ridholt's Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied

upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ridholt's Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. This is, this is not our music. That, is that our music? That is, that it? All right, I don't listen to the podcast. It doesn't sound like our music. How we doing?

Everybody having fun? Is California the best? Yes? Yes, it is the best. I was told, I didn't occur to me, but yeah, There's no bugs. There's no bugs. A downside of California.

Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but I know about you guys. So we have beaches on the East Coast. I go to one. But there's something about the California sand. It's the sand sticks in my ear. And I don't know what... It buries itself in my brain. I'm cleaning my ear out for three weeks.

But other than that, I can't complain. Are you okay? I'm good. All right. Before we get started, I want to mention we've got these snazzy hats. We've had a lot of people ask you about him. Patman's say, what's up, man? I don't shop.com, if you want them.

There was a really handsome guy at Reynolds Wells who said, we need some trucker hats. I'm not naming any names, and these have been hot and everyone wants one. I don't shop.com. Okay, so I feel like a lot of pressure to redeem our ourselves. Most of you weren't in Miami last year, but we bombed. We bombed. Well, they put us on the stage at 8 a.m. the night after Michael's 40th birthday. So, hungover adjusted, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't great.

So, all right, we're going to turn it up this year. Last year in California, we did our origin stories. And no offense, but we had 30 minutes, and you took like 23 of them. Oh, really? I did? You did. That's okay. Listen, I like... You still holding on to that one all this time later?

No, no, not at all. Jeez. I love letting you cook. And we're gonna, we're gonna, this is very high. We're gonna, thank you. We're gonna do it again. This is Ben's show. It is 10 years of Ben Carlson at Ridholtz Wealth Management.

Well, and I thought we could give some lessons learned that we've, because we've been reminiscing a lot because we're middle age now and that's what we do when you're middle age. Remember that time? Yeah. And I thought it would be interesting to kind of do a look back at us building Ridholt's wealth management from what was a startup, When I joined, we were squarely a startup firm to now what is a much more mature firm. And I think we've moved on from being startup people to more mature people in some ways. I feel very mature.

Very grown up. When Ben started with us in 2015, Bitcoin was at $228. God, what an idiot I was. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's a lot higher right now than $228. Invidia was split-adjusted $0.54. It's higher than that right now. The S&P was 1900.

It's now $6,500. And the Dow was at $16,000. It's $45,000. Hand up, I didn't see that coming. Did not envision that we were about to embark on one of the best bull markets of all time, did you? Of course, I knew it. That's why I joined the firm.

Nailed it. All right, so Ben, I'm going to tee you up. So here's what we're going to do, okay? I don't know if you guys listen to the podcast, but I've been getting very into audiobooks lately. So I'm going to read the entire post, and you are all going to listen like an audiobook. Just kidding.

Okay, all right, but we'll start here. So when Ben joined Ridholt's Wealth Management, we were managing 140 million. dollars this was in the fall of 2015 you were the seventh employee and uh you wrote we were started by that point no one really took us seriously but we took ourselves seriously and that's all that mattered that brought a tear to my eye well so i remember we what was the name of the taco place we used to go to right by our firm salvation taco rest in peace and peace so we would that was the taco place we'd go to and i came to new york the first week i joined the firm we go out to lunch barry and josh stand up to say a few

words and wait to say a few words to who like welcoming me to the firm okay yeah there was me you Chris Barry Josh Patrick Patrick and Erica and Erica and Barry said hey we're we're building the infrastructure for a billion dollar firm even though we're not close to that yet 50 yeah and the funny thing is is I say it's some combination of confidence in like being naive that we all believed it at the time even though we were so far away from that but then Barry aside said that because, yeah, we can't even afford Ben's salary at this point. Hopefully we can grow into that. Where is Barry? Is he here?

No? But I think I wrote in the post. Very inspiring, right? You're like, wow, that's a great decision. Well, and, you know, you've talked, we had, like, we were bootstrapped at the time. There was no outside investors. It was all us and trying to, like, make it work. And there was times when, like, meeting payroll was difficult.

There was, remember, we were leasing computers from, the Apple store, which I still don't really quite understand. You were making 40% more than I was when you started. That was an ego hit. A little gut punch. Hey, listen, no one told me. But yeah, we were squarely a startup. You guys had the crappy little office. I had my own little office and I've come to New York once every other month or something. And we got Slack the very first day. And it's funny to think back now, it seems so easy. But someone asked us last night, like how were the early years and it was you know it was a slow stair step and they said well when did the growth really hit and I was thinking about this like sometimes luck is a huge part of success

we were a remote firm kind of by accident I remember we were at a bar one night wisdom true was throwing a party maybe you don't remember this I don't remember this and barry and Josh wanted me to move to New York I live in West Michigan we just had our first daughter my wife was like are you out of your mind you're not moving to Manhattan I'm like all right I guess this isn't going to work. And I said to you, how many clients do we have in New York? And you were like, I don't know, a handful. Most of our clients find us from the internet all over the country. And it said, so why do I need to move to New York number with my family? And you go, oh, yeah, just stay in Grand Rapids. It's fine. We'll figure it out. And we

literally created a remote firm on the fly. So then COVID hits. We're totally paperless. You know, we have way more people who live and work all over the country. And not that we would have kept our fingers crossed for a pandemic. But that was one of the best things that ever happened to our firm in terms of growth, because everyone else in the entire country and the world was brought into this Zoom world and this paperless, go anywhere, trust people on the internet. And that was a boon for us, right? And not like we expected that to happen. We thought we were pretty forward thinking in these terms, but it was a stroke of luck. And that was to that point, by far the biggest year we'd ever had in 2020. Yeah, that was definitely an

inflection point for us. What do you think is, you know, you wrote the blog, but I have to ask what you think is the biggest lesson. Let's talk about, you wrote about client fit being one of the most important things that we've stuck to it over the years. So you, when I joined the firm, you guys said, listen, client fit is huge. And Chris Venn, who is our kind of wealth management architect. I hate to give him props because he's just going to love it all day. There he is. Look at him smiling. But he said from day one, you know, client fit is huge. And that means the client obviously has to like what we do, like what we put out, like our process, and how we handle client relationships. But we have to have a fit with a client, too. There can't be all these red flags that

the client wants you to do these things that you either can't or won't do. And I think, to be honest, at first I thought like, okay, that's like good lip service, but we'll bend over backwards to get any client we can because we're not that big and we need to grow. So my very first week, every person who reached out and said, hey, I heard Ben is joining the firm. I want to talk to you guys about managing my money. Chris and I hop on the phone and this guy says, you know, He starts bragging immediately. Listen, I got $25 million if we include my brother and my father. We're talking $100 million.

Basically, like, what are you going to do for me? Goldman says they're going to do this. Morgan Stanley's going to do this. Merrill Lynch will do this. And this guy, you know, is kind of sitting back going, all right, come on, feed me grapes while I'm laying on a hammock or whatever. And Chris goes, all right, I'm going to have to stop you right there. And the guy said, listen, someone.

Sir? You have the wealthy. Some guy just nailed it. There's a podcast going on. If you want a teddy bear. But Chris says to the guy, listen, some firm or advisor is going to tell you that they're going to be able to give you what you want. They're not going to be able to, but they're going to tell you they are.

That's just not us. We can't, this is, it would not be a good fit. There's too many red flags. Just what you're asking us to do is not something that we're willing or able to do. And I thought, Chris, you're insane. This guy's got $100 million. Let's do whatever we can. can. So it's easy to say that when you're a bigger firm. Yeah, client fit matters because

that's easy, but we were doing it from day one. That's not entirely true. Well, of course, but that that was, yes. You know what I think was the final, like, oh shit, like we actually, Chris is not completely moronic. He might be onto something. Remember when we were, oh, remember when? I'm doing it. I'm doing it remember when the old guy think. Damn it. There was a time. We were at Dana Point. and... Oh, geez, yeah. That was it.

Yeah, one of our original conferences, right? So we met these two South African brothers. I don't even know... Whatever. They had a lot of money. I don't know how much. But we have this trend following model that we have been using since 2014

to mitigate the large drawdowns that don't exist anymore. I wish we never did that. And they were asking us a million. in different questions about what if this and what if that. And literally, we spent the entire conference in a room doing different sort of back test for these assholes who didn't give us any money. And it didn't even end there. It kept going. You remember that? Yeah, they had a lot of zero hedge-ish questions that we probably should have been, yes, ding dinging. This isn't going to work.

But yeah, you're right. We did try to do stuff. And I think we've learned a slowly but surely. And yeah, You can't, no one's ever perfect at these things. Sometimes a client comes on and you realize after the fact this isn't going to work, but it's got to be a two-way street, obviously. So a lot of advisors will take a bad client for obvious reasons, right? We all got to put bread on the table. But it's, if you are with a firm that is a team, which most of us are, it's not just about you.

It's about your traders that have to unwind this nonsense. It's about your ops, people that have to deal with the annoying emails. It's about the cash management. It's everything. and it's really selfish to, yeah, they'll fire us in two years, but whatever. I'll take it in the meantime. No, we don't do that. We used to do that.

Not anymore. All right, moving on. Overnight success is overrated. When I joined the firm, I assumed all these wealthy families and big institutions would throw us their money. It didn't happen right away, and that was for the best. So I came from the institutional world and foundations and endowments, and the big lesson for me there was how much, like I learned all about career risk

and how many of these people were working for committees and organizations and having to do things that they didn't really necessarily agree with or want to do, but it's like, listen, this is the job, this is what they're telling me to do, I have to do it. So I thought, great, this is not the way that I want to manage money. I don't think it's the right way to do things. I think there's a better way to do things, and I thought, well, when I joined Riddholz, all these huge institutions are just going to throw us money. And it didn't happen right away, and it was a little bit of an ego hit.

I thought, wait a minute, why isn't this working? And we didn't have the institutional knowledge back then. And when I say institutional, I don't mean those types of investors. I mean, we didn't have like that level of expertise. It took, you have to take like a stair step function almost to get to that point where you've had some reps and you have to put it in. We always like to say that like expertise or experience is not the same thing as expertise, but for some things, you just have to put in the time to figure out how to do it better.

And then once you have a few of those situations and circumstances, is then you can better deal with clients that come in at that level and stuff. So I got something for you. Okay. Okay. A little twist? Yeah. No, I think that I did a panel earlier today on content.

And I think that's obviously been the big thing. And a lot of advisors ask us about the content piece and how they can do it. And I think the biggest surprise to me is just the flywheel effect of the content. I assumed, hey, when I, join the firm all the people who read my blog who want us to like me or the firm and like our process they'll give us their money and then eventually that well will run dry and then we'll have our business will be built on referrals because the people like barry and the people like Josh and you and that will just that will eventually go dead I'd never considered the fact

that the longer and more and consistently we produce content eventually those people come to us because they have stuff going on in their life, not because, oh, I like these guys, I'm going to throw them money. And I think the flywheel effect is something that I think we all probably underestimated. And it's like compounding. It's back-end, it's back-loaded. Is there a question? No, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm being nostalgic here. I'm just, I'm just thinking that, don't you think that that's something that obviously we put our foot on the gas when we realized how important content was? And it wasn't, we, we've all talked about, we all started our own sort of blog stuff separate from each other. We never said, let's start

blogs and then we'll all come together like Voltron as one and then we'll create a fur. Like it never was that thing. We all just did it because we enjoyed it. But I think once we realized like, oh, this is a very powerful tool for client retention and for prospecting and marketing and all these things, then we put our foot on the gas and really figured it out. But it wasn't like on day one we had these grand ideas that this is going to be a machine for us. So I am a goldfish. Like I see, I don't see outside the fish bowl.

I got kicked out of college twice as most listeners know. So I am very much like one day at a time. I don't think about the future. I don't plan for the future. But you're right. I guess I assume that when we started, it's Barry's name. Barry was the person that people were familiar with.

And I think I figured that once that well ran drug, then, I don't know, we would figure something else out. We'd be like a lot of other firms that you, yeah, now it's time to get off the horse and find your client. Yeah, it didn't really occur to me that Josh was going to have the career that he had. I think he's overrated, but I guess people sort of like him. I definitely didn't anticipate the podcast and the YouTube

and that we would have people coming to us. So I think the biggest thing that I got wrong about our business, and I said this to our team last night, So me, Josh, Barry, and Chris meet twice a year to talk about the business, and we never spoke about asset milestones, like, ever. It just didn't really come up. Maybe, like, we were excited about the first billion. I'm sure.

I don't think we, as a firm, we've never really had goal posts or benchmarks that, like, you have to hit this. No, we never spoke like that. It was always about, like, what are we doing, what's working, what's not working, where do we want to spend money? And it was, it was, it was that sort of stuff. And I remember it was 2018, I believe, maybe 2017. I can't remember, whatever.

We were in Barry's backyard, and I had this really great idea to just get to $3 billion. This was the time that I threw out a number. Let's get to $3 billion and like, let's just all really enjoy ourselves. Yeah, then what we're going to coast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in hindsight, it was so misguided because what I never could have involved,

vision was that getting to $3 billion was going to require an army of highly motivated people. And I didn't think about these people because they didn't exist, right? It was like, whatever, 10 of us. And so when we got to $3 billion, I don't know how many employees we were, but it was so far gone. Like the train left the station. And at that point in time, you can't obviously tell people like, all right, this is, this is it for us. Nobody's going to get any more money. Nobody's going to... Yeah, like, sorry, this is it. And so now my primary motivation

is making sure that I deliver on the promise that I made to everybody that I hired that's like, we're never going to stop. We are highly, highly competitive people. And I want everybody who's here to feel like outside of finding their spouse, this was the single best decision that they've made in their entire career.

And if you feel that, Riddholz, people, make some noise. All right, thank you. Like your work spouse, too, right? My work spouse, I love you, Ben. No, but I think, I don't mean to get, like, philosophical, but that, I think that mindset, Patrick O'Shaughnessy says, like,

the growth of her goals mindset, I do think there's something, too, that not having, like, these benchmarks for our advisors and saying, hey, now you have to manage 10 million, and then it's got to be 20 by the end of the year, and it's got to be 30. There's none of those internal benchmarks

in terms of looking over your shoulder. and I think one of the, not trying to say we got everything right, but one of the things we did get right is that we wanted to grow in the right way. And not saying we always did that, but I think that was, that was one of the things. Like somebody, somebody asked me, what are, what am I most proud of at Riddle's wealth management? And immediately there's no, there's no number two, it's the people. And this is why we were able to build the way that we've done it. And one thing that I got very right, even though I've got a lot wrong, is that if it's not an obvious,

it's a no. Like, that's our mantra, and it's not lip service, and the proof is in the pudding. We've hired 27 advisors, and one and a half didn't work out, and listen, nobody's perfect, but we take that really seriously. And when you onboard somebody, everything has to go right. Philosophy in terms of how they want to handle their clients, obviously, like, how they think about managing money, how they think about ambition, and balancing the act of lifestyle and and career ambitions. Like, for us, there is no balance. And we go hard.

I don't know what else to say. And it's just, it's served us well. And that is how we're going to continue to grow with the right people only. That's it. Well, the one question that we always get, and we talk about this every couple years, but people will say, how do you guys have so much time to, you're running a firm,

but you're also producing all this content? How do you have time to do both? So I wake up at 3.30, four on the weekends. Listen to three audiobooks. But I think part of it is not, not only hanging the right people, but for whatever reason, in our sick brains, this is the stuff that really interests us. You and I don't golf. Do you do fantasy football?

I do, but my partner does the heavy lifting. Okay. But we don't have a lot of, honestly, hobbies, and that sounds kind of loser-ish, but this is the stuff that we enjoy doing, too. I think that's part of it, especially on the content side of things. Do you think about the next 10 years? I don't think that way. But do you ever go there? Sometimes? Come on, be honest.

No, sure. Nobody's listening. And I think if I tried to map it out, I'd be completely wrong whatever I tried to say. But I think one of the things that we've realized is, and I don't want this to come back to bite me, but we like being an independent firm. And I think just because we're kind of a... We will never take outside money, so stop asking, but there's a price for everything. So, yeah, just invidia valuation, that's all.

You can't put a price on freedom, but I don't know. I, that's a bill. Yeah, I think that's, we're kind of a band of misfits in a lot of ways, and I don't think we would do well inside of like a big corporate structure. I know, I wouldn't because I think we're just too used to doing things our own way. But we've had to become, I don't know, a little more corporate as we've grown, too, so, because we have a lot of people in our firm now. Almost 80.

All right, what else? What else is going on? What else we got? All right, all right, time for some stand-up. We're done? No, no, no. I think there's also a lot of unintended consequences along the way. You and I kind of started this podcast as a lark in 2017,

and we at the time thought, oh, God, everyone's doing a podcast. Do we need to do one? I've told this story before, but whatever. It's a new audience. New people are here. I was mortified. the week that we were starting a podcast. Now, talking into a microphone is difficult.

It requires practice. And there's something that happens when the camera goes on and you see a red light, your brain gets twisted. I can't describe it, but it's hard. And I got butterflies for the first three years. Remember, we have five or six podcasts. We did a practice podcast. Yeah, those are great.

That never saw the light of day. We should resurface those. But anyway, the week that we started, the New Yorker ran a headlot, cartoon, I'm thinking of stopping a podcast. And I was just like, oh. But so I'm thinking through the unintended consequences of it. Think about how many people we've hired because we put it out on the podcast. Hey, we're hiring for this advisor position or this CSA position. Almost all of them. So that, and not like we ever could envision. Like this is going to be a way that we bring in other

people to because they follow us and they, um, so it is interesting just to think about all the offshoots that you, you asked me about the next 10 years. How many other things are we not considering now that could go different paths. We think about how many times we tinkered with the conference business. We started out in a stuffy, what was it like a Yale something in New York, right? What was it, Chris? The Union League Club. Yeah, so it was this stuffy old, you know, they had, you know, mahogany and wood panels and we just quickly realized that kind of thing is not us. So especially when the future proof people came to us and Matt Middleton said, we're thinking of doing this.

We immediately said, yes, I don't know what's going to work, but that sounds exactly like something that we would want to be part of. All right. Ben, talk about the different type of pool guys. I didn't know I was coming, had to come up with bits. No, I was making the point earlier. I snuck away for some pool time earlier. I just needed to decompress a little bit.

And I ordered some fish tacos and maybe another Miami vice of the pool. I don't know. You're only supposed to have one per day. but you know what the worst thing about the pool is eating at the pool is horrible no one can ever look comfortable or cool eating at the pool because you're bending over a table and you're doing this thing and it doesn't work that's it all right no you're right definitely doesn't work um all right this is a this is a conference of i'm very proud this is a very diverse conference this is a very male dominated industry and um there are a

lot of different types of people there, which is wonderful. But still, there are a lot of guys, and one things that guy says, and I never really thought about this until two weeks ago I was at Bowie Bar on Long Island with my partner, Chris. And there was a group of guys, and one guy walks over, and he goes, I hear the guy going,

there he is. And I said, you know what? I'm a big, there he is guy. And who isn't? I got that here at this conference a dozen times, maybe more. And then I was thinking about the different types of ways that guys say, there he is. And there are some nuances and some subtleties to the naked observer, which is a phrase I used last week, I recalled me out on that. That's a phrase.

The naked observer now. The naked observer. You all know what I'm talking about. So to the naked observer, there he is, might be indistinguishable from this guy, but in reality, very, very different things. But I thought the reason you say, there he is is because you don't remember someone's name. Isn't that the whole point? So there he is, it's very malleable.

You could use it in all different sorts of settings. There he is works when you don't know the person's name. But also, like, if that's like your friend that you haven't seen in a long time, there he is, bro hug, right? There he is. It's a slippery slope until you're saying, take it easy.

No, no, no, no. What you're going for is, live in the dream look with the cat dragged in they let anybody in that's a different thing I'm talking about there he is there he is it's a it's a it's uplifting so anyway back to the original point back to the point because this is this is what matter all right this guy that's condescending so if you ever right Adam if you if you ever get a this guy maybe that guy's not your friend thoughts Anybody?

All right. I didn't know where we were going with this one. I don't know. We still got time. All right. Been listened to a lot of audiobooks. As I get into my mid-40s,

you know, I was looking at my phone today. A lot of steps, right? Like, a lot of steps. So I was just walking back and forth. By the way, future proof. Are you kidding me? It's like a mile long. Let's give it up for Future Proof.

So I opened my health app Just to see how many steps I took And I took several, not to brag And on top of my health app, summary Seven Day Limit exceeded On my headphone audio exposure Do I have to tell Apple? No, no, no, no.

I'm listening to audiobooks. It's fine. You have to recalibrate my ear settings. I'm not over the limit. Anybody? Okay. All right, bet are we done? You're turning it.

into Mike Myers as the old Jewish woman. I'm for clumped. That's you. I am all for clumped. You're going there and... All right. Any questions? Anybody want to say hi? Any... We have three minutes off. We can do a question before we announce our... Oh, we're doing a happy hour.

Yeah, so at 515, this has been my one dream since we started Future Proof. I think that Miami Vice is... We've talked about this on the show. It's the best beachside, poolside drink that there is. This guy, am I right? Now I got it. I live in the dream. But we get pictures from people

when they go on vacations, they send us and they tag us on social media, they DM us with their Miami Vice, wherever they go. And so my dream has been to get a frozen drink machine. I've been asking for it every single year. So this year we finally came through. We have two frozen drink machines over in the Riddholz wealth management compound booth

over there. At 515, we're going to be doing an animal spirits happy hour. And I feel like we got 90% of the way there because, unfortunately, there's no brown rum. We don't have floaters. But I promise next year we'll do better, okay? So this year, you've got to bear with us.

There's no floaters, but next year. We have an hour and a half for someone to come up with a couple bottles of Jamaican row. I think it can be done. Rob's shaking his head. All right, more importantly, we've got blues traveler. Jack Popper. Is it Jack or John?

John? John? Who's Jack Popper? I think I went to high school at the Jack Popper. To the naked observer, Jack actually sounds. Jack John. whatever. So he had a case of COVID like the other day, but I think he's fine. And he's going on at 7.15. And then after that, we've got Bush. Let's go. Very excited. The 1990s nostalgia is just going to be kicking in for us. Is there a way to invest in

millennial nostalgia? Because that is the next big wave. That's the next big bull market. Nicole, we just mentioned the happy hour. Where are you? You weren't listening. No, we did it. And one more time, the item shop.com, if you want one of the compound hats because we didn't bring enough

and we didn't have enough printed. All right, I got one more thing. No, I don't. All right, thank you, everybody. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.