Insightful Chat about Financial Literacy with Dr. Christopher Loo

0:00 Ralph: I did an interview with Dr. Christopher Loo on his podcast a few weeks ago. And I wanted to share our discussion with my audience. You can find his podcast at financial freedom with Dr. Christopher Loo. He's an insightful podcaster who interviews guests. On a wide range of topics relevant to living a healthy purpose-driven life. And as we discussed our talk personal finance plays a huge role. in determining the trajectory of our lives however. Most people. Lack basic financial literacy, which can truly doom them to a lifetime of economic hardship. in today's money, different culture. We often equate net worth with self-worth. However, the honest to God truth is true. Meaning stems, not from dollars and cents.

0:42 But from living out our God given purpose. personally, I strive to empower people financially. Not simply to achieve monetary success. But to align their finances with their values. So how can I help the next generation gain the skills and mindset to achieve financial freedom? What societal and government changes do we need to make this possible? Well, Christopher and I tackle these questions and more. I hope you'll join us for a thought provoking discussion about finances technology and using money as a tool rather than a goal. So let's get started.

1:46 chord: DING DONG Christopher: Hey guys, welcome to this week's podcast episode. I'm really excited about today's guest, Ralph Estep, and he's an entrepreneur. And most importantly, he's an accountant. He's a podcast host. He's an author. He's goes by, he's a father, husband, business coach, and I'm really excited about today's conversation because it's all about business. And we're going to talk about exploring the intersection of technology and finance, which is going to be really interesting business growth. And I love welcoming guests such as Ralph onto the show. So Ralph, welcome. Ralph: Oh, thank you for having me. I truly appreciate the opportunity. Christopher: Yeah, I know.

2:26 I love having guests such as yourself because it adds credibility and a lot of experience and kind of talk about your journey starting out and how you came to do what you're doing today. Sure. Ralph: So I have to tell you, I've been in this field since I was about six years old. A lot of people say six years old. How's that possible? Well, let me explain. So I come from an accounting family, so dinner table conversation when I was a young guy was talking about taxes and talking about accounting and fixing people's finances and helping people in small business. So I grew up in that and that's just taken me to where I am today. So it's been a labor of love. It's been a over 30 year course of action.

3:09 So that's where I got where I'm at today. Christopher: Excellent. Yeah, I love that. I wish a lot of others could look at your journey and just talk about have financial literacy conversation around the dinner table. That's where a lot of. Ideas and a lot of themes and stories are passed down to your kids and to the next generation I wish we could have more conversations about finances and financial literacy The Ralph: truth is we do a horrible job of educating people, especially young people and I wrote a book It's called mastering your finances and i'm sure we'll talk about that today But it's financial literacy and it needs to start off early.

3:49 Christopher: Yeah, I like in financial literacy to You Basic literacy, being able to read a book and a couple hundred years ago, only the rich could read books, and if you didn't know how to read, then you're isolated, but now with the internet, and now we have to speak the language of money because that's what makes our world go around, but our school system, political Educational all these systems kind of shun it because they want to keep us out of the dark keep us in the dark. So one thing I talk about is this talk about is this finance and in the past you had these narratives like You know you had to advisors accountants you 401k, you know You get good job and it's changing now that with the internet and Technology.

4:35 So talk about the intersection of finance and technology and how technology is changing Ralph: finance And that's the reason I do a podcast. I do a daily podcast. It's called the ass ralph podcast. It's called mastering your finances with a christian perspective So I've got to tell you i've got a christian bend to my podcast My philosophy but basically the truth is, you know You can reach out on the internet now and find people like myself who are doing these podcasts and we're promoting Information we're promoting knowledge. We're promoting, you know a way for you to grow yourself your financial literacy And it's absolutely free. I'm not looking to make money off of it I'm looking to help, you know, here's a deal when I hit 50 a year or two ago I realized that financial benefits don't fill my tank anymore You That's just the truth.

5:23 And now my goal is to reach people. Now, how do I do that? I do that through my accounting practice. I do that through my consulting, my coaching practice with small business people. I do that through my podcast. I do that through writing books because the truth of the matter is We all have a purpose here. If your purpose is solely to make a buck, you're going to fall flat and you're going to be very disappointed because you're going to wake up one day and realize that you haven't met your purpose. And when you live in that purpose, and for me, that's building financial literacy. That's showing people how to be successful. And I'm not measuring success by how much is in your bank account because you can be a crook and be successful. If we're looking at financial how much money you have in your bank.

6:06 But if you're impacting lives if you're meeting your God given purpose that's my goal. Yeah, Christopher: I love this purpose. And money is basically, it's just a currency. It's how it's a resource that we can use to help others. But unfortunately, in the West, we equate money with status and fame and celebrity. And that attracts the crooks and the con art all these bad actors. And we give money a bad name, but it can be actually used for a lot of good things. And I love the work that you're doing. The next question is, how are you seeing the savings patterns and consumption patterns of, for example, millennials, Gen Z compared to Gen X and the boomers, how are their views about money changing?

6:56 And if you can add any insight. Or Ralph: I'm going to say something that's not going to be very positive, but the truth of the matter, young people are in trouble. They really are. I don't see young people with the skillset that they need to be financially successful. And here's the deal, right? When our parents were younger, there was things called defined benefit retirement plans. If you work for a company, you put in 30 years, the end of the day, you turn 65, 67, you're a retiree. They wrote you a check every month. Guess what? That's gone. And the thing that scares me about young people, and I have two young people in my own household, I have a 22 year old son and I have a 26 year old son. They've learned financial literacy for me.

7:36 And it's interesting. One really took off and one didn't. That's what I see in the younger generations as compared to the older generations, the older generations understood how to budget, understand how to save. The younger people it's a consumption mentality if they see it on facebook, it's funny I just recorded a podcast yesterday that'll come out next monday and it's called 23 frugal habits And I didn't use the word cheap intentionally frugal, right? But some of those habits are look if you can't afford to eat out all your meals don't If you don't have a budget you're going to fail if you're not putting away money Automatically every month or every time you get a paycheck you're going to be in bad shape So to be honest with you my answer to your question is I think we're in trouble I hope I'm wrong, but I feel like we're in trouble because I just don't think that financial literacy is there and we're living in a generation where too many people boomerang back into their parents basements.

8:28 And that and parents allow that see they enable that And my whole goal is to try to empower people to figure it out. How do you make yourself successful? How do you find it? What are the things you can do? It's simple measure where your money goes Create a budget set smart financial goals. And what I mean by smart is, specific measurable attainable results oriented and time framed Manage your debt wisely build an emergency fund understand what insurances you need You Plan for retirement as soon as you're able to contribute to that 401k or that 403b or that 457b or IRA or SEP IRA if you're self employed. Do it and then use somebody like myself to do a good job with your taxes and finally make sure you've got good estate documents.

9:14 That's the whole key to this whole thing. And unfortunately people go on Facebook, they go on TikTok, they go on YouTube and they just scroll through and they see what everybody else has. And it's so easy to click on Amazon. I need that today. But how many times do we do intentional buying? How many times do we sit back and go, do I really need that or is that a want or is it a need? So to answer your question, I think we're in a want generation and I think our parents and the older generation was more of a need generation and that worries me. Yeah, Christopher: and it's so hard because you have especially you have social media and you've got the media and like I basically stopped watching tv over 16 actually no over 20 years ago and It's just because it's just a bunch of garbage and it's you know, like just promoting this consumption and this me me me The other thing I have a question about is because I talked to a lot of younger physicians and they say they see the government spending on frivolous things like wars and invading countries.

10:18 And here people can't afford health care, education. Now the cost of housing, people can't afford houses. And these things are becoming more and more reserved for the rich. So, and they're like, well, this system doesn't apply to me. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to listen to old advice because that doesn't apply in this they're, they don't have my interest. So how do you address that? And also, for example, the federal government, 36 trillion in debt, and it just keeps going more and more into debt in the UK, they can't run their the revenues with regular taxpayers. This kind of, the government is, Providing a bad example for others. So how do you, Ralph: and so here's my opinion.

10:59 So two years ago, I told all of my clients, mortgage interest rates are going to triple. They just about did that. You cannot continue to spend and spend and spend and spend. Now you mentioned war. Nobody's in for a fan where my son's in the Coast Guard. Okay. Yeah, he's out there serving on the front lines Do I want him to go to war? No, there are times when as a country you have to go to war I get it, right, but we can't be the world's policeman for everybody. But anyway, get him back to what I said Here's my true belief. I think after the presidential election. We're in for a Great Depression number two I think it's going to get really ugly no matter who wins. I think we're going to have double digit inflation. I think you're going to see mortgage interest rates back into the teens.

11:41 You're going to, I hope I'm wrong. I truly hope I'm wrong, but think about this. You've got so many people that have checked out. Who aren't contributing so to answer your physicians and your people that you're talking about I get it They're upset. They're paying the highest look the middle class pays most of the taxes in this country. That's just the truth That's what I do for a living. I know that for a fact And it's so discouraging when you get that pay stub and 35 to 40 percent of your check is gone And you say where did that money go? It's going to things. I don't want to support I get it You know, I think as ronald reagan said, you know The worst thing you can do is get a knock at the door and say i'm here from the government to help you They're not here to help you And I'm not bad mouthing the government, but the truth is, we've got to put a stop to spending.

12:24 You cannot continue to, you're not going to spend yourself into prosperity. All bills need to get paid. So at some point, either taxes are going to have to go up, That's an inevitability, or we're going to have to really look at social entitlement programs and cut them dramatically or look at social security. It's like third tier they talk about. It can social security fund us. I did a podcast last week about this some myths about social security. A lot of people say social security is going to fail. I don't think it's going to fail because too many people are relying on it. You'd have people living in the street if you did that. But for them to say, hey, the new social security retirement age is 70. I could see that happening. Yeah. So to answer your question, I think we're in trouble.

13:04 If we don't put a hold on spending, we're going to be I don't know how you fix it at this point to be blunt. It's going to take some significant changes to the way we do business. And the problem is the people we send to Washington, whether they have an R or a D after the name, have no interest in the common person. That's just the truth. What they're interested in is power. I get it. I've served on a small town council. I get the power part, but it doesn't help in the long run. You cannot spend yourself into prosperity. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to give just come on in our country. You're welcome with open arms. Don't contribute. Here's a here's money. Here's a cell phone all these types of things. And we're destroying our country from the inside out.

13:46 Christopher: How does someone start protecting themselves from just frivolous governments and our kids are going to inherit that debt. And it's I think it was predicted over 300 can debt for just like one person in the future. So how, what do you do? I know budgeting and saving, but then all, some of that goes to taxes and it's wasteful and inflation. So what do you do? Ralph: So I'm going to take my faith here and I'm going to put my faith out on a little bit. And the truth is there's only so much you can do. Get your financial house in order. Absolutely. Do the right things. Get your children and your people around you's financial house in order. And you gotta be prayerful and say, look Is there a way to fix this I don't think we're going to fix it on our own I think you have to have some faith in saying, you know what god's got a plan for this And that's not a popular thing to say my second book.

14:37 I wrote is about, you know Called the gospel of entrepreneurship most people think you have to check your faith at the door, but you don't Your faith is who you are. It's your character. So getting back to your question I think we have to find character, we have to find that on an individual basis. And we have to find it as a culture. We have to find it as a country. What is our character? What do we stand for? Because the only way you're going to fix this is if you stand for something, have character you need to contribute. In the Bible, it says, if you don't work, you don't eat. Well, maybe that's what we need to get to. We've got an entitlement system where I think they're the numbers, like close to 50 percent of people in some sort of government assistance. So brought down the Roman empire. Yeah, so how do you fix it?

15:19 I don't know the answer to that question I wish I did if I did you and I'd be very wealthy right about now But anyway getting back to what you said, you know I think you have to get your own financial house in order because you can do that So what are the things that you can actually do you can get your own things in order? You can't control everything but you can get your own order, you know of own affairs in order You can get your family's affairs in order. You can make good plans for the future to some extent. Listen, here's a deal I think our country is the best country in the world You Right. So where are you going to go and get any better? So it's not well, let's all escape. Let's run to so on and so forth. Let's go to Canada. Let's go to Mexico, pick a place. I don't care. I still believe that America is the best place to be successful. I just think that we need to look at how are we going to build ourselves up and how are we going to define our character moving forward?

16:02 And it's going to take leaders. It's going to take young people saying that, look, I'm not checking out from government. I'm not letting go of government. I'm going to get engaged because the more people that get engaged, the more likely we're going to have success. If people just throw their hands up in the air and say the heck with it. I give up. Well, that's what's going to happen. Our government's going to fail. Our country's going to fail. The other Christopher: Question I have is how do you see a I and all of these new technologies? Because the Internet and yet social media, yet smart phones. You had search, you had mobile cloud, and now AI, and everybody's saying AI is going to really make things better. But then you're gonna put people out of jobs, and we're gonna have universal basic income.

16:45 How do you see technology playing a role in all these financial Ralph: issues? Well, see, I think AI is a double edged sword. I use AI in my practice every day. I think it's very useful. But the problem is you got to be careful with AI because it can make you stupid. You understand what I'm saying? AI can make you stupid if you're not still learning. If you're not, you got to check what AI spits out. AI is not always right. Now, there's great things that AI can do. AI is great for crunching big sets of data. It can help I've got a client that's a research scientist, AI is great for that. It crunches in and he said to me, he said, Ralph most of the time it's right, but sometimes it's not. So technology and all those things are great.

17:26 If we don't allow ourselves to get dumbed down to where, like I said, we're scrolling through TikTok and everything in TikTok is right. Guess what? It's not going to be make you successful. You've got to go and invest in yourself. Go learn things. Go find knowledge. You're not gonna go on to Google and to whatever they call that now that the AI part of Google or chat GPT and find all the answers. Yeah, it'll help you get there. It's a tool, but it's not the answer. Christopher: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Cause I'm just talking with big basic financial literacy is basically you have an income, you save some of that income, save it for a rainy day. You save keep your expenses live within your means. And then from there you can invest those.

18:07 These are more advanced strategies, tax planning, estate planning all of these different things. I really love Your motive, mo motive, and your spark and your why. How can people find out more about you? If they wanna learn more about personal finance taxation strategies, check out your podcast. How can they do that? Ralph: It's really simple. Ask ralph podcast.com. Ask ralph podcast.com. It's all there. I have over 300 episodes out there. I do youtube videos I my book my books are out there if you want to schedule timely I meet with clients all over the world because guess what america is fantastic And other people want to know how we're doing it here So you can go right onto my website Like I said askral podcast.

18:48 com slash store you can buy my books there You can schedule time with me there and you keyed into something a few minutes ago What most people don't take the time to do is understand where their money is going the first time First thing I do when I meet with a new client is I say look for the next 45 days I want you to write down everywhere your money goes You will be shocked how many people have no concept of where their money goes Well, you're never going to fix a problem until you know what the problem is Yeah. So we can have all the discussions pie in the sky. Great. Do this, save for that. But if you don't know where your money's going, if you're, and I'm not picking on Starbucks, but if you're dropping 25 a day on Starbucks and wondering why you can't pay your bills at the end of the month, I guess what the problem is, the problem is you look in the mirror, you're looking back at the problem, but you've got to go and find out where that is.

19:35 And that's why I promote my book, mastering your finances. It starts out with. Where does my money go? People don't have any concept that they don't know where their money is. Well, guess what? If you don't know where it's going, I can't help you. Once you figure out where it's going, then I can help you. Then we can come up with ideas of how to fix it. Yeah, Christopher: yeah, I love that. Because I see people they'll spend thousands of dollars on the Super Bowl or on alcohol or but they won't spend you know, money on a book to, that could change their lives and change their health, change their relationship. It's just interesting how the mass culture thinks and but a really fascinating discussion and for all the audience out there, Be sure to follow ralph on his podcast his social media Give him a like and follow check out his book on amazon as well as his website All of those links will be in the resources in the show notes.

20:24 And with that, thanks so much for coming on to the podcast Ralph: Oh, you're welcome. Christopher. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed our discussion. I think it was a more lively than you expected maybe Well, I certainly hope you enjoyed that interview. I know it was really an enjoyable time for me. And I think We really got a lot of things out in the open and, and we're able to come up with some great ideas. So before I close, I just want to remind everybody to visit to our podcast site. That's at askralphpodcast.com. There, I'm going to encourage you to sign up for email lists, just put your information in there and you'll join our, our email list so that when we have new episodes release, we can send you that information. So I didn't want to close without just saying thank you for the listeners. I hope this was profitable for you.

21:05 And as I always say, stay financially savvy and may God bless you. Abundantly my friends.