 Our parents, any parents, would want their children to be smarter, be better, and know more. But how many of us are still being told what to do by our parents, who knows less? They might have more experience in life and be wise, but they definitely don't know the Western society like we do. Yeah, that is a good one. I got yelled at a lot for saying that, growing up. What's going on guys? We are in front of the Wall Street Bowl right now with wealth management advisor and author Rick Hume. What's up everyone? Welcome to Wall Street. Alright guys, in this video today we are going to be covering three main things, but a whole lot more. Number one is what is real investing beyond just YOLO bets, Robinhood, and meme stock? Number two, why is it important to be engaged with your finances, especially as a young person, and what are some easy ways to do it? And number three, how financial empowerment does affect the immigrant community, and in particular the Asian community. Lots to talk about, very excited, but first, let's go get some coffee. When it comes to finances, Rick is one of the realest guys I know. He has a ton of experience coaching immigrant families on what they do and do not know about money. He gives you straight talk and sometimes even some tough love. Alright everybody, today's video is sponsored by Grammarly. It is a digital writing assistant that makes whatever you write out just better. It's super popular and you can download it right now for free as a Chrome extension or even a desktop app. Alright, so after using this for a week, I found it to be super useful and I could see it being especially helpful if English is not your first language or you're just not a strong writer. They also have a premium version with way more in-depth feedback, but at least try the free version first. Their vocab suggestions help make your writing way more memorable with robust words and vocab that you would not have thought of. Clarity suggestions help cut down unnecessary words and just makes things way more concise. They have plagiarism detectors that can scan over 16 billion web pages to ensure your words are your own. There's even a tone detector that's going to tell you how your writing sounds and feels. So this is something that I wish I had when I was a student, you know, writing essays or writing emails. Even, you know, applying for jobs and networking, I think it would have been helpful. The technology is here, guys, so take advantage of it. Go to Grammarly.com slash Fungbrose to download it for free or get 20% off the premium one. Alright everybody, thanks for watching that and back to the video. Rick, why don't you quickly let them know why they should listen to you and why you're an actual professional expert and not just some person on YouTube. Well, for starters, I'm your wealth management advisor and that's how we met. That is true. Rick is our wealth management advisor and I will say Legit connection that we have learned a lot from you. So my name is Rick Hu. I'm an international speaker, business coach, wealth management advisor, founder and CEO of Midas Wealth. I've been in financial planning for over 14 years. At 25 years old, I became the youngest managing director of a Fortune 500 financial service company. By 30 years old, I was able to impact and help thousands of people. The purpose of today's recording is just empower your audience to really teach and educate others so that we know and learn more about financials and financial planning. That's real talk because Rick is not here selling anything. You do not have a course you're plugging at the end. Rick is just our financial advisor and he taught me a lot so I just wanted you guys to learn from him. And to be honest, legally you cannot even give financial advice in this video. You can only break down the game for us so that everybody watching can just understand it a little bit more. And he's just here to help like he's helped us. So let's get into it. I think people should just learn and educate whether they want to listen or not listen. I think everyone should be able to understand and learn from others. It's about humility. It's about not everyone knows everything in the world and the more we empower ourselves with education, it's better. My parents came to America in the 1970s, immigrants from China. My father was a chef. My mother was a seamstress. In the 1980s they had me. I'm a first and only child. Growing up, my parents wanted me to be a doctor, lawyer and accountant as if those are the only three occupations available in this country. I failed them. When I spoke to them at a later age, I realized they said those things is more because those roles to them meant stability. It meant prestige. It may mean the ability to successfully control your future and career. However, there are many different types of fields and occupation. Hopefully your audience can learn from our experience. I mean, I just want to establish tears here and I'm not saying it. I just want it to be credible. I mean, you are rich. I don't feel that way. There's a difference between rich and wealthy. You've had a lot of success in your career, even at a young age, right? I guess you had a lot of financial success. I mean, just look at your suit, man. I'm just saying it. Look at what you're wearing versus us. You have your initials on your cufflinks. I'm just saying that's what guys who know what they're doing with their money do. Real quick, Rick, just to break down and just deliver some immediate value. Most of our audience is 20, 30, some in the 40s. What should a 20-year-old be doing right now? There's a difference between being a gambler and an investor. And I truly believe in that. Gambling is you might have a few lucky bets. You might win a month, a week, a day, but investor is true track record and success. If I can go back into time and be in my 20s again, I would say just got to learn, right? So here's some practicality. In your 20s to 30s, there's so much more that we need to learn and develop and educate ourselves. Although you're done with school, doesn't mean you're finished. So 20s to 30s, whether you enter the workforce, join a good company, find a good mentor, find a good manager, find a good coach where you're consistently growing, learning and developing. Some practicality advice is from 20s to 30s, build your credit score. I think it's extremely important in America to have credit score and credibility. Also, you have to understand the importance of compound interest. It's not about people working hard for money. It's about money making money. It's about time and money. So if you can invest at 20s to 30s versus investing from 50s to 60s, time is for you and not against you. From the 30s to 40s, is it a different game plan? Absolutely. 30s to 40s, which is where I am right now, where we are, I think it's about trying new things. It's about after you learn those first 10 years after school, you have to figure out what is it that you're good at. Don't just focus on one field. I have so many friends, so many clients that today, although they have a certain level of financial success, they're not happy. They constantly wonder, what if I did this? What if I made this decision? So try many things. Try many things and figure out what are you good at? If I listened to my parents, I was a doctor, lawyer, or an accountant, I'd probably be miserable. But once you get to the 30s and 40s, once you try out all the things that you believe you're good at, then come to 40s to 50s. 40s to 50s, then go all in. Don't second-guess yourself. By that point, from 20s to 40s, you would have had 20 plus years of experience trying things out. And if you took advantage of compound interest in saving and investing at an early age, you would have a certain amount of capital to allow you to take a certain amount of risk. 50s to 60s, then I say, understand the difference between time and money. So we covered the basis of why we're even talking about finance on our channel right now, right? But why is it important for people to be engaged with their finances? Being Asian-American, our parents taught us to work hard, be studious, succeed in our career. But isn't it just as important to get a grasp on our financials and being in control? Now, many people don't understand that wealth management financial planning has a lot of moving pieces. It's not about investing in the stock market only. It's about budgeting, right? How many people understand that the rule of thumb is you're supposed to have three to six times your monthly expenses and emergency funds? Now, having too much money in cash, especially with what's happening in today's society, December, 900 billion stimulus money was passed. Last week, 1.9 trillion is passed. Now, if you think about history, there's so much dollars that's stimulating the economy with a low interest rate environment and more dollars coming in. What does that create? Inflation. Now, historic inflation has been on average 3%. Now, if you think about the banks right now checking their savings is giving us less than one. So our purchasing power is not there. Therefore, we need to empower ourselves to understand how money works. So would you say growing up from an immigrant family, you know, who's very hardworking, but probably was very conservative with cash, put it in a shoebox, maybe a bank? What are like the main key things that you realize growing up that you learn being Asian that maybe actually kind of played against you as far as finances go? I wish I knew what I knew today 10, 20, 30 years ago. Now, I learned from my family. Now, if you think about it in society and life, most people turn to two types of people for advice. People they love and trust and experts. Now, if you ask me, who do people turn to more for advice? People they love and trust. An example, growing up, my parents and my family came to America in the 1970s. They came to a foreign country that did not speak English. They work in very blue collar careers opportunities and they did not understand the value of money. And growing up, my parents said work hard, save money, keep it in cash. So a great example is the Lunar New Year just passed. Chinese New Year and our family tradition is I would give red envelopes. And I was really, really good with money and I was a great saver. I remember like just storing away like a squirrel and acorn, putting away all my red envelopes. Now, a few years ago, when after I got married, my wife and I went back home to visit my parents and we found a shoebox of red envelopes. There had to be hundreds of red envelopes in that shoebox. Now, when my wife opened those red envelopes, there had to be thousands of dollars in that red envelope. About 3,000. Now, my wife was really excited. She says, honey, you were always a great saver. No wonder you're in finance and she felt really proud of me. But in reality, because I'm in finance, I realized I haven't visited my parents for almost 10 years. That $3,000 that was sitting in the shoebox a few years ago was sitting there over a decade ago. Now, if we actually took that money and invested, for example, the S&P 500 or real estate, that would have been multiple. So my dollars was depreciating because I did not understand the value and importance of saving money versus investing money. I think we were essentially storing the whole mouse. Hey, I was always like the saver of the friend. I was more frugal. I mean, you know, I don't want to say cheap, but I was always very cautious. Like, I don't need to buy that jack. I'm cool. I don't need that. I don't need that. But I think that's how a lot of Asian kids are raised and not to their fault. I mean, the parents, they come to a new country. Like you said, that's the safest thing to do is save your money, right? But it's not necessarily the best thing to do. How did you get into thinking about money? I was still in it as of like six months ago. Yeah, the squirrel home bow method. That's what I'm going to call it. Because I finally understood the messages of our family and our older generations. They didn't teach us to save, save, save and squirrel money away and have it depreciate. Instead, they taught us to have liquidity. There's a difference between thinking cash is king and to have it depreciate versus having liquidity in the event of an emergency. Number two, now you have to understand most of our families came from a foreign country. My parents came from Toisan China in the 1970s, which they learned the ways of the East. When they come to America, which is Western world, you can't use the ways of the East to apply in Western society. It's the difference between the rules of the game. The tax laws are different. The financial strategies are different. The legal laws are different. That's why it's very important to understand. Now, what I've learned in the past 14 years after having 20,000 meetings and some of our oldest clients are in the 90s and some of our younger clients are in the 20s, I've realized everyone is saying the same message. It's just that their experience is different. Now, if you think about it, let's say our grandparents or great grandparents grew up in World War II era where they're lining up for bread, lining up for food. Can you blame them for being very conservative? I can't because they grew up in an era where food was not promised. Now, if you think about our parents generation may have been born and raised in the 50s and 60s. They were war-torn, but they had to flee your country to a new one, learn a new language, make new friends, join a new professional career. My parents growing up, they probably didn't think that they were going to leave toys on China to come to America and not speak a word of English, but they had to survive. They had to take risks but stay conservative. But today, I believe our parents sacrificed for us so that we have a better future. Isn't it true, which is crazy? Our parents, any parents would want their children to be smarter, be better, and know more. But how many of us are still being told what to do by our parents who know less? They might have more experience in life and be wise, but they definitely don't know the Western society like we do. I got yelled at a lot for saying that growing up. That last part, that's the banger. Listen, did your parents come here to work so hard just so you could use the same methods as them just so we could save it all our homebows in a shoebox? No, they want us to be smarter and more savvy in this country. Now they can't help it, but to maybe tell us what they know. And it's on us to either absorb that or reject it and learn something new, correct? Absolutely. An example is when I was in my 20s, I was practically raised by my grandmother. My parents would go to work before I wake up, come home after I was put to bed. I asked my grandmother who loves me and I love her. I said, Grandma, Grandma, how can it be like you? You came to America in the 1970s and the 80s and 90s. You bought your first home. Now my grandma loves me and I love her. And if you put a lie detector on her arm, she would pass with flying colors. She said, grandson, put money under your mattress, poured cash. That's how you're going to buy your first home. Now if we think about it in society today, she didn't really give us any type of false information from her background in education because she truly had the best interest for me. But is it the most practical expert advice? The answer is no. So that's why many people in society today, they turn to people they love or people they trust for advice, whether it's good advice or bad advice. You should turn to experts. Moving on, we're about to get more expert advice because we're about to head over to Rick's office. It's just right around the corner. Let's get into some real talk. All right, so we're about to head to Rick's office. It's right down here on Broad Street. This is the New York Stock Exchange. So, you know, his office is right here. It's legit. Would you say that for a lot of our parents who made it through grit and just putting their head down and just working hard and plowing through that snow, that it doesn't necessarily mean that they got a holistic view of the game and can break it down and boil it down to us and explain it. Right? Because that's why they kind of just go back to their grit and they're like, hey, just have grit. And we're like, hey, the world is, we're in the future now. It's a little bit more than just grit. Rick, you rose to the top of the financial institutional, you know, hierarchy. And that's hard for a lot of Asians. Even though a lot of Asians are very analytical, they do like to do day trading and all types of charts and numbers and PE ratios. It seems like very Asians. Asians are famous for being the quants in the financial world. Of course, in that movie The Big Shore with Ryan Gosling, the Asian guys crunched all the numbers. That's my quant. Your what? My quantitative. My math specialist. Look at him. You notice anything different about him? Look at his face. That's pretty racist. Look at his eyes. I'll give you a hint. His name's Yang. Actually, my name's Jung. But why do you think that Asians are never viewed as like the leaders? I think it's because of our upbringing and our personality. Growing up, I'm the only child. I'm introvert. My parents taught me to be quiet, to work hard. They never taught me to speak up about my feelings. They never taught me to be managerial, to review my benefits through my employers and negotiate what I believe myself worth is. So when I first joined wealth management and financial planning, my first six months, I struggled because of my passive personality that my parents taught me. I listened to everyone else. I was one of the first and only Asian-American in this region. I listened to everyone else and I was set up to fail. And what happened after six months was I needed to stop listening to others and I needed to understand what I'm good at. The ways of the East cannot be applied to the ways of the West. My parents unconsciously set me up to fail in wealth management. They told me to be passive, to be quiet, to never ever speak up, to be nice, even if it meant my feelings were being hurt. So after six months and failing in my career, I decided to do things my own way. It's interesting. I feel like I have such a hybrid upbringing because my parents did go to college and they were really educated. But on some of the financial things, they were almost more with the old way. So I've also met people whose parents were all new school. It's interesting that some people in your family now are not like your parents. You know what I mean? They're more with the new school way. How do people learn from their Asian friend who got the new school parenting, but they got the old school parenting? How do you know? I feel like sometimes we're so attached to the parenting style we got, even though we kind of know it's outdated. We're just like holding on to it. Like it's a piece of who we are. Even though it might not be A-level coaching. It's by listening, understanding, and trying to seek advice whether or not you think it's the right or wrong advice. Because what if your advice or your background experience is wrong, but if you don't listen to others, you're more ignorant than more optimistic and education-focused. So I think it's just about communicating. When our parents may have came to America in the 70s and 80s, interest rates back then was all time high. I remember my parents bought their first home in the 80s and 90s, and interest rates to borrow money was double digits. So at that point, borrowing money, having debt at double-digit rates, very expensive and may or may not be a good idea. Today, interest rates are all time low. Debt can be a good thing if you don't have to leverage this debt and invest it. So therefore, you can't use what happened 40 years ago to apply it in today's society. But there are things that we can have learned, such as working hard, being educated, being smart, not being risk averse, but also making calculated risk and expanding. One word I would teach all your viewers is diversification. COVID-2020 had taught us a lot. As you may possibly know in the Asian community, many Asians only specialize in certain types of field of work or occupation. I know a lot of Asian families that only carry, have cash in the bank, liquidity, or real estate. Well, that's not a good idea because there's no diversification. Last year, personally, I owned real estate. My Manhattan apartment, I lost over $30,000. And the reason why I lost $30,000 because in May, my tenant left because their business failed. From May to November, I could not find a tenant and then I had carrying costs, my mortgage, my property tax, my maintenance. So I was losing $35,000 a month for six months. I lost $21,000. But if all you do is have cash in the bank or in real estate and you're not diversifying, that's where you will fail because last year, S&P 500 earned somewhere between 16% to 18%. Now my Manhattan real estate property that I was renting out lost me money because there's carrying costs and expenses tied to it. So diversification is key. Have you ever thought about restaurants in the Chinatown community closing down? I never thought of it. Have you ever thought about salons, hospitality, service roles closing down? I never thought about it. That's why we need to empower ourselves to diversify and learn more skills, trade and get into other type of businesses. So my practicality advice is for our Asian viewers is especially what everything is happening in society today. One is call your family. Call your elders. Make sure that they're safe and healthy. I practically talk to my parents almost every single day. Because time is not guaranteed. It's not promised. What 2020 taught us and I've unfortunately experienced many unfortunate tragedies. I had clients pass away. I had family members pass away. I knew people that never knew that life would be that short and it was that short. So I would say to your audience especially considering what's happening in society today number one, speak to your loved ones. Tell them that you love them. I know in Asian culture saying I love you is not popular and common but I can't help it but tell my parents I love them almost every night because I don't know if tomorrow violence will struck them. So number one, tell your loved ones and precious value time. Number two, tell your elderly family members to try to not go outside unless it's necessary. And try to not go alone. Be with two, three, four people. That's very important too, right? Because of safety. Today's society is different from pre-COVID. Very important. Now some practicalities. I do not believe in violence. I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I don't believe in revenge because there's a saying if you're going to do physical violence, eye for an eye, you're going to have to dig two graves one for you and one for the other person. But instead, it's about empowering ourselves through mental intelligence. We were taught to work hard, be studious in society. Why can't we be more intelligent? We want to empower people. So go out and vote. Go out and vote so that our voice can be heard and our politicians can help us as their constituents. Number two, learn financial literacy. If 7% of Asian Americans are the population of America but we have the highest poverty level, we're not going to be heard. Instead, imagine we're 7% of American population but we're 50% of America's net worth. Believe me, people are going to respect and listen to us. And speak up. Speak up. Don't be like me growing up and being timid, quiet, passive. Understand what is right. Always do the right thing. And we should because life is short. We don't know what life will look like after we're gone but don't live life with regret and speak up. So I think today's society and generation will change dramatically. I hope, I have three kids under four years old and the next 20, 30 years as they get older, I want them to feel proud to be safe and be knowledgeable. That's the right time for you. Maybe you're at a different point in your life and you want to do something else with your money but either way, talk about it with someone who's an expert. That's all I got to say. But everybody, thank you so much for watching that big shout out to Rick. If you guys want to find out more, his links are going to be down below. But I would say in the comments down below we'd like to hear everything from you guys. What are some things you either learned from the video or things that you have learned about financial planning, your finances over, you know, the past few years because I can tell you this, if you've been in the stock market, it's been crazy. If you're part of the just Reddit YOLO crowd, let us know too. All right, everybody, thanks again for watching that video and until next time, we out. Peace.