EP 126: War and Your Portfolio
The US just launched strikes on Iran. Oil spiked from $70 to over $120 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is shut down. And your portfolio? Brent, Matthew, and Josh break down exactly what the Iran conflict means for your retirement — and why panic-selling might be the riskiest move of all.
First up: the oil shock. The guys walk through why crude prices jumped 63% in 10 days, why gas went from $3 to $3.45 nationally (and close to $6 in California), and what that means for everything from supply chains to your grocery bill. Josh pulls in a Landman reference to explain why oil touches every corner of the economy — and why markets got so nervous so fast.
Then the conversation turns to the big question every client is asking: Should I move to cash? Matthew lays out what history actually tells us about war and markets — stocks have held up better than most people think, thanks to the "war machine" effect on GDP. But this time there's a wrinkle: Consumer confidence just hit a 12-year low, unemployment ticked up to 4.4%, and if oil stays elevated, inflation could push back above 3%. The team discusses the stagflation scenario, why the Fed's backward-looking data is making things worse, and what the new Fed chair could mean for rates.
The practical segment is where it gets actionable. Brent explains his rebalancing strategy and why he's been sitting on cash since November waiting for this kind of pullback. Josh makes the case for sticking to your plan and not turning off retirement contributions. And Matthew talks Roth conversions — why a market dip could actually be the perfect time to convert at a lower amount. All three share what they're personally doing (or not doing) in their own portfolios right now.
The episode wraps with personal updates: Brent's back at Orangetheory and feeling better than he has in two years, Josh just finished Landman Season 2 (perfect timing with the oil talk), and Matt's daughter learned to ride a bike in about an hour using a Guardian balance bike.
Timestamps
0:00 — Intro
1:30 — Oil prices spike: what happened and why it matters
3:00 — How oil affects everything (the Landman breakdown)
5:30 — The Strait of Hormuz shutdown and supply chain fears
6:00 — Should you be worried? Time horizon is everything
7:00 — What history says about war and the stock market
10:00 — Will this be a short war? Political dynamics and midterms
11:00 — Stagflation risk: inflation up, jobs down, Fed stuck
12:00 — Recession odds and why Matt's not buying it
13:00 — What we're telling clients right now
14:00 — Rebalancing strategies and sitting on cash
16:00 — Don't panic-sell Trump — the pattern since 2019
18:00 — Why retail investors are calmer than institutions
19:30 — Practical steps: time horizon, bucket strategy, Roth conversions
21:00 — Gold at all-time highs: insurance, not a bet
23:00 — What Brent, Matt, and Josh are doing in their own portfolios
25:00 — Evermont Recommends: Orangetheory, Landman Season 2, Guardian Bikes
Key takeaways
Oil spiked 63% in 10 days after the Strait of Hormuz shut down — but markets haven't cratered the way most people expected, and history shows stocks tend to hold up during wartime.
The bigger risk isn't the war itself — it's stagflation. If oil stays elevated, inflation could push back above 3% while the labor market weakens. The Fed is behind the curve.
Don't panic-sell. Every major correction under this administration has reversed. If your time horizon is 10+ years, stick to your plan.
This could actually be a good time to rebalance and consider Roth conversions — converting when the market is down means you convert at a lower amount and benefit more from the recovery.
Gold is at all-time highs because of uncertainty, not fundamentals. Keep it to 5-10% of your portfolio as insurance, not a core position.
Links & resources
Evermont Wealth: evermont.com
Show Notes: retirementplanplaybook.com
Call Us: (909) 296-7977
Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated. Please excuse any typos or transcription errors.
Welcome to The Retirement Plan Playbook, hosted by Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk of Evermont Wealth. This podcast dives deep into investment strategies, retirement planning, and current events, equipping you with the insights needed to craft a robust retirement playbook, adaptable to any political or economic climate.
Join Brent, Matthew and Joshua as they guide you through the complexities of retirement planning, offering expert advice. To tackle challenges in the later stages of your journey, it's time to build your optimal retirement playbook. Now let's dive into today's episode.
Brent: Welcome to the Retirement Plan Playbook. I'm your host, Brent Pasqua. I'm here with my guy Matthew, the certified financial planner. I'm here with my other guy, Joshua Winterswyk, certified financial planner. Welcome to episode 126.
Josh: Wow,
Brent: that's a lot of episodes.
Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm impressed.
Brent: We're gonna talk about the war and your portfolio. What this Iran conflict means to your retirement — what the impact may be to the stock market. And as this continues to boil on with really no short ending in sight, it seems like, you know, they are saying it's not gonna last too long, but how long can it last before it has too much impact or it won't have an impact on the stock market or your portfolio.
We're gonna talk about that today. Matt, what are your thoughts?
Matthew: I'll start by saying that it's March 9th is the day we're recording this, and you know, the situation's pretty fluid.
Josh: So Monday afternoon, March 9th.
Matthew: Yeah. And I know Trump's about market's
Josh: already close,
Matthew: about to give a speech.
My thoughts are, this is pretty scary. We're having a big spike in the price of oil, which isn't good, but surprisingly the markets haven't reacted like you would've thought. So the stock market's been a little bit more volatile than usual, but it's not like it's dropping precipitously like it did during the tariff tantrum last April.
Brent: I mean last week it did go down a lot, right? And it kinda reversed a lot of the gains that we saw in the US markets. Saw international go down, emerging markets went down. Is that gonna continue you think this week? Or what does it look like now?
Matthew: I mean, it's, it's such a fluid situation. I'd, I'd hate to make a prediction and look wrong like I always do on this show.
But in general I've been shocked the market's not down more. Yeah.
Brent: So gas prices have jumped and that's been like the big headline, right? It's like what happens with oil that really affects the market the most? Crude had spiked from $70 to over $120 and then came back down to all the way $80. So what's like the position of, why does oil have such a big impact over the stock market?
Josh: Because it, it's involved in almost everything we do. I mean, you look at fertilizer, plastics, I mean like we can go on and on of how oil just go watch Landman — he explains it, have how everything kind of involves oil. And so with that being said. If you create uncertainty, this war is creating the uncertainty around kind of oil production movement.
I mean, it could even disrupt supply chains. I think that's why Matt's mentioning it could be a very scary situation because you go without oil or prices continue to skyrocket because of the lack of oil. There's creating even more uncertainty for markets that, you know, make a lot of investors very, very nervous.
Matthew: So, on Landman, what did Jon Hamm say about the. The price per oil barrel.
Josh: Well, the first thing he said was, oh, the first thing he said was, stop trying to not be the bad guy. Okay. The, the world's already doesn't like the oil industry. Okay. But they just want to keep the oil prices between, I believe he said like 65 and $85 a barrel.
Matthew: And that's where they profit the most.
Josh: Yes. That's where they profit the most.
Matthew: And today, oil closed at around 80. Mm-hmm. But it traded up to $120. So it was in nervous territory.
Josh: Super volatile.
Matthew: Yeah. Wow.
Josh: And, and just based off of some news, I think that's what makes a lot of people nervous too, is just those day-to-day huge fluctuations.
'Cause you saw the market recover on that news too.
Matthew: Yeah. And then the, the price of the gallon of gasoline in 10 days went from $3 to $3 and 45 cents. Mm-hmm. Well, that's just the national average. So out here in California where they have all those fees and taxes, almost
Josh: six bucks.
Matthew: Yeah. It's gonna be six or seven bucks,
Josh: 80 cents in just a week.
Matthew: Yeah.
Josh: And, and to be honest, like if this continues to go, what'll happen and usually gas prices trail overall oil prices by two or three weeks. So we haven't even seen the full effects of. These oil prices increasing if they stay that high, which already by this podcast, they've already came down.
Matthew: Yeah.
You know what's funny though, Brent? 'cause you're like, oh hey, the international trade, like they started going down, like the market kind of reversed. And it's true actually a lot of what was working to start the year for the first two months reversed last week. Like international stocks. That weak dollar.
And what started holding the market up was actually the tech stocks that were pretty beaten up. Going into you know, last week. So I thought that was interesting.
Josh: A lot of those international PO positions are so oil dependent.
Matthew: That's true. Yeah. 'cause they don't have their own oil.
Josh: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: So they have to import more at higher costs.
It's gonna wreck their economy.
Josh: And like we talked about, oil affects everything. So,
Matthew: yeah,
Brent: I think the main question that a lot of people have is, you know, how is this war going to impact their portfolio, both short term and long term? You know, we've seen that. The Iranian revolutionary guard has closed the Strait of Hormuz, and which is the most critical oil choke point, like, you know, ever so much goes through that area.
13 million barrels a day are used to flow through it. Traffic has basically stopped to zero. And so now what are we looking at, you know, for the next couple weeks or even longer?
Matthew: Yeah, I mean, I, I think my take is like, obviously this is scary. Let's not sugarcoat it. But I, I don't think you should be too worried about it.
If you have a time period of 20 years or longer, which is what most people do, like, if you're waiting to retire, you're, your time periods, you know, probably 20 to 30 years. And if you're in retirement, you have a 20 year time period as well. So, I mean, it's just about having a plan and sticking to the plan.
Josh: You shouldn't be overweighted to any, any asset class. For the most part, we preach diversification. So this oil trade that's going on now or this short-term fluctuation, even if you're in retirement, should have already been accounted for in our opinion.
Matthew: Yeah.
Brent: So what does history tell us about war and the markets?
Matthew: Truthfully, it's the opposite of what people think, Brent. So in war the markets actually hold up pretty, pretty well. They call it the war machine where it fires up economic growth because the government starts spending a lot.
So GDP usually goes higher. It's good for defense contractors, manufacturers, et cetera.
Brent: But what, because the market stock market has changed over the last, you know, a hundred years or 80 years and now it's, the market is so much dominated by technology companies and innovation, would it have really the same effect on it now as it did during World War II or the Korean War, where it did take on some of those like sort of stances in the market?
Josh: I think though, to answer your question, war's changed and war's got more and you, if you've watched this war at all with the drones and these like guided missiles and there is a lot of tech that's involved in this war. So it's kind of like a pro rata, like if you're looking at it, yes, the market's changed, but so has war.
And are those things aligned where, like Matt said, it could be kind of this machine that generates more growth, if this is longstanding,
Matthew: it's pretty wild. How much war's changed just since the early Iraq Afghanistan days?
Josh: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Like do they have ships? We have a ship that's out there in the sea somewhere, and when they launch the drones, it uses a laser to shoot down the enemy.
Drones.
Mm-hmm.
Matthew: That's insane.
Josh: Yeah. You haven't even seen really like boots on the ground.
Matthew: Yeah.
Josh: Like yet
Matthew: I don't think you're gonna
Josh: see that. And like when I think about like the Afghan war, I mean, you know, we're going back to that timeframe. Like my mind goes to like actual still soldiers right. On the ground bases.
So a lot different and not that amount, not much that and not that much time.
Matthew: Right? Yeah. The only people who have been getting to the ground have been if a pilot has to eject.
Josh: Yeah. Which you've seen those crazy stories already too. Yeah.
Matthew: Those videos have been nuts.
Brent: So has it become sort of some sort of like video game Star Wars war?
Yeah. Video game war where,
Josh: not funny, but
Brent: the drones are really literally being shot by lasers now. I mean, it seems like it's so much cheaper to shoot drones down by lasers than send a, you know, $3 million missile over to knock out a drone if they can shoot it with just some electricity. That seems way more effective than us shooting those bombs off.
Matthew: Yeah. I don't remember the stat off the top of my head, but I saw a post about that, Brent, about the cost to shoot him down compared to a missile. But yeah, pretty cool.
Josh: It seems like it's all expensive though,
Matthew: right?
Josh: Interesting. Also to see how, how this, if at all, expedites. War or if you know at all, meaning, because of all of this technology and because of the type of warfare, does this war last as long as those previous wars did?
Matthew: Well, Trump, today, this is what turned the market around and turned the price of oil down a lot.
He said it's gonna be short term. Mm-hmm. And he, he basically said it's almost over. And then he was given some speech today, I think at two 30 which we're gonna be live during. So we'll see what he says.
Brent: So if they stabilize that area, destabilize Iran. Is it then back to oil pumping at normal prices and everybody continuing on with their life after, you know, as far as the stock market goes?
Josh: Yeah. And the supply chain not being shut down. 'cause I think Qatar was saying too that, you know, if this gets any kind of worse, they're not going to be shipping any oil. And that that's one big scare of why this trade went so high with oil prices. So if they can get to a point where you're not talking about the biggest oil producers, not actually shipping oil.
That's gonna be positive for not only prices, but the market as well.
Brent: Yeah. And consumer confidence hit a 12 year low unemployment ticked up by four to 4.4%. Payroll shrink by 92,000 in February. Kind of what's happening here behind the market in the economy?
Matthew: Well, that's a good question. So what it seems like is the labor market's getting a little bit weaker.
And we're at this point in time where the Fed probably needs to like, aggressively start cutting rates. And, and that's what, you know, the president has said. And they're putting the new chairman in Kevin Warsh, who starts in May. And the, you know, they, I know the administration wants 'em to cut rates, but for whatever reason, Powell in this current fed 'cause the data they're looking at is so backwards.
They're not cutting rates. But the problem with the Iran War is now inflation's gonna tick up. So we're gonna be in this scenario where unemployment's going higher and inflation's now going higher. And so we could be entering like a stagflationary time, which is gonna scare a lot of people,
Brent: which is something we had talked about for the last several months that we could be in this stagflation period.
Matthew: Yeah, I mean, they've been talking about it for years, ever since the initial inflation heat up during the Biden administration
Josh: and in my, in my opinion, this war, if it lasts long, could really kind of aid to more inflation and making this problem even worse.
Matthew: Yeah. So where oil is trading at today, I think the impact to inflation would push.
The inflation rate back above 3%.
Josh: Mm-hmm.
Brent: And SCI and the prediction markets are now predicting right now, I think it's like 50% that we could be heading into a recession at some point this year.
Matthew: Yeah. I would take the other side of that just because the GDP growth is so strong with all the AI spending and then if we have a war going on that's going to.
Increase GDP as well, right? 'cause we need no more bombs, like we're talking about, gets the war machine going. But yeah, we could be in a labor market recession.
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: But not an actual economic recession.
Brent: Yeah, I thought that, that those numbers were interesting when they were talking about them, just because like that's pretty much the first time I heard that there we could be going into recession this point this year.
I mean, the market's been super strong. The economy's been. Seem to be pretty strong over the last couple years,
Josh: but I think with the sector rotation, the poor econ like labor data, you're now seeing, you know, depending on what oil prices do too, you know, economically you're saying if oil prices stay high, I mean, I guess they've come down already, but just kind of looking towards the future, this war lasts longer and inflation skyrockets that would lead to, you know, some sort of recession.
Absolutely. That type of inflation isn't gonna be supported by a, you know, slowing labor market. So my opinion,
Matthew: well, let's get psychological here. If you guys have a client who's concerned right now, what are you telling them? Are you rebalancing? Are you telling 'em to go to cash? Like, how are you helping your clients who, who are worried about the war right now?
Josh: We had this good conversation on Friday about rebalancing, right? When kind of, you know, end of the week our conversation about the wrap up, are we still looking to rebalance clients? And this is our candid conversation. It was, yes. I think it's still a really good time. There hasn't been enough fluctuation to the downside to not rebalance portfolios currently, and I think it's a good time to reassess and rebalance portfolios if you haven't already.
Matthew: Yeah, especially if you're nervous. That's a good point. What are you doing, Brent?
Brent: I have a lot of clients that I've been rebalancing since November of last year and have completed most of those who are, were within the parameters of needing to be rebalanced. But by doing that also, I've also left a lot of clients money and cash, and so I've been really wanting to wait through most of February to see what we would do with that cash.
Just because, you know, you could kind of sense this. Pullback is gonna happen in some respect. You know, you have all these ships going out to the Gulf in the Middle East, you know, something's gonna go down. The market's probably gonna have some sort of correction, but it, as you guys know, it's pretty impossible just to predict exactly what's gonna happen and how the market's gonna respond.
I would like to see another week and then maybe start getting some of that cash in. For clients that are sitting there, but I think yes, rebalancing. You still have to,
Josh: and just so the, the, give some more context to the listener, like where's that cash coming from?
Brent: Cash has been coming out of stocks that we sold off when we did the rebalance.
So let's say they were in a traditional 60% stock portfolio of 40% bonds, and they were at 65%. We pulled that 5% out of the stocks, sometimes put it right back into the bonds and just did a full traditional rebalance for some, we've just been sitting on a little bit of the cash to kind of wait and see what the market does before putting it back in.
And the other way is, is I just have a lot of clients that have been continuing to either dollar cost average, where they're putting money in every month, or they've, they've also just had extra money that they're ready to just invest. It's a lump sum and just kind of waiting and sitting on that for now.
Josh: So not, not reinvesting, overweight from a rebalance and then dollar cost averaging. Yeah. 'cause I feel like even last year, like for from my seat, a lot of people did do pretty well last year. Right? Market was good. Economic, you know, economy was good. Wage growth was pretty good. So we did have some of those clients is said cash has been building up where I have kind of an event that I wanna put more cash in.
But good to point out, we know what you're doing today.
Matthew: Yeah, the thing is you just can't panic sell Trump. I mean, he's a, he's a character of volatility and he's been the president, this is six year now in office. Every year he's been in office. There's been a major market correction, but you know, every year the stocks, stocks still finish higher.
So I, I just think you have to be very, very patient with him as the president and not overreact.
Brent: Do you, do you get a sense that people are overreacting? 'cause I'm not getting that sense yet. You know, I think. Short term conversation is this war is gonna have impact on the market. But I don't feel like people are rushing out to sell their positions because, you know, some little thing going on in the Middle East,
Matthew: that's because we haven't came in with the market down a lot.
We come in with the market down a lot. Then yeah, people are gonna panic or you know, let's say like a US ship out there, a Navy ship gets hit.
Josh: Well it kind of seems like the retail investor. Is a little bit more disciplined than the actual institution investors because look at how much, how fast those spikes in trading happen on this news.
But we don't see a lot of, even our clients saying, I'm gonna trade on this news. Right, right. Even when we have conversations with, you know. Colleagues, peers prospects. There's not a lot of trading around the actual headline, but who's generating a lot of that volatility is the institutions very nervous.
Brent: Right,
Matthew: right.
Brent: I, I also think it's important to remind people that it obvious as something may seem after the fact. You know, you may think going into like these ships going out to the Middle East that, you know, we're gonna go after Iran and hit all hit them and the market's gonna go down 20 or 30%. But like, it's literally impossible to predict what the outcome's gonna be.
And no matter how good you are, you can't predict how much the market's gonna go down or up. Look, today was a great example. The reverse in the oil price and the change in barrel completely changed market. Market was getting hit hard this morning. Then by mid-afternoon the market was green and finished green.
I mean, those things don't normally happen.
Matthew: Right? Yeah. The other thing to keep in mind is like practicality. You gotta be practical about this. It's a midterm election year.
Josh: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: The Republicans are in charge of everything. There's no way that the president wants this to last longer than a couple weeks.
Right. They're gonna get destroyed in the midterms.
Josh: Yep.
Brent: Yeah,
Josh: and we've just seen that how fast even one decision or one Trump speech can really kind of turn this market like it did today.
Brent: Yeah, yeah. I wonder if he's sitting there at times watching the stock market and saying, okay, what do I gotta say to kind of impact the change this the market today?
Josh: Yeah. Or like even you fast forward like a month from now and nothing changed and you see oil prices stay high, inflation numbers come in high, you know, a kind of a downward spiral and then you complete 180 back to, okay, we're gonna end this war. We're gonna kind of fix this problem we created. Right.
Matthew: Well, you remember a Liberation Day last year that was like five to 10 days of pure panic, and then everything reversed in the market started going higher.
Josh: Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Brent: I feel like still people don't even understand what's going on with the tariffs.
Matthew: Yeah. Yeah. Me either.
Brent: So. So what should people do now?
So if you're listening and you're thinking, okay, market's getting hit, 'cause tomorrow the market could get crushed, you know, a lot. Mm-hmm. Right. If the market does start to go down, what should people do with, even without us knowing what's going to happen?
Matthew: Just always remember your time horizon. When do you actually need the money?
Like, if you're trying to buy a house this year and your money's a hundred percent stocks, you might wanna get it out. That's probably not smart. But if you're 10, 20 years from retirement, I think you're fine. Hopefully if you're actually retired, you've worked with a financial planner like us to build a financial plan where you're implementing like a bucket strategy for your income.
So you're protected when we get this kind of volatility. 'cause the volatility is always gonna come. You're never not gonna have market volatility. What's the, what's the stat? 20% of the time the market goes down. So you expect it to happen one, once every five years?
Josh: Mm-hmm.
Matthew: Yeah. So have a plan.
Josh: Yeah. And stick to the plan.
Don't, don't turn off those retirement contributions. Don't stop dollar cost averaging into the market like we preach a lot. Those are gonna be good habits regardless of all of this volatility. Short term. Stick to your plan.
Brent: What's been the discussion on energy and what's happening with energy, because that's been a big topic of conversation lately.
Matthew: With clients?
Brent: Yeah.
Matthew: Well, I mean, the price is going higher. So I mean, eventually it'll start to impact consumers if it stays high for a long time, especially coming this summer. And then the downside to high energy prices, if they stay high for a significant period of time, it usually does throw the economy into a recession because the consumer can't afford anything else.
Brent: And what should people be doing with gold, because I know it's been in the headlines on the price of gold going up a lot, silver. And how should people just, are they, are you having clients invest in gold? Are you just sitting on people's gold position? What are you doing?
Josh: I again, here with my stance doesn't change. You're seeing gold at all time. Highs. Why is gold going up? The uncertainty? People are nervous and so when people are nervous, there's a lot of uncertainty. People flock to what they deem safer assets, right? You're looking at gold, commodity, silver and. That's a part of your plan and you want that diversification.
It just needs to be in line. You need to have guardrails around that type of an investment. We usually say, you know, no more than five to 10% of your overall portfolio 'cause you don't want to be overweight. That's it with any asset class. So why is gold any different? Now with that being said, we looked at historical rates of return of gold.
You know, you have to also ask yourself, why are you buying it? And at all time highs. And if those kind of reasons don't match why you're buying it, then maybe it's not for you. But we do, we do take a look at it for clients. We have a lot of clients ask about gold because it's done so well.
Brent: Is it now a good time for people to do Roth conversions?
'cause I know that was a topic we'd brought up, you know, recently.
Matthew: Yeah, if your plan allows it, and you could do it at a lower tax bracket, you definitely need to work with a, a tax professional and a certified financial planner if you, if you wanna do Roth conversions. But one strategy that could work is if the market does fall a lot, it usually is advantageous to do Roth conversions when the market is lower.
That way you, you convert at a lower amount and when stocks recover, now you have that money and you're Roth. And it's growing faster.
Josh: I feel like the Roth conversion conversation slowed down after the big beautiful bill was, was passed. 'cause everyone was in a rush to do Roth conversions because of the sunset of the tax rates.
And it was such a big topic, not only on like TikTok and Instagram and with like the, the finance, like social media community. And now I feel like it's kind of slowed down. All of the content around Roth conversions is slow. I don't know if you guys feel that way, but it seems, do
Brent: you think it's more of an algorithm thing or do you think the actual, just the, the tax bill change actually kicks the,
Josh: I feel like it even had more questions from clients regard it.
Maybe it's the algorithm too, but just because there's less content being pushed on it. But I agree. That's a great point too, Matt, you know, market does fall back. Those are good times to rebalance also and, and convert.
Matthew: Yeah.
Brent: What are you doing personally in your portfolio right now, Matt? Are you looking to buy or are you holding or what, what's your stance currently?
Matthew: I'm not doing anything. There's no edge here. You know, fully invested stocks go higher. Great. I'm gonna win. If they go lower, I'll get more interested in buying something. But outside that, I'm not doing anything.
Brent: What about you, Josh?
Josh: Same. Yeah, I mean, always monitoring, always watching for, you know, opportunities.
But there's no core change right now. Really hard too, when, when markets still are floating around all time highs. I know there's been volatility, but we're still high.
Brent: I don't have any confidence right now of something that I buy right now is gonna go up in value in the next 4, 6, 8, 12 weeks. So I, I don't, outside of dollar cost averaging my normal contributions, I don't know that right now is a great time to just.
Start trying to pick and choose some just individual stocks.
Josh: No. Unless you wanna buy it. 'cause you're gonna hold it for 10, 15, 20 years.
Brent: Yeah.
Josh: You know it's gonna go higher or you think it's gonna go higher over that timeframe, but I agree.
Brent: Alright, well how about what do we do from here?
Matthew: Let's talk about something exciting. Brent, is your birthday coming up?
Brent: Yeah, my birthday is coming up. I'm getting older. But I'm thankful for another year, I guess is what you're supposed to say. Yeah, which is obvious, you know, I'll take any,
Josh: okay. There's what you're supposed to say.
We want to hear the, the real raw comment on your birthday comment.
Brent: No, I'm getting older. I mean you know, I think the difference from 35 to now going to be 45 is like real change. But then I was thinking back about. So like every decade you think of a kid being born from zero to 10, like you do change a tremendous amount and from 10 to 20, you change a ton.
But I do think one big change is not really from 20 mid twenties to mid thirties, the big changes from like mid thirties to mid forties. Like you, you are aging. You, you're on that decline of your body. You know, it's not the same as what you were in your mid thirties. To me. I, I dwell on that kind of stuff, but I feel extremely active.
He's talking
Matthew: about our, he's talking about the exact area you and I are. He is like, yeah, from
Josh: 35 you really start to feel down on your, so you're going
Brent: down. No, but it's not yet. You guys are, you guys are 39 and soon to be 40. I mean, whoa.
Josh: Whoa. That's a year older than Meko. Kind of.
Brent: You are still in a very good spot.
Six months, I think. It's not for another two or three years, you're like, yeah. Okay.
Josh: Do you think though, like a lot of that has to do with just having kids though?
Brent: Keeping you young or getting you older?
Josh: Getting you older,
Brent: I'm
Josh: sure like not in a bad way, but like, you know, like, 'cause you mentioned too, you know, you had kids through that period.
Now they're, they're growing older, you know, think of them not affecting you in any way. Do you think it would've been that big of a drastic change over the last 10 years?
Brent: Probably, I
Josh: think
Brent: just natural.
Josh: So it doesn't, it it, kids are no kids. It's, it's just part of the.
Brent: Aging
Josh: process.
Brent: I mean, maybe in some ways, but you even look at like, you know Tom Brady, who's had a very successful athletic career and very focused on himself.
You even look at him now and you're like, man, he's actually aging now.
Josh: He, he's had too much work. Tom Brady looks weird now.
Brent: Is that what it is?
Josh: Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
Brent: I,
Josh: that's like the hardcore rumor.
Brent: See, I thought he was just aging, but maybe it's just he
Josh: doesn't even look real no more.
Matthew: All right.
Well, do you have any fun plans for your birthday?
Brent: I, I will be at the little League Fields doing my community service for my last year as President of the Little League for your birthday? Yeah, I have to, it's just that is, that is the top priority that I finish out my term and do it well and is the best that I can.
And you know, I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but that's how I will be definitely spending my birthday.
Matthew: Is that your recommendation? Get out to the little league field this weekend for your birthday.
Brent: What did I recommend last time? Do you remember?
Matthew: I don't even know if we did re
Josh: I
Matthew: we didn't
Josh: do recommends last time.
Brent: I'll recommend this — I don't remember if I shared this last time, but I'm back at Orangetheory working out. I, I was hardcore Peloton at home. Treadmill strength and conditioning kept my body as good a shape as it was going to with those types of routines.
Needed something else. I feel better than I have. The last two years since I've been out of Orangetheory, it's taken me like three months now. I have some little bit more aches right now. I'm probably just going too hard, but fitness wise I feel a lot better than I have the last couple years because I think the cardio,
Josh: Hey, you need to take it easy.
We can't have you coming in here with injuries, man.
Brent: Yeah, crippled old man
Josh: Little League fields. Mont, we need you top health. But I'm glad to hear. We remember when we used to go before COVID to actual studio classes and we both agreed that that was so much better than. The gym or Peloton.
Brent: Yeah. I don't know why it
gets,
Josh: I just don't work out anymore.
Brent: Yeah. I, I think a lot of people think studio, well, not a lot of people, a lot of people are there. I mean, some people just don't, aren't the studio workouts aren't for them. But I think one thing that helps me is like, I don't want to think about my workout. I don't wanna think about what I need to do. I don't wanna rest.
I don't wanna sit there too long. Like I want to maximize efficiency with my time.
Josh: Yeah.
Brent: And I wanna be told what to do and when to do it and how fast to do it and boom. Get, get my hour in and get out.
Matthew: Yeah. People like it. Josh, what do you got?
Brent: Landman,
Josh: If you haven't watched Landman — we are talking about oil.
I just finished season two. I think it's on Paramount with Billy Bob Thornton. All about kind of the oil business in Texas. It was a good show and it's, it's kind of a lot of relevant info with everything going on, kind of with oil and in the Middle East. So if you haven't watched that show, check it out.
Watch it. It's, it's good.
Matthew: And I'll wrap it up. Did you get your son one of those guardian bikes, Josh?
Josh: I did, yeah.
Matthew: Those are pretty good. My daughter got one and so did my son. But she learned how to ride the bike. So she does it now with pedals and no training wheels. We never used the training wheels.
I just followed what the company said to do and now she knows how to ride a bike. Sucks. Prequel it took it. Did
Josh: she have the balance bike first or no?
Matthew: No. Okay. So she was starting fresh on a
Josh: Got it.
Matthew: On a Guardian balance bike, and then I added the pedals once she learned how to balance.
Josh: So she did use the balance first?
Matthew: She did, but it was on the same bike. It's not like she had a previous bike.
Josh: Sure. Got it. Yeah. My my son has just the balance bike, but he's big into the scooter right now. I gotta get him to, to, to use that thing. But that's cool. That brand's cool. And those bikes are nice.
Matthew: Yeah, they, they are cool. So I would recommend for your child or grandchild, if they're learning how to ride a bike.
The, what the company says is if you practice with the kid, they'll be riding the bike in an hour and that was pretty true.
Josh: That's awesome.
Brent: Really? You went, went from like fresh, not being on a bike to bike with no training wheels. An hour,
Matthew: an hour. Yeah.
Brent: That's awesome.
Matthew: It was broken up over a few days 'cause she would get frustrated, but like if you, you actually like stop the stopwatch.
It was about an hour, maybe a little bit longer. Maybe like an hour 10, hour 15. But yeah, now she can fully ride the bike. Now Crew likes scooters.
Josh: Big scooter guy. Yeah, big. Every day when I get home. Dad, I want to go ride my scooter. It's like a three-wheel — like the two wheels on the front and the one in the back.
Brent: Yeah.
Josh: And then like you kinda lean to go like side to side. Right. But loves it and jams on it. It was crazy 'cause like one day he went from like not riding it and then the next day, boom, like full blown every day. Rides it all over, wants to take it everywhere and ride it. Like, no, we can't take it to baseball practice.
You gotta walk.
Brent: Is other kids in the neighborhood doing
Josh: that
Brent: too?
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. The other kids in the neighborhood and hopefully a couple of the kids are starting to ride bikes more. So hopefully he has that interest 'cause he has that guardian balance bike that I want him to start too.
Brent: So you're a big soccer guy and now your son's.
Playing T-ball. What, like how did that happen?
Josh: I grew up playing all sports and I want that for my son to give him all of his sports to us at T-Ball. Like at, he just turned four. It, it's just kind of hilarious to see them go out there and, and play and just experience that kind of team atmosphere.
He's done like indoor soccer. He'll do ASO for the first time this spring. But I'll let him pick. Obviously I'm gonna try to push him towards soccer a little bit, but he seems to like baseball so far and he's on the Dodgers and then he watched like the Dodgers World Series and he like loved that.
So maybe, maybe he'll like baseball more than I thought.
Matthew: Speaking of baseball, don't you have to jam out to get to practice?
Josh: Yeah, I gotta go to practice right now.
Matthew: Alright.
Josh: Dodgers at practice.
Brent: Big baseball guy now. Everything's changed. You have kids in
Josh: your
sports
Josh: Of course not. It's still soccer.
We're gonna LAFC on Saturday.
Matthew: Oh, you got the tickets?
Brent: Yeah. Well, we we're gonna have to get you over to Vineyard Little League at some point and make sure your son is in, in the real local league.
Josh: Wow. We'll see you about that.
Brent: All right. Well, as advisors, we love helping people. That's why we do it. If you'd like more information, please visit evermont.com.
You could also call our office for a free consultation, (909) 296-7977 and you could like, subscribe, share with someone who needs to hear this right now. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out with us or scheduled meetings with any of us. We'd love to help.
Josh: Thank you.
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