Episode 32 | AI, Accountability & Your Financial Future with Scott Zuckerman

0:00Have you Have you known anyone that hit the 100 yet? Not yet. I guess it takes a little work because it is very good uh What is the free baseline access about? What is that offer? Free baseline is uh just answer the 12 self-assessment questions and you're going to get a score in less than 90 seconds. You'll know exactly where you stand uh in your Well, you're going to see where you where you stand based on your self-assessment. So, the whole point there is to be as honest as possible so you can really get a true score uh um going into the program because of course anyone can say, "Yeah, I got all

0:42that stuff. I'm a 100, okay? I don't need this." But you got to be honest with yourself. So, tell us what made you think outside the box to even come up with something like this? What if financial wellness and awareness became the new standard for success? Before watching this video, we invite you to scan our QR codes, visit our website, and subscribe to our YouTube

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1:43build equity, you build freedom.

1:55Equity Smart is the New Cool. And I'm back for what it represents part two of financial fitness passport with my good friend Scott Zuckerman and we're going to go into a lot more detail that we didn't get a chance to cover in our first episode. So, Scott, welcome back to the podcast. So very much great to be back here with

2:25you, Jim. I love that. Okay, so we're going to get into you know, we we kind of covered a lot of things in the first one. And for those of you who didn't see the first one, you you really need to go back. We don't want to reiterate and regurgitate all the specific details, but to give you a background, we're here talking about uh the financial fitness passport, which is a AI-powered financial wellness platform. Unlike the traditional budgeting, and we'll talk

3:04about a little bit of that today. Basically, what it does is syncs your information up. It syncs to your bank. It's heavily focused and helps you with your day-to-day uh transactions and it's a very holistic micro planning tool approach to handling your money. And we wanted talk about the key benefits and the value that this platform brings that perhaps you're not

3:32seeing out here with other platforms. And this is obviously powered uh by AI. And so, we wanted to bring him back so we can talk a little bit more and get into the specific details. So, I'm going to kick things off. I want to talk first about not the traditional stuff, the things the gamification milestones. Can you walk us through that

3:59and how that works? And how beneficial it is. Individuals are playing games, they tend to stay more engaged, they tend to follow through a little bit better. What's your thought on that and and how how does that add a value add to any of our users? So, first think about it from this perspective. Why do and why does anybody play any type of

4:28video game? Uh even uh why do we go into a casino and play a slot machine? Um because you hope that you're going to have some benefit. You hope you're going to walk out a winner. But while you're pushing those buttons and hearing the sounds and watching the things spin, it releases dopamine in your brain. Uh and

4:50it gives you a good feeling. So, when you when people think about their finances, they get so overwhelmed. Number one, number two, it's very difficult to um put things into small little uh milestones, right? Small little goals where we can we can reach milestones uh at different levels rather than just saying, for example, well, I need to pay off my debt. Okay, great. We got to pay off our debt. But now what? And how do we get there? And what is the actual plan to do that? So, by taking each module and breaking it down into three separate areas, which we call badges, uh the the we have the bronze badge, the

5:44silver, the platinum. And each one you're going to accomplish something different and fulfill a milestone. And at the end of doing that, you're earning your badge, you're earning a reward. And that releases that dopamine where you're saying, all right, great. I actually was able to accomplish this. And that's what's going to bring you back the next time and what and you're you're going to want to take action because of the small little accomplishments that you've made along the way versus just getting overwhelmed and saying, "Yeah, I need to save for my retirement." Or, "Yeah, I need to pay off my debt." Or, "Yeah, I I I know I'm

6:24going to need a car in 3 years cuz um things are starting to go bad and it's going to be time to get a car." Well, okay, great. But, how do we get there? How do we How do we uh actually take action to fulfill these things? And that's what the gamification does. Yeah, well, I mean, you're you're you're spot-on and you're hitting it out the park with that because you have to get excited about doing stuff. And when people think about saving up for money or paying off bills, uh you've got a lot of debt, you get paralyzed, you get frustrated, you get

7:02angry. Uh some cases, you start judging yourself, putting yourself down. And so, how do we get there? And uh you know, having this way of rewarding as you outlined is just a great way to go about it. Now, who came up with the idea of the gamification and the reward steps involved? Was that you or was that the AI Penny that we've been talking to

7:30anyway? So, No, it was It was It was my idea, uh but Penny, if you're listening, he might not be telling the truth. It was It was my idea, but in order to get to that idea, I did a lot of research first. And I was doing a lot of research on other platforms that exist

7:54and why users fail. Uh and it's very similar to people going to the gym where they sign up for a gym subscription, especially uh right around New Year's. And we're getting into that time now where people "I'm going to My New Year's resolution is I'm going to actually start going to the gym again." And you get all excited and you go to the gym and you sign up and you go for 3

8:17weeks and then that then you That's it. You stop going. Um And that's why like a lot of people will find greater success by having a coach next to them. Someone who can hold them accountable. And when you have someone who's holding you accountable, that person is not going to say, "All right, yeah." Again, right? "I need to lose 20 lb." Well, okay, but you're not going to lose 20 lb in 3 weeks. We have to do this in steps and that person is going to be there to help and coach you. So, that's what Penny is there for. So, besides the small little milestones that you have,

8:55you have Penny as your coach that's going to actually help you reach each of these milestones and earn these rewards along the way. And that's what makes it attainable. Got you. Got you. Well, yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense um for individuals to be able to understand and and get their get their head around it, right? Because you got to be excited about enthusiastic motivated to even do this. Let's talk a little bit about the built-in financial

9:25education. Let's talk a little bit about that and what that does and and and how that separates you from everybody else. Sure. At the least with at the least. Yeah. Yeah. The the premise of the entire system is financial education. And it could be found consistently throughout the platform. So, we have tool tips everywhere. For those who are not familiar with tool tips, uh next to next to certain words, it's a circle with like a little I. Um and you just hover your mouse over it and there'd be a pop-up and that pop-up gives an explanation of what everything is. So,

10:06this way you're learning along the way. So, that's one thing that we do as relates to education. The second thing is we have Penny. Um you can chat with Penny in three different ways. You can type to her. You could actually have a conversation with her through your browser. Or you can actually have Penny call you on your on your phone and have a phone conversation with Penny. So, that's the second level or method of

10:36And this is 24/7, right? 24/7. Got it. Got it. And the third thing is we have our academy. And in the academy, there is lessons on all different financial topics. And Penny will also recommend those topics along the way if she feels that a user could get more education in a specific area. So, for example, if if someone asks her a question about best way to pay off debt or they ask her a question about dollar cost averaging in investments and what it means, she'll give an explanation and say, "And if you want to learn more about this, check out the introduction to investing in the

11:22academy." And point them directly to that lesson. So, the entire platform is based on giving someone the financial education that they need in order to make smart decisions. So, what would you say for the novice, the average person heading down a line of investing, they may not own any real estate, they may be renting, and they're just getting started. How much time would they have to invest in setting all this

11:50stuff up? And getting the process going? So, the actual first step takes under 90 seconds. The onboarding process is a is a self-assessment that's 12 questions long. Immediately, you get a passport score that becomes your baseline. And so that baseline score stays there on your dashboard so that you can see, "Okay, this is where I started." Well, everyone wants to see results. And then as you go through and unlock the modules, that's

12:24when your score increases along the way. So, um when it comes to um the length of time, it it's one of these things where you can really work at your own pace. So, like I said, it's not Rome wasn't built in a day and these things take time, especially because there's seven different modules that you're going to

12:58go through. So, I just advise people go about it at your own pace. There is no rush. What's most important is that you're understanding the material as you go along. Um and that's really my my biggest advice to anybody. And as it relates to the data entry, there's two methods of doing so. You can enter all of the information yourself or you can use Plaid Connected where we have an integration with Plaid that will bring in all of the data from credit cards, investments, 401(k)s, credit cards, banks, uh your bank accounts,

13:41savings accounts, et cetera. And they'll connect that and that's safe, right? That's safe. That's safe. and it's it is it's safe before using Plaid. For anyone who knows, Plaid is the number one data aggregator out there. And on our side, and even on Plaid's side, there is you cannot transact. So, we're reading the data, um but certainly you can't transact from there. So, you can't there's no money movement, there's nothing of that set that sort. It's really for information purposes that we

14:18bring it all in. So Scott, can a high school student or college student benefit from this? You know, it's interesting. I've been asked by schools if they should adopt utilizing the software. And my answer is until you have some level of income, probably not because it's a cash flow based system. And what that means is the foundation, everything

14:53starts with cash flow. So if you have a high school student that doesn't have expenses and just has a little, you know, part-time job or something like that, it's it's a little bit more difficult for them. Now, certainly can they learn from the academy? Sure. So you want to log in and use the pro features for academy and play around even with fake numbers to

15:20educate yourself. to ask you about. Right, exactly. Where you can go and then you're not doing pro connected cuz there's nothing to connect to. But where you'll get the education is, oh, let me see what it's like if I do this or that. And and you you you can create situations and learn that way. So from that perspective, sure. Um and I think for people who are interested in finance or just even just learning the basic financial concepts, sure, that then it could be used for that. Um and and

15:54you'll learn for sure. So shout out to all of you college students that may be majoring into into accounting and finance and stuff like that. This is an ideal piece for you. Those are going into the mergers acquisition space and want to be a financial consultant and looking at that, then it's good. Now, it's also good for people that may be in my business, real estate, insurance. I mean, you it's a great way to to handle your business. So, I really like the fact that it has the privacy uh first architect piece where you got the privacy so you don't have to worry about

16:35that. And we haven't talked about this. People have the credit scores. This has what they call a passport score. What's the deal with that? The passport score is a score from 0 to 100 that a user sees when they log into their dashboard that tracks their progress through all seven modules. As a module is completed, you're earning

17:08the points. Once someone reaches platinum and complete platinum to actually earn the platinum badge and reward, you know, all seven modules, that's when they reach the score of 100. Mhm. Have you Have you known anyone to hit the 100 yet? Not yet. Well, I guess it takes a little work. It good It's very good uh

17:34What is the free baseline access about? What does that offer? Free baseline is uh just answer the 12 self-assessment questions and you're going to get a score in less than 90 seconds. You'll know exactly where you stand uh in your Well, you're going to see where you where you stand based on your self-assessment. So, the whole point there is to be as honest as possible so you could really get a true score uh um going into the program because, of course, anyone could say, "Yeah, I got all that stuff. I'm 100. Okay, I don't need this." But So, you got to be honest

18:13with yourself. So, tell us what made you think outside the box to even come up with something like this. Or even go down the road to even do something like this. I My background is in financial services for over two decades, and so I've identified the problem as it relates to lack of financial knowledge. And And I'll tell you, even with the

18:43wealthiest of people. So I was just thinking one day and I said, "How What is it that I could do to really help educate as many people as I can as it relates to people's financial lives, making smart decisions, and to stop having the credit and forget-it type mentality. And that's how the concept was born. And then it just kept All my ideas just kept growing from

19:20there. And um That's That's how it was created. So walk us through the process from the ideal, the concept into the launch, which you just had a launch party. Yeah, so we soft launched in We soft launched in May, so it was out there It's been out there since May. Uh but this past Tuesday, uh we had our official launch party, which was um adding Pro Connected, which was the Plaid integration, and Penny Voice. So this is really what made it like the official release. Um Yeah, you didn't invite me to the

20:06release until the last minute. Yeah, we you You coming in New You Were you coming along Island? Yeah, I'll come up there, man. I just need a reason. So any any more any more launches, put me on the Put me on there. I want to come up and talk about it. Yeah, absolutely. You You got it. But, yeah, so that That's just kind of how uh it it progressed. And uh and the software got bigger and bigger. Um and uh as people uh as I would connect with different people who would ask me for different things, "Oh, you know what would be great if it could do this. It would be

20:42great if it could do that." And then I started of feedback as you were talking to people. Yeah, so much feedback. And so people's feedback is really what helped me make it as robust as it is. It's great. It's great. So, what do you see coming down the pipeline in the future as far as things you're going to add to it? Are you finished? Or uh someone's going to give you some more ideas and you're going to expand it again? Don't I mean, you you can't be like Apple, man. They come out with a phone every year. You know, Apple 18, 19. You know, it'll be Apple 100,

21:16you know? I know. You keep You going to keep coming with a new version every year on this? You know what? The thing with technology is it's constantly changing. So, I'm sure there are there's going to be plenty of changes along the way. One thing that is coming is a uh we have reminders that are set right now in a profile. So, Penny will send will put a either a pop-up when you log in or send you an email or both for

21:46certain reminders. We're going to have in there the same thing, but instead of just getting a pop-up or an email, Penny will actually call your phone. So, Penny has a phone number. So, you'll store her number in your phone. And this way, if she had If you haven't logged into the system to take action, she will actually call you. And say and she knows your name. So, so she'll say, "Hi Julius, it's Penny from Financial Fitness Passport. Last time we spoke, we

22:18were working on X, Y, and Z. How have you been making progress?" So, that's coming. That's excellent. That's excellent. Yeah, I mean the technology, hey, do what you got to do to stay innovative and stay on top. Because if you don't, you know, with the technology and the things moving at the speed of thought, you'll be taken out, you know, very, very quickly. So, you have to look at that uh as a as a as a possibility to be able to continue to add and and and and broaden broaden the the wealth road map. Uh I I like to see um and we're working on our end. Obviously,

22:59we're we're we're partners with you on this and we're working to get more people involved. I would like to see us put together we're going to be launching some stuff about just educating people generally on cryptocurrency uh at at the top of the year, but I would like to do some some calls and workshops and webinars with you to go over this program um and and and go over the software and the app. So, people can kind of understand it and they really get a feel for what the value and what kind of work that you really put into this, which is which is amazing uh how you're able to

23:38um you know, sync everything together concisely and how it covers so many different things uh from real estate to insurance and just every aspect of the financial planning process from estate planning and taxation, uh you just done a a magnificent job with this um but we need to get the word out there and let people know about it and I think

24:06Exactly. Exactly. I agree with you. I think we should be doing webinars. Um I I will definitely be putting out invites. We can piggyback on that together. Uh if you have a mailing list, um I am I will always make myself available. Uh this is my way of uh really trying to I I'd love to change the world, but at least we could start in the United

24:32States. Yeah. And really start educating America. Yeah, because we we know we need it. I mean, people save less than 4% of their money. Um, or less less than 4% of the population saves money, I should say. Exactly. And, uh, we should really be looking at significant things to put together uh, to help people grow. Cuz this this whole thing about, um, I call it financial wellness and awareness just like uh, I don't like financial literacy and you don't like the word budget. You like the word cash flow management, if I'm

25:13getting it correct. You're right. Uh, so I I think I think those are just things that people have been fearful fearful of. And I was meeting in a meeting with someone today. And we were talking about, uh, I I had someone on the podcast. And the guy said, you know, I've been living at the same income for the last

25:3410 years. The same level. I haven't increased my expenses, even though I've been making more income. And I'm like, wow, I'm not doing that cuz, you know, I splurge a little bit like everybody else. But, he he said that and I was talking to a lady today and she said, that's my problem. I do the I do the same exact thing. Every time I, uh, you know, I start making money, I know there's another check coming in and so I go and spend that money out. And it and like you said, it doesn't matter cuz we're going to do something with her organization, uh, which is centered

26:07around, uh, homeless women. She just talked about the fact that she still struggles with some of these things. And so, for my listeners, everybody pretty much has some kind of vice that they have to deal with when it comes to handling money. I mean, some people save money good. Some people manage money good. And some people spend money good. And most of them are on most of them on the side where they're spending money real well, right? And and they don't they don't know what something as simple as adopting these tools and resources here can help you organize your your life. Just like we talked about the

26:47beginning of this broadcast here, how people sign up for gym memberships and fitness. Now, we're in the last quarter of the year. This got to be the lowest numbers for any gym in the United States. But the first quarter has to be the highest. And uh we want you guys to look at how you handle your money all year round because it's not a monthly, weekly, or quarterly. It's a annualized situation where you could really work on improving every aspect of your financial health and not being uh distracted and being prepared for those emergencies. And everything you could conceivably think of is built in here. But here's the thing, if it's not

27:32built in here, guess what? You can just tell Scott and he'll work on it, right? That is true. He'll he'll look at trying to enhance it. And that's how he he's developed the product that we have today because people start saying, "You know, it'd be cool if you had this. Or what about this?" And he's figured out a way to add that. So, uh this is a this is a a thing that that, you know, everybody can participate in and and he's an open book when it comes to exploring other options

28:02on how to improve. There's always room for improvement. I can't I don't have the corner on all the good ideas. So, I I appreciate the feedback. Okay. Well, to all of our listeners, stay tuned. Uh make sure we'll put the information out there and we'll make sure that we're promoting this and letting you know when

28:22we're ready to have our our uh sessions. And they'll be uh they'll probably be a half an hour to a hour. And they'll be very in-depth and you'll be able to learn and get your questions answered and really start to implement this while we're going through the program. Uh so, that's the key is to to to get you guys uh enrolled and download the app and then look at ways to drop this into your life now. And it's a good time because going into the holidays, people on on 2027 preparation many of you've already set your sights on next year. And so, we're we're looking to move forward. So, Scott, as

29:05we close it out, is anything else that uh we didn't cover or did you like to cover or talk about before we wrap it up? No, I don't think so. I between these two podcast sessions, I think we pretty much covered everything. Um and uh I'm just excited for our partnership, Julius. Uh and I think that uh with with your help and uh your contacts and the podcast and webinars and things like that that we can do together, uh we can really help make a difference in people's lives. So, I I certainly appreciate the opportunity to be on here uh on this podcast and to

29:47work with you. Absolutely. We appreciate it. And that's what Equity Smart is all about is being able to market those tools and resources that help. And we finally found something without having to go out and create it that aligns with what we're doing. I mean, we're working with credit, savings, budget, retirement, all these different tools, stocks, uh college debt and you know, insurance, owning real estate. And all of these tools and resources, estate planning, you know, taxation, we can implement this right inside of this toolbox. So,

30:22it was a match made in heaven on Earth. We were able to to link up to be able to bring this to you and be able to make uh the the average person the above average person and the amazing person to take them to new heights and new levels. So, thank you again for joining.

30:43You got it. Thanks. All right. All right. Take care. We'll be in touch. Look forward to those episodes. Make sure you subscribe to our channel to stay tuned and you get these alerts. And smash the like button and give us some comments on what you thought about today's show. We appreciate you. Equity Smart is the new

31:00cool. Take care. Thank you so much for watching. We truly appreciate your time and hope today's message inspires you to take the next step toward financial wellness and awareness. We invite you to visit our website and subscribe to our channel. Your support helps us grow because we share videos that deliver valuable knowledge.