No Retirement Plan? How to Build Income That Actually Lasts, with Mark Kollar

Mark Kollar on Retirement Income Planning and Financial Torpedoes, Give A Heck Podcast with Dwight Heck

🎧 Listen and Watch Give A Heck Podcast

 

What if a second-grade boy lying on top of his father, who was screaming and foaming at the mouth, set the entire course for a career built on protecting people from the financial torpedoes nobody sees coming? Mark Kollar has spent 35 years answering that question.

 

🎙️ Give A Heck Podcast

Real conversations and solo episodes about purpose, financial stewardship, mindset, leadership, and intentional living. This episode goes deep on retirement income, the hidden dangers of accumulation-only thinking, and why having money and having income in retirement are two very different things.

 

🔍 Episode Overview

Mark Kollar grew up watching his father, a world-renowned periodontist, lose nearly everything through bad advice, predatory investments, unpatented innovations, and a devastating health collapse that put him in a wheelchair for the last 20 years of his life. That experience, layered with a decade on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade watching manipulation happen in real time, forged a career built entirely on protection.

 

In this conversation, Dwight and Mark cover the gap most financial plans never address: the difference between accumulating money and actually generating dependable income from it in retirement. Mark shares the concept of red money versus green money, the four tax baskets that every American pre-retiree must understand, and why the wealthiest clients he works with all have one thing in common: multiple advisors.

 

The stories here are real and some of them are gut-wrenching. A man who retired after decades of loyal work and had a stroke two days later because he had no plan for purpose. A 62-year-old who lost $800,000 in a single day trying to recover a smaller loss. A client who paid $45,000 in fees in one year without knowing it. Mark does not deal in theory. He deals in what he has seen.

 

This is the episode for anyone inside five to ten years of retirement who has saved faithfully, trusts the system, and still cannot shake the question: am I actually going to be okay?

 

📚 What You Will Learn in This Episode

  • Why accumulation and distribution are fundamentally different retirement problems, and why your accumulation strategy can quietly destroy your income phase
  • The red money versus green money framework, and how to think about risk based on your age and time horizon
  • The four tax baskets in the US retirement system and why strategic withdrawal sequencing can make a significant difference in what you keep
  • How black swan events, from health crises to market crashes to divorce, derail even well-funded retirements that nobody planned for
  • Why excess fees are like a slow financial cancer and what a real-world case of $45,000 in hidden annual fees actually looks like
  • The emotional side of money, how fear, ego, and the good-news-only culture at cocktail parties drive people toward catastrophic decisions
  • What a fiduciary standard means compared to a suitability standard, and why it matters before you choose who manages your retirement

 

📑 Chapter Summaries

0:00 Introduction

Dwight opens with a quiet fear millions of pre-retirees share: having done everything right and still not knowing whether it will hold. He introduces Mark Kollar, 35 years in retirement income planning, author, radio host, and certified senior advisor.

3:12 Origin Story, The Day Mark’s Father Fell

Mark was in second grade when he woke to his father, a world-renowned periodontist, thrashing in the hallway and screaming for a shotgun. The disease that started that morning took his father from the most well-connected man in Chicago to a wheelchair for two decades. Bad advisors, unpatented innovations stolen, faulty estate planning, and the collapse of the last stock he owned stripped the family of a generational legacy worth tens of millions in today’s values.

14:46 Ten Years on the Chicago Board of Trade

Mark spent a decade on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade trading 30-year governments and currencies. He describes first-hand the market manipulations, revised numbers, and trading card fraud that shaped his conviction that institutions hold the information advantage and retail investors routinely pay for it.

27:29 Building Kollar Wealth Advisors

After cycling through broker dealers that manipulated his clients, altered his website, and skimmed unexplained percentages, Mark started his own registered investment advisory firm so he could be free of outside influence and fully accountable to a fiduciary standard.

34:36 Accumulation versus Distribution, the Gap Nobody Talks About

Mark breaks down why saving money and reliably generating income from it in retirement are completely different disciplines, and why ego, cocktail-party investing, and all-in equity exposure at 60 are the fastest ways to end up in a death spiral when the market drops.

50:10 The Retirement Navigator

Mark explains what drove him to write the book: translating 35 years of technical expertise into something actionable for ordinary people who do not know what questions to ask an advisor. The book covers financial torpedoes, black swan events, the four tax baskets, red versus green money, market timing myths, excess fees, and estate planning.

1:04:09 The Final Give A Heck Question

Mark closes with a story about a man who retired after a lifetime of dedicated work and had a stroke two days later. His answer to giving a heck: plan not just for the money but for the purpose, and stop assuming the bad things happen to someone else.

 

🎯 Key Takeaway

Having money going into retirement is not the same as having income in retirement. The financial torpedoes that sink people are not always dramatic. They are the slow leaks: excess fees they cannot see, taxes they did not sequence, risks they did not hedge, and a purpose vacuum they never anticipated. The clients who sleep at night are the ones who got organized, found a fiduciary, and stopped assuming the bad things were someone else’s problem.

 

💬 Continue the Conversation

If this episode resonated, here are five Give A Heck conversations worth adding to your list:

 

🎙️ Trust But Verify: How Blind Trust Cost Me Tens of Thousands in Business

A hard lesson in why blind trust in advisors and consultants is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make, and how a trust but verify mindset protects both your money and your peace of mind.

 

🎙️ The 91 Percent Problem: Fired at 63 and Financially Free by 69 with David Nassief

David Nassief was fired at 63 with only two years of financial runway and rebuilt his entire financial life by 69 using disciplined saving, simple low-cost investing, and a one-page wealth compass.

 

🎙️ The 91 Percent Retirement Crisis: Financial Independence and Retirement Planning

A solo deep dive into why 91 percent of Canadians will not achieve real financial independence in retirement, and the habits and mindset shifts that separate the nine percent from everyone else.

 

🎙️ I Was Teaching Financial Freedom While Living Financially Broken

Dwight shares the brutal wake-up call that came from teaching financial planning while his own financial life was broken, and how he rebuilt his financial freedom mindset from the ground up.

 

🎙️ Small Town Kid, Big Life: Jim Tracy on Building Men of Character

Jim Tracy built a telecom company from a garage, flew jets at 62, and wrote a bestselling book on character. A conversation about what it actually takes to build something that outlasts you, and the people who poured into him first.

 

 

🔑 Key Themes Discussed

  • Retirement income planning versus accumulation strategy
  • Black swan events and financial vulnerability
  • Red money versus green money: risk positioning by age
  • The four tax baskets and strategic withdrawal sequencing
  • Excess fees as a slow drain on retirement wealth
  • Fiduciary standards versus suitability standards
  • Ego and emotion as drivers of catastrophic financial decisions
  • The importance of purpose planning alongside financial planning in retirement
  • Multiple advisors as a wealth-preservation strategy
  • Estate planning as a living document, not just an end-of-life task

 

👤 About Mark Kollar

Mark Kollar is a retirement income specialist, the owner of Kollar Wealth Advisors, and a certified senior advisor and certified estate planning professional based in the Chicago area. He began his career on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade trading 30-year government bonds and currencies, an experience that gave him first-hand exposure to the mechanics of market manipulation and the real cost of uninformed investing.

 

For 35 years, Mark has worked exclusively with pre-retirees and retirees, helping them protect savings, reduce income taxes, and build guaranteed retirement income streams. His clients have included employees from United Airlines, AT&T, McDonald’s, the Chicago Transit Authority, and HFC. He is the author of The Retirement Navigator, available on Amazon, and hosts a radio show focused on retirement income planning. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNBC, the Washington Post, and Fox Business.

 

🌐 Connect with Mark Kollar

Connect with Mark Kollar (click below to access)

 

🤝 Connect with Dwight Heck

 

🎧 Listen and Watch This Episode

 

💭 Final Thoughts

Mark Kollar opened this episode with a second-grade memory that most people would spend a lifetime trying to forget and built a 35-year career out of making sure the same cascade never happens to his clients. The financial torpedoes he describes are not theoretical. They are the stories of real people who saved, trusted, and still got blindsided because no one sat across from them and walked through what could go wrong.

 

The message underneath all of it is simple: the difference between a retirement you can depend on and one you are just hoping holds together comes down to whether you got organized, got honest, and found someone who legally has to do what is right for you. That is not a complicated idea. It is just one most people keep putting off.

 

📣 Call to Action

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Full Transcript of the episode:

 

[00:00:00] Mark: He was a tank. I mean, he was, you gave up a hug, it felt like you’re hugging a wall. Stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. The guy retired. He lived two days. Had a stroke. Now, who put that in their date book?

[00:00:13] Speaker 3: Welcome to Give a Heck. I am your host, Dwight Heck, and for much of my life, lived my life in quiet, desperation wondering how I was going to pay the bills, take vacations, save for retirement, and one day wondering if I would get off the hamster wheel of life and have purpose, a life that most of society lives, which takes us to work, then home, then repeat, and pays us hopefully enough.

Just to survive the harsh truth that most live with more months than money and have no idea how to live life on purpose, not by accident. This ensures the mass majority are living not just financially broke, however, emotionally and mentally as well. Due to financial pressures and each episode, I will introduce you to thoughts, ideas, and guests that can help you to learn how you too can live life on purpose, not by accident.

[00:01:08] Dwight: There is a quiet fear that sets in for a lot of people in the years before retirement. Not because they did anything wrong, not because they were reckless or irresponsible, but because nobody ever sat down with them and showed them how this next chapter actually works. Once the paychecks stop, they saved, they invested, they trusted the system, and yet the question that keeps ’em up at night is the same one.

Am I actually gonna be okay? Today’s guest has been answering that question for 35 years. He’s a retirement income specialist, the owner of Kooler Wealth Advisors, a registered investment advisory firm, a certified senior advisor, a certified estate planning professional, a radio host and the author of the Retirement Navigator, how to Avoid the Financial Torpedoes, fix the Financial Leaks, and Secure Your Retirement Savings.

He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNBC, the Washington Post and Fox Business, and he hosts Retirement and Income Radio show in Chicago. His name is Mark Koller, and he has built his entire career around one conviction. The difference between having money and having income in retirement, it is not a small one.

It is a difference between a retirement you can depend on and one you are just hoping holds together. Welcome to Give a Heck the show for people who want to live life on purpose and not by accident. I am your host, Dwight Heck, and today we are going to talk about the mistakes most people do not even know they’re making the risks, nobody’s warning them about what it actually takes to build a retirement plan to last.

Mark, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.

[00:02:57] Mark: Oh, Dwight, thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate it. I love the passion history. I did listen to some episodes and I, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. Um, I wish truth was easy. I wish it was easy to deal with.

in our industry, it’s, there’s damaging emotion, okay? There’s damaging trust, and I see people getting wiped up by simple things. I’ll share some stories with you in a little bit, but I’d like to share with you why I do what I do. Okay? There’s always a reason for everybody, right? Yeah.

Everybody’s got, why do they do, do they just fall into it?

[00:03:38] Dwight: Well, just, just to stop you for a second, that story will fit right into the origin of, of what you, how you got into this, right? So one of the things I do with my show, um, as you mentioned you listen, is I talk about the origin, your earliest recollections before your career, credentials before your firm, before the 35 years, and I want understand some of your path because that’s what my listeners and I appreciate.

So if we could start at the origin, we’ll lead into those stories and what you were just talking about, I’d really appreciate it. So just share with us some of your origin from your earliest recollections and, and what may have, may have triggered you to be the person you are today.

[00:04:21] Mark: I am in the protection business basically, if you can think about that.

I need to protect people, not only from themselves, but from unseen things happening, bad decisions, bad people, bad advisors. But I want explain what started, was a traumatic event. Uh, when I was in, I was in second grade, so I was what, five, seven years old. And I heard screaming down the hallway. And my father was my best friend.

The best friend on the planet. He was my hero. He, the guy was unbelievable. He was a captain in World War ii. He was the number one peronist on planet Earth. Actually, the chairman of Sony flew from Japan to get to Chicago, my father to, to work on him. Okay. He was the innovator. He designed the tools that they still use to this day.

Okay. But I never saw him. It was six days a week. He was working his tail off. And I’d used to go sailing with him. I was the youngest of five. The oldest was 16 years older than me. Okay. But on this day, it was in the morning time, about five in the morning. Uh, he used to get up at five 30, but I’m assuming it’s five.

And I heard this screaming, and when you’re a kid, you think it’s a monster, right? I mean, this is crazy. This is out of a horror movie, the sound. And I started to dry heave. I’m just a little kid. I was throwing up from the sound. I was so terrified. Then I realised it was my dad and I ran down the hallway, which is about 50 feet to get to his bedroom, and he was thrashing from side to side within a small, doorway into the bedroom, into the sitting room.

And he’s fla slamming himself at the time. How old was he? He was probably gonna remember What, how old was he? About 58. I guess. About 58. Anyway, he was screaming for the shotgun to blow his head off. He’s screaming for it, but he can’t get off the ground. I don’t know what’s happening. And you’re a little kid, right?

So I just fell on him and I knew where the shotgun was. I knew where it was. Being a young kid, you hunt stuff in the house and every nook and cranny and every drawer and all that stuff. Well, anyway, I just, I hugged him and I’m, I’m bawling my eyes out. He’s foaming at the mouth. Okay. This guy was, he was a big guy.

He was probably 300 something pounds at the time. And, what had happened is he came down with a disease called acute familial myositis. And he didn’t know what it was. Nobody knew what it was. Punches, holes in your muscle tissue. Right. But they didn’t know. This is 1972 or whatever it was, and he had been going through a bad business deal.

Here we are talking about bad advisors, bad lawyers, bad accountants. He’s a scientist. Dwight, he was a scientist. That’s what he did. He, he was an innovator. so anyway, he had some, because of, they did faulty accounting and stole a bunch of money down in the Caribbean. He had the first, boat shuttering business in the entire Caribbean on the side of being a periodontist with the largest practise.

But he was just under so much pressure and he couldn’t take it. He, he couldn’t understand. He didn’t know where the weakness was coming from. He’s completely freaking out. And here it is. Well, what end, what had ended up happening is, from 1972 to 80, he fell two more times. In 81 he never walked again.

So what I, if had I given him the shotgun, he wouldn’t have lived in a wheelchair for 20 years, from 81 to 2001. There’s so there that was a lingering thing always, always in my back of my head. I didn’t bring it to the surface right until later, doing a lot of internal work. But anyway, what had happened?

That’s a physical issue. Then he had bad investments. He was talking to his best friend’s, doctor’s, neighbourhood, oh, buy this, do this, go there, broker so and so. I played golf with him. My dad’s too busy. They didn’t have an internet back then. It was all the good old boy network and my dad was number one in the world.

There were a bunch of people to talk to him that would just blow your mind. he had made multiple millionaires from just friends of his, when he would refer people to him because he was so, he was the centre of his, of his, uh, what he did for a living. So bad advice, bad investments. And he would hang on to things that he should have gotten rid of, but he didn’t have the time.

He’s working six days a week. He’s exhausted on Sunday. It’s the only time I saw him was when we raced sailboats. So we’re talking 47 foot or 50, 64 foot boat. I mean, this was, we won more races than any boat in the Great Lakes in 1979. It was a lot of fun. It’s the only time I really saw him. He worked half days, Saturdays and so on.

But anyway, lemme give you an idea. So, or an example of the bad investments and bad advice attorneys, right? He should have patented all the, the, all the pieces that he created to actually do what he did. So a periodontist would take bone graft from other parts of your body and rebuild your mouth.

That’s what he did. That’s what he figured out. He created all the instruments and he never patented them. Nobody told him, you better patent this. So someone got smart and said, oh look, there’s no patent on these. I’m gonna patent them. I mean, are you kidding me? So anyway, and the last stock he owned was Pan Am.

Did anybody know what happened to Pan Am? Pan Am went bankrupt. So he didn’t know. He didn’t, he was too busy taking care of people, right? So the nuns would come to him. He never charged them. Rabbis, priests. He never charged them. He thought it was the right thing to do. He came from a different world. so anyway, now Black Swan event, what was it?

And you and I know about Black Swan events. They come from left field. When you get T-boned in a car, if anyone’s ever heard of that, you go through the intersection and out of nowhere, someone wasn’t paying attention to the light, and you get hit at full speed. That health event. Reverberates through generations.

He didn’t put in his date book. He said, here’s the day I am not never gonna walk again. It’s something that happened. He never thought about it. It was day after day, week after week, planned to see the patients never ending line of patients to see. And very wealthy billionaires came to him ’cause he was the best in the world.

Well, he didn’t have his head up. He wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t study, he didn’t know what his weaknesses were. Okay. Um, he should have had multiple advisors helping him. The truly wealthy, I’ve got, um, his clients, the number ones 80 million and the lowest net worth’s 250,000. The truly wealthy people, they’ve got multiple advisors.

They may not know everything, but they’ve hedged even themselves. I mean, I would love to have all the assets, right for under management. The right thing to do is have multiple advisors. They may not understand everything, but they can hire and fire advisors very easily. So that would’ve helped immensely.

Another thing that happened that we caught wind of this later on is faulty estate lanning. Okay? Was a lawyer, a judge, and a second wife got in cahoots and today’s value of my father’s father’s estate and today’s values in the tens of millions that was stolen. Now, his dad was a doctor, but an md. Okay? So periodontist, his dad was an md.

They, don’t go to business school. They don’t, or they didn’t. Now there are a lot of doctors that actually go to business school and they’re don’t becoming doctors for the money instead of caring for people. So anyway, he didn’t know my great-grandfather had a second marriage. And he’s way, way down far away from Chicago.

And they didn’t have internet, didn’t have cell phones. They said, Hey, how’s, how’s dad doing? Oh, he’s fine. Well, he got pneumonia and they took the casement of the windows out. They took the casement out in January. The guy died from pneumonia. Well, you couldn’t just drive down there and we’re talking, uh, they didn’t have expressways and things like that back in the 1920s.

So anyway, what are you gonna do? They didn’t know. They didn’t know what to do. They had no idea. Just go back to work and life goes on. they assumed, oh gee, dad wanted me to get 5% of the estate. That’s what he thought. Okay, I guess he shared it with his sister and that’s it. That’s gone. So, they didn’t put that in a date book and say, okay, here’s the day we, I lose my legacy.

Right? It happens. And I’m gonna tell you some stories. I mean, it just blows my mind. Money makes people do weird things, and I’ve seen so much stolen from the golden children. Everybody’s fine till money gets involved and spouses get involved and stuff like that. So I saw what happened to my dad because he wasn’t paying attention.

He needed to be honoured for what he was doing. His blessing people, he changed the world. I was with him flying around to see him. The packed rooms, the standing room only. We were in France and Mexico and all over the place. I didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but he gave it all. He gave everything he had and he lost it all.

So all the rainy day, the sunny day friends disappeared as soon as he was no longer a big shot. There were only three friends. Three, he used to have parties at the house and people from all over the country would fly in for this. And only three of his friends never saw the wheelchair. They never saw it.

When he ended the wheelchair in 1981, they looked right through it. Like it wasn’t even there. Everyone else, you never saw him again. It was amazing. So a lot of pain, a lot of sadness, a lot of stress. And the problem is these financial issues reverberate through generations. You make a bad decision, it’s gonna affect your spouse, your kids, your grandkids, and it’s a cascading event.

I am here in business. I fight for people. Doesn’t mean they’re gonna listen. I can’t drag anyone to heaven. I can’t, you can’t drag anyone to heaven, okay? Many people don’t wanna listen. They just don’t wanna see the forest through the trees, which is a shame. You have to learn when to stop, right? I can’t force people to do things.

The point is, it’s so easy to lose money. It’s so hard to make it. There’s so many people want to take it from you Institutions. We talk about wall Street’s, a casino. I’m really sorry. I actually worked at the Chicago Board of Trade Futures Exchange. Did you ever see the movie with Eddie Murphy?

And he’s down and, um, kind of remember the name of it.

[00:15:55] Dwight: Trading Places.

[00:15:56] Mark: Trading Places, yeah. I was actually on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade Trading, 30 year governments, five year notes, Munis currencies. I was in my early twenties when I was doing that. I started there when I was 14, became a member in 1998.

So I saw things, I saw the manipulations, I saw numbers going right over my head up in the trading pit, and then they would revise the number. Oh, sorry, the unemployment isn’t up. It’s actually down. This happened all the time. So people got the information upstairs, placed a trade, you thought it was real, and then they revise it, and then it goes again.

So, and they’re making profits. Uh, they’re, the people that control the information are in charge. Guys, I got news for you. And I, I got firsthand knowledge. It blew my mind. But what are you gonna do? You don’t know when it’s real, when it’s not. I remember a, they had runners of orders back then.

There was no real electronics like email or anything like that, no texting. This was all done by trading card. And I remember a really old lady, she looked really, really old. And there aren’t any runner runners. You’re not 98 years old, okay? So I remember this walking right in front of me in the 30 year government pit.

I was not an A member yet. Okay? And I’m standing about 10 feet away standing at a desk. I’m not gonna say the name of it, they’re probably out of business, but I’m standing next to it. My brother’s in there. He is one of the world’s largest bond traders. I wasn’t a member yet, right? So I was working for a clearing house.

This person comes up, just to give you an example. This person comes up and I said, what I’m looking, and an a thousand lot order is put in, these are as rare as maybe three a year back then. This is back in the eighties, early eighties. And do, I’m not gonna tell you, I can’t tell you who it was, but this guy was in a green jacket, okay?

He’s a broker. He is got paper to sell or buy for the public. ’cause you didn’t have internet to bring the buyer and seller together. So the broker would get paid a dollar, 25 for every contract, a thousand lot order in any market, anywhere. Everyone’s, but what is happening? So anyway, the market, so he bought, right?

He bought whatever it was, and he went to the, the right next to me. I’m standing next to the desk and they said, you’re filled, you bought a thousand at six. And he goes, we don’t know the order. You’re hung. They would take their tie and pull their tie up and say, you’re hung. And everybody loved this broker.

Every, he was the nicest guy from a, from an old world, right? Respectful, dressed nice and everything. Always never swear words or anything. And this pit had a thousand people standing in it. And they all looked and saying, you’re hung on a thousand. If the market moves just one tick against you, that’s 31,000 bucks.

You just lost 30 now, sixty, ninety, a hundred twenty. Ba ba ba ba. And the market’s going like this. I’m standing there. He sees screaming. you’re hung. You own it. Well, a number comes out. And guess what happened? The market tanked was oh six, went all the way down 36. Now you can mention 30 times, 30,000.

You go ahead and do the math on that. This guy’s out, this isn’t about 60 seconds, okay? He’s trying to get out now. He bought, they’re saying he owns it now. He’s part of the seller’s trying to right to get out of it. So here’s what happened. The government, it wasn’t the government. The people who control the numbers said, oh no, sorry, it’s revised.

The numbers rever. It took off like a rocket. It went 30 points for his favour. This guy made a million dollars in about six minutes, just like that, right in front of me. He throws up his trading cards. No one ever saw this guy again. He threw up his trading card, and this guy next to me is going, we know that order.

We know the order. We know it. Everybody turned around and we’re screaming at this guy who was a dirt bag. This guy was a real dirt asleep, whatever. I’m not going to,

[00:20:15] Dwight: Yeah. And

[00:20:16] Mark: everybody knew what he’s trying to do is steal the order, put it in his pocket. They said, you’re hung now. He wants it.

Well, here’s what happened. Remember the runner that was 98 years old, 90 years old, working really slow, was someone in a mask. It was a 26-year-old. He had a scam and he got too greedy. He was doing it for a hundred lots and things like that, right? They ended up catching this guy. But what he would do if the order went his way, the old lady would come take it, and then he would write his number on it.

Oh, I just made a hundred thousand, 200,003. That’s just one thing that I’ve seen down there that would blow your mind. So are there cheaters in this industry that I’m in? They’re cheaters, liars, users, they’re all over the place. And this isn’t that. The public couldn’t see this stuff. I’m, there. I was standing in the market.

I saw, you know, so anyway, the point is, it’s heavily regulated for a reason. You only need one bad apple out of a thousand, right? And people get hurt. So bad advisors, bad brokers, bad desk people, bad. I’ve seen stuff I could, I get several movies we could make outta what I saw down there in 10 years.

So the point is, I’ve seen what can happen. I’ve seen the devastation, I’ve seen the manipulation, I’ve seen the deceit. And people don’t know, and they assume everything’s okay. It’s not, it doesn’t matter how successful you are. There are listeners to your podcast that are probably incredibly wealthy, and they think they got a handle on it, and they don’t.

And they think they do, but they don’t. I deal with some really bullheaded people. I’ve had, the radio show people would call in and I did a lot of seminars, right? This one guy comes in, um, after a seminar and he looked, have you ever seen a, I mean a truly a billionaire that back in the eighties, and I bitched, actually this was in the nineties, or I’m sorry, he was in 2009 when I saw him, this guy looked like he owned the universe, but he was scared.

You could see he looked like a deer in the headlights. He was standing in my doorway. He went to a seminar. He’s asking for help because what do I do? He lost about 80% of his net worth. He was worth 62 million. He sold a container business. I can’t tell you who he was. He’s probably dead now. He created it from nothing.

A simple, simple, simple guy who Crunch, crunch, gave up probably 80 hours a week. This guy was working, he figured it out. He mastered it and sold it for 25 million. He grew it from 25 million to 62. He was, gave me loans to people. He was, oh, you want to buy some real estate, condos, buildings, whatever.

He was getting into ETFs back then. He was getting into all sorts of stuff, leverage stuff, right? So this is, imagine between 2001 and 2008. What happened if you go check out in the back of what happened in the market, he was riding that up, right? I’m a genius. I’m a genius. I can do anything. I sold my business.

It’s, I’m a genius. Well, he wasn’t a genius. He was well over leveraged. And when margin calls happen, like when you’re a trader in trading places, it’s the next day your house is gone. It’s not a, it, you make a mistake. It’s not like, well, I’ll do better next time. No, it’s gone. The broker house, they’ll come, they don’t care what, what?

You’ve made a boo boo. It doesn’t matter. So anyway, I don’t know what ended up happening to him. Um, it’s really sad. He’s probably died penniless, I couldn’t tell you. But an ego, an ego will kill you so fast. Matter of fact, I just saw a, uh, person from the radio show, actually, he didn’t come to the office.

He called in and he’s in a panic. He seemed like a nice guy. He goes, well, and I’m talking to him and he said he had lost 800 grand in one day. Imagine that he’s 62, he wants to retire in a year. Unfortunately, he lost his job, unfortunately. So he decided, oh, I can do this E-Trade, or I’m not, I didn’t say E-Trade.

I’m saying, I’m just gonna buy and sell. I’m gonna become my own advisor. I know what I do, and I can do it just like everyone else. I can do this, I can do this. So anyway, he grew a modest amount. It wasn’t modest, it was about 220,000. He grew that to 800 or that was $800,000. Okay. Well, he lost it in one day.

He said, well, I’m gonna retire. I’m gonna have one big day. I’m gonna make a quick 5%. Well, some stock jockey got ahold of him. Now this guy thinks he knows everything again. Here’s ego we’re talking about right. And it was some kind of probably penny stock or something. He didn’t gimme the, the, uh, details on it.

The point is, he was supposed to get all his money back the next day. What’s 5% of 800,000? Quick 40,000. Guess what? He lost all of it. It’s gone. So what do you think he’s gonna do? He was worth 1,000,002 total, including his house. He probably leveraged the rest of what he had, compressing it and leveraging it, trying to make it all back.

I’m sure it’s probably all gone, So ego, ego is a massive problem. And I see it all the time. especially now because the internet makes it so easy. You know, wall street’s, oh, it’s so easy to do this. Just the, the red sell on red and buy on green, and everything’s fine until one bad day.

One bad day comes. I was a, a broker’s assistant down on the bond pit, and I would come in, I also collected cards, trading cards. I went to this man is, I can’t tell you what his name was, but he was in the centre of the bond pit. I was the last human being to talk to this guy. He had one bad day, one bad day, went home and blew his head off.

So, and this is a professional in the market, not a theory. He’d been there for years, had a great living. He had one bad day. So, as far as the listeners go, you want to get a buffer. You wanna listen to someone, get multiple advisors, get mul. You can always fire an advisor. hire an advisor, fire faster, right?

So they’re all, they’re all out there. Check their background. It’s not, nowadays, it’s so easy to check somebody’s background. The problem is, when I’m running into, is that we’ll have people come in from the radio show or whatever, and they got advice from their, best friend told them to buy this or sell this or, and they’ll come in having lost a whole bunch of money.

Well, I, you know, they’ll say, oh, gee, I thought I, I, because I knew Sandra, or I knew Bill, or I knew Bob, or whatever. And the problem is, you don’t hear the, the, the horror stories of investing at a cocktail party. You don’t hear the bad stuff ever. No one goes, Hey, Bob, did you know I lost 200 grand last week?

No one’s telling you that all they’re doing is telling you their success story. Ooh, I made 50% on Nvidia. Well, how much did he have in it? I don’t know, $2,000. Maybe it became 4,000. I don’t know. So the point is, PE and I, and I don’t really blame people. They’re overwhelmed, they’re scared, they’re full of fear.

Fear makes you do bad things, right? I. So let’s talk about emotion for a little bit if we could. Okay. Emotion. we’re, yeah, go ahead.

[00:28:04] Dwight: We’re gonna, I’m sorry. We’re gonna break this conversation up a little bit because this is, yeah, this is great information. I love the stories, but we’re gonna run out of time, so, you can share that in a moment.

I just wanna touch a little bit more on you, your creation of Kollar financials. Right? What did you know going in, what, made you want to do it for one thing, and did you have a complete idea at that point when you started, what you were getting into? Or has it been an evolution throughout the last 35 years?

[00:28:37] Mark: That’s a great question. Okay. So I started, I originally started Kollar Wealth Advisors under a different name. That was way back in like 1995, way back there. It was a totally different environment back then. I just wanted to have it, it was a licencing. There’s many series exams that you need to take, but I was in the industry, right?

So I knew what I was doing. The one, one exam I took, oh my gosh, this was such a mind bender. I thought I knew everything and oh my, I couldn’t bel It’s the hardest test of my life. So I had it, and I didn’t really use it as a registered investment advisor. I didn’t use it. Okay. It was called, uh, Kollar Financial Strategies back in the Stone Age.

So then I, went into the brokerage community, okay. Where you’re work become basically an employee. So I was really good at seminars, very good at it. Back then, you’d pack a house and have 200 people in a room with without any problems. This is before the internet, you know? So, anyway, the point is you want to help people.

You need to find them. Well, I don’t wanna do all the back office work and all that stuff. So you go to a broker dealer, you sign on with them, and they have standards and, and, uh, due diligence and things like that, which is really, really healthy. I knew about a lot of this stuff. There were a lot of people.

I’m telling you right now, there are people that in this business, should not be in this business. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re in it for money. It would blow your mind. Not everybody, but I’d say a good 10, 12% of ’em are just not, and ’cause I’ve seen it. So anyway, I leverage my time by hooking up to a broker.

Let’s say, you know, whatever, you can pick a name. they kind of handle that all, A lot of paperwork transfers, things like that for you. I got burned by broker dealers, okay? I am not gonna go into names. I got, I can tell you stories of back office things and what they did to their own people and what they did to clients that I saw.

And so I would leave and I’d go to another one, right? I kept seeing this. I only had a good experience with one little small broker dealer, and they were as ethical as the new driven snow, and I loved those guys. But I moved on to get out their opportunity in seminars. I actually became a manager for that.

Broker dealer was the fastest growing BD in the country for what it was for its size at the time. But anyway, the point is we had, I can’t get into detail on that, but I had to do some massive legal moves from what I saw, what they were doing to their, not only to their clients, but their employees. So after that happened, I went to one other broker dealer and they ended up messing with my website.

I’ll never forget it. One day I came into work, the website, I paid a fortune back in the stone age. This was a lot of work. It was beautiful. 80% of it was changed. They said, well, we’re gonna do this for compliance. I said, no, you’re not. I said, what are you doing? This is my, it’s my property. Well, we want to change.

If you think I, I said, that was it. I said, I’m not gonna be part of a BD for the rest of my life. All you guys are, you’re just manipulating, uh, you’re making my life a lot harder than it needs to be. And also taking, a percentage of my income when they didn’t do anything. Most of the time they didn’t.

If I paid ’em 5% of my income, that’s fine. But they started manipulating those numbers too, at least down here in the States. So I, started my own BD or my own registered investment advisory. Okay. Again, but I own it. I have no outside influence. I am free to do what’s right for the client. And it’s un it’s not manipulated.

So that’s why Kollar Wealth Advisors exists because I’m in control, I’m in control of my compliance. No one’s shutting down my website. No one’s manipulating my clients, no one’s, So I love that. It’s a lot more work. Well, I mean, it’s a lot of work, but

[00:32:55] Dwight: Oh, it is, it is a lot of work. I’m

just

[00:32:57] Mark: gonna answer, like, can sleep at night though.

[00:32:58] Dwight: Well, and that’s good. I’m gonna interject a little bit. There is a lot of commonalities, what you’re talking about. We have broker dealers up here too. our compliance is a lot different than yours down there. And I talk from experience. I was a, a branch manager and a compliance officer for probably 18 years.

So, whoa. A long, a long time. You could tell

[00:33:19] Mark: some stories.

[00:33:21] Dwight: Oh, please. Yeah. I, me and another guy along with me having my own brokerage with nine agents at the time, we branched 243 agents on top of running our own separate people. Right. Wow. So I was a, I was quite the workaholic. But that’s for another day.

We can share stories, have a coffee, get on a call, and we’ll probably, I can already tell we’re gonna get along. Great. I just don’t wanna miss anything. But yes, I understand that broker dealer thing and being able to, control and how they manipulate and et cetera, et cetera. I finally found a good one.

I’ve been with them now since, uh, 2007. They’ve gone through some evolutions. You go through some staff changes because even though you can be a great company, you can still have bad apples, like you said, within any structure. And I ended up stopping being a compliance officer and, and give up my certification.

’cause it’s a specific different certification you have to get on a federal level across Canada. I gave it up ’cause I got tired of babysitting the stupid because they, that’s what you’re doing. they knew better,

[00:34:28] Mark: glorified babysitter.

That’s

[00:34:30] Dwight: what, that’s what I found.

[00:34:31] Mark: They, they,

[00:34:31] Dwight: they knew better. So they weren’t ignorant.

People listening and watching ignorance and stupidity are two different things. Ignorance is not knowing, stupidity is knowing and still doing the wrong thing. Right? Yeah. So anyway, that, I just thought I interject that a little bit and we’re gonna move on though. Thank you so much. We could have probably four or five episodes, just you and I and your storytelling’s amazing, by the way.

Thank you so much. Um Oh, you’re welcome. So, yes, I just don’t wanna miss, ’cause we only got about 30 minutes left here. So I have a few other things I’d like to, ’cause I still wanna talk about your book too, so. Right. But thank you so much for what you’ve shared is so impactful. I totally get everything you’re saying because you’re talking to a guy that’s been through it, right.

Dealt with it, walked and appreciate that. Walked away, walked away from broker. You’re still standing. Yeah. Oh, I’m tenacious brother. I’m a, I believe tenacity’s a superpower. My dad taught me that because he was a very successful entrepreneur, dealt with, had many advisors. I’m one of his advisors. He still has a lot.

He’s 85 years old, still ticking and sharp as attack. Right.

[00:35:43] Mark: Good for him.

[00:35:44] Dwight: Oh yeah.

[00:35:45] Mark: Good for him.

[00:35:45] Dwight: And very much so. Thank you. So let’s get into the gap nobody talks about, right? You talk about, you know, reading and researching here. You talk about the difference between accumulation and distribution and why it matters so much.

Right? Can you break down in plain language for someone who’s never heard about that and share stories?

[00:36:08] Mark: Okay, so here’s, like I said before, it’s so easy to, I mean, you can, you spend money is easy in this country. Saving. It’s really hard. So where’s all the money in the country? Real estate. 4 0 1 Ks, that’s where it is.

It doesn’t matter. Now, why is that though? Automatic withdrawal for the mortgage, automatic deduction from the paycheck. That’s the only, otherwise people would be spending it left and right because money. Did you know that 40% of people, I think it’s 5 million plus in net worth, are afraid of running outta money?

Did you know that? Now, this sounds crazy. The listeners are probably thinking, you and I are both crazy, but imagine having $5 million and worried you’re gonna run out of it. Well, that’s a, what’s the emotion there? Keep up with the Joneses and I call it, not look syndrome. Don’t look at my situation.

They’re so busy living day to day, week to week. They’re not paying attention. They know they’re spending too much. It’s so easy to spend, it’s hard to save. Where, whereas the emotion budget, you can have to budget. Okay? I mean, if you look at, at Warren Buffet, that guy’s a tight watt. The only thing he’s got is a, is a private plane.

He’s a tight watt. I’m not saying everybody needs to be a tight wad, but you need to plan for the future. You need to know, you see what your trajectory is. It going like this? Is it going sideways, is going down? And God forbid in someone like that, they’re worried. 40%. 40% of ’em are worried. What if you get a health episode, someone has a stroke, heart attack.

Guess what? And you’re burning fuel. You don’t have, your aeroplane isn’t gonna make it very far. So unfortunately we see that there’s a what about a divorce? Look at AI coming in out of nowhere, people haven’t planned for the, even planners haven’t planned for it. Hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their job due to ai.

Just this year alone. Watch what’s gonna happen with the extension of this year. That’s a black swan event out of nowhere, right? So we’re talking about emotions. What if there’s a, give you an example about a lawsuit award. Someone is, why do they, what’s the emotion tied with that? I see quite a few people, they’ll have a lawsuit award.

What are they seeking? Stability. Right? They can be overly cautious instead of overly um, aggressive. Someone experiencing market loss. What’s the, what’s the emotion with that Anger? Well, you can make some serious bad decisions when you’re angry. Right? I’ve seen that. Uh, we talked about inheritance issues.

What happens with inheritance? What’s the emotion? They don’t wanna screw it up. There’s emotion of happy, scared, thankful, emotion, Long-term care event. What happened to my dad? Health issue comes outta nowhere. Sadness and worries involved. Every time I see someone in my office, there’s some kind of emotion involved.

There’s some kind of emotion somewhere. And if it’s not impacting your listeners now, it will shortly, just like we’re saying about ai. So anyway, and I get, I think I’m getting off on a tangent here. So go ahead and fire away your next

[00:39:34] Dwight: question. I’m sorry, ab absolutely. Oh, that’s okay. That’s okay. You’re passionate and there’s nothing wrong with that, right?

It really isn’t. So your storytelling’s great. Just for the people that are listening in Canada, A 401k is, is, uh, RSP in Canada. Right? Just to give you that connection, to what he, uh, mark is saying. So real estate, RSP, uh, same sort of sim sim, pardon me. Same, similar situation. we have the same problems.

You’re just, we’re just 10 times smaller than you, but we have the same circumstances of people living in fear. Right. And it’s because nobody’s ever told them or sat them down, they don’t understand the rules of the money game. They’ve been good at making money so they can have five, 10, $15 million. I look at some of my high net worth clients and they still are worried, and it’s improper planning because they’ve stuck with one person, or they listen to all their wealthy so-called buddies, which a lot of ’em probably are broke as sin.

And I’ve seen it time and time again. And you know, those listening are watching. If you don’t have money or if you have money, it doesn’t change the fact that you need to understand what’s going on behind the scenes. You have to have some form of knowledge. You don’t have to be an expert. I don’t want you to think you should go and do, you know, as Mark had mentioned, people are going out and running a, running online now with robo-advisors or doing all this different thing things.

They’re listening to their friends instead of actually sitting down and putting the effort, and they put more effort. Stats show in North America, it’s not just Canada put, people put more effort into their two week vacation that they have yearly That’s true than they do in their financial plannings.

That’s a fact. And it’s, it’s, it’s unfortunate because it starts right at the root level of learned behaviour from our families to the schooling system, not just in North America and a lot of countries around the world. They’re starting to, but it’s a little too late when you look at. The baby boomers to the X Generation, to the millennials, the, you know, you can still teach people, but their mindset is so locked in, right?

There’s six inches between their ears. They don’t want to admit they made mistakes. They don’t want to admit that they’re ignorant. It’s okay to admit you’re ignorant. Those watching or listening, it’s okay to say, Hey, you know what? I don’t know. Here’s a book. I’ll say to them, here’s a podcast. Right? In the older days, it wasn’t older days.

I shouldn’t say olden, older days, I’d give them books or I’d say, you know what? Whether you ever utilised me or not, let’s get together. Let’s have a coffee, and I’d do last minute meetings like that, wouldn’t it? You know, I might be, uh, it might not been prepared for it. I’ve done so many napkin presentations at a coffee shop to somebody just to teach ’em.

I’ve done that too. Just, just to get through the six inches between their ears. Yes,

[00:42:26] Mark: yes.

[00:42:26] Dwight: Just to give them a little bit of self doubt about what they’re currently doing. That little spark and then saying, Hey, if you want, I’ll help water it for you. I’ll help decide against it. And if you’re unsure, go talk to a few other people.

I have no problems. I’m going to earn not just your business, I’m gonna earn your trust and we’re, I’m here to create a long-term relationship. And Mark, that is one thing that people have lost in this industry. And I’ve spoken down in the us I’ve got lots of friends down there in finance, and at the end of the day, I keep on sounding like a broken record, stuck in that track.

Right. You need to build relationships.

[00:43:12] Mark: Yeah.

[00:43:12] Dwight: If you do not become a good relationship builder, anybody that does business around you or does business with you. Is one moment away from leaving you because you didn’t give them the trust and the, ability for them to deflect what they’re hearing from the outside world, their associations and the news.

And now we have social media. I have my clients call up, call me up or text me, Hey, we need to have a chat. What’s up? Well, such and such, blah, blah, blah. I told them what I do, what I have or what I’ve been doing, you know, and I was excited and they, basically deflated my balloon. But I’m calling you up because, I trust you.

And they give the opportunity. Well, your family,

[00:43:56] Mark: that’s what you

[00:43:57] Dwight: want. You want ’em this far.

[00:43:58] Mark: Right,

[00:43:58] Dwight: exactly. You want them to, and they gimme the opportunity to treat them like

[00:44:01] Mark: family. Right,

[00:44:02] Dwight: right. Yeah. I’ve been to their weddings, I’ve been to birthday parties, I’ve been to funerals. Why? Because they are, they’re extended family.

I treat them the way that I wished I would’ve been treated before I got into this industry, mark.

[00:44:15] Mark: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:44:17] Dwight: The, the lack of information and my ignorance. Right. But I had a kind person that said, Hey, you need to get into this industry.

[00:44:26] Mark: Well, you wanna sleep at night. That’s what’s what you’re doing because you have a conscience, you know?

[00:44:31] Dwight: Yeah,

[00:44:31] Mark: absolutely. There are bad lawyers, bad accountants, bad doctors, bad

[00:44:35] Dwight: everything.

[00:44:35] Mark: Whatever.

[00:44:36] Dwight: Everything. Yeah. I think it, we’re gonna get into the next segment. I wanna talk about, the retirement navigator. But one thing I will mention though, people in general want to succeed. They don’t know where to go.

They’ve got a compass that never, they points true north. It’s constantly spinning. They’re just feeling helpless. And thank goodness there’s people like you with a book, like we’re gonna get into right away, that are willing to sit down and create that relationship. Is it easy? No, it can be really hard, but is it hard?

No, it can be really easy. It all depends. Are you the willing, what glasses are you looking through at your financial picture? Whoever’s listening to this, there is so much information that can help you. I know it’s overwhelming. Find a good advisor. Find somebody that wants to build that relationship. I have clients, honestly, you talk about having multiple advisors.

I’m their only advisor. They have left because they’ve been with me 18, 20 years. I’ve earned that trust to where they would ask questions to somebody else they were utilising, and it was always very, press hard, keep coffee. Transactional. Transactional, very transactional. And I found my business and my life and my stress because I had health events because of this industry when I first started, because I’d take things personal.

At the end of the day, I’m where I want to be and I want the same clientele to come to me that are wanting to be educated, get past ignorance. They don’t need to be me. But then they feel comfortable enough to call me up and say, Hey, my friend says I’m stupid for doing this. My, my brother says, oh, I shouldn’t, you should take all your money and put it in this penny stock.

Or for those that are listening, look it up if you don’t know what a penny stock is. but at the end of the day. There’s so much we can do to change people, and that’s why I have this

[00:46:31] Mark: show. You’re bringing them peace. Dwight Twight. Let’s, let’s, I mean peace in a chaotic world. I was just with a client 21 years yesterday.

I love this guy. He was the head janitor at a large corporation. He retired with 1,000,005. Can you believe that? He wasn’t, he, he had that 401k, but he knew what he didn’t know. This is way back in 2005.

[00:46:55] Dwight: Yeah,

[00:46:56] Mark: I just saw him and he, he, actually works for the Cubs. The Cubs, baseball team here, red over at Wrigley.

He came. One of of my favourite

[00:47:06] Dwight: teams.

[00:47:06] Mark: This guy, you would’ve loved this. His wife’s got little, these little tennis shoes with the C for Cub. Okay?

[00:47:14] Dwight: Yeah,

[00:47:14] Mark: This is back in 2005. He comes in with one of those, satin cubs jackets, like the players wear. And his phone went off, it’s, take me out to the ball game was his ring.

I said, whoa, whoa, I said, what is going on with this guy? So we sat down for a while and I said, listen, for men, when you retire, you’ve got to have a purpose. Women retire, kind of go, just sideways. A guy goes like this up and down and up and down until they redefine their purpose. Lack of

[00:47:42] Dwight: gold setting.

[00:47:43] Mark: Yeah. If for a guy, it’s different. Women don’t understand this, but a chemical change of some kind happens. And I knew it for this little guy who was the head janitor. Imagine that million five. He worked at the right place at the right time, and God bless him for being there. Okay? But I said, you gotta go work for the Cubs.

He goes, no, I could. I said, yeah, you’re gonna go. You need to go do this. You’ll have a great, you’ll just be a ticket taker. Go for it. He goes, no, I don’t know. I, I said, what do you have to lose? I said, you retire. Guess what? The guy’s been there ever since. I just now took a photo of his ring, the championship ring from 2016.

They gave every single worker there, the janitors to the ticket takers. Wow, I didn’t know that. Everybody got a ring. Listen to this. This will blow your mind. This is fascinating. I just learned this yesterday. So I put it on my finger, right? And I’m taking a picture of it. You don’t, how often do you get to do that?

So he brought it yesterday. So anyway, some, someone else that works there, one of his buddies went to go sell the ring. The his ring. ’cause he needed money. Okay. The family that runs the Cubs found out about it, fired him immediately and said, you signed a document that you would never sell this ring.

So now you gotta give it back to us and we’ll pay you a dollar. Anyone who tries to sell it, they get a dollar for it from the family. It sounds crazy. They wanna keep all of them and they’re gonna probably put ’em in a glass, thing eventually. But what a, what a cool story. Absolutely. From a normal Joe who took a risk, a good risk, right?

Where he’s passionate and he’s had a blade. The guy’s getting paid to be a ticket taker. He’s living in heaven. He knows all the players. What a simple thing for a guy to, he has a

[00:49:30] Dwight: passion and he gets to feed it. That’s perfect.

[00:49:33] Mark: Isn’t that beautiful? Now we’ve got, yeah, it’s, we’ve made a fortune for this little guy and he’s having a great life.

He’s going on a cruise to Alaska and he’s going to Paris and he’s going to see Normandy. He was in, you know, the veterans here, Vietnam veterans. So he was all excited and the guy has no worries. What did we do? We leveraged his life. We just took care of his estate planning again yesterday. And you

[00:49:56] Dwight: build a relationship though.

[00:49:58] Mark: Oh my gosh. I

love,

[00:49:59] Dwight: this is all about, I want people to hear this. This is all about building that relationship.

[00:50:05] Mark: I’m given a type A hug. Oh yeah. The, this is like family. These people having clients like that, that bake you muffins. I mean, come on. That’s as good as

[00:50:15] Dwight: it gets. I’ve had art, I’ve had artwork made for me.

I’ve had eggs sent home with me of clients that live out on a farm. And they send me home when I see them. When you do reviews, how many dozen eggs do you want today Dwight, to take home? I’ll take that. There’s

[00:50:31] Mark: nothing better if you get

[00:50:32] Dwight: me, if you know

[00:50:33] Mark: someone like that, you got it made.

[00:50:34] Dwight: I’ve had are ve had, I’ve had food given to me, from some of my Filipino clients. Here, take this home, do this, do that. People listening or watch, you may not be able to wrap your mind around what Mark and I are talking about, but I’ll tell you right now, it is one of the most fulfilling things.

And money is great. You need it to survive. You need it to prosper in a lot of ways. But relationships are a financial bank that I thrive on. Right. that is just, it’ll never change. I have the warm and fuzzies. I love the HI walk into a house like you were saying, getting a hug from a client or, you know what I mean?

It’s just, it’s great. It’s a

[00:51:16] Mark: privilege.

[00:51:17] Dwight: Yeah.

[00:51:17] Mark: It’s a privilege. So

[00:51:19] Dwight: let’s

[00:51:19] Mark: get outta your book. Book The Retirement Navigator.

[00:51:22] Dwight: Yeah.

[00:51:22] Mark: Right. I designed and put together this book so the simple person can grab it. And handle a lot of these, not all the problems. There’s no, how are you gonna put that in a book?

not everything, but actionable things that the average person, first of all, they’re not aware of things, right? But for them to go and it’s a story. It takes some simple through it and they can go, wow, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.

[00:51:47] Dwight: And I got two questions before you share too much about the book too.

[00:51:51] Mark: Yeah.

[00:51:53] Dwight: One of ’em would be. And the reason I do this is again, I’m not novice at this. I’ve been doing this here, like I told you earlier, coming up on 300 episodes when I wrote my book, I found it to be very cathartic and people kind of chuckle. There was things that discovered about myself that I never give myself acknowledgement for in the past.

But once I start writing it and I’m reading it, there were, the pat myself in the back moments. ’cause I forgot to celebrate, which is bad when you’re, driven, you need to celebrate, take some, not too much time, but enough time to give yourself the acknowledgement. Right. And then I literally had times where I was reading the book as a, coming back and forth from the editors.

I was kicking myself in the pants going, you know what? I really didn’t deal with that the best. I could have dealt with that better. Or you kind of half dealt with that, Dwight, but you didn’t deal with it good enough. So what was, what was it like, before we get into the stories of the book, what was it like writing your book?

How did, it affect you?

[00:52:52] Mark: first of all, it was way harder than I thought it would be. Okay. Because I know so many technical things. I gotta break ’em down into simple. That was a huge problem. And what are the big ideas that I need to make sure they get a grasp on. So what you just said, and it was very interesting ’cause I know so much, but to have that journey of breaking things down, that was amazing to me.

’cause I’m like, wait a minute, because I know so much stuff, but this is really cool and this is really cool. And they know to know that. And kind of, I was like, but I had to still, I had to condense, this down to this. so would I do another one? It took a lot of time. I probably do one or two more.

But that, that’s, I don’t know. I don’t know if that Oh, it’s an awakening.

[00:53:41] Dwight: It’s an awakening brother. But,

[00:53:42] Mark: but it’s a treasure tool. It’s a tool now. Oh

[00:53:46] Dwight: yeah.

[00:53:46] Mark: Because instead of them asking me questions or not asking me questions ’cause they don’t know enough to ask questions. Right. That’s part of the problem.

They need to ask questions on things that are new to them or things that are historically important to them. Whatever this book will wake them up to wear the big potholes. I call them torpedoes. Okay. Financial torpedoes. Yes, please

[00:54:10] Dwight: talk about that. I was just about to ask the financial leaks that happen.

[00:54:15] Mark: Well, financial leaks. I’m gonna talk about a couple things here, but I started off, we’re talking about egos again. Right. And it’s so easy to be distracted. It is so easy to get blindsided. It is so easy to think. You, you’ve got it all figured out. You’ve got to leverage the expertise, tools and people around you if you’re gonna win the game.

You cannot do this by yourself, oh, everybody says online, boy, I’m gonna, I’m, it’s a casino. Please don’t think I’ve got other stories. I can tell you of people that have butchered their entire futures and lost everything. ’cause they thought it was easy. It’s not easy when you go to a casino, you’re in a billion dollar institution and you’re coming thinking you’re actually gonna make money walking out of there.

Guess who’s making 2% on every dollar that you put? Well, what’s gonna happen over time? They want to keep you there with the drinks and whatever. It’s a lot of flash, a lot of pomp and circumstance. This is not that easy. This business, I’m telling you right now, folks, and you got AI coming online, it’s gonna look like, oh, I’ve got my electronic advisor helping you.

Really? Do you want, a robot drill in your teeth or fly in your plane? So do you want a trusted pilot? Do you want a trusted dentist or do you wanna wing it? So that’s coming up. But anyway, black swan events explaining what they are. I spent a lot of time, we talk about torpedoes. So 2008 I told you about the man, 62 million.

Look what happened to him in a year and a half, he lost, he probably lost end up losing everything. He thought he was the king of the universe, right? So black swan events can be health related. You can get sued, get divorced, right? There’s all sorts of things and nobody’s paying attention. They got their blind side, everything’s fine.

You better have an income stream somewhere that you can count on. I call it red money and green money. I talk about that a little bit in the book. Green money’s better be there no matter what happens. Red money’s there for, a you wanna beat inflation, you have to take some risk. So what is it?

Take the a, you know, take a hundred minus your age. That’s how much red money that I tell people to keep it simple so they understand. I get people in my office all the time. They’re all in, in red money. When you’re talking 60 years old, you can get your face ripped off in a matter of weeks and lose pretty much what you’ve, you, you know, you’ve got black swan events happen.

If you look, uh, let, let me back up for a second. If you were in the depression, okay, in 1928, you invested a hundred thousand in the s and p 500, which is the most dynamic, largest companies we’ve got. And it was in existence back in 1928. It took, if you had a hundred thousand invested in the s and p, didn’t touch it, no fees, no transactions.

You just bought it. You held it. The 500 best companies we had at the time, it took 24 years to make your money back without touching it. That’s a Black Swan event, right? What happened in 2000 to 2008? We call it the Great Recession. Nine 11 happened. Then the banking crisis in 2008, if you invested right before 2011 happened, now what was happening?

the.com, everything took off like a rocket, right? Well, it retraced plus nine 11 happened. The market lost like 40%. Okay? It made most of it back. If you were in the s and p 500, you almost made your money back in 2008, almost, and then the banking crisis happened. So if you invested a hundred grand right before nine 11, it took 14 years to make your money back without touching it.

You didn’t touch it. No fees, no nothing. If you just bought that index, how are you gonna retire? How is how? You have to have outflow. Where’s it gonna come from? If you’re selling your positions to spend money to live in a down market that’s financial suicide. We call it a death spiral. Then we’re talking about fees, torpedoes leaks, fee.

Excess fees are like a cancer. They eat away slowly. You don’t see it. You just don’t feel it. I had a lady at, we have her statement. In one year, she retired her, her and her husband retired at the same age. She paid 45,000 bucks in fees and she had no idea. And this is from a big name company. You know it, every one of your listeners have heard of it.

They put them in all these mutual funds and, insurance stuff and all the, she had no idea she was paying that kinda money. She had ended up making money, right? A little bit. And she goes, oh, I made some money. You don’t understand. You’re bleeding. They’re bleeding or dry. Well, that’s an extenuating circumstance.

That’s not normal. That was the worst case I’ve ever seen. But the point is, what are you getting for what you’re paying for? You have to pay, you know, I was laughing, I was just laughing the other day. I was talking to this man and he didn’t wanna, you know, pay us a 1% fee for us to manage. You know, he’s like, well, I can do it better online.

I said, sir, when’s the last time you had one plate of dinner from one waitress that you’ll never see again and you paid her 20%? He said, this isn’t your food. This is gonna keep you eating for the rest of your life. And he looked at me funny. I’m like, well, wait a minute. I have to get paid. If you want to do better than the market, you have to pay somebody.

If you want to get from New York to LA faster than a normal airline, you’re gonna have to pay for the, so there are people that are too tight and don’t wanna pay fees, right? There are people that are paying fees they’re not aware of, right? So either way, you have to get a handle on it and you’re gonna have to, it’s knowledge.

[01:00:17] Dwight: It’s knowledge. Knowledge

[01:00:18] Mark: is powerful. Yeah. They just have to, yeah. Well thank good for the, in the Internet’s a blessing if they would use it and do their research more than

[01:00:26] Dwight: one source. So

[01:00:28] Mark: Right. Internet can be a blessing

[01:00:30] Dwight: and the internet can be a curse. Right?

[01:00:32] Mark: So what’s the next, yeah, the next issue, the taxes.

Hold on a second. There are four tax baskets in the United States. There aren’t 20, not 12, not two. There are four. So we call the red basket, the after tax money growing taxable, right? That’s the American default strategy. They make any money, they throw it in a CD, or they’ll throw it in a savings account or checking or whatever.

[01:00:58] Dwight: Never

[01:00:59] Mark: keeps up with

[01:00:59] Dwight: inflation,

[01:01:01] Mark: right? Imagine if you could make four, let’s just say in a CD in the United States, let’s say you’re making 4%. Okay? Just whatever. Let’s say it’s four. Would you rather make four and pay no tax, or would you like to make four? It’s a real simple. That’s the second bucket. That’s the yellow bucket.

It’s after tax money growing, tax deferred comes out taxable. But it’s a free simple thing to do that. the blue basket? That’s 4 0 1 Ks. 4 0 3 BS 4 0 1. You know the, what’s that? Before tax money? Growing tax deferred coming out, taxable. The green basket, there’s only four. The last one is the green basket after tax money growing.

Tax deferred coming out. Tax free. What’s that? Like a Roth. Okay. Or income, you know, low income housing. We have, we have that

[01:01:54] Dwight: stuff too. We just have different names for

[01:01:57] Mark: quite a

[01:01:57] Dwight: bit of it. Right. So,

[01:01:58] Mark: but it’s so easy. You got to have money in each of those. And how do you attack those baskets when you’re retired?

You gotta hit them in order. A hundred percent randomly attack, So, the other thing is protecting principle. Can you do that? So in the book we talk about that people aren’t aware of it. They don’t think they wanna make as much money as the guy at the cocktail party that said, oh, I made 50% last week.

Like, well, you know what? You need an income stream. It is a fact that people that are on pensions are the happiest retirees. ’cause they know the money’s coming in no matter what. At least their basics, right? They have it coming in, they have a higher quality of life, they sleep better, they actually have better health.

This is a fact, you could read it. Oh, course. So all the, I’m talking to all the listeners. And next is market timing. I have people, intelligent engineer type brains coming in that think they know when the bottom of the market is and they know when the top is. And that’s not the case. I haven’t seen anybody.

When I was a trader at the board of trade, there were two days I actually bought the low of the market. I was the one human being on the planet, on the entire planet on that day. I happened to buy the it you and I was standing in the market. You don’t know where the top and the bottom is. And actually nobody is.

So you gotta remove market timing. And number seven is probate. So probate means prove the will here in the states.

[01:03:28] Dwight: Same with

[01:03:29] Mark: us. You gotta put your, yeah, I was talking to this, lady the other day. The, it’s, it, everybody’s thinking estate planning is, oh, when I’m gonna die? I said, no. If you, if you blow a gasket, you can no longer take care of your affairs.

You better have it in writing or the state. The state will come in and take care of it for you. And I will tell you, I have seen so many people when it comes to money, do bad things. And when you can’t, you’re incapacitated. I’ve seen people butchered by people they thought that loved them,

[01:04:05] Dwight: Oh,

[01:04:05] Mark: of course. So estate planning is more important and it’s so neglected. Remember I told you that the Cubs guy with the Cubs was just, we were redoing his estate plan. Because he had grandchildren and things like that. So he’s managing it every five to seven years. So anyway, those are simple things that can make a huge impact.

And the last part of my book, I actually have a questionnaire for your listeners to go, Hey, how do I buy, how do I hire an advisor? What questions do I ask? ’cause they don’t even know. Now these are some of them really, really tough questions, but you have to ask them,

[01:04:42] Dwight: I’ve had one client in 25 years do a questionnaire to me.

One only.

[01:04:49] Mark: Okay. I mean, that’s, that’s kind of sad actually, if you about it, it’s,

[01:04:53] Dwight: it, well, it is sad, right?

[01:04:55] Mark: Yep. The book is designed for the average Joe to get a leg up on the system and protect themselves from themselves, unscrupulous people, black swan events, too many fees, too much tax. It’s very, very simple.

Once you understand the power around you, that can wipe you out. So

[01:05:18] Dwight: yeah, we’re gonna, we’re coming up on ending the show, unfortunately. I’d love to keep on talking with you, but I wanna respect your time. I know you have other things coming up. Um, thank you Tony. So, so we’ll skip over some of the questions.

I am going to ask one last question. We’ll keep it brief as possible. Then I have a closing segment. Have you ever had that opportunity or, or position in your life where you’ve had to tell people why you give a heck? Like, what would you tell people that they need to do to give a heck about their life?

the most basic thing that you could think of? Would you tell, what could you tell somebody so that they would literally have that light bulb moment? Maybe not right then, but maybe later on in the day after you said something to them. What would be your, give a heck comment.

[01:06:05] Mark: Okay. Give a heck. Okay. I have a unique situation ’cause I saw a devastation all around me.

People don’t believe they’re gonna get t-boned. They don’t believe out of nowhere. Health lawsuit, partner market loss, bad estate planning, manipulators, thieves. They’re all, they don’t know it. They don’t wanna know it. They don’t think. And here’s the other thing I find out is people keep thinking, oh, it won’t happen to me.

I got files. I can sh I can show you stuff. There was a guy who retired. I love this guy. I love this guy. We did all sorts of planning. This was four years before he retired. I can’t tell you where it was, but it was a major corporation of moving food for grocery stores. This was the food broker of bro grocery stores.

Okay? You guys, fingers were like, like that. These guys was a, he was a tank. I mean, he was, you gave up a hug, it felt like you’re hugging a wall. Stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. The guy retired. He lived two days. Had a stroke. Now, who put that in their date book? That’s an example of what I mean, had he not been worried?

Maybe, it’s the worry, worry. Why did he have worry? Everything in everything was in line. Everything’s ready to go. He lost his purpose. He didn’t plan on that. Didn’t think about it. Just a simple thing like that. What am I gonna do with my life now? Boom. He had a stroke. Nobody ever thought that was gonna happen.

Happen. So many stories. So

[01:07:47] Dwight: many stories. Just like you brother.

[01:07:49] Mark: Yeah. It it so sad that that’s the trauma. The sad side of this story is we see people that don’t listen. They just, there’s nothing, like I said, way on the beginning of this conversation, you can’t drag anyone to heaven. You just can’t.

[01:08:03] Dwight: Yeah.

[01:08:04] Mark: Can’t. So you can’t. Hopefully they listen. Hopefully they learn, hopefully tonight, this, podcast is gonna help people wake up. You’re not alone. You’re not, they’re not alone. They’re, but they got to, they’ve got to start interviewing advisors. They have to do this. These are professionals that are legally liable for their advice.

A registered investment advisor is a fiduciary standard. It’s not a suitability standard. Suitability means you, you know this, but yeah, fill out a form. It says you’re a growth investor. A registered investment advisor must do what’s right for the client and they better have the facts to back it up and they get audited for it.

I mean, that’s the universe. That’s where I live. And I love that. What’s, what do I have to hide? There’s nothing to hide from. I love what I do. and it’s a lot of fun to do what I do. It’s a lot of work. But you, they’re out there. You gotta find people. You got, you can talk and it please, I know well-meaning neighbours, friends, family I get that.

Do your own research, do your interviews. This isn’t gonna take that long. It take it two weeks maybe. And then follow your gut. Everybody please follow your, God gave you a gut for a reason. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s not, but you don’t know what you don’t know right now. That’s the problem, right? And then you can always fire them.

You can always fire them. But like I said, the multiple, you know, the people, the wealthiest clients I’ve got have multiple advisors. And how brilliant is that? So let’s say you’ve got five. you fire one just like that, and then you replace ’em and then go play with your grandkids. Don’t worry, you know, worry will kill you.

Yeah, it’ll kill you with time.

[01:09:50] Dwight: Absolutely.

[01:09:50] Mark: Okay, so anyway,

[01:09:51] Dwight: thanks for having me out, so thank, thank you. No problem. I’m gonna close off the show now. Thanks again for all your great stories and advice. I wanna say, I genuinely want to you for your conversation. This has been amazing. You showed up today with 35 years of real experience, real stories, and real care for the people on the other side of the table that comes through.

It really does. What strikes me most about what you share today is the simplicity underneath it all. It is not about how much you have, it is about whether it lasts and whether you can depend on it. That is a message every person approaching retirement needs to hear. And the story of the janitor is perfect for that and I’m glad we were able to have this conversation today.

Mark, where’s the best place for listeners to reach you to find the Retirement Navigator, connect with your work and access your free resource? The Seven Retirements Mistakes Report.

[01:10:45] Mark: Oh yeah, that’s great. I really appreciate you asking that. Go to Retirement Income Strategies Pro, that’s the website can download the uh, seven mistakes report right there.

See a couple things on my book there. You’ll see that I’ve been on C-N-B-C-A-B-C, I’ve been on the Wall Street Journal, so on. You see a lot of that. You’ll see some interviews. Also my YouTube channel, retirement Income Strategies Pro. You can look that up and uh, you can actually go the at sign mark Kollar, K-O-L-L-A-R, retirement expert.

If you just put that in a search line, that’ll pop a bunch of my videos up there. My book is on Amazon, but go get the free report. It’s out there for a reason.

[01:11:32] Dwight: Right on. Thank you so much for those new to the Give a Heck podcast. You can go to give a heck.com at the top, hit the podcast tab and that will literally show you.

Um, you’ll see Mark’s show notes, which are very detailed and very detailed. There’s chapter summaries. There’s a full transcript. You’ll be able to see all his social media links. You’ll be able to see the website he mentioned, and it’s a one stop shop, so you don’t have to necessarily rewind and listen to what he just said.

And listen to the whole episode again, would even be better. Give yourself a little bit more. ’cause we miss things. We’re human beings, right? So, thanks Mark. I appreciate you coming on, to everyone listening and watching today, you’re welcome. Thank you for giving your time to this show that matters more than you know, if this conversation added something to your day, please share it.

Every time you share an episode, you put this message in front of someone who may need it, and that is exactly what we are here for. Make sure you subscribe on your favourite platform, and if you have a minute, leave a review. It generally helps to show reach more people. You can also watch the show on, on my Give Aack YouTube channel.

If you’re watching there right now, please subscribe. It helps get the message out to more people. Again, what’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Mark and I, until next time, live life on purpose and not by accident. And remember, it’s never too late to give a heck.

[01:12:56] Speaker 2: Thank you for taking time outta your day and listening to Give a Heck if you find value. I’d appreciate you sharing with your friends and family so they too can learn how to live life on purpose, not by accident. So you do not miss the next episode. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and please also post a review.

I look forward to reading your comments. This has been Dwight Heck. If you want to check out other podcast episodes or today’s show notes, please check out my website. Give a heck.com, and until next time together, let us all strive to give a heck.