AOA 079: Tony Steuer Outlines “The Get Ready Blueprint”

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“What we need to do, in my mind, as financial educators, is to help the kids understand that it’s okay to ask questions and that asking questions is what’s going to give them power. And that’s what’s important — is that they feel like they have power and confidence over their money.”

— Tony Steuer

In this Art of Allowance Podcast conversation, host John Lanza speaks with guest Tony Steuer about the importance of financial preparedness for young adults, particularly new college graduates. They begin by discussing “The Get Ready Blueprint,” Tony’s comprehensive guide to managing finances. Tony also shares key financial tips, including the significance of insurance and the common monetary mistakes young adults make. Additionally, he and John highlight the emotional elements of financial decision-making, the role of AI in financial literacy and the importance of asking the right questions to build confidence in financial matters.

Tony Steuer is an internationally recognized financial preparedness advocate, award-winning author, podcaster and fintech advisor who is changing the way people think about money. Tony developed The Get Ready Money Club and hosts The Get Ready Money Podcast to empower and educate people on all areas of personal finance. He is also an expert content reviewer for NerdWallet and Bankrate, a member of The Forbes Advisor Insurance Advisory Board and a five-time recipient of The Institute for Financial Literacy’s “Excellence in Financial Literacy Education” (EIFLE) Award.

Links (From the Show)

Show Notes (Find what’s most interesting to you!)

  • What is “The Get Ready Blueprint”? [3:18]
  • Tony outlines the most important tactical steps college grads need to take. [4:43]
  • What major expense young adults are least likely to consider [6:47]
  • The first step to money-smart conversations is parental introspection. [8:39]
  • Pokémon cards as a lesson on value [10:11]
  • Tony shares a money mistake that’s okay to make as a young adult. [12:50]
  • Tony shares a money mistake that can haunt a young adult. [13:46]
  • ID theft and its real-world consequences [15:14]
  • Combating financial misinformation [17:41]
  • Money shame as a limiting factor [19:10]
  • The roles of confidence, stress and independence in financial decision-making [20:30]
  • A money myth that young adults believe that can land them in financial trouble [24:48]
  • Why the “get rich quick” myth prevails [26:03]
  • Predatory financial strategies [27:17]
  • The trouble with thinking you can beat the market [29:06]
  • The future of financial literacy in the world of AI [31:48]
  • What role can human financial advisors play as AI continues to advance? [33:56]
  • The “unknown unknowns”: the accuracy of AI [40:00]
  • Tony’s goal is to get people to think for themselves. [42:54]
  • Tony’s money-smart influences [44:42]
  • The best lesson Tony learned about life and money [46:05]
  • Tony defines the term “money-empowered” [46:45]
  • Communication as an investment [46:57]
  • “Trust but verify.” [47:26]
  • “Be curious. Ask questions.” [47:40]
  • Insurance is not an investment! [47:51]
  • Tony’s gift recommendation for a recent grad [48:40]
  • Connecting with Tony on the web [49:31]
  • Join “The Get Ready Movement”! [50:06]

Click here for the full transcript.

If you liked this episode …

Want to know more about the impact of debt on a young adult’s finances? Stacking Benjamins Podcast co-host Joe Saul-Sehy shares his disastrous first credit card experience during his debut appearance on The Art of Allowance Podcast. Tune in at 14:54 for the details. Then skip ahead to 25:14 for Joe’s advice on working your previous financial failures into money conversations with your kids.

How can you help young adults protect themselves online? Author and digital literacy advocate Diana Graber reviews tactics for keeping personal information safe at the 21:14 mark of her episode. This snippet on addressing “free” online content with kids might also be helpful.

Curious about continuing the money conversation with your (almost) adult kids? Money maven Bobbi Rebell offers tips for keeping this important discussion going even after your children have landed jobs. Listen to her suggestions at 7:46. And don’t forget to share this crucial reminder about a 401(k)!

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Full Transcript

This transcript is from The Art of Allowance Podcast, Episode 79, featuring host John Lanza and guest Tony Steuer.

00:00:00,399 [John Lanza] Hello, and welcome to Episode 79 of The Art of Allowance podcast. I’m your host, John Lanza.

00:00:09,779 [Tony Steuer] So what I’m hoping to do is to help people to be curious about money, and then to understand what questions to ask, and that’s the thing with the weekly action items that I have, is that um, don’t tell people everything they need to know about, let’s say, bank accounts. But what I do encourage is these are the questions and things that you want to go deeper on, and I think that’s the best way we can arm our kids going back to scams, and all these other things that we talk about, is giving people the ability to ask questions, because we go, “Okay, well why did somebody make that poor financial choice?” And the key is usually because they didn’t know what questions to ask.

00:00:54,159 [John Lanza] [Intro music]

00:00:59,779 [John Lanza] In this episode, I speak with Tony Steuer about the importance of financial preparedness for young adults, particularly new college graduates. We begin by discussing the Get Ready Blueprint, Tony’s comprehensive guide to managing finances, and Tony also shares key financial tips including the significance of insurance and the common monetary mistakes that young adults make. Additionally, we highlight the emotional elements of financial decision making, the role of AI in financial literacy, and the importance of asking the right questions to build competence in financial matters. Tony Steuer is an internationally recognized financial preparedness advocate, award-winning author, podcaster and Fintech advisor who is changing the way people think about money. Tony developed the Get Ready Money Club and hosts the Get Ready Money podcast to empower and educate people on all areas of personal finance. We’ve also become friends through the Get Ready group that Tony runs. Tony is a member of the Forbes Advisor Insurance Advisory Board and a five-time recipient of the Institute for Financial Literacy’s Excellence in Financial Literacy Education or EIFEL Award, and I hope you enjoy my conversation with Tony Steuer.

00:02:36,199 [John Lanza] Today I am speaking with Tony Steuer. Welcome, Tony.

00:02:42,079 [Tony Steuer] Glad to be here today.

00:02:44,079 [John Lanza] Well this is exciting ’cause this is an very important conversation. So my first daughter graduates college this year, and uh, I want to be sure that we have all the key bases covered in preparing her financially as she heads out into the world. I mean, we’ve been talking about money since she was born, which is not gonna be a surprise to anybody, but I figured who better to have on the podcast than the man who created the Get Ready Blueprint for exactly this reason? So, are you ready to dive in, Tony?

00:03:16,879 [Tony Steuer] I am ready. Let’s go.

00:03:18,499 [John Lanza] Okay, so I mentioned this thing, the Get Ready Blueprint. So why don’t we start off with you explaining to the audience what exactly is the Get Ready Blueprint?

00:03:28,119 [Tony Steuer] So the Get Ready Blueprint is a 52-week guide to organizing and reviewing all areas of your financial life. Is, so one thing I noticed over my years in the financial services industry is there’s so many services and products and great information, but there’s nothing that really bringsthem together in one place for people in a way where not only can they go through reviewing if they need it, but more importantly, monitoring it. Because that’s what so often happens, is people purchase a financial product and then, like with our homeowner’s insurance, we just renew it every year, and I know I do that sometimes myself without really going, “Okay, is this still the right homeowner’s insurance policy for myself?” So that’s what I really wanted to create, is a way to organize and monitor all areas of our financial life, but on an ongoing basis.

00:04:20,979 [John Lanza] That makes sense. So that monitor kind of goes with the idea that we want to do with expenses, period. You know, we always want to be kind of looking in and seeing what we’re spending our money on. Okay, so now that you’ve described basically the Get Ready Blueprint, what if you had to start fresh? Now I know we, you know, we haven’t dived into the details of this 52-week plan, but what I want to know is if you had to start fresh with just three to five bullet points for a new college graduate, the most important things that they need to know, what would they be?

00:04:55,419 [Tony Steuer] Well, first off is, you know, to think about what their goals are. Is, you know, that’s something that we don’t talk a lot about. We, we get very product driven. So the first thing is to think about, like, “Okay, well what are my immediate goals?” So, you know, for a new college graduate it may be finding a place to live. It may be, you know, like, “Okay, I have a new job. What do I do with my employee benefits?” Um, you know, so tactical things they may be thinking about, and this often is overlooked, is their insurance. You know, people get, you know, a lot of people in their 20s are talking about like, “Hey, Bitcoin,” or, “I want to buy whole life insurance,” or, you know, all these things and they’re, instead of going back to their basics like, “Okay, you know,

00:05:43,639 [Tony Steuer] what’s my insurance that I need? How do I save some money? What do I do with my paycheck? What expenses? How am I gonna manage my expenses? Where do I want to be in five years?” And then most importantly, and this is where I got into a little trouble when I was in my 20s, is with credit. “How do I manage my credit cards and my debt?” So I think those are the important things for a newcollege graduate to consider.

00:06:08,829 [John Lanza] Yeah. The credit and debt is, uh… I think most of us have probably run across that issue. I mean, I have too. Like when I came out here to Southern California, we went across Canada, and I put the entire trip on my credit card. [laughs] A- and, a- and that’s ’cause I really, I didn’t have any money, and I did get a job when I came out of here, and I fairly quickly I had that issue, and then I bought a computer on the credit card. Once I got through both of those issues, I actually didn’t carry a, carry credit card balance, but I think we’ve all gotten into that trouble, and it’s not surprising. That’s why I think something like the Get Ready Blueprint is so valuable. Now, what’s the thing that the graduate is least likely to have heard about before in your Get Ready, Get Ready Blueprint where they hear it and they’re like, “Wow, I… That’s not something I would have thought about”?

00:06:58,209 [Tony Steuer] Well, I, I, I think, you know, to go back to insurance, you know, when I’ve talked to college seniors or even high school graduates is nobody’s talked about insurance, and yet insurance plays a foundational role in our whole financial life. If you don’t have the right insurance, you’re going to run into some big issues. So we talk about an emergency fund, but really the way to look at insurance is it’s a big emergency fund for when you have a big emergency, whether it’s health insurance or whether, you know… So for a college person, you know, renter’s insurance, and that’s usually for new college graduates is usually they’re not buying a home. They’re renting an apartment. So, you know, renter’s insurance is also important. But, you know, when you’re 22 it’s like, okay, well, do you stay on your parents’ health insurance? Do you get your own health insurance? Auto insurance is really expense- expensive, especially if you’re a guy. Young males forsome reason tend to have really high auto insurance rates. Don’t know why. Could be driving habits, but, you know, those are the things, and that’s a major expense. You know, managing your insurance expenses can really play a huge difference in how much money you have to set aside for your other goals.

00:08:14,349 [John Lanza] Yeah, that makes sense. We’re, we’re having a lot of back and forth now that the, the time is approaching where graduation’s gonna happen, and there will be questions like, yeah, there has been insurance, but whenever a question comes up about job or whatever it is where if we’re being snarky as parents, it’s #life would be the response.

00:08:31,989 [Tony Steuer] Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

00:08:32,509 [John Lanza] Now, we’re being… Well, we’re trying to be productive as parents. That’s, that’s what we’re trying to do here is come up with questions to be a little more productive. So one of the things that I’ve found in talking to parents about teaching kids about money is that… And one of the kind of revelations that I had is that we really learn experientially, right? Not so much through lectures. So is there something that parents can do, say parents who have a kid who’s younger that, that’s not, you know, going to be having to deal with these issues immediately, where they can learn these lessons that you’re talking about, especially the key ones, maybe insurance, for example, experientially instead of through our lecturing where they might just roll our eyes, roll their eyes and just kind of move on and wait till you’re finished talking to walk out of the room?

00:09:15,849 [Tony Steuer] Well, you know, one, I, I think the big thing is we have to look internally first and think about the money issues that, you know, the money

00:09:25,409 [Tony Steuer] challenges that we have emotionally and how we feel about money. If we’re in a good place with money, then we’re in a good place where we can start to talk to our kids, and that’s really the big thing is that parents have to want to talk to their kids about money. So if you’re, don’t feel good about money, you don’t feel comfortable with your money skills, you’re gonna have a hard time communicating to your kid about money, and what you communicate to your kid about money is your discomfort about money, your fear about money. So you have to be in a good place, and then the key is, as you said, is you have to be willing to talk to your kid, to show them, and then to look for learning opportunities. Like, you know, my son is right now thinking he’s going to be a Pokemon card dealer. You know, he’s gonna buy them high, you know, and then sell them even higher because the market has been going up, and I try to explain to him, you know, that, that any market works as long as there’s a willing buyer. But if people decide that they don’t wanna buy something, that they’re not gonna do it. But that’s all in communication and looking for the learning experiences because that’s what he’s into. If I just talk to him about value, he doesn’t really get it, but if I say, “Okay, well, here’s the thing with Pokemon cards,” then it connects with him because it’s something that’s of interest to him, and that’s another big key of the puzzle for me.

00:10:55,989 [John Lanza] Yeah. Now, did… How… What was his reaction to that idea that, you know, Pokemon cards are this market that could dry up? Did he ha- did he kind of… What… How did, how did he respond to that?

00:11:06,669 [Tony Steuer] Well, I, I think he’s processing it, but I think he’s starting to get it. And this morning, I pointed out to him that there was an article, Bloomberg, that the art market has collapsed over the last year. And I go, you know, the whole concept is that something has value as long as someone else is willing to buy it. And that’s the thing for me with cryptocurrency is the same way is that a lot of these what they call meme coins, which I don’t fully understand, so I- I won’t-

00:11:34,629 [John Lanza] [laughs]

00:11:34,669 [Tony Steuer] … pretend to be an expert on that, but they only have value because someone else decides they wanna buy it because what happ- what’s happened to NFTs over the last three years? They’re pretty much gone as far as I know. Nobody’s talking about NFTs, so that’s, you know, that’s the way I’ve been trying to teach him is that as long as somebody sees that it has value, they’re going to be willing to buy it, but as soon as other people decide we’re gonna move on from Pokemon cards to the next thing, nobody’s gonna be willing to buy it. So that’s kind of concept, and that’s how you, you know, in my mind, that you teach them about investing…. and saving for the future is because they have to understand the concept of value before they can make any wise investing decisions.

00:12:20,007 [John Lanza] Yeah, that makes sense. So, I l- I like that idea where you’re kind of setting it up with him talking about the potential perils that exist in a market like Pokémon cards, and then following up with some data that he can process, and then he can kind of figure it out on his own. And certainly, he’s gonna figure out of his own, on his own if the market completely drops out on him, or, on the other hand, if the market explodes. So, you know who, who knows where that will go? But that’s, those are good lessons that he can learn on his own and it’s good. I like this, the back and forth.

00:12:51,027 [John Lanza] Okay, so what’s a money mistake that it’s okay to make early on as a k- as a kid, um, or I should say as a young adult, and what’s one that you feel like can haunt you for years?

00:13:02,807 [Tony Steuer] Well, I, I think a common money mistake is to buy something and then to regret it later. Now, I’mnot talking about something huge, but you know, that you make a couple purchase, let’s say sneakers, and I’m thinking of older kids here, but you know, ’cause younger kids may not quite get that lesson. But so for a high school kid is they may go out and get the latest pair of Jordans or whatever, the popular sneaker, and then later on they go, “Okay, summer’s here. I want to have some money to spend on vacation or do these outings or whatever, and then I don’t have the money.” So it’s like, you know, that’s okay to make that kind of mistake where you go, “Okay, well maybe I shouldn’t have bought that item.” The mistake that can come back to haunt you is when we talked about earlier, and that’s credit cards and running up a credit card debt ’cause what happened was, I was a college senior, got my first credit card ’cause unfortunately, credit card people, uh, companies really like to prey on college kids and they have huge, you know, uh, I can’t think of the right word, but you know, they’re, they’re readily available to college students. And so when I was a college student, I got a credit card, didn’t really think it through. It’s like, “Okay, this is great. I can take my friends to a concert. We can go out to dinner.” You know, things like that. And so all of a sudden, you know, i- it wasn’t a lot of money, but you know, it was two or $3,000, which at the time was a lot of money. So it took me a little while to pay that off. And so not managing your debt and running up high credit card bills are things that can haunt people for decades, uh,you know, if they don’t manage their credit well.

00:14:45,347 [John Lanza] Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I had similar, you know, experience and, uh, luckily there are more protections now for students. Like when we were [laughs] students, Tony, I mean, it was a free-for-all. They just offer you a free pizza, you take a credit card and you’re like, “Free money.This is fantastic.”

00:15:02,447 [Tony Steuer] Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, wha- what’s the problem there?

00:15:06,427 [John Lanza] Right. Exactly. I mean, what, wha- why wouldn’t I do this? I mean, this is the easiest, this, this makes perfect sense.

00:15:13,307 [John Lanza] Okay, so one thing you talk about is like ID theft as an example, and totally unexciting concept to talk about until it happens to you. And then, then it’s, it could be really problematic. Is there any kind of real world story or warning that you share with young people to get them to take this seriously? Because I worry about this generation and this kind of laissez-faire approach to privacy, and that can lead to this potential problem of ID theft. So let us know if there’s kind of a story or warning you wanted to share.

00:15:47,767 [Tony Steuer] You know, I think that’s a very challenging one because, you know, their whole way of life, it revolves around technology in a way that even for us who’ve absorbed technology into our lives, just don’t see the same way. So trying to have that conversation is definitely more challenging, but to some degree they’re more aware than we are. And I think that’s a challenge that many adults have in dealing with kids is that they think that kids are not understanding certain things, when kids tend to understand a lot more about something than we think they do. Explaining to them, I think what can happen, and especially if you can point out to an article, you know, or a current news story, something happens to, let’s say, a famous, you know, YouTuber that they’ve heard of. That’s the thing is you have to find something that’s of interest to them. So I say, “Well, there was this case that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau brought against Bank of America for defrauding people.” Kid’s gonna be like, “What?”

00:16:58,607 [John Lanza] Yeah.

00:16:58,827 [Tony Steuer] [laughs] You know?

00:17:00,187 [John Lanza] Exactly. Amazing.

00:17:00,607 [Tony Steuer] But, but if you can say like, “Hey, here’s something where Ariana Grande had her identity stolen and was posing as her,” and I think something like that did happen, the kids are gonna say, “Ooh, Ariana Grande, you know, that happened to her? How did that work?” And then it’s a relatable thing, and I think that’s the key with any of this stuff is that you have to always relate to your audience. Andin this case, you’re relating to your kids.

00:17:29,927 [John Lanza] Can you go deeper on the idea that you started off with saying that you think that… It sounds like kids may know more about ID theft than we know?

00:17:41,207 [Tony Steuer] You know, the way I look at it is that we can’t assume that they don’t know something about it, but the challenge is because they’re discussing it among themselves, a lot of it is not going to be correct, you know? And that’s the problem is, so what we’re dealing with, our son is 20 years old, is that with males at that age are very certain about everything. So you have to be willing to really try to understand where they’re coming from, what they believe before you can try to teach ’em, is you have to try to understand. You’re like, “Okay-… “What is your mindset on this already? What have you heard?” And then kind of walk them through it, because the thing that I feel is you can’t ever win an argument. But what you can do is give people more information that will help them change the opinion on their own. And essentially with a, y- you know, a college student is that you have to be able to communicate with them and give them the information instead of just bombarding them with a lecture, a- a- as we talked about earlier.

00:18:48,038 [John Lanza] Sure. He’s probably, uh, more certain than he is correct, right, Tony?

00:18:53,037 [Tony Steuer] And, you know, that’s even true of adults. So, you know, for the parents out there, it’s you have to check your knowledge before you can really help your kids, is you have to be certain that you’re teaching them something that’s accurate. So, that’s- that’s my advice.

00:19:09,257 [John Lanza] Yeah, good advice. What is, like, one emotional or practical cost of this financial unpreparedness that young adults never see coming?

00:19:19,157 [Tony Steuer] Well, I think what I’ve seen happen is that people feel shame about the decisions that they’ve made, and it will turn them off to certain areas of the financial world, or even to the whole money world, you know, in total. Like, so here’s a good example. If a kid hears their parents arguing about money, then they’re gonna be less likely to talk to their spouse or significant other about money, because they are like, “Oh, boy, money leads to an argument.” I’ve seen that in the life insurance business because there’s so many bad life insurance policies that are sold to young people that it just turns them off later on to the life insurance industry. And that happens to insurance. It happens to investments. So, a kid buys Bitcoin. Bitcoin falls, and then they go, “You know, I’m gonna be skeptical of the investing world because it’s all a scam. I’m gonna get scammed.” And I think that’s the challenge, is that, you know, they have to learn that making mistakes is okay, but the big thing is to be curious and to ask questions so you don’t end up in that position in the first place.

00:20:26,777 [John Lanza] Sure. I think that makes sense. I mean, it sounds like… How much of this is really just about kind of money itself, and then how much is ab- is this about confidence and stress, um, and independence? Like, that seems to be… ‘Cause I- I think it- it’s an interesting point that you bring up, and I agree with you on the parenting side. So much of this is you want to keep the conversation open. You want to make sure that you’re asking questions and, most importantly, keeping that channel of communication open. When they make a mistake, they can come to you. They don’t feel like there’s gonna be judgment.

00:21:02,417 [John Lanza] So much… You know, money is, like you had said… We talk about shame. We all carry some shame. Our kids are gonna develop certain, you know, some shame with regard to money, and it’s just this…The confidence and stress and independence, is how much of this is tied into all of that?

00:21:18,397 [Tony Steuer] It’s hugely tied into it, um, because that impacts all the financial decisions we make. So, the key is to develop healthy money habits where you take control, and that’s the big part of what I’m trying to achieve with the whole Get Ready project. You know, the- the mission is to change the way we think about money, but what I really want people to do is, you know, and this is in the Get Ready blueprint, is that old adage, you know, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for life.” So, what I’m hoping to do is to help people to be curious about money and then to understand what questions to ask. And that’s the thing with the weekly action items that I have, is that, um, don’t tell people everything they need to know about, let’s say, bank accounts. But what I do encourage is, “These are the questions and things that you want to go deeper on,” and I think that’s the best way we can arm our kids, going back to scams and all these other things that we talk about, is giving people the ability to ask questions. Because we go, “Okay, well, why did somebody make that poor financial choice?” And the key is usually because they didn’t know what questions to ask. Is before they buy a TV, they know like, “Okay, well, you know, what size do I want? Do I want plasma or 4k?” I mean, whatever, I don’t know that much about TVs, but we know what questions to ask. But yet, kids are expected to graduate college and they’re expected to make these choices. Let’s say they get their first job, they have a 401[k], and they’re expected to choose from 20 different investment funds.

00:23:00,097 [Tony Steuer] But the kids don’t even know what questions to ask in order to choose from those funds. So, what we need to do, in my mind, as financial educators,

00:23:11,417 [Tony Steuer] is to help the kids understand that it’s okay to ask questions, and that asking questions is what’s gonna give them power. And that’s what’s important, is that they feel like they have power and confidence over their money. As you mentioned, confidence is really the key.

00:23:28,917 [John Lanza] You know, it re- that reminds me of two things, uh, both Richard Feynman and Malcolm Gladwell’s dad. I remember Malcolm Gladwell talking about his father, uh, I think it was… I think he was a mathematician. But he would not… He would watch his dad ask questions, you know, and which is just a general life lesson, but his dad would not let something go until he really understood it. He would keep asking why, to the point, I think, where Malcolm felt, you know, uncomfortable. When you’re a kid, you’re like, “Will you stop asking why?” But he wanted to get at the answer to something, and that’s something that, you know, the physicist Richard Feynman talks about, too. It’s like, knowing the name of something doesn’t mean you know anything about it. What you want to do is understand fundamentally what these things are, and the only way to do that is to keep asking questions, and we tend to stop at the one first or second question. But I remember also, I’m just gonna throw in another person, Kevin Kelly, who’s a, uh, journalist, uh-… a writer and futurist, and he said, “You don’t really get the answer to a question until you’ve asked it seven times,” right? So, you know, you just have to kind of keep chipping at the stone to f- to actually get the answer to something. So I think that’s a great piece of advice, which is just keep asking those questions. So I have a question for you. What is a money myth young adults believe that gets them into trouble early?

00:24:54,595 [Tony Steuer] Um, that certain things are easy, that the investing world is easy, and, you know, you can see it with the investments that are geared towards young people. So if you look at, you know, what 20-year-olds are seeing on TikTok, they’re seeing a lot of like, “Hey, buy whole life insurance as an investment for your future. Invest in cryptocurrency. You can do this and be a millionaire by the time you’re 30.” And that’s what they’re seeing. So that’s the thing to teach them is like none of this is easy. If it were easy, wouldn’t everybody be retired at 30? I mean, why is everybody you know in your family… And that’s a good way for kids to connect with it. Say, “Look, think of all your aunts and uncles, family members, friends of yours, family. Are any of them retired or are they all working?” And then that’s something that the kids can start to relate to in their 20s because that’s the biggest thing that I think they’re hearing is that you can be rich without putting any real effort into it, that it’s easy to get rich.

00:26:03,675 [John Lanza] Why do you think that myth prevails? Where does it come from?

00:26:08,055 [Tony Steuer] Well, I think it comes from a couple places. One is, you know, as I mentioned, that the kids don’t really know the questions to ask to filter out like, “Okay, well, is this even a sound principle? Is this something that is going to work?” And being able to ask questions, I think, is your best shield against financial abuse and making poor financial choices. A- and part of it is that it’s human nature to think about like, “Okay, well, maybe there’s an easy way to do this,” and we get blinded by the sales aspect and the sizzle, and you hear about it. And the kids, you can see this in… even in little kids where they go, “Oh, I need to go buy this.” They get the FOMO is like, “This is a limited edition Hot Wheel, and I need to have it because they’re only gonna sell this for a year, and it’s tied into Lightning McQueen.” I don’t know if Lightning McQueen is still popular with little kids. But I know with my son, that was the kind of thing. It’s like, “Ooh, this is, you know, something that’s only gonna be out while Toy Story is out, so I need to get this toy.” So it’s always that way is… and financial predators do that, is they say, “This is… you have to get this deal right away before it goes away.” They give you that time pressure. They tell you all the features, but they don’t tell you any of the downsides. And that’s kind of the same thing is you could say, “Look, you wanna buy these sneakers, but do you know that they only last a week? If you knew that, would you still buy them?” But that’s the thing is, you know, they don’t know what they don’t know, so it’s helping them, as we’ve talked about, is to be able to ask those questions and to arm themselves with questions.

00:27:55,615 [John Lanza] Yeah. You can, you can summarize, I think, pretty much every marketing message as, “Your life isn’t fulfilled because you don’t have X. If you buy X, your life will be fulfilled.” And [laughs] the only way to address that is to ask yourself, “Will my life really be fulfilled if I have X?”[laughs]

00:28:14,395 [Tony Steuer] And financial predators are very good at this. And some of them aren’t doing this intentionally. I don’t think most of these 20-year-olds who are hawking these concepts really understand what they’re hawking either, but it’s because it all sounds good. And on the surface, all of these things are packaged, like you talk about, for the FOMO. They’re packaged to have attractive benefits. You know,they put on the time pressure. They put on all these other things to say like, “Hey, this…” And then they also say, “Not everybody knows this.” That’s the other huge thing is that they tell you, “This is a secret. We’re the only ones who know. This is the investment strategy that no one else is talking about.” Have you heard that one, S- John? That’s a popular one.

00:29:00,555 [John Lanza] Never. Never.

00:29:01,475 [Tony Steuer] [laughs] Yeah.

00:29:02,835 [John Lanza] It’s so true. It’s a very good point. So, like, are there any myths that you used to believe when you were a kid that you’ve since changed your mind about? I mean, more money myths.

00:29:14,275 [Tony Steuer] Boy, you know, really, money myths is that you can beat the market. So I know this is a little bit for slightly older young adults, um, but I think you come outta college… I was a finance major with an inf- emphasis in investments, and even though I knew better because of the theory that we learned in college, I still thought that I could outsmart the market and make some really wise investing choices. And I think that’s the thing is you get humbled by understanding that there’s certain things

00:29:48,175 [Tony Steuer] that you can’t do. And so for me, as a young adult, it was like, “Okay, I can make some of these investment choices because I really think I know a lot.” So there’s a lot of certainty when you’re graduating college that you can do certain things, and some of that is just the impact of time and making mistakes. That’s how we learn is by making mistakes, and hopefully they’re small mistakes and not big mistakes.

00:30:13,655 [John Lanza] Yeah. That makes sense. There’s, uh, I think it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is, you know, thel- the, that you… the, the less you know, the more confident you are in attempting to do something, and that kinda describes our 20s. [laughs]

00:30:28,021 [John Lanza] … things that happened [laughs]-

00:30:28,621 [Tony Steuer] Exactly

00:30:28,662 [John Lanza] … a lot of my 20s. I remember telling friends in our- at the first job that I had, I confidently said that I could land a 747 with the help of the radio tower if the- if it came to that. And that was because I knew-

00:30:44,922 [Tony Steuer] Yeah

00:30:45,042 [John Lanza] … nothing about landing a 747.

00:30:47,442 [Tony Steuer] Well, had you played Flight Simulator?

00:30:49,981 [John Lanza] Right. I played Flight Simulator, and my grandfather had a plane that we used to go up. He had a private plane, so we would- we would go in that. But whenever he gave me the ability to control that plane, he was doing all the work on the tail. All I was doing was using the steering wheel. So those planes, you have a steering wheel and then you have the foot pedals that operate the tail and the ailerons. So, I was really doing nothing, but it was through tho- those experiences… Oh, and I flew on a few planes too. Through those experiences-

00:31:18,201 [Tony Steuer] Cool

00:31:18,422 [John Lanza] … I could land a 747. But the point being, it’s just, you know, I had no idea what I was talking about. And that’s so much of what happens when you’re in your 20s is you think you know these things, and that’s, I think, really one of the points… That’s the reason we’re having this conversation is to try to help people- help these kids understand that there’s a lot that you don’t know and we’re here to help you. And if you don’t know, keep asking questions till you find the resources. Which is a great segue into another question I wanna ask you. Now,

00:31:48,181 [John Lanza] isn’t AI going to be the knowledge base our kids use to gain the knowledge they need to make these decisions? And why take a financial literacy class or read a book on insurance, or read anything when they can get the information they need from a simple prompt in less than five minutes about exactly what they need when they need it?

00:32:11,221 [Tony Steuer] That is a great question, and the answer is really that, are you getting the information that you really need? Because right now with AI… Now, AI is going to improve and it’s improving at a incredibly rapid pace. Is it’s wrong a lot of the times. I mean, when Google’s AI came out, at first, it told you that it was a good idea to eat rocks every day. Now, AI has evolved beyond that, but it’s just part of the puzzle is that nothing is gonna replace your curiosity to make sure that the information that you’re receiving is accurate. Because what AI is doing is it’s gathering all the information that it has and then it’s analyzing it, just like we do as humans. So AI is going to have biases. AI is not gonna always have complete information. We think it has complete information, and what we’re seeing with some AI programs, and I- I see this with ChatGPT when I use it, is that it can become very stubborn. And AI, I think as it evolves, is gonna get more personality, not in the way we think of personality, but it’s going to get more certainty in certain things. And so just like what we see with these financial influencers, because it’s heard

00:33:30,661 [Tony Steuer] this influencer has 10 million likes on a video and they talk about cryptocurrency, they’re gonna say, “Well, cryptocurrency is probably good because it’s interpreting things.” So, you know, our tool is always going to have to be our curiosity and our ability to question things and to see if that’s really reality. So yeah, it’s a great starting point, but, you know, there’s also talk about, is it going to replace human advisors? And I don’t think so. I think there’ll be a room for both. But human advisors, their place is no longer going to be with some of the technical stuff, because that will be done so quickly, but it will be in the ability to connect with people, to understand, and to communicate. And that’s where I see AI, you know, at least in the foreseeable future, not being able to do on the same scale as humans.

00:34:24,401 [John Lanza] Yeah, it’s a good point. I mean, I do think on the AI hallucination, first of all, the new models are so much better, and we- you have to imagine that over time that’s- that’s gonna improve markedly and that the percentage- the error percentage will go down. It does seem like… And actually th-this could be a good thing, not on the advisor side. It seems like it- it will most likely hollow out the area of average advisors, you know [laughs] what I mean? And- And maybe ideally poor advisors, you know, because the first place you can go is AI and get the basic information that someone is gonna be on the other side of the desk. Very often, they’re just trying to sell you products, right, which is, you know, the kind of advisor you wanna run away from screaming. But that’s- that’s an advantage that AI, um, gives our kids. But it’s still- I still am curious about this idea that if that is gonna be the place they’re coming from, right, that’s most likely, that’s where kids are gonna go. They’re gonna go to Perplexity or they’re gonna go to, uh, GPT or whatever new model is out there. And the- The question is, if they can get the information… No, not financial behaviors, which are really important that they develop, you know, things like learning to set and save for goals, learning to live beneath your means, learning to save a portion of your income, you know, key behaviors. That’s something they need to be trained for a lifetime. But in terms of just tactical information that they need to- to grab, it seems like AI will be a terrific place for them to do that. I wonder if you have any thoughts on how things will be structured as the- as- as we move into this much more AI-centric world.

00:36:09,701 [Tony Steuer] Well, I think what we’re already starting to see is that… It’s like you mentioned, is that it will give you a tactical answer, but it won’t always give you the contextual answer. And that’s only something, you know, that we know ourselves is, you know, we know our values. We know what our goals are. We know how we feel about something. We know what we wanna achieve. And a lot of this happens, you know, what do they say, non-verbal communication is about 80% of communication, is that there’s so many of these things happening…. that AI is not going to know about unless we tell it. And so much of these non-verbal cues is gonna be really hard to incorporate into AI. And when I, you know, think back on my advisory career, so I spent the majority of my career doing fee-based, uh, insurance consulting, mostly for high net worth advisors, litigation attorneys, and trust officers, and even among the most sophisticated people, the first question was usually like, “Is this any good? It’s, is this helping the client?” Then we got into the tactical, you know, the, the most sophisticated and best advisors were always the ones who were concerned about, like, “Okay, here’s what my client’s trying to do. This is who they are. Is this the right fit for them?” And I think that’s where AI is probably gonna be able to still be supplemented by humans, is that AI won’t be able to do that, sort of the human touch and that human connection. Maybe it’s the reasoning is evolving with AI, but it’s, it’s, anything is possible. You know, they talk about the singularity and all those other things, and AI is speeding quickly if it hasn’t already passed some of those tests, Turing test and all the others. So,

00:38:02,811 [Tony Steuer] it’s possible, but I don’t see it replacing that human connection and being able to replace that component of the human mind.

00:38:11,611 [John Lanza] Yeah, I wonder because the one thing you were saying, like, understanding your values and that information, that’s all information that you can put into an AI and it has perfect recall, and its incentives are more aligned with your incentives, um, you know, depending on the f- the advisor you’re talking to. So, I’m not sure in the future if there won’t be… I mean, uh, I’m, I’m curious about the human connection thing. That’s really tough to figure out, the way that’s h- how that’s all gonna shake out. I think as humans we will natural, naturally think that the, the human-to-human connection is essential, and it feels like it might be. But if you have… Uh, you know, if you inter- once you start interacting with AI and you realize the, it’s pretty incredible the, the natural language back and forth that you can have and now the vocal back and forth, uh, and it does feel very human, it’s, it’s, I think addressing this idea that you could put in the information and it will then… it will contextualize it for you. And again, right now, you have to be very wary of its hallucinations, but that is gonna be, probably, less and less of a problem. And so, I, I think it’s really important for us as parents to start to figure out how to… I mean, maybe it’s not even something for us as parents because our kids are gonna be figuring this out. You know, this is, this is their li- you know, their life is, is in this AI tech world. They’re all kind of digital natives,so it isn’t necessarily for us to… But I, I, I think the main point here is that we want… Parents need to be… Parents probably should be embracing AI to the extent of understanding what its capabilities are and how those capabilities are going to evolve. Does that, uh, or going to evolve. Does that make sense?

00:40:00,871 [Tony Steuer] It makes perfect sense, and I think the thing to think about, and again, I come back to scam artist. AI is not a, a scam artist, by any means, but when you look at these very sophisticated scams, is that they’re usually 99%

00:40:18,771 [Tony Steuer] real or truthful or whatever, and it’s, like, that one little thing is where somebody gets scammed, and that’s going to be the thing with the AI is to say, “Okay, is this 100% accurate or is there still a hole somewhere along the way in its reasoning, in its, you know, output?” And all those things. And that’s going to be the thing where we always need to be aware of and, you know, think about, “Well, AI is operating,” like you said, “You know, we’ll be able to do a behavior test, a mixed Briggs Myer.” You know, we could do, like, 10

00:41:00,871 [Tony Steuer] personality tests, store that to our AI. Uh, you know, I’ve created actually an AI clone based upon all of my content. And, like, uh, like, my son has asked the questions, and he goes, “Dad,” he goes, “It reasons exactly like you.” So, he’ll ask it a question and it’ll give an answer about money, and he goes, “Wow, it’s just like talking to you.”

00:41:23,851 [Tony Steuer] But the question is, is it really like talking to me?

00:41:28,411 [John Lanza] Mm-hmm.

00:41:28,431 [Tony Steuer] Or is it mimicking? And that’s the thing that will be the danger, is being able to say, “Okay, well, is this really 100% real and accurate, or is there a faulty logic that it’s following?” Because, like anything else, there’s gonna be something that it doesn’t know. You know, like, what’s that panel? Y- you know, you have the known knowns, the known unknowns. There’s always gonna be unknown unknowns. And even the most powerful AI is gonna have unknown unknowns. And so we have to discover, see if we can discover what those unknowns are. So, that’s how I look at it.

00:42:07,591 [John Lanza] I’m curious to know, with your building of the AI clone, what software you’re using to, to build your AI clone.

00:42:13,651 [Tony Steuer] It’s called Delphi.ai. I saw Brendon Burchard had built an AI. I think he might be an investor in the company.

00:42:20,791 [John Lanza] Mm-hmm.

00:42:21,271 [Tony Steuer] For people who are watching and listening, you can go to my website, join the Get Ready Movement, and you can play with Ask Tony AI right now if people are curious about how it works.

00:42:33,731 [John Lanza] Very nice. Yeah, I’m building a local one based on my knowledge base, so I’m, I’m curious to know what tools you’re using. So, that’s, uh, very helpful. Thank you, Tony.

00:42:43,231 [Tony Steuer] Definitely. Definitely.

00:42:45,205 [John Lanza] All right, so let’s turn from AI to you personally. I have a few, uh, questions that-

00:42:49,865 [Tony Steuer] All right

00:42:50,165 [John Lanza] … I just wanted to ask, uh, before we head into the fast and fun round. So, what is, uh, what’s one thing about yourself or your organization that most people don’t know about that you wish they would know or could know?

00:43:03,125 [Tony Steuer] Boy, um, that is a great question. I think the thing that I- I wish they would know is that, you know, my goal is to get people to think for themselves. My goal is to not just lecture at them about the information I provide, but the information I’m providing them is for them to consider, to think about, and then apply the best way they see fit. To not look at me necessarily for answers, but tolook for me as a guide for changing the way, and, you know, I keep coming back to this, for changing the way they process and think about money and they make their own decisions.

00:43:43,285 [John Lanza] Well, that’s good. Then your virtual Tony will be able to answer all their questions when the- when those questions come up.

00:43:50,385 [Tony Steuer] Exactly. Well, and that’s the thing, it- it’s trained on all my information, you know, it’s connected to my YouTube channel, it’s been trained on, you know, I’ve written, I think eight books. I’ve written over 200 articles. You know, I have 150 podcast episodes. It’s connected to my LinkedIn. You know, it’s got a large body of information to draw on, but at the same time, I don’t think you could have my AI on as a guest on your podcast, at least today. Maybe next year you could have my AI on as a guest and see how we compare, but right now, I don’t think my AI could replace me. Maybe.

00:44:28,465 [John Lanza] Yeah.

00:44:29,905 [John Lanza] It’s a very good question, and we’ll- and we’ll leave that as- at- at- we’ll leave that as a question.

00:44:36,305 [Tony Steuer] Well, we- we could have our AIs do a podcast episode and see how it turns out [laughs].

00:44:42,265 [John Lanza] Okay, so Tony, who is the most influential person in your life when it comes to the way that you think about money?

00:44:48,945 [Tony Steuer] Well, two people. So, one is my father, um, who taught me quite a bit about money, but the other person is Benjamin Graham. And Benjamin Graham is Warren Buffett’s mentor, so, you know, that kind of, I hope gives him some credibility, uh, for those who don’t know Benjamin Graham, but his theories, even though, you know, they were written over 100, I think probably 100 years ago when he was writing The Intelligent Investor, maybe not quite that long ago, still hold up today because they’re more about how the market works rather than the actual tactical details of the market. And I think that’s, for me, where I’ve always, where I think the best tips I’ve learned from both my father and Benjamin Graham are about how to approach a problem, how to think about it, what questions to ask, rather than like, is a stock ETF better if it’s small cap or mid-cap or large cap? So that’s- that’s really where I think I’ve had the most benefit of knowledge from others.

00:45:55,125 [John Lanza] That’s great. So, learning what questions to ask.

00:45:59,105 [Tony Steuer] Yeah. Sorry I keep coming back to that, but that’s- that’s what I think is key.

00:46:03,285 [John Lanza] I think that’s a very good lesson. What is the best lesson you learned from your dad about money?

00:46:10,065 [John Lanza] You could also say life.

00:46:11,305 [Tony Steuer] Well, I think that you have to think for yourself is, you know, it goes back to Ronald Reagan, no matter what you think about Ronald Reagan, is his saying, “Trust but verify.”

00:46:23,665 [Tony Steuer] And that even goes back to AI and your question about AI, is you can trust the answer, but you want to verify it for yourself.

00:46:31,865 [John Lanza] That makes sense. Good advice. All right, Tony, are you ready now for the fast and fun round of the Art of Allowance podcast?

00:46:41,485 [Tony Steuer] I am ready. Let’s do it.

00:46:43,305 [John Lanza] Okay, here we go. First question, what does the term money empowered mean to you?

00:46:49,005 [Tony Steuer] Well, that you feel like you are in charge of your money, that you feel confident, you feel good about it, and you feel like you can handle it.

00:46:57,725 [John Lanza] What is the best investment of time or money you’ve ever spent on your son?

00:47:02,905 [Tony Steuer] Talking to him, communicating, understanding how he’s looking at things, and then giving him the knowledge that’s appropriate to where he is and what he’s thinking. And that depends on the age. You can only talk to kids about certain things at certain ages. You have to be able to judge where they are developmentally, what their math skills are, is a huge part of it.

00:47:26,625 [John Lanza] What advice to your son do you most hope he will heed?

00:47:30,705 [Tony Steuer] The trust but verify,

00:47:33,185 [Tony Steuer] you know? Go back to that is you can take something, believe it, but you still want to do your research and make sure it’s accurate.

00:47:40,445 [John Lanza] If you could transmit a message that everyone would see, sky-written, billboard, wherever, what would that message say?

00:47:48,465 [Tony Steuer] Be curious, ask questions.

00:47:51,085 [John Lanza] What important truth about money smarts or financial literacy do you know that very few people agree with you on or actively disagree with you [laughs] about?

00:48:06,125 [Tony Steuer] Well, the most active disagreement that- that I get is, you know, and this goes down to my subject matter expertise, is that insurance can be an investment. Insurance is not an investment. When you buy a life insurance policy, the very first page of the life insurance policy says, “This is an insurance policy.” It does not say, “This is a great investment vehicle.” It does not say it’s an investment. So that’s the big thing.

00:48:36,045 [John Lanza] Uh, I think that’s a very important thing for our kids to understand.

00:48:40,445 [John Lanza] And what is the one parenting and/or money smarts book, podcast, or frankly any media that you return to or gift?… the most often?

00:48:52,059 [Tony Steuer] Well, the book that I gift the most often to people is, again, this is for the slightly older kids, but this would be a great book for somebody who’s 22 years old, starting to think about what they wanna do with their 401[k] and their investing, and that’s The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, but make sure you get the updated version by Jason Zweig because the old version might be a little bit harder to go through. But that’s the book that I recommend for everybody, The Intelligent Investor.

00:49:23,119 [John Lanza] Very nice. And, uh, Zweig is fantastic, so great, great, great book. We’ll put those, that information all in the show notes. So, Tony, how can people find you on social m- social media and/or the Web, to the extent you want them to find you?

00:49:39,060 [Tony Steuer] Well, uh, I’m on LinkedIn. That’s probably the best place to find me. Uh, I’m not really active on other social media channels right now. They can go to my website and join the Get Ready Movement, and I’ve got a boatload of free resources available, and that’s just my name, tonystewart.com. And then my podcast, the Get Ready Money podcast, is available on all major podcast platforms.

00:50:01,339 [John Lanza] Yeah. Tony is very active on LinkedIn, so it is a great place, uh, to find him. Is there any action that you’d like, uh, the audience to take that would be helpful to you?

00:50:12,700 [Tony Steuer] Um, you know, go to my website and join the Get Ready Movement is… the concept is that I wanna get more people

00:50:19,479 [Tony Steuer] involved in financial education and thinking about these things. I do a lot of, John, as you know, I spend a lot of space in my newsletter on recommending other people and what they’re up to, and I’m trying to connect people with other personal finance creators who actually know what they’re talking about and who have good intentions rather than, you know, large social media presences. So kind of, I’m trying to curate

00:50:45,699 [Tony Steuer] a lot of the financial literacy stuff that’s out there.

00:50:48,559 [John Lanza] Well, Tony Stewart, I appreciate you coming on the Art of Allowance podcast. This was a lot of fun, and I appreciate all your insights and wisdom.

00:50:58,179 [Tony Steuer] Well, John, thanks for having me. Appreciate the opportunity.

00:51:00,540 [John Lanza] [music]

00:51:06,539 [John Lanza] Thank you for listening to the Art of Allowance podcast. If you liked this podcast, I think you’ll really like my Money Smart Mondays email newsletter. There’s no cost, and you’ll find out all about the Money Mammals to help get your kids excited about money smarts and ideas from the Art of Allowance to help empower parents just like you. Just swing on over to themoneymammals.com. Click on that green button on the bottom right of the screen and become a subscriber today. I hope you’ll join me on the Money Smart journey. [music]