$1M Hanging Over His Rack with Joel Salomon | Ship's Log 19

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive, and bring himself to believe, he can achieve.” - Joel Salomon

Episode Summary:
In this episode of Project Candor, Jeanne Andersen sits down with Joel Salomon, a former hedge fund manager turned prosperity coach known as the “Money Doctor.” Joel shares his journey from managing hundreds of millions of dollars on Wall Street to helping people transform their relationship with money through mindset and belief.

He explains how his perspective shifted during the 2008 financial crisis, when he noticed a direct link between his emotional state and financial performance. Inspired by books like Think and Grow Rich, Joel began exploring the “inner game” of money—beliefs, gratitude, and mindset—and saw how these could shape real-world results.

Throughout the conversation, Joel challenges common assumptions about success, including the idea that hard work alone leads to wealth. Instead, he emphasizes flow, leverage, and aligning actions with belief and intention. He introduces the concept of “money stories,” explaining how limiting beliefs like “I’m not good with money” can quietly hold people back—and how small mindset shifts and intentional actions can begin to change that narrative.
Blending practical experience with mindset principles, Joel offers a different lens on financial success: one rooted not just in strategy, but in belief, clarity, and personal alignment.

Guest’s Bio:
Joel Salomon is a Prosperity Coach, international speaker, and former hedge fund manager who helps people transform their relationship with money and achieve financial freedom. Known as “The Money Doctor,” he combines Wall Street experience with mindset and abundance principles to help clients break through limiting beliefs and create healthier money stories.

He previously managed a $700 million portfolio at Citi, delivering strong performance even during the 2008 financial crisis, and later founded his own hedge fund, SaLaurMor Capital, named after his daughters.

Joel is the author of three books, including The 9 Money Rules Millionaires Use, Infinite Love and Money, and Mindful Money Management. He is also a TEDx speaker and has delivered over 30 workshops across corporate, academic, and community audiences worldwide.

He has been featured in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg Radio, and more than 150 podcasts. In addition, he founded a nonprofit focused on financial literacy for children under 18.

Today, he blends financial expertise with mindset coaching to help individuals and organizations rethink money, abundance, and possibility.

Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-salomon/
Website: https://salaurmor.com/

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Transcript

$1M Hanging Over His Rack

Jeanne 0:02

Welcome to Project Candor, where ordinary people share the most unexpected stories. I'm your host, Jeanne Andersen, and we're not chasing polished sound bites or picture-perfect moments. We're opening

Intro

Jeanne 0:15

the door to the real stories, the ones that shape us quietly, challenge us deeply, and often change us in ways we don't see coming. Our guest today is Joel Salomon, a prosperity coach, international speaker, and former hedge fund manager who helps people rewrite their money stories and step into true financial freedom. Known as the Money Doctor, Joel blends real-world Wall Street experience with mindset work to help people break through their fear, release limiting beliefs, and create abundance with more ease and intention. He's the author of three best-selling books on money and mindset, a TED X speaker, and a frequent podcast guest whose work has reached audiences around the world. Before shifting into coaching, Joel managed hundreds of millions of dollars in institutional portfolios, including navigating the 2008 market crash. Yikes, and later founded his own hedge fund. Today his work

Joel Salomon joins the conversation

Jeanne 1:15

focuses on prosperity, purpose, and helping people build a healthier relationship with money. Joel, welcome to Project Candor.

Joel 1:23

Thank you so much for having me.

Jeanne 1:24

It's a great honor and pleasure to be here today. Great. Well, you're such an interesting person, and your story headlines for our signature game, Two Truths and a Lie, are jaw-dropping, I have to say. But first, I'd like to get to know you better, and I'm sure the audience will as well. Are you ready for me to ask you some questions?

Joel 1:43

I was born ready.

Jeanne 1:45

I like that. Before we talk about money or mindset, when people meet you outside of your work, what do they tend to notice first?

Joel 1:54

I'd say someone who's warm, confident, and a loving father. By the way, my company name Sa Laur Mor is named after my daughters, Lauren and Morgan. So L-A-U-R for Lauren, M-O-R for Morgan. Lauren's just born yesterday, I swear. She's turning 22, and she's a senior at Syracuse. And Morgan is turning 20 on the 15th, and she's gonna be a doctor, and she's at Colgate.

Jeanne 2:27

Ooh, wow. She's gonna be a doctor and she's at Colgate University.

Warm, confident, loving father

Jeanne 2:32

All of a sudden I thought she was already working uh at Colgate. Uh, got confused there because she's just 20, so I was getting my numbers wrong. But that's a sweet age, right before they're adults, and they they probably I think if I my memory serves me, 18 is like, get out of my way, mom. And then 19 is like, got any money? And then 20 is like, oh wow, I really appreciate you. And then it just gets a little bit better from there. Like, I'm thankful, you know, you've helped me. So I don't know if that's it for you, but that was it for me.

Joel 3:09

I mean, every year has been great. Uh so I just uh I'm grateful because I actually write in my gratitude journal every day that I'm grateful for Lauren and Morgan for teaching me unconditional love.

Jeanne 3:19

Oh, that's so sweet and wonderful. I know you're probably a really good dad, and I I'm just we can't dwell into all of that, but it sounds like you are having a great time with your family. So you've lived on both sides of the money world, high finance and inner work. When did you realize those two things were connected for you?

Joel 3:39

Great question. Probably in the early 2000s, I read a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And it was written a hundred years ago, and it's timeless. That, along with The Secret and Infinite Possibilities, that was written by Mike Dooley, got me to think a lot about the inner game. And when I was managing a initially a $300 million portfolio that grew to $700 million at at a large bank 2008 to 2012, I realized that when I was grateful and happy and having fun that and and in a mindset of belief that I had better

When Wall Street meets inner work

Joel 4:32

returns. When I was worried and fearful, and I'd lost maybe I'd lost money seven days in a row and was worried about losing money eight, I lost money eight days in a row. So it was really stark in when I started being a portfolio manager in 2008.

Jeanne 4:50

So for people that are listening, I just thought of this question because I'm not really I've worked in finance before, but just in little pockets within banks and so forth. So I don't have the whole full picture of investments. So a portfolio, when you say you grew something from I think you said 70 million to 300 million, I can't remember the number you threw out, but what is a portfolio actually? Is it just you're managing other people's money at that level and you're building it for them? Or is it bank money or financial money?

Joel 5:23

Yeah, so it was the bank's money. So a bank like Citigroup has trillions of dollars of assets, and they gave me 300 million of those assets to invest to start. And I was managing a hedge fund, so some of the stocks I was betting were gonna go up, and other stocks I was betting were gonna go down. And so we're kind of hedged, meaning that if the overall market was down a lot, we're not gonna lose a lot of money. And if the market goes up a lot, we're not gonna make as much, but we should still make money. And so, for example, in 2008, when the stock market was down 40%, and financial stocks, which were the only stocks I was invested in, were down 57%, I was able to make four and a half percent for the bank shareholders.

Jeanne 6:10

Wow, that's great. I know I'm always looking at that percentage in my own portfolio, and uh it doesn't always hit that. So that's fantastic. All right, well, that gives me a clearer picture of what we're talking about when you're saying portfolio, because I'm just thinking about my own, and I'm thinking, hmm, I'm little bucks down here, but um 300 million to 700 million, that's quite something. So was there a moment in your life when your relationship with money changed? Like not financially but emotionally?

Joel 6:39

Yeah, I I think it was that year when, you know, quote unquote all hell was breaking loose, and I realized that I didn't have to respond to what was going on here in the physical reality and had confidence. You know, after reading Thing Rich, I had confidence that no matter what's going on here, I was creating my reality, and I had actually put a checkup on my ceiling for a very large amount over seven figures because it was recommended in the book. And I'm like, well, let's see, let's try. Let's have like I teach my clients child-like curiosity. Let's try it, let's see. Like who knows? And so that's my that was my attitude, and but I believed it. I believed that what he was teaching in that book was timeless and worked, and 18 months later I had that money in the bank account.

Jeanne 7:35

I want to read that book. I think I need to.

Joel 7:39

Yeah, and once that happened, then I knew that anything was possible, and that's what I teach my clients. So belief, I I asked people on the belief meter, what's your belief level from one to ten? Where ten is absolute faith and one is massive doubt. So if you're 10 on the belief scale, and then

The check on the ceiling

Joel 7:59

I ask them what your level of of desire is from one to ten, ten is I really, really need this, and one is yeah, yeah, whatever. If you're a ten belief and a ten desire, that's called expectation. You're expecting it. And so I expected them once I really wanted it. I had just gotten divorced in the end of 2007, and I really wanted to support my daughters and to make them not have to ever worry about money. And so that was my burning desire, and I had the belief after reading the book that anything is possible.

Jeanne 8:37

Very nice, very nicely put. Thank you. I want to go and take one of your classes right now.

Joel 8:45

TSW, this stuff works. And by the way, in my Money Miracles Mastermind group, the members in the mastermind have manifested over $2,555,000. That's over $85,000 of surprise money. That's not like I'm working on a client and the client comes in. It's like I talked to somebody four years ago, haven't talked to them since, and they call me up and say, Hey, Tina, how much are you charging these days? Tina says $5,000. They say, I'm in. When can we start? That's a money manifestation. And we've had over 2,555,000 of those.

Jeanne 9:22

Wow, those are big numbers. Well, moving on. Um, what helps you recognize when it's time for a course correction, especially when things look successful on the outside?

Joel 9:33

That's a great question. So what I say is take baby steps in the direction of your dreams. So try different things. You know, you're a coach, so you know, coach one-on-one, do group coaching, maybe do some speaking, you know, speak at different places, write a book, do some online courses, and see maybe you post on social media and see what's getting traction. You know, take some some baby steps and then take the least sucky path. If nothing's really working, just try one of those, like if one thing's getting a little bit more momentum, then try that. And so that's an indication. Because I say taking action breeds clarity. And so if you're taking some action and you see you're getting some momentum,

$2.5 million in surprise money

Joel 10:23

go in that direction, course correct over there, rather than oh, like struggle to make something work. Like this kind of energy, I will tell you for 30 years, I used this kind of energy. It's called white knuckling it. It's literally white knuckling, right? And what I teach now is getting in flow because flow is so much easier. You know, Tina, who manifested over $10,000 in the last 30 days in my mastermind group, she talked about it being effortless. The money was just flowing, and it's that's how it is when you're in flow, right? She's not she has been white knuckling it like I did for 30 years, right? And so, yes, you can move matter to make matter, and that's what I did most of my career in finance. But I found in the last 10 years that when you're in flow, things just happen. I will tell a quick story. So I had I say, Hey, I'm teaching this stuff. This was 2022, 2021. I said, I'm teaching this stuff. Why don't I put it into practice? So I'm gonna use one of the techniques that I teach to manifest money to manifest $200,000. Let's just see, childlike curiosity, it's worked for others, it's working for people in my membership, my mastermind group, uh, my one-on-one coaching. Let's try. Just put it out there. And I just started doing the technique. I you do it for 30 days, and then you let go, you've asked, the universe has answered. Well, four months later, a client of mine had, I also teach stock investing. And this client I was teaching stock investing, he had generated more than $2.5 million in the stock market. He had generated 120% return in four months. And he comes to me and he says, Joel, tell me about your platinum plan. And I said, Ooh, my platinum plan. I gotta, I gotta get it all ready for you. I didn't have a platinum plan. So I put it all together. I put all the pieces of it together, and I got on the call the next week and I said, This is a $200,000 program, and here's all the attributes of it. And he said, Okay, where do I wire the money to? That was my $200,000 manifestation four months later.

Jeanne 12:35

Wonderful. Yes, I need your techniques. That's fantastic. So you went and told a story. So that was gonna be one of my next questions because I know you often talk about money stories. So, how do you explain that idea to someone who says, I'm just not good with money? Okay, so explain it to me because I'm gonna say I'm that person.

Joel 12:56

So I will say that's a limiting belief that you were taught, or maybe the physical reality that you're seeing is showing you that. And you don't need to believe the physical reality. We're all living a dream anyway. I believe it's all an illusion and you're creating it. So if you can flip it by saying I'm getting better and better with money every day, right? And and but I say only say things you believe. If you don't believe that, say soon I will be getting better with money, or I allow myself to become better with money, and check yourself on the belief scale. One to ten, ten absolute faith, one massive doubt. So start with some simple affirmations and start with some simple demonstrations, too. What would you do if you had an extra hundred thousand dollars? Maybe you'd give to uh one of your favorite charities. Start today. Start with a dollar, start with five dollars or research. What I did a few years ago was I said, okay, this business hasn't been generating seven figures yet. If it does, what would I do? I'd set up a foundation to teach kids across the country the truth about money, financial literacy, money mindset. So I set up my foundation, Salaumor Charitable Giving. Before the business was generating seven figures, acting as if it already had, and funding it with a small amount of money, and then reaching out to my community and saying, Hey, I just started this foundation, love to have you give a small amount, whatever you can afford, because don't you want to help the next generation learn the truth about money? Right? So that was a baby step I took, acting as if this business was generating significantly more money than it was at the time. So what baby steps are acting as if can you do to demonstrate to the universe like, okay, things have shifted already? And it's not like splurging, right? You don't need to splurge. You can if you're really struggling, you

Rewriting your money story

Joel 15:00

know, and you go to the supermarket, you know, and you're buying all generics because you really don't have the money for the the premium, whatever, buy one premium. You know, buy premium coffee and everything else do generic. You're just demonstrating that to the universe that things are shifting a little bit, right? And it'll take notice. If you don't have an account for stocks and you want to when you have more abundance in your life, it doesn't cost any money to open up a Schwab online brokerage account. Do that now. So you're demonstrating that things are about to shift and you're getting better with money. And guess what? You will.

Jeanne 15:42

That sounds like good sound advice. I think me now though, I go to the store and I'm thinking more like, hey, you buy all this premium stuff, you better stop.

Joel 15:53

Well, no, I'm not saying buy all of it. I'm just saying all like 90 not out of 100 things, generic. But one little splurge. It's like if you're going on vacation, right? And you don't really have a lot of money, so you're staying in the uh, you know, the motel six or the big eight or whatever it is for the whole vacation, maybe spend one night spending an extra fifty or a hundred dollars on that nicer hotel, just to demonstrate to the universe that again, things are about to shift, right? So if it's an eight-day vacation, spend seven, you know, in the eighty dollar hotel and then one night in the $180 hotel.

Jeanne 16:34

Okay. Yeah, that does sound interesting. I have to go back to when you said we're all living an illusion. I'm not sure about that. I didn't know what you meant. I think it's reality. Otherwise, yeah, I'm not sure what you mean by that. Is that because you're manifesting things? Because you can see to you not see the future, but you know, you can look ahead and um kind of build your own story. And it that's why you call it illusion.

Joel 17:02

We're co-creating this this uh what we call the physical reality, I say. But ultimately, you know, we we've chosen to live this dream, and I believe that we are eternal beings, that we we get to be in this lifetime and many, many other lifetimes. And so, you know, for this, you know, we've chosen to create or you know, maybe purposely, not purposely, with our thoughts, our beliefs, and our actions, this particular reality. And so if we want to, we can come back and create a different one.

Jeanne 17:39

Okay. And so why not make the reality you want right now, is what you're saying, I guess. And so that that sounds good.

Joel 17:46

Have fun, be happy, which is rule number three in the Nine Money Rules Millionaires Use, my second book. Can happiness buy you money? Be happy, be grateful, and give. Okay.

Jeanne 17:57

So, what's one belief about money you can see quietly holding a lot of people back, even people who look successful on the outside?

Joel 18:05

This is a big one, and almost everyone I meet has it, and I've had it, and I still have it at times. It's you gotta work really, really hard to be rich and successful. If you don't work hard, if there's no pain, there's no gain. Struggle is noble. And I will say these are limiting beliefs. Like I said, like so I didn't tell you exactly the story, but in 2007, I was making decent money, and then I started managing this portfolio for the for Citigroup, and I barely got a bonus. I was working 75 hours a week, I was working 50% more than I did in 2007 and 2008. And I just because I was taught by my great-grandparents, taught my grandparents, who taught my parents, who taught me, if you work really, really hard, you'll be rich and successful. Okay, it's my first job where I get paid for performance. I thought, okay, well, it's logical, just work harder. Worked really, really hard. It was a financial crisis. I barely money. And I was killing myself. And I realized if I continued working that hard, my daughters were two and four at the time, I may not see them be teenagers.

Jeanne 19:13

Very true.

Joel 19:14

And so I decided to work smarter, work less hours, and have more fun. And that this is the reason for the Nine Money Rules Millionaires used that book I wrote, my second book. Because I wanted to share what happened in 2009 and 10 and 11 and how I changed my beliefs and my thoughts and my actions. And I made 10 times what I made in 2007 in 2009. Ten times by applying these techniques of working smarter, having more fun, being happier. And so, yeah, I think it's and believing, believing that that anything's possible, and not so the limiting belief that almost everyone has. In fact, I just got off a with a client earlier this morning, and even though I've been teaching him for a number of weeks, he's he came to this call and said, I still have this thought in me that if I'm not working hard, then there's no money coming in. And it's just it's everywhere. And it's just not true. The richest people in the world who, you know, not to get political, the people who worth a hundred billion or fifty billion or a hundred and fifty or a hundred billion, they don't have more hours than you do. They've just created a business where there's leverage, meaning that they have other people working for them, or they're charging a lot for their time, or they have they're teaching everybody

The biggest limiting belief about money

Joel 20:40

at once. So, like, you know, a group coaching like a Tony Robbins, he's on stage teaching a thousand people at once his core concepts, right? And he can he can charge a hundred dollars a person and make a hundred thousand dollars in an hour, that's leverage, right? If you can make a hundred thousand dollars in an hour, then that's leverage. And most people think I gotta work really, really hard. You don't.

Jeanne 21:05

Yeah, but his coaching techniques, he has to spend time on preparing before he gets up on on stage to work and coach these people. So it's not just the one hour, is it? In reality.

Joel 21:16

I I massively undervalued his his hundred, it's not a hundred thousand dollars he's making in one hour. He's making millions in one hour. And if it's not one hour, it's ten hours. You could still divide and get to the hundred thousand. So my point being it's not about that, right? It's it's it's about leverage. And so, yeah, I have uh a Money Miracles mastermind group, and you could say, oh, you're only working one hour a week for that, but I'm preparing, of course, in advance for those meetings. So how much how many hours do you count for that? But still, you know, it's significantly more uh leverage in that kind of model than there is trading time for money.

Jeanne 21:57

Well, and plus you know you have a lot of um Um, mental equity, I guess you call it, or you have skills that you're building on that you can recall very quickly. So intellectual capital is what we used to call it. And you have all that. So, you know, it's not like you have to start from scratch every time you have a talk or a master class. So yeah, I just um I'm just trying to learn.

Joel 22:21

Yeah, I mean, it's it sounds like you still have the limiting belief that you have to work really, really hard to be rich and successful. You have to trade time for money. And the richest people don't do that. I mean, they have their money work for them.

Jeanne 22:34

Yeah, I would say I have that mindset to some degree. I I just never I worked a long time in corporate environment and at financial institutions as well, including the one you were talking about. And I did see people that I mean, getting emails from ExacSAT where they were sending stuff at 11 p.m. and then wanting answers by eight, and you're just like, uh, I'm not doing that. So, you know.

Joel 23:05

But there are other organizations that don't instill that mentality and are still making billions of dollars.

Jeanne 23:12

Nice, nice. Okay, well, you've worked with people who look successful on paper. Uh, what's something you've learned about success that most people misunderstand? And you might have already covered this and some of the other things, but do you have any other uh kind of insights on that?

Joel 23:31

I I think the biggest insight is that success is an inside job. It comes first from your thoughts, your beliefs, and then the actions. Most people are the other way around saying, Well, look, you know, look at the outside world. Like I have to like take all this action, right? And then you're successful. But I will say you're successful first when you have the mindset of a millionaire.

Jeanne 23:53

Okay. Nice. I'm gonna have to practice that mindset tonight. But I have to get your books first. When you think back to your younger self before all of this, um, because this is brilliant information. What do you wish you had understood about money sooner? Or that younger self had understood?

Joel 24:15

Yeah, I mean, I think what we've been talking about that, you know, you can have money work for you. You know, for 30 years I worked hard, right? And I thought that was the way, working hard for the money. And then I've recently in the last you know, call it 15, 20 years, realized that having your money work hard for you, having the right mindset. A lot of people have this misconception about like money is evil, love of money is evil. But I will say it's you know, the greediness part of it is an issue. And so if you can live a prosperous way, even without the money, then that's a prosperous life. Right? If you can live in an abundant way, think abundantly without and think happy thoughts and grateful thoughts, that's the start of a truly prosperous life.

Jeanne 25:08

Yeah, that's wonderful. But go with let's say the younger self of a 10-year-old, did you know you were going to be a businessman, or did you even think about you know, finance at that time?

Joel 25:22

No, if you asked me nine or ten, Joel, what's your dream? I would have said catcher for the New York Yankees. I was a big fan of Thurman Munson. He was my hero, he was hard worker, he was uh courageous, and he was captain of the team. And so I wanted to be just like him. But then when I started playing Little League, hitting the fastball was tough, and the curve was even tougher. So gave up on that dream. So yeah, when I was nine or ten, I wanted to be a baseball player a little bit later. I wanted to be statistician for the New York Yankees because I I was a big fan and figured that way I could get close to them and I was good at math. So even though my father was an entrepreneur and optometrist, I didn't really ever think about going into being an entrepreneur. It's probably it took me until 1993. And even then, when I decided I wanted to be a professional money manager, I saw it as initially as working for a bank or a mutual fund company. But eventually, when I spent

Success is an inside job

Joel 26:32

more time in business, I realized it would be great to have my own company. So that that was many years later. But yeah, growing up, I didn't know I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Jeanne 26:41

You had no vision or foresight into being this financial mogul. Yeah, well, that's true. Because Ivy, that's good news though, because I I didn't have that thought either. I always wanted to just have fun. But I there was a song you brought to mind. I work hard for the money so hard for it, honey. I I don't remember who saying that one. Oh, yeah, that's the the way the mindset is across, you know, most of the United States anyway, maybe across the world.

Joel 27:11

I think it is across the world because I I've had clients across the world.

Jeanne 27:14

Oh, okay. Well, yes. Uh we're gonna get into that some in your stories, I think. All right, so are you ready? This is where we shift gears a little. On Project Candor, we play a game called Two Truths and a Lie. I'm gonna read three headlines from your life that you provided to me earlier. Two are true, one is not. I'll make my guess and then you'll have to walk us through each story, but don't tell me which the lie until we get to the end because I'm gonna guess first, and then after that, we'll we'll find out, reveal. This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts. Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, Life can be different. Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story. And now, as we open the door to our second sponsor, we're stepping into the world of tech. Simple socket print, the lightweight blazing fast label print solution designed for those who need reliability without the bloat. With version 1.5, you get instant printing in milliseconds, fully maintained print sequence, and automatic base 6040 decoding all

The Yankees dream that started it all

Jeanne 28:38

without needing print driver installs. If you're running SQL Server 2016 or newer, SimpleSocket Print 1.5 drops right in and gets to work. Keep your workflow simple, keep your label printing fast with Simple Socket Print. Thank you to our sponsors. Here are Joel's stories. So after attending a personal development course, Joel shut down his successful hedge hunt by sending an email to his investors and not consulting his lawyer or the CFO. Ouch. Number two, in 2015, Joel lost millions of dollars of his investors' money and more than 500,000 in one day. That one's not greedy. I told you draw dropping everybody. Number three, Joel's biggest fear was public speaking a few years ago. Despite that, he has spoken on TEDx stage in Kauai and given a workshop in the Mall Deeps. Oh, I'm jealous of the Mall Deeps. That was the first thing my husband said he wanted to do when we got married, is go there. I have not been yet, though. And we're almost 27 years into this. Okay, so my guess was going to be that number one, because I thought I think there's some legal, some legal aspects to that that you couldn't get around. But I don't know. Because number two is kind of harsh as well. So let's go with one for me. Now I'm going to turn it over to you and you can start walking us through these stories.

Joel 30:12

Sure. So number one, so I went to a personal development course in December 2015, and two things happened that completely changed my life. One was there was a guest speaker speaking on stage in front of 200 people. And when he started speaking about stock options, he made it sound easy. He said, You don't need much time, you don't need much money. This is how the rich people get rich, and options are essentially risk-free. I was sick to my stomach. People were tapping me on the shoulder with spring rage. Oh, does this make sense? Are options really risk-free? So after he was done, we went out of the auditorium. I told him, please don't do this. He doesn't know any of you individually, and most importantly, he doesn't know your belief that you could become rich using options. Second thing that happened at that personal development course was we were given a wooden board two inches thick and we were told we're gonna break it with our bare hand. Have you done it?

Jeanne 31:10

I have not done that.

Joel 31:12

Well, yeah, there's a lot of fear in the room. The exercise was called obstacles or illusions. And on one side of the board, we had our writer biggest obstacle, and the other side our ultimate goal, which stumped me for a while, and then it hit me. Make everyone in this room

Two Truths & A Lie

Joel 31:27

financially free. Make everyone in this room financially free. And then I broke the board like everyone else did in that room. Went home that night, couldn't sleep. First, the guy was in my head, and I realized if I could ever get up the courage to speak on a stage, alluding to number three, by the way, my biggest fear that day was public speaking. Then I could tell people the truth about money, not lie to them, and be of service. And then the second thing going on in my head at 4 or 4 30 in the morning was that wooden board staring back at me from across my bedroom, make everyone in this room financially free. I think it hit me at 4 30. I jumped out of bed, I quickly got dressed, I got to my office in Midtown Manhattan before the sun rose, and I sent an email to my investors telling them I'm giving them their money back, I'm shutting down my fund, I figured out my true purpose in life.

Jeanne 32:19

Okay. So was there fallout from your lawyer later?

Joel 32:23

Yes. And and my CFO as well.

Jeanne 32:26

Okay.

Joel 32:27

I was done. I had made my decision. And then, you know, we did eventually send out the formal letters and all that, but yeah, that was that was the email telling them I'm shutting it down.

Jeanne 32:39

Well, that um was very brave, absolutely very brave. And did you feel regret after you did it or no?

Joel 32:48

Actually, what happened was there were crickets. Not one investor responded to that email. And so I was like, well, that's the universe showing me that this is the right decision.

Jeanne 33:01

Okay. Great. Um, were you making a lot of money on that hedge fund before you shut it down?

Joel 33:08

We actually made money every year, every full year. 2013, we were up 10% in six months.

Jeanne 33:15

Ooh, that's good.

Joel 33:17

The next year we were up five percent when the market was down. So we we had a very successful run. Investors made you know decent money based on the hedge fund index. You know, the hedge fund index was flat over the three plus years, so we we helped them make uh a good relative return.

Jeanne 33:34

Okay. Well, that's great. All right, so I'm that's the one I guess was a lie, but we'll see. So let's move on to number two. And you know, you have mentioned money, the the stock market crash in 2008, but in COVID it sort of did the same thing. That was what, 2019? So But you were out of you were out of it in 2019.

Joel 33:56

You were doing your money managing money at that time.

Jeanne 34:00

Oh, okay. All right, so let's go to 2015 and losing money.

Joel 34:04

July first, twenty fifteen, I was on the Metro North train, and it was slowly rolling into Harlem 125th Street station when I got the news. A stock that we were betting was going to go down, was being acquired for 30% premium. It was going to be the worst day of my career managing money. And I was in pain. I felt like I had let my investors down. I felt like an imposter. Felt like giving up, actually. Ever feel like that? Feel like giving up? Feel like no matter what you did, it wasn't gonna matter. That's how I felt that day.

Jeanne 34:44

I think everybody goes through that sometimes.

Joel 34:47

Yeah, and so I don't know why exactly, but I decided to put on an uplifting song. Ooh, Child by the Five Stair Steps.

Jeanne 34:55

Oh, I know that song. Gotta get easier.

Joel 35:02

And I walked from Grand Central to my office, 54th and Sixth Avenue, and took the song off my headphones so my colleagues could hear because my colleagues knew how bad a day it was gonna be. And I put on other uplifting songs throughout the day because the day didn't get better. And the next couple of days weren't much better. But um that day I did lose millions of dollars of my investors' money and more than a half a million dollars of my own money. And it was uh yeah, there were a lot of tears that day, but I survived it, and I'm here more than 10 years later, still surviving. And it was a lesson because a really important lesson because up until that day, and maybe even a few days later, if I lost money, I was sad. And if I made money, I was happy. And what a terrible way to live your life because I wasn't making money more than half the time, so about more than half the time I was sad. And so I realized in the days and weeks after that that I could create my own happiness, and so I came up with a list of things besides uplifting songs, and I'd highly recommend people who are watching to do the same. Come up with a list of things that make you happy. And it doesn't mean spending money, because most of them usually aren't. Spending time with my daughter, playing ping pong, going for a jog, meditating, visualizing, reading, all of that, helping others become financially free. My help, you know, attending my Money Miracles mastermind group lifts me up. So, like, write down a list, uplifting songs, dancing, getting a massage, getting a money petty, whatever it is, and have that list ready to go whenever the inevitable happens when you're not feeling so excited about your money situation.

Jeanne 36:59

Yeah, I have a list like that myself. So when you were talking uh about your ooh child, I like that song a lot, but I was thinking that look at you now, you're you're still standing, the Elton Jod song.

Joel 37:11

Oh, yeah.

Jeanne 37:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joel 37:15

So if we go back just a few years, well, I'll say let's go back to childhood. I was standing on stage at the Unqua Elementary School in Massapequa, Long Island, New York. It was my sixth grade play. And when it came time for me to say my lines, I just froze for what seemed like 30 minutes to me. Thankfully, after about 20 seconds, they skipped over me. And no one remembered those 20 seconds except for me for the next 40 years. And public saying became my biggest fear. And if you asked me to speak in front of more than one person, I would have said, just shoot me, just get it over with. Sorry. And I had times when as a professional hedge fund manager, I had to speak in front of a group of people at a investment dinner. And I brought my piece of paper and I, you know, was shaking, and I read from that piece of paper. You know, usually it was during dessert, so you know, my friends and other portfolio managers and other people I knew at the dinner, uh, we were at cake or ice cream, and you know, their heads were in the cake or the ice cream was in their face because they were snoring. You know, that I was asleep. Right. It was that bad. So I realized when I started this business that things had a shift because I was writing a book and mindful money management, and I knew in order to promote it at least a little bit, I needed to do this. I needed to get on at least one podcast. That was gonna be my goal. Get on one podcast, speak on one stage somehow, even if it's five people. And so when I went to playing the matrix that Mike Dooley was teaching in October 2016, and he had talked about his career going from accountant to speaking in front of thousands and thousands of people globally, I was like, Mike, how'd you do it? And he said, I joined Toastmasters. So I joined I joined Toastmasters like a couple months after that meeting, December of 2016, January 2017. And I will tell you one of my proudest moments of my life is in March of 2017, my daughter Lauren was Bat Mitzvahd, and I was able to give a 17-minute speech in front of 200 people with no cards.

Jeanne 39:45

Nice.

Joel 39:46

And so I've continued to develop. I've given over a hundred speeches at Toastmasters, maybe 150 now, and been on over a hundred podcasts, spoken in front of Rotary Clubs, an MBA program in Mercy College. I spoke in London last year about uh eliminating money blocks. And in 2023, I went to Kauai to speak on a stage to give my TEDx talk.

Jeanne 40:18

Okay. I didn't know they I guess is TEDx everywhere. I mean, do they record them everywhere or they just have places where you go?

Joel 40:26

Um, not everywhere. So it has to be a sponsored nonprofit, and it could be a school or it could be uh a nonprofit that finds, you know, creates a stage for you.

Jeanne 40:37

Okay.

Joel 40:38

Um but yeah, it's global.

Jeanne 40:40

Okay. All right. Well, you seem very polished now, and I have seen you on multiple podcasts. So uh now you tell us which one of these is a lie.

Joel 40:51

So the last part of the last one is a lie because I have not given a workshop in the Maltese.

Jeanne 40:57

Oh well, I was jealous of you there, but yeah, I that's a beautiful place. Are you gonna go there? Is that one of your aspirations on your board?

Joel 41:06

It is on my vision board. Uh, in fact, it's also my Zoom background. It's one of my Zoom backgrounds when I get on Zoom. And so, yeah, it's gonna happen, if not this year, next year. I've I've been speaking a lot more and uh creating my own stages. This this year, I've created my own stage for the first time, doing a prosperity mindset summit next month. We have 40 plus speakers. So, yes, that will happen. We'll see when it does. No, I and and what I teach, by the way, is not attaching to a specific time frame. You know, I say, I don't know if you know, time is either an illusion or infinite, right? It's like, okay, it's a human construct, or you know, sun's been around for 12 billion years, the earth's been around for two, like it's just hard to fathom. Like, oh, I want something done in the next year. So one year compared to like a billion is like 0.000000000001. You know, so like it's a you know, for the universe, it it's immediate, right? It's instantaneous if you look at it that way. So I say don't don't put deadlines on things.

Jeanne 42:16

Oh, okay. I like that. And to Maldives, from what I remember, it's like there's all these uh little cottages that they have you have to walk a pier to go out into the water, and then you're out there, way out there, all by yourself or with your spouse or partner, and you're just enjoying nature, and it's then you're pampered. I was like, yes, I want to go. I didn't put that on my board now, Joel.

Joel 42:43

Absolutely, and they a lot of them have uh, you know, the personal jacuzzi, the personal pool, and then you have a slide that slide you know goes into the ocean.

Jeanne 42:53

So the pictures there are just beautiful. See, I don't know. Sometimes I get like I don't know that area very well, but if I do research and find out that there's a ton of people that are around there that are poor, then my mind shuts down. Oh, I don't really want to go now, you know. So I have to go for Kem that because it's just you can have charitable gifts and you can have charities you support, but you can't support everything. And you gotta have fun.

Joel 43:21

Well, why not have a goal to become a billionaire and give away 900 million and then you can?

Jeanne 43:27

Oh, yeah, that'd be nice. I don't know why the ones that are billionaires don't do that, but I know they give a lot. We just don't see it, and that's the way it's supposed to be. They shouldn't be tooting their own horn all the time.

Joel 43:38

Warren Buffett started this 99% club, I think it was 20 years ago, where he said he wanted billionaires to give away 99% of their net worth by the time they passed away. And so he created that. I think Bill Gates is part of it and some others. So yeah, I mean, you're worth 50 billion. You could give away 49, 49 and a half. And still have 500 mil, and that's enough for many lifetimes.

Jeanne 44:04

Yes, absolutely. I totally agree with that. Well, I know you you have been a fabulous guest, and you played along with all my questions and the game. And so I can't believe number one, I did not guess it correctly, and I can't believe it's true, but you live and learn. Uh, I know people are gonna want to get get in touch with you because I'm already salivating thinking, oh, can I join this class? Uh let me share the screen so people will know how to get in touch with you. And you can walk us through this wonderful quote that you provided me. Um, you want to go ahead and read that and explain why that's important to you?

Joel 44:40

Whatever the mind a man can conceive and bring himself to believe he can achieve. So that that's uh a quote from Napoleon Hill on the book I already mentioned, Thinking We're Rich. And yeah, so basically it's what can you conceive of that's possible for you that you can bring yourself to believe, because belief is everything. If you can't believe it's not happening. So conceive of a dream, believe that it's possible, and then if you conceive it and you believe it, then you can achieve it.

Jeanne 45:13

That's nice. And that is actually what you've been saying throughout this podcast a lot of you know, that's what you believe in and what your mindset is. So fantastic. I guess I contributed it to you. I might need to go back and attribute it to Napoleon. And also, you wanted uh me to let folks know that they can connect with you through your website. Is that the best way they get to you? I know you have other social media, but this must be the most direct way to get to you.

Joel 45:41

Yeah, we got a a free newsletter that goes out once a week. Uh, it has a money tip, it has the pass and upcoming places I've been speaking at. It has uh I highlight a member of my network each week, and what I also read a book a week, so it has the notes, audio and written notes to a book every single week. And so love to have you join that. Uh, but there's a ton of free resources on my website from uh audio files, affirmations, the power of positive thinking, there's quotes, there's uh pictures of places I've been to in the world, uh, which can inspire people, and of course, my books and other things on there. Lots of videos. Uh I've created 1400 videos on YouTube, so you can click a link to those from my website as well.

Jeanne 46:29

Oh, very nice. And you also said that uh you have a um roadmap call, and uh, like I said, I want to join. So go ahead and explain that.

Joel 46:41

Yeah, so anybody who's interested, well, for the first 11, I'm giving a gifting, an individual roadmap for an extra $10,000 in the next uh 30 days. So this is normally a $997 call, but for the first 11 who click on the link, I'm giving it to them complimentary if they mention this show when they fill off the form.

Jeanne 47:03

Wow, that's phenomenal. So I hope people will take advantage of that. Well, Joel, I really appreciate you being on again. And thanks for just giving us a lot of insight, and I definitely will be in touch with you. And to those listening, I hope that you uh stay tuned for our next episode. And in the meantime, I wish you smooth sailing. Bye. Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real. If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew. Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck. I'm Jeannie Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected. See you on the next voyage.