Chief Change Officer
#367 Michael Sakraida: Money, Media, and the Myths That Keep Us Stuck—Part Two
Tue, 13 May 2025
In today’s world, financial advice is everywhere—but rarely helpful.In Part Two, Michael Sakraida continues dismantling outdated ideas about wealth, offering a fresh framework that centers emotional intelligence and personal values. He explains why legacy isn’t just about what you leave behind, but how you live today. From the limits of “aggressive investor” labels to the chaos of unregulated financial influencers, Michael unpacks the hidden damage done by bad advice—and what real financial coaching should look like.This episode is a must-listen if you’re tired of one-size-fits-all strategies and ready to treat your money like an extension of who you are, not just a number on a screen.Key Highlights of Our Interview:Redefining Financial Independence“Real financial freedom is when you can work for joy—not for a paycheck. It’s about building a life and a legacy, not just hitting a number.”Why Risk Tolerance Tests Don’t Work“You can’t reduce human emotion to a 10-question quiz. And when fear hits, those ‘aggressive’ investors often panic first.”The Emotional Blind Spot in Wealth Planning“Advisors must ask three things: Where did your money come from? What do you want it to mean? And what’s your experience with Wall Street?”From Bull Market Bravado to Bear Market Breakdown“Long bull runs create fake confidence. The minute the market drops, people flip—and advisors are caught off guard.”Why Financial Influencers Should Be Regulated (or Shut Down)“If licensed advisors need approval for every email, why can anyone post financial advice to millions on TikTok without oversight?”The Financial Media Smut Club“Some writers don’t even understand what they’re publishing. They confuse inflation with inflation rate—and no one catches it.”Investing Isn’t a DIY Project When Emotions Are Involved“This isn’t like assembling IKEA furniture. When fear and greed show up, it’s not about logic—it’s about who you are.”Money as a Mirror“The more your investments reflect your values, the less likely you’ll get spooked by the market. That’s the power of alignment.”Why He Wrote Money, Balance and Joy“People don’t need another retirement calculator. They need a language for their emotions—and a way forward that actually fits who they are.”_____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Michael Sakraida --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: How does Michael Sakraida redefine financial wellbeing?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist humility for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, I'm chatting with Michael Secreta, the insightful money philosopher and author of the book titled Money, Balance, and Joy.
Michael dives into the philosophy of financial wellbeing, showing that money alone isn't the golden ticket to happiness. He talks about the need for a balanced ecosystem, which includes monetary wealth, time wealth, and social wealth. explaining that total fulfillment comes when all three work together.
He also takes on Wall Street, the financial media, and financial influencers, pointing out how they often miss the emotional side of financial planning. from risk tolerance questionnaires that don't account for real-life feelings to the misleading advice all over social media. Michael gives a candid and refreshing take. He also shares practical advice on how we can reclaim control of our finances
Build meaningful legacy and manage life's financial curveballs with confidence. You use the word control. In the media, they don't often use the word control. Instead, they like to use the term financial independence or financial freedom. What should I take on financial independence or freedom? In the last season, episode 7, I had a debate with my friend Gargan.
Chapter 2: Why is the concept of financial independence debated?
who is building software to help millennials achieve financial independence. Personally, I don't buy into it. I think human nature always keeps us chasing new desires. So we're never truly independent. What's your raw take on financial independence from a personal perspective?
For me, financial independence is where you don't have to work, but you still work because you get a lot out of it. You're not doing it for the paycheck, you're doing it for the enjoyment. Yes, there happens to be a paycheck that comes along, but if all of a sudden there's a pandemic or your company goes out of business, or just for health reasons, you can no longer work,
You don't have to worry about paying the bills. You don't have to worry about having money to leave, have that financial legacy. Independent wealth is both being able to leave a financial legacy, but also a non-financial legacy. That the non-financial legacies is important, if not more important than the financial legacy. To me, you die and you have $20,000 left in the bank.
To me, it's not financial independence. That's just being lucky that you didn't outlive your money.
In another episode, actually it's episode five in season one, I spoke with another friend, my classmate from Yale, Katie Curry, about how our risk tolerance changes as we get older, especially when it comes to career moves. We were both risk analysts for financial institutions, so we know it's not an easy concept to understand and to practice.
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Chapter 3: What are the pitfalls of risk tolerance assessments?
Now, when it comes to personal wealth management, how do you explain risk and tolerance of risk to individuals in a way that's easy to understand and embrace?
I think the whole risk tolerance, how that's handled by the wealth management industry is awful. They have a new client, do a risk tolerance questionnaire, just 10 or so questions. Voila, you're conservative, you're moderate, you're aggressive, and that's how we're going to manage your portfolio. That's as much a CYA approach.
that the compliance wants to do, but they're not explaining what this means. If you're a conservative person, if the market goes down, say 10%, where 15% to your investment, your overall worth on paper goes down 10 or 15%, you're going to be more upset, more stressed, maybe even unable to sleep at night than the moderate risk person.
but they don't explain, okay, here's what this means for you in terms of achieving your financial goal, your financial legacy that you want to have. I did an analysis on data provided to me by a financial firm that over a 32 year period, if you're that moderate risk person, The advisor has to say to you, you're less likely, statistically, to reach your financial goal.
I had clients like this when I worked directly. They were super wealthy. They had generational problems. For them, to be conservative didn't matter. But other clients I had that were in that accumulation phase, being conservative or moderate does matter.
The advisor needs to have that conversation in very simple terms, not financial advisor speak, not behavioral finance speak, but again, about their emotions. You need to then say, are you okay with this? Some people say, yeah, I just want to be conservative. Yeah, I want to be moderate. But others say, no, I'm not okay. How am I going to have this type of legacy?
Some advisors do this, and I got this idea, frankly, from an advisor. And when I first heard it years ago, I was like, of course you should do this. So what he does is they say, no, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to work together. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's going to get you further out on that risk tolerance continuum.
So that you're going to go from conservative, say, to a moderate, and then eventually down to aggressive. Now, this is only the client wants to do that. And again, with the client understanding this isn't, you can't snap your fingers and have this change happen overnight. So the other problem with the whole risk tolerance is that it's, the questions are taken at a point in time
and a point in time with the economy and with the markets. So you're going to have people that, oh yeah, I'm aggressive after the market's been up and a long bull market creates a lot of aggressive investors. And so now all of a sudden the market goes down even 10, 15%. And some of these aggressive people, their whole risk tolerance just changed. They're flipping out. They're upset.
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Chapter 4: How do financial influencers affect investment decisions?
How can investors, how can everyday people identify and follow advice that is both secure, safe, and hopefully and potentially profitable?
First of all, with them, they should either be licensed and regulated like financial advisors or put out of business is my opinion. The regulators, I don't care what is being regulated, are awful. with handling new technology. So all they see is it's this cool technology, social media, and these people providing some help.
And it's different than a financial advisor's charging a fee or getting commissions and all. They're just awful with it. But you look at Bitcoin and all that, there's still no regulation on that. It just dropped the ball with that. So if I'm on Instagram,
And I have these testimonials from people who did my coaching and they saved X amount of money and say, oh, this person, they save an average of 5,000 a year and increase their income by an average of 20,000 a year. And the FTC, which they're doing, knocks on my door, says, oh, we saw this posting. We need to see all this. We need to see who did this, what each person's result was.
And if not, then you get a nice fine from the FTC. No one's doing that with these people. whatever, internet influencers. So if I have to worry about what I say and get in trouble or I get in trouble, if a financial advisor has to worry about what they say and do and show any conflicts of interest, for example, then I don't get it. I don't get why all these financial influencers...
are just allowed to do what they do. So that's maybe not an answer you want to hear, but this is serious stuff. This is serious stuff with people's money. This is their livelihood. There's a reason the Balfour guy, whatever the Wolf of wall street guy, which was a real life person was put out of business. that they were stealing money from people.
There's a reason advisors and broker-dealers have compliance people, to make sure that everything is done. An advisor cannot even send out a mass email without compliance reviewing it, filing it, and when they get audited, gonna see, okay, they have to see all that. This is my opinion. I don't care if there's some good advice out there. I don't care if there's good intentions out there.
All I know is There's a lot of bad actors. There's a lot of stupid people. You talk about the financial media, how you'll read an article and kind of scratch your head. And that the advice in my book, I call some of them the financial media smut club. They just focus on tantalizing things that get you excited, but really aren't good advice. And a lot of these people are
They don't know what they're writing about. A recent article I read on restaurants with inflation. So the financial writer was talking about how expensive everything is for these restaurants. They have to charge more. The financial reporter said, I don't know why that would still be an issue because inflation's down. Inflation's not down. The inflation rate is down.
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