Business Innovators Radio - Interview with John Badalamenti Founder & CEO of Safe Estate Discussing Market Volatility & Investor Behavior

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

John has lived in this business for a while, 30 years fighting the Wall Street battle! Born and raised in beautiful Michigan with a close family that he loves and cherishes. They spend a great deal of time together travelling and love visiting their family cottage in up north of Michigan. One of his truly favorite spots is mystical Mackinaw Island. Being an avid animal lover and protector, he will soon provide a sanctuary for animals that need love and a safe home. This will be in memory of my “ex-partner” and beloved friend, Bambi, whom he rescued and went everywhere with me in my travels. In my business model, John works in many states but primarily the Michigan and Ohio areas, fighting for his students and clients from the stock market insanity.“Emotions run the market,” and I have learned from all those emotions from all my students through the years!Learn More: https://www.safeestate.net/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-john-badalamenti-founder-ceo-of-safe-estate-discussing-market-volatility-investor-behavior

Welcome to Influential Entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with us, John Bad Alimenti, who's the founder and CEO of Safe Estate and will be discussing market volatility and investment. behavior. John, welcome back to the program. Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me back. Hey, I like how you say, man, you could have bought a Ferrari with the money you just lost. And it kind of is like a sock in the gut when you realize that there might have been some

volatility in your portfolio. And when the market dipped, that was a chunk of change that you just lost. So I want to talk all about how you are helping your clients prepare for that type of scenario and avoid it. Because market volatility, is a real thing. It's been a real thing for decades. So when people see their portfolio drop tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, what's really happening behind the scenes? It's funny because in a lot of my classes that I teach, this very thing is discussed

all the time. And we talk about paper losses versus real losses, right? Now, we've heard that many times. What they don't realize is that this paper loss. loss scam, I'm going to call it. I'm very headstrong about this. Okay. This is something that occurs and it's not a paper loss. It's real. It's reality. So when I say you've lost enough to buy a Ferrari or go out and buy a single family home, that's reality. When you're looking at your hard, the money that you put away and saved and you work so hard for and you put it into this

bucket and you've got it in your 401k, your IRA and it's worth $500,000 and all of a sudden you're looking at $340,000, that affects somebody greatly. That's a big loss. That's enough money to go out and buy a brand new sports car like that Ferrari. It becomes real, real quick. And the scam of it all is that they tell them it's not real. You haven't cashed in yet. But it is real.

Because if at that moment you were having to draw your next amount of income for the year or a month or take money out to help your grandchild or your son, now you cash it out. it becomes real, real fast, and that 120,000 we just talked about, all of a sudden is gone for good. It's wherever it's at at that moment, and that's the reality. So those paper losses speaks one word to you, risk, risk. Yeah. And loss, because, you know, I agree with you, 100% heaper loss, air quotes.

There's still losses. And I think that too many times people go, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just on paper. Yeah, but it, you know, it was on paper when I was a multimillionaire, but now I'm not because of losses. So I think that that really is a mindset shift that people need to be considering and thinking about. So I kind of think this, you know, even though we don't have it in our control to control that market volatility if your, you know, portfolio drops, people tend to take that personally, right? Why do you think that is? Yeah, well, of course they take it. It's funny, they take it personally in both directions.

It's like they take things personally when it gets hit and all of a sudden they're angry and they're yelling and wanting to get on the phone every day with their advisor. But when things are rocking and rolling, they're not getting on the phone with the advisor because things are, the market just happens to be going in the right direction up. The market does what it wants and doesn't care what you need. But then when it's plummeting, people get fearful and start hiding the statements. but then all of a sudden it gets to a point of now it's dramatic now now you're really getting into trouble and the phone calls start and that's when the whispers start to come but don't worry about it you haven't lost anything yet but they know in their heart they have but yet they won't make any changes and the powers to be and the people that help them are telling them no you can't make any changes leave it where it's at only to potentially fall more yeah and talk about you know we were just talking about recently about running out of money and I talk about that all the time and talk about causing you to run

out of money quicker that's exactly going to happen yeah yeah for sure yeah and I love how you you give both perspectives like hey you take a personal when it's going up and you get all happy and elated but you take it personal when it when it falls as well and it really does have an impact because it's it's something where this was something I built for decades during my working career my retirement income and so I think that too many times that people don't really calculate that true cost. So, you know, if you think of, you know, like not that anyone's going to go out and buy a Ferrari literally, but if you relate it to that, like that loss, you could have bought that

Ferrari. Why does relating something to a tangible item like that help them understand really true cost of unmanaged risk? Because risks sometimes can be good if it's calculated risk. Unmanaged risk, that's where it gets. dicey. It's the casino mentality, right? Something that's going to be coming out of the road here for myself. I'm kind of excited about, a book that I'll be letting everybody know about. It's on that very topic. It's that casino mentality. When you walk in, the air smells good, the carpeting is

amazing. And you notice how nobody ever really is using real money. They're always using these colorful, beautiful chips. Because when you're losing them, you don't recognize it. And so when it's going away on paper in your portfolio, you're not recognizing it the same way because you've been taught to say, don't worry about it. It'll just, it'll come back. It always does. Yes, but how long will that take? And if you're dipping into it and retiring at the same time, how much are you now compounding on the loss side? How soon will you run out of money? It's amazing how people who have a lot more in their nest eggs, they sometimes argue more adamantly about it. They'll have six million and they've lost two of the six and they're not as bothered. And I'm going, I'd be bothered if I were you. That's

a large chunk of money. I mean, you may be happy with the four left, but what's wrong with the six? You don't remember that anymore? Yeah. It's just this mindset they've been tricked into. Yeah. Huge, huge. And I think sometimes that snaps them back into reality is, you know, relating it to that

tangible item. So that's pretty, pretty neat. So why do you think that people tend, you know, in their portfolio? Number one, you know, at some point, you need to start thinking, I need to move my money into a more safer thing at a certain age. But many times investors hold on during the highs, but then they panic and sell during the lows, even though they've been told not to.

Why do people do that? Because it really creates just an emotional roller coaster for them, right? Yes, it's sad. What happens is I always show, when I'm speaking in front of people, I'll grab a pen and I'll say, this is a knife. And as I start dropping the pen, I'm catching it. What it is doing is every time I'm catching the knife, I'm getting cut more and I'm bleeding more, right?

So what ends up happening is they're so frozen with those paper losses as he drops 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, and they're frozen and they're hoping when they should be fearing and fearing when they should be hoping. They should have been cut their losses clean a lot earlier, but that's not what they're doing or what they're being told to do. They're saying, hang on. And then when you get to panic mode, as you just said, they're finally cutting the losses when they're down 40, 50.

Now they've really, on paper, it's not a paper loss anymore. Now it's become a real loss at 50%, which now means they have to come back 100. Okay, now where do you put the money? You go out and start being riskier than you were before. It's tricky. It's an emotional roller coaster.

You know, and I would venture to say, too, that the roller coaster continues, after making that negative decision. Meaning, you know, I see it going up down and all around. I want to sell. I want to hold. And you're dealing with the emotions there. But then when you do make that decision and sell and cut your losses, so to speak,

it then hits you that it's no longer a paper loss. And it's a real loss and it's pretty big. And now the emotions get really real. And so now maybe it's not a roller coaster anymore because you made the decision. But now it's just a really severe punch in the way. the gut. Yeah. How about removing it before it occurs? Yeah. So the punch in the gut won't be like as bad as it is. So if you've got 100% of your portfolio and you say, I've got a problem here, I've got to prep for my retirement here so that I don't run out of money, if you removed

half of that and took the profits off the table and put 50% into a safety bucket amongst several safety areas we call them or green money we call it as we teach. Okay. Now you've only got half the money subject to that now you've already removed a lot of that risk by turning it into a real number by locking it in so you know i think that sometimes people really like they they really like a little excitement and volatility but not the whole portfolio that your whole retirement that everything is based on with your retirement projections right so like if you have someone that that feels that way okay but why don't we take you know 20% of your total portfolio, or 10, or whatever that number is, and put that in something where you can see a little bit of movement.

Yeah, it went up 12%. Well, 12% is a wonderful number, but when it's just a very small percentage of your overall portfolio, that's wonderful when it's not a big loss if it has a downturn. Sure. Well, if you're in that red bucket, as we call it, or the risky side, and you got your 12%, let's do some numbers. You got your 12, and then make me next year, it was even better, and you got your, you got your 15 so now you're up 27 and maybe the next year you got three so you're up 30 and then all of a sudden we have a bad spell on the market and the 30 is wiped out in moments all of a sudden we're back to zero we're back to power we're going negative whereas on the other

side in the safety bucket let's say you were only getting fours and you got four four and four for those three years you got your 12% banked and locked yep right so that's why you have to spread it out steady plotting cost shifting yep So talk a little bit more about some of those practical steps because I think that many people here, volatility, got it. I don't want to take losses, got it. You want to make that shift before they happen, they happen, yep, but what are some of those practical steps that someone can take that avoids some of these market losses that are actual real because you've, you know, waited a little bit too long? So what would that look like? Well, the first step, I always go back to emotions, right?

it's emotional it's the hardest thing is taking the very first step one inch forward then it gets real easy okay um you don't want to run into running you want to walk into running right so what what you want to do is they need to take that first emotional step and say i recognize a problem the problem is going to be if the market tumbles again because i just retired i could lose a lot of this and be short change and run out of my money so i need to make the moves now and take those steps so it's rolling the rolling the 401k, transferring the IRA, and moving to another account bucket, changing the investments inside. So if everything is all Wall Street and all risk, you've got to start going from what we call reds to greens, which are more safe. So those accounts are not a setup, and you

have to pull the trigger and move the percentage that you feel you don't want to lose, and then you have to actually do it. So if you say, I'm moving 30% of my money and I'm leaving 70% right now at risk, that 30 has to go to these new buckets that you've opened and established, and they have to go into new investments inside that are more stable, from your money market, your cash, your CDs, your annuities, things that are stable and lock in your principal and interest. You know, and I love that you use the analogy of color like red and green because it's not necessarily one product recommendation. So, you know, to move into some green categories, it might be a variety of options of type of bullet point type products or options that you can look at,

not literal options, but, you know, like from properly instruction or life insurance or annuities or CDs, whatever the thing is, but you're not, you're kind of agnostic to the actual product. You're just saying, hey, let's get some green comfort guaranteed. Yes. And that could look like this. And you're not trying to guide people into one certain thing because it's going to be different for everybody. it's safety safety safety in that green bucket not a product or an individual investment it's spread

amongst many so when we draw on the board sometimes and i'm doing my my classes at colleges and things like that i draw a little box and i put six black exes in there and i say this is what a lot of the pundits out there called diversification and it's a red box of red investments wall street riskier ups and downs i say they tell you you're diversified but all of your black exes are in that one box They're all on the risk box. That's not diversification. Some of those exes have to walk to the green boxes where there's true safety, the blue boxes where there's liquidity, the banking world.

Those Xs have to be spread out. That's true diversification. And not all the Xs are in one colored box, just sitting in that box in one investment or product. That's wrong also. It has spread the right way to shift that all out. You know, I've heard that before. and I think it's really an eye-opening realization when someone hears it and gets it because it's like, oh, I'm diversified.

I've got 25% in my money in Tesla, 25% in Apple, 25% in, well, if all of those are in the market, Wall Street, and in the red area, that's not diversification. Diversification needs to have some protection. And I think that too many times people go, oh, no, no, no, I don't have 100% of my retirement in one stock. I'm diversified. Well, you just have a diversified spread across some more other riskier red categories. So that's a big aha for some people, I'm sure.

Great point. Because if you've got to spread amongst all equities, let's just take the red box. It doesn't matter. One big drop in the market, one big crash. And you can't swim upstream. Four out of five, if not five, out of those five equities are going to dump. And I don't care if you're even winning on one still. It's not going to be able to offset the other four.

It's going to drag your portfolio down. was a big bond trader in Wall Street for years and used to do bond ladders and things like that. Don't do as much now, but we used to do a ton of that. Sometimes we still do. And bonds, there's no more inverse relationship. When the market tumbles, bonds, stocks or equities, funds, they all travel down now, the same direction. The whole portfolio is hit as one big box because all those Xs are in one box. You know, I'm sure that. that you've seen in your career that when people kind of allow their emotions to get the best of them and they kind of take a loss that they never do it again. And I'm being facetious because I'm sure that most people are like, ooh, I'm going to try it this way and I'm going to try this strategy.

What is it about volatility and loss that you need people to realize to stop doing so that they don't repeat that same expensive lesson? it traps you it's not their fault it's nobody's fault i've been there i know you've been there we we are we filled with greed we want to make the most we can we can get out of something right that's that's just nature human nature and we feel that it can never stop it can just keep going um the problem is we forget what happened before we forget what happened in 2008 and 2001 we've had a couple little bad spells around covid and things like that because now we're on another rally so people forget what happened in the past and they fall back into the pattern. It's nobody's fault.

And they say, I'm just going to stay with it and go because I've made so much money these last 10 years. It's amazing. At some moment, it's got to stop again. And it's time to take some of that off the table and shift and lock it in. You know, I think shift and lock it in and protection and peace of mind will prevent that loss that you could have bought a Ferrari with the loss. So I think that's just such a word picture that really resonates with people, John.

So if someone is thinking, okay, take a quick peek at my setup and my portfolio and let's make sure that I'm not, you know, subject to some vast market swings, what's the best way that they can learn a little bit more and then also reach out and connect with you? Well, we would love to see anybody and help them. We're out there teaching on the circuit, a lot of colleges. The best way to find out about me and find out where we're going to be next or schedule little time to sit down with us is go to meet john b dot com that's m e e t j o h n my name b as and boy dot com meet john b dot com that'll give you a little area where you can go and find out about

everything we're doing and where we're at currently excellent john well thank you so much for coming back on it's been a real pleasure chatting with you again thanks mike so much for having me enjoy the time You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.