“Money, like emotions, is something you must control to keep your life on the right track.” ― Natasha Munson
This quarter has been nothing short of remarkable for the markets, but Mike Brady isn’t just here to talk numbers. In his latest update, the founder of Generosity Wealth Management dives deeper—shifting focus from market highs to what truly matters: the financial wisdom that comes from over 30 years of experience. With insights on long-term planning, managing life’s curveballs, and preparing for the future, Mike reveals how to stay ahead no matter what the markets are doing.
But that’s not all. Mike also introduces two exciting ventures under the Generosity Group umbrella—Generosity Estate Planning, led by his wife, and Generosity Business Exit Planning, designed to help business owners take control of their future. It’s been an incredible year of growth, and there’s so much more ahead. Hit play to hear it all firsthand.
Transcript
Hi there. Mike Brady with Generosity Wealth Management, a comprehensive full-service financial services firm headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. End of the quarter, the third quarter. I’m doing this on Friday before the end of the quarter, before October 1. And this has been a wonderful quarter, a wonderful year. I mean, double-digit returns for almost every unmanaged stock market index, American US-based. Bonds are doing great–unmanaged bond indexes from a shellacking they took back in 2022.
If you look at a balance of stocks and bonds, it would be 50-50; we’re looking at seven out of eight of the last quarters, including this quarter, have been positive, which is wonderful. If you recall, I’ve used this statistic over and over again. In about three out of four quarters and years on the unmanaged stock market index, returns are positive, which means one out of four are negative, usually negative. And when you can break the trend and have a nice long history of many quarters coming together for a positive–that’s wonderful. We’ll take that every day.
I was joking with a client right before I made this video. He says, “Hey, Mike, things are looking great. You know, things are good in your world.” And I said to this client, “Yeah, you’re right. I mean, these are the types of quarters and years that we live for. There’s not much to say.” Therefore, I wanted to use this video not to have a technical conversation because you can go to the Internet and get so many opinions. You can go to 24/7 business news channels. Everybody’s got an opinion commentary. And I don’t want to pile onto that at this point. When things are going well, I can sit here and tell you why things are doing well in the stock market, etcetera.
But, it’s not so much information that you need anymore. It’s about what the right information is. It’s the wisdom. So I’ve been doing this since August of 1991 in the financial industry, and that’s 33 years. Back in 1991, you would have a competitive advantage if you could afford more information than your common person, your common trader, or your investor. And you did that by having a Bloomberg terminal, Morningstar reports, ValueLine, or Investor Business Daily newspaper. We had information that maybe the everyday person couldn’t afford or didn’t have. Well, that’s gone away. With the democratization of information through the Internet, you’re inundated with more data than you could ever use. And, of course, you’ve got more pundits on TV. At the time, we didn’t have the financial news every day today. What’s more important, I think, and what I’ve learned over the last three decades, are all the other variables in the equation leading up to reaching your financial goals. That is:
• Good retirement analysis.
• Are you saving enough?
• What’s your liquidity fixed vs. variable?
• Liquidity? Liquid and illiquid assets?
• What about the speed bumps along the way, like the ability to continue if you lose your ability to work or lose your spouse? You know, all these bad things.
We should spend a lot of our energy on these things that we can proactively address and assess the risk towards versus having a wonderful conversation about whether interest rates will go up or down and when it might do that. I mean, that’s kind of interesting and fun, I suppose. But you know what? We should have a portfolio that will weather over your time horizon and have a high probability that it will weather it just fine, whether it goes up or down, whether the stock market goes down or up this quarter. Okay. That’s the reason why one of the big questions I ask people is, what’s your duration? What’s your time horizon? Because that starts to inform the decision about the appropriate investments that might be appropriate for a client. So it’s good to know, are you an investor or a trader? Because frankly, if you’re watching this video, you’re an investor. If you’re my client, you’re an investor, because traders are not attracted to me. I don’t believe that, in the long term, trading mindset is the wise choice. We’ve got to have our duration, keep things in perspective, the right duration, and have a plan for how to get there and focus all of our energy on those things that we might be able to control, like, am I saving enough? What are my expenses? Taxes? Am I maximizing all the tax opportunities that are afforded to me? Those are the things that I believe we should spend the majority of these videos and our time to reach your financial goals.
Mike Brady, Generosity Wealth Management.
Before I sign off, though, I wanted to let you know that there’s some exciting stuff coming in the next three to four months. I set up a couple of new businesses. It’s all going to be under the moniker of Generosity Group, Firstly, Generosity Wealth Management, which you’re used to. You’re my client, or because you watch these videos, Generosity Wealth Management.
My wife, who has been an attorney since 1999, will pivot her specialty towards estate planning. So we’re going to have Generosity Estate Planning, a wholly separate business run by my wife, a practicing attorney here in Colorado.
The third is Generosity Business Exit planning, which is focused on business owners personal life, their finances of the business owners, and also their needs after they sell the business. For those who are going to sell their business in the next three to five years or at least want to get ready so that they can sell it when they choose, not when someone else chooses. Maybe they get sick, or they’re not able to, or they die. You sell it when you want to because your business is already. So that’s my third business.
I’m also bringing in a business partner. Don’t worry — it doesn’t affect you. My clients will remain my clients, her clients will remain her clients, and we will do joint work together and have other collaborative opportunities. She will also be under Generosity Wealth Management’s umbrella. So that’s really exciting, and I’m looking forward to you getting to know her.
So lots of exciting stuff going on, even more when we, maybe when we talk in person, I’ll share with you, but this has been, 2023 was a tough year for me. I had some personal struggles, not me per se, but just lots of going on in my life and my family and other things, and got through 2023. 2024 has been the exact opposite. It’s just been one of the best years in my 55 years of living.
Mike Brady, Generosity Wealth Management, 303-747-6455