More Money Podcast - 156 Life After Wall Street: From Investment Banker to Entrepreneur - Alex Grodnik, Podcast Host at Wall Street Oasis
Episode Date: April 25, 2018Ever wondered what it's like to work on Wall Street? Then you'll love this episode! I chat with former investment banker Alex Grodnik who worked in the finance industry for almost 10 years, but eventu...ally left to pursue an MBA then become an entrepreneur to live life on his terms. Beyond sharing what life is like as an investment banker, Alex also shares some great tips on how to invest your money and how to be your authentic self. Long description: I’ve always been curious what it’s like to be an investment banker. I mean, is it really like Wolf of Wall Street, The Big Short or the classic Wall Street? Or is that all dramatized and it’s really just another office job? After talking with Alex Grodnik, host of the Wall Street Oasis podcast, I feel like it might be a mix. Alex worked in investment banking for just under a decade, and left to pursue an MBA and start his own business, a fintech startup in LA called Payclub. But before he transitioned into entrepreneurship, he was an analyst at JPMorgan, then moved onto an advising role at Houlihan Lokey. He pursued a career in investing because he was always interested in investing and finance from an early age. But after working in the industry for several years, he realized it wasn’t something that got him excited anymore. Luckily, he was one of the smart investment bankers and just saved everything he earned (instead of falling victim to lifestyle inflation). Because he lived fairly frugally and saved the majority of his income, he was able to quit, go back to school and have the financial freedom to become an entrepreneur. In this episode we talk about what life is like for an investment banker and what some of his tips for investing are for regular people like us. Here are some of my favourite tips he shared. Buy & Never Sell This isn’t exactly his, tip, it’s one from Warren Buffet, but he shared it and I liked it. Basically, for anyone who is too afraid to invest because they are really risk averse, this is the secret sauce to not losing all your money in the stock market. Buy and hold. As Alex mentioned, you can’t time the market and you’ll probably never buy at the bottom or sell at the top of the market. But, if you buy and hold onto your investments for the longterm, you really can’t go wrong. It’s only when you sell in a panic because you see the markets dipping that you’ll lose money. Don’t Borrow Money to Invest I can’t stand articles out there that encourage people to borrow money to invest with because debt is cheap and it’s a bull market. Hey, if you want to take that chance, go ahead. I hope things work out for you. But for the average investor, the smartest thing to do is invest money you actually have, and invest any excess savings or money that comes your way. You got a tax refund? Awesome, invest it. You got an inheritance? Fabulous, invest it. You got a side hustle and don’t know what to do with that extra cash? Invest it! Answer Truthfully “When Do You Feel Like You Are Your Most Authentic Self?” I’m not sure if I got the wording on that exact, but this is something Alex asked himself when he felt like he wanted to make a change in his career. I loved how he put it, because I did the same thing when I was considering leaving my job. I asked myself when I felt the most proud and confident in myself, and the answer wasn’t sitting in a cubicle being told what to do by my boss. It was when I was doing my own thing with the podcast, blog and speaking that I felt I was being the me I always wanted to be. So, if you’re in a rut, ask yourself the same thing. When do you feel you are your most authentic self? For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/156 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to episode 156 of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica
Morehouse. Thank you so much for joining me for another fabulous episode. And for this
episode, I am going to be talking to Alex Grodnick. He is the podcast host of Wall Street
Oasis. And let me give you a little breakdown of what his bio is because, man,
he's a fascinating guy. We get more into it in the episode, but I just want to share a few things.
He is currently the VP of Business Development for a fintech startup in LA. Before that,
he was in investment banking, digital media, and business development for about nine years. And he began his career as
an analyst with JP Morgan. And really, his background is in that kind of investment banking,
kind of like the Wall Street type thing going on, which for me, I don't know. Honestly, a lot of
people that have done that as their career, I always kind of find it fascinating. And like, I used to, you know, work on Bay Street in Toronto, where all of those kind of people were, but I never
had a really good inside look into like, what is that life all about? Like, what's going on in
there? Is it really like, you know, Wolf of Wall Street or any, you know, any of those movies out
there? Probably not. So we dive into a lot of like, what is it all about being an investment baker,
working on Wall Street and all that kind of stuff. And then we kind of switch gears a little bit to
talk about what he's doing now. So he's not doing that now. He kind of switched his focus and he
really pursued his passion. And he was able to do that because he was very smart with his money.
And he shares how he was able to do that.
And at the end of the day, you'll kind of realize, wow, it's actually really not that complicated.
It's actually quite simple. You don't have to do a lot of crazy things in order to kind of reach financial independence, be where you want to be, save up and grow your money, which is kind
of, again, a theme from a lot of the interviews I've been doing for this season, which for me, the more people I talk to, and hopefully it's the same for you,
the more people you listen to sharing their stories about financial independence, about
early retirement on the show, the more it doesn't seem like such a crazy idea. If all of these
people that didn't start off being wealthy were able to achieve this, then
why not you?
This doesn't seem like such a crazy idea.
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in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Hi, Alex. Thank you so much for joining me
on this episode of the Mo Money Podcast.
It's a treat to have you on.
Yeah, good to be here, Jessica.
Thanks for having me.
You are so welcome.
So you have a very interesting background.
I'd like to get into it a little bit because although I'm very in the kind of personal
finance world, you're in a world that I really don't, I don't have the insider.
I don't know too many people in there.
I've never been welcomed in there
because I don't have the special keys or whatever it is.
And what I'm talking about is kind of like
the Wall Street world.
And I would love to know,
like, how did you get into that world?
Like, it doesn't seem like a super sexy thing to like,
oh, I want to, well, maybe it is sexy working on Wall Street. Maybe that is sexy. I don't know. other companies and, and, uh, you know, my, all of my family members, everyone's entrepreneurs,
my dad, his dad's entrepreneur, my mom's parents. So like that was kind of entrepreneurship was
always inside of me. And growing up, I was always an entrepreneurial kid. I was like the lemonade
stand, carwash selling, you know, junk door to door, whatever I could. Um, but I don't know,
there was something in me that always said,
oh, I want to go get like a great training. I want to go work for Goldman Sachs. I want to go.
Like at what age? I hope not like, you know, 10. I want to work at Goldman Sachs, you know.
It wasn't 10, but it wasn't that long after. Really?
Honestly. So I didn't get a job at Goldman Sachs. I worked at JP Morgan.
Still pretty good most most
people that are there have known for a long long time that they wanted to get that because yeah
so it's not necessarily something you fall into if you go to the right school uh you can fall into
it but if you don't go to the right school and the right school there's like six of them if you
don't go to one of those six then no it is going to require a very deliberate pattern and thought process and cold emailing and
like hundreds of cold emails and trying to get coffees. And so you really have to have a thick
skin and when it comes to being rejected, because you're going to get a lot of rejections. But
the good thing is when you're a student, people are usually pretty receptive to chomping on the
phone with you if you're in the same city, grabbing a coffee with you. I actually just got my MBA
from UCLA and so in Los Angeles. So I was, again, a student and I was emailing people,
even higher level people. I was emailing CEOs and they were saying yes. And so it's fun having that
UCLA email address.
So when you mentioned the six schools,
are you kind of talking about
like the American Ivy League schools
or are there specific ones
for getting into kind of investments
and finance that industry?
Yeah, it's not all Ivy League schools.
I mean, University of Pennsylvania is one of them,
but University of Western Ontario.
Oh, really?
That is, I mean, that's on par with Wharton.
Is that right?
I had no idea.
Yeah.
They have this business school there called the Richard Ivey School of Business.
And what they make is investment banking soldiers.
Oh, my God.
That sounds terrifying.
These guys come out of there.
Their resumes are ordered
in terms of their class rank.
They all look exactly the same.
They've all known from a very young age
they wanted to do this.
And so they go to that school.
They like are in, you know, student investment funds
and all sorts of finance related activities at school.
And they come out and then they go work
across all the banks at Wall Street.
They stay in Toronto, some of them them but most of them are probably our wall street is the bay is bay street so it's close yeah a lot there and then actually a lot in los angeles too there's like a
track record of a lot of these ivy kids coming to la and they do investment banking for two years
which i mean it's people are kind of familiar with investment banking. It's, you know,
you're working these hundred hour weeks and you're advising companies on buying an M&A,
buying companies and then issuing debt and equity. So if they need to raise capital and they're
analysts, so you're at the bottom totem pole of the deal teams and you're building financial
models and putting together PowerPoint presentations and that's it. Excel and PowerPoint all day long, every day. And a lot of like doing nothing in the office, frankly. The way investment
banking works is like a lot of it from nine to five, the partners will be on calls and sometimes
they'll go to the calls and sometimes you're not. But from nine to five, you're generally not that
busy. Then when the partner starts to think, okay, I home here's what i want here's all the work i want to see tomorrow morning then he comes by your desks
drop off some work for the morning you know he says don't work all night on this like and you're
like well i have to but no problem boss yeah so you work till you know two three four in the
morning on it oh my god back in the next day at like you know nine nine thirty maybe ten if it's
been a really late night same thing nothing all day long you at like, you know, 9, 9.30, maybe 10 if it's been a really late night. Same thing, nothing all day long.
You're like watching, you know, movies in the office.
And then at 5 o'clock, the game starts again.
That sounds not super fun.
So why would someone want to get into that?
Or are you just saying that is kind of just like, you know, paying your dues in the first couple of years and then it gets better after that?
Does it get better? I'd like to say that it gets better, but I mean, it does. You do make a lot of money. I mean,
they pay these kids that are 21 years old, over a hundred grand their first year out of college.
So there is, but a lot of that compensation compensates you for giving up your entire life.
Yes. You probably don't have time for like a relationship or friends or family or fun.
Well, sometimes you think you do because it's like, oh, it's Friday night.
It's 5 o'clock.
I'm getting out of here.
And then at like 5.30, they come by.
It's like, okay, here's some weekend work.
And you're like, oh, I have to go to San Diego this weekend.
Nope, not anymore. It just sounds like office space where they're like, oh, can you come in on Saturday too?
Thanks.
They're like, you have to say yes. But now, investment banking used to be the number one job that people from Ivy or Wharton
or whatever it was wanted to get. But now, all these tech companies, Google and Facebook and
Netflix even, they're taking a lot of the top talent and you don't have to work as much on the weekends and you don't have to work till one in the morning
every night. And yeah, maybe you don't make quite as much money, but it's like a lot of the top
talent is going to these other types of companies. And so they've got competition. And now a lot of
the investment banks are doing like what they call like protected weekends and like your Blackberries,
they still issue Blackberries. Blackberries will like shut off at Friday night at like seven o'clock
and won't turn on again until like Saturday night.
So you have like a protected day.
And so, and like things like that to try to compete
because a lot of the top talent is not going to investment banking,
but still a lot of it is.
And so the way the path works is you graduate from University of Western Ontario,
you go to work for Goldman Sachs,
you're there for not quite six months, and the buy-side firms, private equity and hedge funds,
this is why people do investment banking. It's a means to an end. So these buy-side funds start
recruiting six months into your job. You've only been in the job for six months. And that's really
not that much time to learn the job, is it? No. So you basically don't have much idea of the job. You've only been in the job for six months. And that's really not that much time to learn the job, is it? No. So you basically don't have much idea of the job. They're basically just
looking to see who you are and you're smart and you're hardworking. And so you start recruiting
for these private equity funds that don't start, that don't, the job doesn't start for 18 months
longer. So you finish your investment banking analyst program, which is two years, and then
you leave, but you get a job 18 months before, like talk about competition. And then, so the traditional path is called
two, three, two. So two years of investment banking, then you get that next private equity
job for three years. And then you go to business school for two years and then usually back to a
private equity fund or you start a business. Wow. So it's nice that it's like all laid out
and there's like an actual path. Cause I feel like most people that don't go the route,
like they are kind of told the path, like if you want to be successful in whatever you want to do,
go to university, get good grades, get a job, stick around for like as long as you can. And
then you can kind of hop to a couple of jobs throughout your career and then retire. Um,
but that actually is just a bunch of BS because it doesn't work anymore.
Everyone just has a degree and they're drowning in debt.
But it sounds like, at least when it comes to investment banking,
that no, that's still the path and people can still make money.
But it does sound like even though things are getting better,
there's a bit of a sacrifice in terms of work-life balance.
There not being any balance.
Yeah, I mean, you can make, you can be making,
you know, close to a million dollars by the time you're 30, but you've had to sacrifice those,
you know, eight, nine, 10 years of your life. You have nothing going on besides, besides work.
And like a lot of people be like, Oh, you're like, sign me up. I'll do that. And then you get to it
and it's like, ah, it's not, it's really, really has to come from like deep within your heart.
You got to want to do it because yeah, there's one thing that I wondered too, and I feel
like I read a book about this was a lot of people get into it for the money.
Hey, you can make really great money.
That's awesome.
But most people don't like, oh, this is a great way for me to just save up and then
I can quit and do what I, you know, something a little less stressful or retire early or
whatever.
Do you think most people actually kind of do the dumb thing in that they just spend all of the awesome money so they're
really not making any progress and they're kind of stuck in this cycle?
Well, it's tough to spend the money when you're working so much.
Okay. So maybe not. Yeah, maybe not.
But there definitely are people that do, especially in New York. I mean, like-
Oh, so it's expensive there to just get an apartment.
It's expensive, but you're living the life. And when you're not working, you feel like, Oh, I,
I've earned, you know, buying this table at the nightclub and I've earned going on this ski
vacation. And, um, and it's kind of like the culture comes from top down, you know, the partners
like are making lots of money and they're throwing lots of money around and, you know, they're buying
fancy cars and watches. And so you kind of just, you're a part of it um yeah but but but yeah you know i just kind of what you were talking
about of like the path there's no path in life there's no straight line to six there's no straight
line to success i mean yes a lot of these people they do investing and they go to private equity
they go to business school and i have friends that have done that same path i mean i fell off of it
but we can get into why yes but but i have friends that have done that same path. I mean, I fell off of it, but we can get into why.
Yes.
But I have friends that have done that path and they're like, you know what?
It's not for me anymore.
And they just leave.
What do these people end up doing after?
Because especially when you have all that very specific, you know, skill set, like how do you transfer that somewhere else?
So one friend is traveling the world right now.
That sounds nice. And he's
planning on moving to Germany afterwards and he wants to work in tech. Okay. And, you know,
there's understanding finance, like I was talking about kind of in the beginning is like, you
understand the structure of a business, what businesses are based on. You can understand
why businesses work and why they don't. And so there's a lot of applications for it.
People value this skill set.
And so you can work really in any industry,
kind of in like a strategy, business development, finance type role.
Or if you're more entrepreneurial minded, which I was,
which is why I fell off a bit,
you can try to start a business and go from making lots of money
to making very, very little money like what I'm doing right now. Okay. Let's get into what made you drop off, fall off the
wagon, so to speak. Yeah. So investment banking is great. You get this incredible skill set.
They call it dog years. You learn seven years worth of stuff for every one year you've been
there and you get all these exit opportunities and it's great, but your role is very, very defined. So they say, okay, Alex, you're an
analyst or Alex, you're an associate. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to build financial
models and then put together really pretty PowerPoint presentations with that financial
information. And you're like, well, I've got this idea of how we can get to this company. No, Alex,
stop. This is what you do. And someone like me, who's more creative and
entrepreneurial thinking, I never really was great at just doing what I was told all day long. I
always said, oh, I see a better way. And they don't want you, they're not paying you to see
other ways. No, they don't care. Yeah, unfortunately. And so I went to business school to try to find
what can I do? How can I apply my you know, my skill sets, these, all this
stuff I've worked really hard to get this knowledge, but that fits kind of my personality
more. And I can tell you in my way to business school, the most impactful moment of school for
me was I was in this one class and it's like a communications type class. And we wrote down
the five times or three or five times when we felt like we've been our most
authentic selves and the professor defined authentic self as you feel like you're firing
on all cylinders using all of your capacities really just really crushing it and so I wrote
down all these times and now I'm looking at this piece of paper and I'm like wow every single one
of these times I wrote down I was like starting a business doing something entrepreneurial and I'm looking at this piece of paper and I'm like, wow, every single one of these times I wrote down, I was like starting a business, doing something entrepreneurial.
And I'm like, wow, light bulb.
Clearly I need to be doing something, you know, on my own or myself.
And so then in school I started a little podcast.
It kind of got some traction.
Now I help businesses start podcasts and I'm involved in something completely not podcasting but a mobile payments
startup we've built this app for groups to collect and track money so I've got a couple
different entrepreneurial things going on right now yeah I think it's a good practice for anyone
to do if they're like I'm super unhappy at what I'm doing or I feel like I need to make a change
but I don't know what I like that I. I just like write down, like, when did you feel your authentic self? That's really,
I like that. Yeah. I would totally recommend anyone to do that. Just start, start thinking
about it because you're right. Identifying what you want to do is, I would say that that's
two thirds of the problem. It knows what you want to do, but you start thinking and writing down
like what I'm good at, what I like doing. And, and you'll start to kind
of find something. You know, I mean, you're like, write down, I like watching TV. You're,
that's tough. Maybe I like watching TV and going out to the bar with my friends.
I mean, you can think of like, maybe there's some ways to put something together.
Maybe we can have a YouTube channel. I don't know that like comments on TV, but yeah,
that's a bit of a stretch. Yeah. But you know, I was, I was actually working for a
venture capital fund while I was in getting my MBA and I was listening to podcasts and I was
driving all around town to these meetings and I thought I can make a podcast and I'm talking to
so many interesting people. So that's just kind of how it started. Like I never thought, oh,
I'm going to be a professional podcaster. You just, you just kind of fall into these things.
Yeah. You just like, I'm just going to try this out. And that's exactly how I fell into it. Almost,
uh, been doing this for almost three years and it was literally just an idea I had. And I'm like,
huh, that might be fun to try out. And, and then I realized, wow, this is awesome. And honestly,
the best part is talking to people, finding out their
backgrounds and stories. How else would you have an opportunity to do that and ask all of your
questions? It's amazing. Right. Like people like you. Yeah. Well, thank you. And people like
yourself. This is very enjoyable. Yeah. So how long have you, I guess, been doing your own thing?
So I graduated from business school in May of 2017.
So it's almost a year now.
Yeah, almost a year.
And yeah, so it's kind of what I said before.
I went from making lots of money to making very little money,
but there's a lot of metrics that I'm looking to be checked.
And basically every single one of them is being
fulfilled right now. And the money thing, hopefully that will come down the line. But like I have got
like fulfilled. I feel like I'm living up to my potential. I'm like meeting so many interesting
people. So there's a lot of me that's really firing on all cylinders right now. I'm like
more busy than I've really ever been. And so it's cool. And I'm
passionate about it. So I'm sure the money will eventually follow.
If you're good at something, you've got the passion, the money will always follow. I mean,
sometimes not when you want it to. So you do have to kind of stick to things, but I'm sure you'll
be just fine. But before you made that decision to, because you said you were working. You were also going to school, doing your MBA.
That sounds very busy.
How did you make preparations, I guess, for your own kind of like financial situation so you weren't just – I quit my job and I actually didn't think about how I'm going to live.
Like how did you prepare?
Did you have like a sizable emergency fund?
Did you have a couple things that you knew were definitely going to be able to be some streams of income?
Yeah.
So I was one of the smart investment makers that saved like almost everything I made.
And I was investing it like heavily in the stock market.
And so I graduated from school in 2009 at the bottom of the crisis.
I've been investing in the stock market ever since then.
So I've had so many companies that have like doubled, tripled, quadrupled. And again, the stock market is
another thing. It's like, oh, it's mysterious. It's hard. It's like one of these things where
just like a business, you just start doing it and you get comfortable.
You get better at it. So yeah, actually, I'd be really interested to know what is your kind of
personal investing strategy? You mentioned stocks. I talked to a lot of people
on the show. They're all about kind of passive investing through index funds and ETFs and stuff
like that. What are your kind of thoughts on all that kind of stuff? Yeah. So I like risk.
If you couldn't tell. So yeah, I like to invest in company. When I was working in investment
banking, I had to get exposure to so many different industries and companies and you'd
see cool things. And while I never like, you know, did insider trading, you would, you would get like
ideas for, for, for investments. And, and so I would be implementing that. And basically we've
been in like an incredible bull market, you know, which means the stock market going up. So it's,
it's been tough to lose. Have you lost anything? Like, has anything, cause that's kind of like,
you know, we're talking about, uh, stocks and risk. A lot of people think, you know, oh, I know this guy,
he made so many, so much money off stocks. That's great. And then, then there's also the other
source like, oh, I know this guy, he lost everything in stocks. Well, no one's lost
everything right now. If you were invested pre 2009, but I did did invest in uh like this was not in the stock market i invested in like a
cryptocurrency mining operation in 2000 late 2014 early 2015 so too early too early and we were
mining cryptocurrencies and bitcoin and all sorts of stuff and we were converting it to cash every
night and then eventually we started holding the bitcoins. But then like, this was when Bitcoin was worth $500, $300. And we were selling it all the time. And the investment
got me my money back and like, I don't know, maybe like a 5% return or something. And now,
oh my God, I had so many Bitcoins at three, four, $500 and I sold them all.
But you know, well, that's the thing though. It's like, oh, with cryptocurrency, I get so
many questions about that. And I'm like, ah, like, it's just, it's so risky and it's so
new. You, there's literally no way to predict the outcome. There's just, you know, how would you
know? I mean, the fact that you even made 5%, it's pretty good. Cause I know a lot of people
probably, you know, sold at the really wrong time and lost, you know, quite a bit. So, yeah.
But I, you know, my outlook is if you're making money, you can't
be upset with yourself. Like you're never going to buy at the bottom or sell at the very top.
And so, you know, you sell it, you make money on a stock. Sometimes like I've made a hundred
percent return on a stock and I sell it and it's like, great. I just doubled my money.
And then the stock goes up another a hundred percent. Like, yeah, I wish I still held it,
but you can't be upset with that. I know. And that, and that is like the thing too,
with stock specifically, my husband's just started to kind of get into it. He has some friends from
high school that are really getting good at it. And that's all they talk about. Like,
it's like their second job. They're so obsessed with it. And it is like so emotional, right?
Like, I don't know, maybe you're good at it because you have that background.
It's not such an emotional connection, but I just know when it's up, you're just elated. When it
goes down, you're like, oh my God, maybe I made the wrong choice. And you're always just second
guessing. Do you feel like there's any kind of emotions when it comes to when you're investing,
or do you kind of have just a strategy for not letting it affect you that way?
Well, of course, we're humans.
Yeah.
Emotions when you're like up money or losing money.
But professional investors don't.
No.
Well, because I guess it's not their money.
So you have a little bit of...
Well, I guess it's still your job.
You don't want to be bad at your job, right?
They probably still have some of their money invested in commingled in with it.
But you got to have just, you know, you have conviction of I picked the right company.
I think long-term this is going to go up.
And if you buy it and it goes down 15, 20%,
like you should probably be buying more.
And you should like, that's the tough part versus being like, oh, I'm wrong.
No, it's like, you've done your research.
You've made the correct decisions.
You follow your, your patterns.
Then it goes down, you buy more. And then when it goes up, you know, but like, if it goes way down, you have to be like,
oh, maybe I like, you know, misanalyze something here. And then sometimes you have to,
to reset your assumptions. So for your own kind of investing with stocks, like how long
do you like, how much time does it take out of your day to do that?
Oh, nothing. Uh, yeah. I mean like I'm always, so like my mindset is I'm
always just like reading things about business and companies and like, you know, I read the
newspaper. So I am kind of always thinking about it, but like I'm rarely like buying and selling
stocks, you know, every maybe once a quarter or something like that. Really anyone who's young
should be investing
like the way Warren Buffett says to invest
is when you buy and you never, ever, ever, ever sell.
That's how you make real money,
like the compounding of interest,
the compounding of returns over long, long periods,
over decades.
You're not going to,
no one is going to be able to beat the stock market.
Even people that are getting paid millions
and tens of millions of dollars,
over time, Warren Buffett's tens of millions of dollars over time,
Warren Buffett's a different thing, but over time you're not going to outperform the stock market.
So as you talked about like investing in funds,
the important thing is just being,
being invested over time,
the ups and downs,
like generally the stock market returns historically like 9% per year.
So if you can just stomach that volatility,
put money in and forget about it.
Yeah. That's, that's the best way to do it. And so like if you can just stomach that volatility, put money in and forget about it,
that's the best way to do it. And so for me, you look at companies like an Amazon or a Facebook,
you have the thesis, are these companies going to be more important in 10 years from now than they are today? And if you think the answer is yes, put some money in there and forget about
it for the next 10 years. Don't look at it. Don't
touch it. Don't get your emotions caught up in the daily swings of these things because that's
what will kill you. And that's how you make the real, that's how you make real wealth.
Yeah. That is so comforting that you said, because I had no, you know, like, again,
you have this investment banker, you know, background. It's nice that you're like, oh no,
this, I love that. What are your kind of thoughts on, because I know some people get really into,
like, you know, really, I guess what I'm trying to say is,
when you are investing in stocks, there's lots of different ways you can do it.
You can do it with, obviously, your own money.
You can, like, borrow on margin and stuff like that.
There's derivatives and options.
What do you think about all that kind of stuff?
To me, it's a bit too
foreign and a bit too risky. So I don't even. Yeah. Don't borrow, don't borrow money to invest
in the stock market. You should be doing this, you know, with excess savings, like money you don't
need to live on. Yeah. If you're looking like, oh, I need to double my money or I'm not going to be
able to pay my rent. Like you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be investing in the stock market.
What you should be doing is taking all I can save, $100 a month,
and just putting that into the stock market every single month.
That's called dollar cost averaging.
The stock market goes up 9% every year,
and you're just continually putting in $100 into good companies
or into an S&P 500 ETF, passive fund, something, you know,
that's inexpensive like that. And that's really the way that you want to be doing it.
Absolutely. Awesome.
But, and then in terms of options, I mean, options are just leverage too. So like
you, a call option or a put option is, you know, the option to buy a stock or option to sell a
stock in the future, but they have tons of leverage, which is debt
baked into the prices of them. And so they're super, super risky. So don't get involved in
that either. Unless you're super comfortable with the risk, but you can really get upside down on
options. Absolutely. Yeah. No, music to my ears. That's what I wanted to say and what I wanted you to say. So that's awesome. You mentioned that you have a few different podcasts, but one, you know, when we initially chatted is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and how, like, where did that come from? Because I know Wall Street Oasis, the website is kind of a separate thing.
Yeah. So I told you I started the podcast in school and it was just me talking with business leaders and the guys at Wall Street Oasis, which has been around for like 10 years. It's this
established website. It's a finance blog. So people that are trying to break into investment
banking or private equity or management consulting, hedge funds, it's a finance blog. So people that are trying to break into investment banking or private equity
or management consulting, hedge funds, it's a very active community. It gets like a million
visitors a month. And people go there and they're chatting about everything, about salaries and
about groups and really specific stuff. When I worked in investment banking, we were interviewing
someone and they were posting all of the questions that we were asking them in this, in this forum.
So everyone else could see the questions we were asking them.
And so it's, it's really a great resource.
And so they heard my podcast and they said, we really like this.
Why don't you,
why don't you just make your podcast and have it live on Wall Street Oasis?
And so that's what it is now. We talk with, you know, business leaders,
founders, CEOs, bankers. Yeah. you have some big guests on there too,
like mega. Yeah, sometimes we get lucky and we get a great CEO to come on and they just give
their story, their life advice, the ups, the downs of their career. Like I said, it's never
all ups even for, we had the CEO of Hulu come on and his career is a windy, turny thing. Recently I had the founder
of Google voice come on and like, you know, he's, he basically said there, there was no plan for my
career. You know, you're just taking step by step every day, learning as much as you possibly can,
which is another Warren Buffett quote. Sorry. I really like Warren Buffett.
Yeah. You know what? He's awesome. Everyone loves him and I agree. He's the best.
Yeah. So we just, you know, we Everyone loves him and I agree. He's the best.
Yeah. So we just, you know, we have on these people that have maybe found some success in their life. So we try to dissect how they did it, why they did it. And, you know, if you can
get some motivation from it for the listener, like that's, that's really, that would be great.
That's the goal. What are some of the, some stories or some guests that are some of your favorites?
Yeah. So I had on this like CEO coach who used to work at Goldman Sachs and he
talked about,
you know,
how to achieve success and how to,
how to define what you're looking for and then how to achieve it.
And he said,
like,
you have to ask yourself,
what's the thing I want?
What's the thing that I truly want?
And really he said,
that's the false question.
The valid question is what can I do today that helps me keep exploring that question. So the goal isn't
to find some fixed answer. The goal is to establish a process in life where you're constantly learning
and living and seeking out the next thing. So you have to think of success as a process. It's not a mystery. All success can be broken down into a method and then you can implement the steps on that method every day. So it doesn't
sound overwhelming to find out what you want. Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot because
when it comes to success, my gosh, my idea of success has evolved so much just in the past.
Well, since I graduated university seven or eight years ago, like it's completely different. And
I mean, it will continue to evolve until I'm in my forties, fifties, sixties. So it's,
I like that thing of it more as like, it's the journey, not the destination. Cause
I don't, I've never met anyone who said, oh, I finally achieved success. Like most successful
people are like, ah, they're still trying to achieve this one next thing
that there's always something else out there.
Yeah, and you know, Craig Walker,
the founder of Google Voice,
he attributed a lot of his success
to finding people that complimented him.
You know, he thought, okay, I'm a smart, interesting guy,
but he attributes really his entire career
to that he met the right couple of people
and he realized that these people were smart
and he kind of, you know, attached his ship to their star or however that that saying goes um and then
also a lot of the podcasts we talk about realizing what you want versus what other people want you
know investment banking while it sounded really sexy to me growing up it was something that other
people wanted to do it was never really what i wanted, what was right for me. And so you have to differentiate, you know, like, oh,
this is what everyone else wants. And this is what I want. And so we, that's something that's
really interesting to me because, because I've just like went through it. And so we talk,
we talk a lot about that. I had on a, like a partner at Google, he's got a really high up
job. He manages like 5,000 people. And he talks about how Google interviews and like what they look for when they're hiring people. And he had
this term Googliness. It's like 15% of the job application is like the Googliness of this person.
And it basically means like how they thrive in ambiguous situations. And they want people that
can, you know, not have lots of data and find out how to get things done without it. I like that. That's pretty cool. That'd be a good episode if anyone wants to work
at Google, listen to that specific episode. You'll score that interview. You also mentioned too that
you have this mobile payment startup. Do you want to talk about that? That sounds really interesting. Yeah. So we've built this app for large groups to collect and track money. And this is a real
startup. We're going after venture funding. The idea is to take over the world, to become
a huge company. And it's really different from my mindset. When I have been thinking of businesses,
I think of a podcast or like
an advisory business that doesn't really require like funding to get off the ground you can kind
of just do it yourself versus this team that we're working on with this i mean we need to raise
millions of dollars we've spent almost a year developing a really sophisticated app we've spent
lots of money already the way you think about onboarding users so it's really i'm learning so
much yeah i'm learning about you know how to do a startup where you're going after venture funding
which is really hard you know they say it's it's hard to get money when you need it and easy to get
money when you don't need it and we need money for this and it is hard it is super hard to get it
even with you know my network in finance
and banking and all that we call these people and some of them write checks for us but we're all
basically first-time entrepreneurs and so we're going through this and like I can't even tell you
like how much it's I'm learning as much if not more than I did when I worked in investment banking
wow this is the pace that that that things mature and we're going and we're really learning a lot.
So, yeah. So what exactly does the experience? Yeah. What exactly does the app do? Cause when
you say kind of mobile payments, it's not like a PayPal or something, or is it, I don't know.
So it's similar. It's a peer to peer payments. So you guys have Venmo in Canada?
I don't think so.
Okay.
So how do you pay someone if you go out to dinner?
How do you pay someone $20?
I guess I'd go into my bank and do an email transfer.
And then I think sometimes you get charged a dollar or something to do that.
Yeah.
So like America, we're starting to have the bank stuff.
But really, peer-to-peer payments is like the growing space.
And eventually, you won't be paying anyone. You won't be paying a dollar for that because people really don't like paying to pay their friends. No, it's annoying. Yeah. That sucks. And so that's
peer-to-peer payments. What we have built is we've built a platform on top of a peer-to-peer
payments solution is for collecting money from large groups. So if you went on a trip or you're a manager of a club
and you needed to collect $100 from 50 people,
how would you do that?
And the way that it's done now is you have an Excel spreadsheet
and you've got everyone's name and you're tracking
and people are paying you in cash and checks
and things like PayPal and things like your banking emails.
And it's a mess to manage all of this. And so we've built an app where it's very simple to create a group. You
can see everyone that's in the group and then you can start charging people. So if you go on a trip,
it's like, okay, here's the, um, a thousand dollars for airfare. Here's the $500 for the
house. And here's, here's something we did together. And it's really simple to see who's
paid and who hasn't paid.
Yeah, I like that.
Because I mean, I went on a bachelorette trip
a little while ago
and I think there was like 10 or 15 of us
and trying to wrap,
like luckily I actually wasn't responsible
with the money stuff.
It was, I think the bride
and it was a headache.
Just trying to email,
hey, so-and-so hasn't paid.
Hey, but all the emails.
Full-time thing and someone paid for this and someone else paid for Hey, but all the emails. A full-time thing. And someone paid
for this and someone else paid for that. It's a nightmare. So it's really simple. We've created
a group, add people to it, charge them, boom. So our initial market is college fraternities.
And they have 100 people in a fraternity and they're collecting sometimes upwards of a few
million dollars, the same way that I described with Excel and people are on payment plans
and it's this really complicated process.
And so we built something cool for that.
We're days, hopefully days,
maybe a couple of weeks away from launch.
It's been an interesting process.
Did you say the name of the app
or can you do that yet or no?
Yeah, sure.
It's called Pay Club. And you'll be able to get it in the, in the iTunes store like really soon.
Awesome. That's awesome. That sounds really exciting. Well, that sounds like you've had
quite the journey in your young life so far. Um, where can people find more information about
you and all the cool things you're up to these days. Yeah. So check out our podcast. It's wallstreetoasis.com slash podcasts. And we have all of them there. There's like 30 of
them. Or you can email me, alexatwallstreetoasis.com. Always happy to help people on their journeys.
Awesome. Well, it was a pleasure chatting with you and just like finding out what's going on in that Wall Street world. And I'm super excited for your new app. That sounds awesome.
Hopefully, like maybe one day we'll see you on like Shark's Tank or something.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much for having me, Jessica. You're a great interviewer,
and this was a lot of fun. You're so welcome. And that was my interview with Alex Grodnick
from Wall Street Oasis podcast. Make sure to find him on iTunes,
subscribe, and also check him out at wallstreetoasis.com. That's where the podcast
lives. Lots of amazing, amazing episodes with some crazy guests like the CEO of Hulu,
founder of Google Voice, and many more voices in the investing sphere. So definitely go check that
out. And again, this is episode 156. So make sure to
check out the show notes for this episode at jessicamorehouse.com slash 156. I'm going to put
some more information about things we talked about, some links that you'll want to check out,
and also some very important details about a contest I am currently running. But I'm going
to share more about that in a sec.
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freshbooks.com slash m o and enter momanypodcast in the how did you hear about a section.
Okay, let's get to the good stuff. So I mentioned this last week, so you may already know this if
you listened to last week's episode, but I'm running a pretty awesome contest. I'm giving
away two tickets to the Leaders and Icons Conference happening here in Toronto on May 10th.
And why it's pretty cool is, well, A, these tickets, like one ticket
is worth, I think, $400. I'm giving away two. So it's like worth $800, people. That's pretty crazy.
And the featured speaker is James Comey, who's the former director of the FBI. He just came out
with a book and he's in the news quite a bit because of the man in the White House. So
if you would like to enter to win a pair of tickets or one ticket or whatever,
go to the show notes, jessicamorehouse.com slash 156. I put a link in there to make it easy peasy.
Or just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash leaders conference. That'll also direct you to the contest submission page. So
good luck. It is completely random. I've had a few people tweet at me being like, oh, I hope
I win. I hope you do too. But literally what I do, because this is what I used to do with my
one of my first jobs ever was pulling contest winners. Just pull an Excel spreadsheet,
close my eyes, maybe do a little twirl to confuse
myself, and then point my finger at the screen. And whoever is under my finger is the winner.
So totally random, but wish everyone who enters a ton of luck. Some other exciting news. Well,
I don't know if this is super exciting for you, but it's exciting for me. So I am
finally, after almost five years living in Toronto, finally making my way to the Big Apple,
New York City. I'm going to New York next week. First for a kind of a retreat with some of my
blogger friends. We're kind of doing kind of a mastermind retreat. So
that'll be super nerdy and fun. I can't wait. And the cat skills. And then I'm going to spend a few
days with my husband in New York City. And I'm super pumped because honestly, New York City is
so close to Toronto. It's ridiculous. It's taken me this long to get there, but it's my first time.
I think I've built it up really, really big in my head because it seems like every single movie is always, you know, shot or, you know, situated in New York City.
All the books I've been reading lately, all the people that have their biographies, they've
all lived in New York City.
So anywho, pretty pumped and can't wait.
So that being said, if you are listening right now, find me on Twitter and let me know if you've ever been or you live there.
You have any suggestions on what I should do.
I'm taking suggestions.
I haven't planned a thing.
I'm going to kind of just wing it because sometimes that's the most fun I have on traveling is not making too many plans and just kind of seeing what happens.
But always like suggestions.
So if I'm in an area and I'm like, oh, wait, someone told me about that.
I'll check it out.
Anyway, so that's super exciting for me personally. I just thought I'd share.
And also, as I kind of teased last week, I believe, me and Jacqueline Phillips. So, you know,
we created our kind of personal, you know, our brand, our lifestyle brand called Rich and Fit.
And so we have the Rich and Fit Bootcamp. Of course, it is available for you to enroll at any time. But we are just putting the finishing touches on
splitting up those two courses into individual courses. So we are going to be launching Rich
and Fit Financial Foundations and Rich and Fit Fitness Foundations very, very soon.
So our website is ready to go. I just have to press the launch button,
but we're just working on a few extra details. And I'm hopeful that for next week, I'll be able
to share that it is live because I've been working really hard on it and I'm pretty,
pretty excited. So basically, just to give you an idea in a nutshell what these two courses will be is,
number one, for the financial foundations, if you just feel like you need some help on just the
foundational aspects of personal finance, so that's really about looking at your money,
what's going on with your net worth? Are you tracking your spending? Are you budgeting?
And then beyond that, because it's more than just numbers and spreadsheets and everything like that, because
there's so many free options. You can just do that yourself, but we want to give you results,
and our course does. So we really talk about mindset, motivation, spending triggers, acceptance,
and all the other aspects that you need to move forward with your
personal finances once you've got those financial foundations locked down. So that is kind of what
you can expect from the financial foundations course, which I'm really excited about.
On the fitness side, well, it's very similar. It's all those foundational aspects for fitness. So
especially since we're entering springtime,
summertime, for me, this is always like when it gets nicer out, this is when I kind of like,
hey, I should really start focusing on my fitness and my health again. Well, this is probably a
really great way to just start you off in that direction. So there's meal plans, there's workouts,
there's workout videos. And similarly to the finance side,
it's not just about working out and eating healthy because if it was that easy, we'd all be doing it.
It's really talking about accepting where you are, figuring out what your triggers are for
eating poorly or not working out, finding that motivation, setting goals for yourself,
all this amazing stuff. So yeah, so look out for that.
I'm hopeful that I'll be able to announce it next week. And yeah, can't wait. So anyways,
that's just a little bit more info about that. Okay, I've been yabbering for long enough,
haven't I? I'm gonna let you go. But I'm gonna see you back here next Wednesday for a fresh
new episode of the Mo Money Podcast. Thanks for listening.
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