So during those years when you weren't getting, you know, that opportunity, what kept you going, and what were you doing to get better?

Um, family.

Family, faith, honestly a lotta, a lotta both of those.

Just, you know, going through being a prospect and then falling off the kind of organizational map per se.

But I was still, again, I was still young at the time.

I was, think I was like three years into Triple-A or something like that, and I was still, like, 22.

And so I was really young, and I was in... 'Cause I made it to Triple-A when I was, I think, 21.

What's something that you think parents worry way too much about when their kid's eight to 12, something that doesn't matter the way they think it matters, and what do you think is the biggest waste of money for those same players?

Right.

But what we do most often is that we help people better understand that their life insurance policy actually has liquidity in today's dollars.

So, you know, effectively teach them how to know the value of their life in today's terms versus waiting ultimately for this to transfer to their estate.

And we're one of the largest alternative asset managers certainly in that space.

We went public about three years ago.

Uh, and one of the things we found incredibly helpful was the data that we aggregate to help people better understand what the actual today's dollar is of that life insurance contract.

We re-underwrite them, give them an updated lifespan so that they know how much longer they're gonna be in that contract.

... haven't existed before.

So if you can, give them a brief overview of exactly what Abacus, uh, Global Management is all about, what you do for people.

Sure.

A- and what's great about what we do is first and foremost, you know, we don't ask for anything.

We actually provide liquidity.

We pay out about a quarter of a billion dollars a year to life insurance policy holders who thought they had little or no value in that life insurance policy.

Uh, and ultimately we're the, not only the, uh, regulated, um, origination company and market maker for the asset, we're the asset manager, and now we're taking all the data and really helping people make better, smarter financial decisions.

And here's what I mean by that.

Mm-hmm.

Right

...

if you don't know what you're getting, then you have uncertainty around that and you're like, "I'll just put that off." My message is much different.

It's you have a lot more time than you think, and you have a lot of doubles here, and you shouldn't hesitate.

You shouldn't wait.

But if other things come up, that's okay.

Take care of those.

And I'm not saying you're the world's psychologist or psychiatrist, but how much does, as you said, people, like, freaking out, not knowing what to do with their money or their retirement, how much does that lead to the anxiety that we feel, especially here in the United States?

Right

...

so getting to that year, 12, 13, 14 [laughs] of, you know, playing professional baseball, I was looked at as a veteran and as a leader and as another kind of player coach, I guess, to a certain degree, because I had been in the game and I could help these guys with the game becoming as young as it was, to help them become baseball savvy to a certain degree and have a better baseball IQ, and be better people on and off the field so they could play better, right? I think that's why I ended up being and creating this p- program ultimately, is so I could give that back and so I could have, you know, the same success not only that I had with the Black Bears, but if you really look at it, the same success that I had with every team I was on.

I mean, every team I was on pretty much, I was either on one of the best pitching staffs in the league that we were in, or we were in the playoffs every year, so we were one of the top, you know, four or five teams in the league every year.

So that shows the success that not only I had, but the team had, and I think that was just a group effort, not only from me helping guys as young as they were, but guys listening, and then the coaches buying in and everything else, the team buying in together ultimately, right? And just having a good positive experience and positive mentality, which is ultimately what, you know, we try to do with the brand and everything that I'm building, is have just a more positive future for not only the kids coming up, but for ourselves as well, because that's what we ultimately need.

So I think baseball, just from a leadership perspective, gave me that outlook to help other people be better than they can be themselves, just knowing that they need that support system just like I did when I was coming up, and just like everybody ultimately does, to ultimately be...

You know, the belief in yourself is ultimately gonna be the main thing that gets you somewhere, but having a great support system and belief from other people to help you go through the hard times is gonna be something that's key as well.

Mm

... still fit into that equation of, that withdrawal equation?

Well, as we all know, everyone's different, and I think that there are scenarios where there's no chance someone should go to an annuity day one, um, particularly somebody who's ultra-healthy, right? You're just...

I- if you've got y- you know, a very high probability to living to, you know, past age 85 and you're 65, and you have 20 plus years, you should remain allocated.

The way that I think about it is this, Warren Buffett made 98% of his wealth past age 65 because he understood the power of compounding.

That's what you're taking away from yourself if you just give all your assets over too early.

I think an annuity can make sense as maybe a portion of your portfolio on a go-forward basis, but not, that's not your retirement.

That's not your self-funded pension the way that they're advertised today.

... we're talking about this morning?

Maybe

I should have talked to you 10 years ago.

No, it's actually never too late.

Here's what's amazing about that, right, is that the first thing we like to do and have conversations with our clients about is how long they're going to be in retirement, right? Let's solve the most important piece of the equation, because if you get a better understanding then – What's my length in retirement? You can choose your saving, your estate planning, and you can maximize the income that you're taking right now.

What Advocates does is help people discover this right away.

And it's so fascinating, if you'll allow me, the AI conversation is super interesting when it applies to your health.

I know there's fear out there.

So that's a totally different plan then for both of them,

I should have talked to

you 10 years ago.

No, it's actually never too late.

Here's what's amazing about that, right, is that the first thing we like to do and have conversations with our clients about is how long they're going to be in retirement, right? Let's solve the most important piece of the equation, because if you get a better understanding then – What's my length in retirement? You can choose your saving, your estate planning, and you can maximize the income that you're taking right now.

What Advocates does is help people discover this right away.

And it's so fascinating, if you'll allow me, the AI conversation is super interesting when it applies to your health.

I know there's fear out there.

Uh, so that's a totally different plan then for both of them,

or you know going to Perth and playing pro baseball in like the world and you know going to us you know going to university there

no I mean for me I think whatever's going to make the kids happy ultimately right I mean that's been my whole thing the whole time that's why I'm creating this whole support system and everything because I can make these connections and contacts everywhere because I have teammates that have played in Australia that can get it get people to Perth I have connections now where I've talked to an academy in France too where I can get possibly some kids working over in France as well and doing things like that in Germany and I've talked to a couple people in Prague as well and I know the baseball overseas guys so you know I think that it's more of you know what does the kid want like do they want and is their talent level and their work ethic and their discipline and their focus enough to be like i'm gonna make it in d1 and d2 and make it to the big leagues here or is it gonna be like i want to go travel the world i want to go play this type of baseball until those levels can equate to the mlb because we all know there's obviously a drastic difference right now of you know european baseball you know, Southeast Asian baseball, American baseball.

And then, you know, you have the middle tiers and the higher tiers like Korea, you know, Japan, you have Taiwan, you have, like I said, Australia, you have the Mexican Summer Leagues, you have the Vinh Nguyen Summer Leagues, and we have all these different places that people can go play.

It's just, okay, what does your goals and your career want to look like? You can go there and do those things.

but it's okay how can we get you to understand how what's going to make you happy now okay whatever you need to i think that's would be the best choice for like because some kids they just want to go have the college experience too and they can just like okay i'm going to d2 i can have the college experience but i want to stay you know close to home

Or is there something that's a unifying force usually that kind of, you know, I think lines the stars.

I mean, I think most teams have that person in those locker rooms.

Or you try to have that person in that locker room.

How intimidating was it to be on the mound against the Murakami, the Akimoto and all these guys when you were playing in Japan? Because like you mentioned, they were the they're the beasts of their league at that point.

The one guy I didn't get to face was Murakami, but I faced Shohei.

I faced, you know, when Akiyama was here a long time ago, I faced Akiyama.

Seiya was on my team, actually.

So I remember seeing Yamamoto pitch, too.

I remember seeing...

Who's the guy for the Cubs? I remember seeing him pitch.

or you know going to Perth and playing pro baseball in like one of the world and you know going to us you know going to university there

Talk about just how near and dear this is right now to you.

Yeah, this is super special.

And growing up in the fire department community and being a first responder family, It's just important to recognize the shared sacrifice that families make.

And I think that with the Tunnel to Towers and everyone here, that's one of the things that we focus on, right? If we look back 25 years, what happened and the people that were unfortunately in an awful day and then the families that were left behind, this is super meaningful to me and to Abacus and certainly to the city of New York.

I mean, that's the guts of these people, running towards danger.

Oh, for sure.

I mean, there's so many fond memories from every coach, from everything that he had ever done.

But beyond that, here's one of my fondest that I think truly every fireman who's listening will certainly appreciate this story.

Talk about just how near and dear this is right now to you.

Yeah, this is super special.

And growing up in the fire department community and being a first responder family, it's just important to recognize the shared sacrifice that families make.

And I think that with the Tunnel to Towers and everyone here, That's one of the things that we focus on, right? If we look back 25 years, what happened and the people that were unfortunately in an awful day and then the families that were left behind, this is super meaningful to me and to Abacus and certainly to the city of New York.

I mean, that's the guts of these people, running towards danger.

Oh, for sure.

I mean, there's so many fond memories from every coach, from everything that he had ever done.

But beyond that, here's one of my fondest that I think truly every fireman who's listening will certainly appreciate this story.

Talk about just how near and dear this is right now to you.

Yeah, this is super special.

And growing up in the fire department community and being a first responder family, it's just important to recognize the shared sacrifice that families make.

And I think that with the Tunnel to Towers and everyone here, That's one of the things that we focus on, right? If we look back 25 years, what happened and the people that were unfortunately in an awful day and then the families that were left behind.

This is super meaningful to me and to Abacus and certainly to the city of New York.

I mean, that's the guts of these people, running towards danger.

Oh, for sure.

I mean, there's so many fond memories from every coach, from everything that he had ever done.

Talk about just how near and dear this is right now to you.

Yeah, this is super special.

And growing up in the fire department community and being a first responder family, It's just important to recognize the shared sacrifice that families make.

And I think that with the Tunnel to Towers and everyone here, that's one of the things that we focus on, right? If we look back 25 years, what happened and the people that were unfortunately in an awful day and then the families that were left behind, this is super meaningful to me and to Abacus and certainly to the city of New York.

I mean, that's the guts of these people, running towards danger.

Oh, for sure.

I mean, there's so many fond memories from every coach, from everything that he had ever done.

But beyond that, here's one of my fondest that I think truly every fireman who's listening will certainly appreciate this story.

Without naming names or places, give an example of something that you both dealt with, whether it was inside the department or outside the department, where someone was going through some trauma, and because you were there as a chaplain, you were able to help them navigate this and have a positive

outcome.

I had a situation a few years ago where I was called out.

And at the time I was at a local bowling alley throwing a pretty decent game.

And a couple of the officers picked me up and headed to HQ.

At HQ, I was told that we had a family outside of the deceased.

And inside, we had the suspect's family.

What are some examples of some events that you both go to as police chaplains?

Like I just want to go sit down on

the beach and reflect on my career for a little bit.

Because honestly, I still haven't truly reflected on my career.

Like I've talked to people and been on these interviews and podcasts and different things, but I've truly never sat down and like gone through my career to just truly embrace and enjoy it.

Because this happened to where I jumped into this.

And so I started putting the curriculum together, putting how I could mentor kids and what's the best way for me to go about it.

Right.

And it's not good.

You could look at my genetic profile you could look at my life history and my you know how old my parents were when they died and all that stuff you could do you do health exams so how do you do it so we don't do

health exams instead what we do it's very non-intrusive the first thing we do is we take all of our information that we already have and then we allow you to put in some of your basic information like have you had cancer etc they can figure this out in 30 seconds they don't have to know all that data but at least they can get a general idea For a deeper dive, we go and retrieve your medical files for you from your physician, which is an incredible tool because now you can use those.

You ever had to try to transfer physicians? What a nightmare that is, right? Now, if you transfer a physician, you log into LifeArc, you bring your files with you.

It provides a summary of your health history.

It has an AI-enabled physician there that can answer a lot of questions without you having to go to the physician.

So it aggregates all of your health history into one space.

And then we review that health history and then provide you with the highest probabilistic outcome is on mortalities of people just like you.

They

Not only can you save money, but you

can also spend a lot more money.

I think that's the biggest thing there is that people forget how much time they have.

Also, generationally, when we get to that age, we start thinking about the next generation, as you just highlighted.

But most importantly, there's two things.

There's the long-term mindset.

There's the short-term mindset.

we

Do you do health exams or how do you do

it? So we don't do health exams.

Instead, what we do, it's very non-intrusive.

The first thing we do is we take all of our information that we already have, and then we allow you to put in some of your basic information, like have you had cancer, et cetera.

They can figure this out in 30 seconds.

They don't have to know all that data, but at least they can get a general idea.

For a deeper dive, we go and retrieve your medical files for you from your physician, which is an incredible tool because now you can use those.

So you're saying people are, what do you mean by they're too conservative? What

You know, transitioning to what you're up to now with the Smile Zone, can you just take us through, I guess, what that's all about and, you know, kind of what you're up to now in your post-playing career?

Yeah, so...

Literally, like I was talking about earlier, two days before I was supposed to go play in Mexico, I decided that I was going to retire.

And I wanted to just sit around and kind of do nothing and enjoy retirement.

Like, hey, you know what? I played 17 years of pro ball.

Let me just enjoy it.

And literally walked into my PT's office later that afternoon after I had thrown my last bullpen to get ready to leave and told him that I was retiring.

How has that impacted the curriculum? Did you learn a ton in your career that you're just throwing into the curriculum and helping that become the career that it is now and sort of career number two for you?

But if you met a stranger at a cocktail party who was curious and possibly, let's say, 75 years or up, and they said, what do you do? What is this Abacus Global all about? What would you tell them? Yeah.

You know what? What we do in its simplest form is help people have better outcomes in their latter years or in the latter part of their life arc.

And most simply, that sometimes raises more questions than answers.

And what I mean by that is that both health wise and financially.

We help people better understand that if the number one fear is running out of money in retirement, I think it's really smart to better understand how long you might potentially be in retirement and then apply that knowledge to how you're allocating your portfolio so that you can ensure that doesn't happen.

And one of the biggest mistakes we see from people who are 65 years old, they don't take a look at their own health data to say, gosh, I may be in retirement 25 years.

I might be in retirement 10 years.

Most people, when they sit down with you guys and you've analyzed the medical records, you know, because some of us are a little bit afraid, you know what I mean? Like, gosh, how long am I going to live? But they are often pleasantly surprised, aren't they?

I'd pay as much as maybe a million dollars to have an additional year of healthy life.

Sure, no question.

Imagine somebody in their 80s.

They might even, they would pay more.

But however, somebody in their 50s would pay less, right? And the whole premise behind this is that time is a commodity.

But we've never been able to assign a dollar value.

That is what exactly Abacus and LifeArc is now doing.

How do we respond to that?

I guess what you're doing is sort of stretching and exercising your mind.

That's right.

And it's a fun activity.

It's not out there, you know, throwing rocks around.

These are things you can do that will have a significant impact for you.

And that, you know, very few people are talking about.

I'll leave you with this.

How do we respond to that?

I'd pay as much as maybe a million dollars to have an additional year

of healthy life.

Sure, no question.

Imagine somebody in their 80s.

They might even, they would pay more.

But however, somebody in their 50s would pay less, right? And the whole premise behind this is that time is a commodity.

But we've never been able to assign a dollar value.

How do we respond to that?

no

question.

Imagine somebody in their 80s.

They might even, they would pay more.

But however, somebody in their 50s would pay less, right? And the whole premise behind this is that time is a commodity.

But we've never been able to assign a dollar value.

That is what exactly Abacus and LifeArc is now doing.

How do we respond to that?