Shownotes
- Life Insurance Is an Asset: Life insurance isn’t just “death insurance”—it’s a buy-and-manage asset that can be valued, sold, and leveraged for retirement, business liquidity, or charitable giving.
- The Life Settlement Market: Many policyholders don’t realize they can sell their policies in a regulated secondary market, often for more than the surrender value. This liquidity can solve long-term care needs, support philanthropy, or keep a business afloat.
- Insurability Matters: Buying life insurance for children or grandchildren can preserve their insurability for life, opening doors for future financial planning—even if health challenges arise later.
- Charitable Solutions and Giving While Living: Life settlements can fund significant charitable gifts, allowing donors to witness the impact of their generosity now rather than waiting for a bequest after passing.
- Don’t Throw Away Your Policy—Value It First: Before surrendering or lapsing a policy, policyholders should explore its market value. Life insurance can be worth tens, hundreds of thousands, or even millions—and could change the trajectory of a family, business, or community.
Transcripts
Welcome to Don't Retire Graduate, a podcast that asks you what you want to be when you grow up so you can graduate into retirement with purpose and with passion. I'm your host and valedictorian, Eric Brotman, and this is the sixth season of our show. Every other Thursday, we'll be bringing you interviews with amazing guests. And on alternating weeks, we're hosting our Diary of a Financial Advisor segment where we interview financial advisors about their professional journeys and their passion for helping others succeed. Please, if you haven't yet, take a moment to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Today I'm very pleased to be joined by Jamie Mendelsohn. Jamie's the executive vice president of ASHR Group, a family owned, nationally licensed life settlement broker. The definition of Asher is do what is right and you will be blessed.
Eric Brotman [:Since 2003, Asher Group has partnered with financial professionals, fiduciaries, broker dealers and institutions, serving as an independent advanced planning resource dedicated to education on the importance of treating life insurance as an asset. She's a frequent speaker at estate planning councils and financial professional associations around the country, and a contributor to industry journals. Jamie's the go to resource for advisors and policy owners looking for a profitable exit solution for their existing life insurance policies. She's also an awesome human being and I can't wait to introduce her to to our audience. Jamie, welcome to Don't Retire Graduate.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:It's great to be here. Thank you for having me.
Eric Brotman [:This is a departure at least slightly from our normal show in that you are in our industry, at least affiliated with our financial industry. And a lot of times we're talking to folks who are trying to graduate into retirement. Well, you've helped a lot of people do that already. So can you, can you give us a little bit about your background and how you joined your family business and got involved in your line of work.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:And we'll start there, absolutely. So the business that we're in is a business that really serves consumers, serves family, serves business owners. Our business, as you mentioned earlier, is to value existing life insurance policies and then represent policy owners in sale in the regulated life settlement market. My family started this business, my brothers and my father, back in 2003. So for over two decades I joined the firm in 07. I had been running a staffing agency, actually a healthcare staffing agency. But my, my father, my mother always wanted us to have a family business. So when the opportunity arose and my brothers and my dad were expanding Asher, it was a great opportunity for me to join them in our business.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Every day we're serving policy owners and really helping them monetize their existing life insurance policies. It's a business that's very gratifying. I learn a lot every day. We experience all different things with the clients that we're working with and the advisory teams that they're partnering with. We're helping solve problems using an asset that people already have and maybe don't realize that they can turn their existing life insurance into a capital event to help them with their long term care planning or their retirement planning. Or maybe the life insurance on a key executive can be monetized to help grow a company. So lots of different uses for it, but every day, you know, seeing the impact that we can have on individuals and families, businesses, even charities, it's quite gratifying. So I appreciate you having me and introducing, introducing the business and our approach to your clients or, pardon me, your viewers.
Eric Brotman [:Sure. No, I actually I have a small concern in that you joined the firm in 2007 and promptly we went into the deepest recession since the late twenties. And I'm wondering if maybe that was a causal relationship. Is it possible that you entering the industry in fact caused the Great Recession of 2008 and 99? You don't have to answer that. I think we all know the answer.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Personally, no. Think it was correlated, but no, I.
Eric Brotman [:I think it was you. So, so we're talking about life insurance now. Nothing is more, is more exciting or more fun to talk about at like a cocktail party or at the water cooler. People can't wait to say, let me tell you about my life insurance. It is just something that gets people so fired up. And of course for all of my listeners, I don't know what cocktail parties you go to, but that's not what happens at the ones that I attend. Unless Jamie's there, in which case that does happen. So life insurance is something so misunderstood.
Eric Brotman [:We've actually had some clients who refer to it as death insurance, which I find funny only because the concept is, well, you have to die to win and what a terrible thing that is. And I guess with term insurance, on some level, maybe that's true. I know there's ways to solve that. But in terms of a death benefit, there's no immediate cash value. Or is there? The interesting piece here is that this is an asset and people buy it, think they've got that box checked off and put it in the drawer, just like they put a wheel in the drawer and don't look at for 15 years. Or they, you know, valuable documents Go in a safe at home, or heaven forbid, a safe deposit box and never get looked at again. This is an asset that like every other asset needs to be managed just like your real estate, just like your stock portfolio or your fund portfolio, just like your cash positions, your debt. Why don't people think of it that way? How did we go from here's something that I can check the box, I'm done.
Eric Brotman [:It's like you remember the game of life from the 40s. You know, you had the option, the one time option to buy life insurance. You either did or you didn't. And if you did, it created all these big opportunities at the end of the game. And if you didn't, you missed out on them. Why don't people still see it that way? That was 1940 and it's still true.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times life insurance is misunderstood by a lot of policy owners. They are sold, hold it or purchase it for a specific protection need. And that's really the only time they think about it. And I think there is a real opportunity to recognize life insurance as an asset, as property, to maximize on its value. I know with your expertise in building cash within these life insurance policies and the opportunity to access that cash with that policy still enforced, still having that protection should someone pass away can be quite powerful. You know, many times we're brought policies again, whether they're individually owned, owned by a business, owned by a trust, even owned by a charity, that are forgotten about. You know, people aren't managing their life insurance assets. And I think to your earlier comments, if we can help policy owners recognize that life insurance is a buy and manage asset, not a buy and hold asset, it can be quite powerful.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:You know, there's an opportunity if that life insurance need or want or ability to fund it changes before someone just discards it, before they just surrender it or lapse it to value it like they would real estate, art, jewelry. And when it is viable for sale, there's a secondary market, just like there is for cars or houses or even horses or you might think of auction houses, how they can auction off hard to value property, you know, sell it to the highest bidder. You know, our firm really acts as that auctioneer for life insurance assets. So before clients are just letting them go for the surrender value or lapsing them, there's an opportunity to maximize value in the life settlement market and sell policies for potentially more than the cash surrender value, although less than the death benefit.
Eric Brotman [:Well, there's so many scenarios where this is A powerful tool. And life insurance in general, it's so misunderstood. I know. Kevin Bacon, you talk about the six degrees of separation and those various things. The reality is that in my personal life, the life insurance that I've had since I was a kid probably has made me more money or helped me access more wealth than anything else I've ever done. Because the life insurance that I had was used to buy my first home, which I parlayed into a meaningful capital event. It also helped me to start this business when no bank would lend to me. And if I look at it, the business is clearly the largest asset.
Eric Brotman [:The house is second. And both of them were funded because my parents had the foresight to buy life insurance on my life when I was 14. I mean, that's something people don't talk about. And of course, the life settlement market is. Is something that most folks don't talk about in their 20s or 30s or 40s. Most folks are talking about that later in life. You know, people buy life insurance. You mentioned it.
Eric Brotman [:For specific reasons. The what if I don't wake up tomorrow, my family needs to replace my income, or we've got debt we want to cover, or there's a business need. All of those things are valid. But there comes a point where maybe you don't need. And I put need in quotes because there may be reasons to want to have life insurance for tax reasons and other things, but there's a point where maybe you don't need it at the moment where you don't need it. Sometimes it's nice to have a cash infusion. And if you surrender a contract, it can create a terrible tax event. Neither of us are CPAs.
Eric Brotman [:We're not going to go into those details other than to say it can create a bad tax event to surrender a contract. So how. How does someone begin the process of figuring out, hey, what. What am I really sitting on here? I mean, this is. It's kind of like you find. You find the silverware in your. In your great grandma's safe or something, and you realize, holy cow, this is antique somehow. Like, what are you sitting on? It's a gold mine of sorts.
Eric Brotman [:What. What's the start of that process?
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Yeah, and I think just to touch on something you said earlier, I mean, we are, as an organization, as a family firm, believers in life insurance, that if people have a need, they like it, they want it, they should keep it. My parents, similar to your parents, put life insurance on all the kids in our family when we were 13. And that's actually, the only life insurance I've ever qualified for. So I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at 22 and have been uninsurable since then. So I still have my whole life contracts that my parents bought for us when we were young so that we could, to your point, have access to that cash for buying our first homes or for using it in other areas. So I do think, you know, life insurance is a wonderful asset to keep, to manage and maintain. My brother, who was diagnosed and is doing quite well today, but about 10 years ago with stage four cancer, his life insurance was what gave him the confidence that his family would be taken care of, knowing that he had it. So, you know, I think when.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:When people are looking at life insurance, there's that opportunity to buy an asset there for the protection and. Or to build cash to be used in other areas like you, you reference. But when those needs are once changed, especially with term policies and universal life policies, you know, the market will value that policy the same way you might value, again, a piece of real estate, art or jewelry. There's the opportunity, based off the age and the health of the insured, based off the ongoing premium costs, to value the existing life insurance policy. There's no exams required. It's not invasive. So this ability to look at your life insurance portfolio, whether it's one or two policies or, you know, five to 10 policies, before you just discard it, value it. You know, there's a valuation process that we have at our firm at Ashure, where we look at an illustration or a ledger that shows the future premium costs.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:We have a medical questionnaire we use to capture date of birth, any current diagnoses, prescriptions, limitations to activities of daily living. And we have analysts that will look at that information based off the market today and come up with a value, an indicative offer range that we would expect to negotiate. So, you know, the process itself is pretty simple. It only takes probably a day or two once we have an illustration and that basic information, to be able to provide you back, pardon me, that data.
Eric Brotman [:Why don't people know about this? How is it possible that something that can turn a small amount of money today or a large amount of money at some uncertain time into something in between today? I mean, that. That seems like kind of a good thing depending on. On your situation. Why does no one know this exists except financial professionals?
Jamie Mendelsohn [:You know, I think it's just, again, life insurance itself is something that many people kind of ignore. We've talked about it earlier. So I think that to look at different options that exist for it. Or this life settlement solution just isn't on people's radar. They don't look at life insurance as a property. Everyone knows they're not going to walk out of their front door and say, I'm leaving Maryland to move to Florida and just leave their house there. They know that their house has value. They're either going to sell it or maybe they're going to run it out first.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:They're going to figure out what it's worth. I think life insurance for decades has been, you know, something that people bought for protection or security that need changes. They automatically just think their knee jerk reaction is let it go, surrender it. We see that changing. I do a lot of speaking as you mentioned earlier, all over the country. So we're spending a lot of time educating advisory teams about the market, some consumers as well. I sit on planes with all my travels and I look at what I do almost as a public service announcement because to your point, people don't know know this option exists.
Eric Brotman [:Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If I'm sitting next to somebody on a plane, they say, hi, I'm in the life insurance settlement business. I immediately have something better to do. I put headphones in, like, you're out, Forget it. Like, I mean, I guess people, I, you look, you have more charisma than I'll ever have. I get that. But how do you get somebody. Like the elevator speech when you're in the life insurance world has people hitting buttons to get off sooner.
Eric Brotman [:Like, how is that a thing that people actually will, will, will sit and, and maybe learn something from you? Because I, I think you're, you're one of the great minds in our business and you really are an incredible resource. But you're totally on, you're totally unknown. So when you say life insurance, my headphones are going on. I suddenly have, I, I don't care what I'm listening to. It could be dead air. Like, how do you do that?
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Quickly. I quickly lead with where we don't sell product. But no, I really do. A lot of times, you know, just that random talk on the airplane, not getting, you know, very surface level, not too deep. People say, oh, where are you traveling? Why are you traveling? So I say, oh, you know, I speak around the country about the life settlement market, this opportunity to actually sell existing life insurance policy for more than what the carrier would give you. And they're like, I've never even heard of that. And then I go into some additional information because I think it's a win win. You know, I always say for advisory teams that we speak with or family members, you know, people that we're talking to, you know, what the life settlement option does is provide a potential solution of creating 6, 7 figures of liquidity in some instances for other planning needs.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:So on the plane, people love this idea. They're like, well, you know, I know my parents have life insurance or my business has life insurance. Will it? Yeah, can I sell it? Because people like kind of taking something that they thought was worthless unless they passed away to your earlier point, and, and turning it into a significant liquidity event.
Eric Brotman [:I think you need to have a hat made that says, hi, I'm in the life insurance business or something, and see if you can get an empty seat on a plane before anybody even meet you. Because it really, it's one of those. It's kind of like saying, hey, I. Well, I'm not even going to compare it to other industries. It's immediate. Remember Groundhog Day? Remember that poor, that poor character in the Bill Murray movie who every day. Ned Ryerson? Wasn't that his name? Is the character's name?
Jamie Mendelsohn [:I think it was Ned.
Eric Brotman [:I don't remember his last name, but run from Ned. You know, for those of you old enough to remember that movie, that character's priceless. And that's what people think of when they hear life insurance. So you, you mentioned a little earlier that, that your parents bought life insurance for you when you were a kid and, and certainly I had the same experience and that your insurability changed when you were really young, which is, you know, that's a hard thing. I mean, on, on lots of levels, it's a hard thing. But just, just looking at it objectively and financially, it limits certain, certain options. And so when, when we encourage people to, to insure their kids or grandkids, and my daughter had life insurance as soon as she had a Social Security number, because I'm, I'm just a believer. But there are ways now to preserve insurability so that young people have the ability to buy more with no medical.
Eric Brotman [:In their 20s, 30s, and 40s. I don't know that that existed a whole lot when you and I were kids and I am older than you. We discussed that earlier and I'm very sad to hear it. But I'm older than you and I don't. That just means wiser, Jamie. So. But that is something that people don't think about either. That you're, you're not only creating an asset and doing some phenomenal tax and future gift planning and other things, as well as creating family legacy and all the things that are positive about it.
Eric Brotman [:But you can also protect your kids insurability. So they're not diagnosed with something at 22 and suddenly, you know, down the road are in need of that and can't get it.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Do you see a lot of that? You know, I think I see it because I look for it a little bit. And I will say when I'm speaking around the country, I do bring up the importance of protecting insurability. We're seeing advisory teams and clients sell policies on Gen1 to put new insurance on Gen2, Gen3 while they're still insurable. You know, I'm very sensitive to it in the sense that, you know, I was diagnosed at 22 with Crohn's disease. Well, my parents put insurance on us at 13. It did have that ability to do, I think it was like $75,000 additions without any type of underwriting, kind of every, every five years up to 40, which we took advantage of. But I do think it's really important. And there, there's a lot of childhood diseases, diseases that are terrible that if you're, if your viewers have the ability to actually put insurance on their kids or their grandkids just to give them more options later, I highly recommend it.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Think of all your friends whose kids have like type 1 diabetes. I was watching a commercial on TV the other day and it was just talking about childhood cancer and the amount of kids think it was something crazy. Like 43 kids a day are diet, you know, have some type of diagnosis of cancer. So you know, that, that all of that is really difficult. So if we can, you know, balance it out a little bit with at least having those protections and those things available, I think it's, it's really important. You know, with the Crohn's disease history, I have, there's, there's kids that suffer from it, there's 90 year olds that suffer from it. So I'm pretty involved with the Crohn's Colitis Foundation. I was president of the North Florida chapter for years.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Are involved nationally with that organization. I'm sure your viewers have different nonprofits, charities, whether they're health related or other areas that are important to them. So you know, we do, we do a lot of work within the life settlement space for charitable life settlements, which I'd probably say is some of the most gratifying sales that we've been able to participate in with our clients. This opportunity to take an illiquid asset, turn it into a liquidity event that is helping protect in some cases children or build homes or different, different things like that. So yeah, I thought life insurance is valuable whether it's for protection or it's ability. I always used to joke around when I first started. But I think it's meaningful where the value of a life insurance policy isn't just the death benefit, but also it's assignability. So you know, that's, that's powerful.
Eric Brotman [:So we're. I'm a big believer in obviously philanthropy and involved with lots of organizations as you are, and feel very strongly about that. And life insurance is an asset that is utilized frequently for planned giving for, you know, for larger, larger gifts and requests and other things. But I've also served on enough nonprofit boards to know that there's the bird in the hand where a nonprofit needs the money now. So despite the fact that a bequest is a lovely thing, if you're 62 and you're making a, you're naming a charity as a beneficiary or you're even assigning a policy to them, God willing, you've got 30 years left on this earth, maybe more. And so the charity is not actually going to reap the benefit from the death benefit for a very long time. Plus you'll never see it happen. You'll be gone.
Eric Brotman [:That's the nature of the beast. So life settlements are a way to, rather than surrendering it and potentially paying taxes or assigning it directly, you can sell the contract and then gift the proceeds to charity, or you can assign the contract, I assume to the charity who can sell it. Is that a true statement too? Can the charity do that as well?
Jamie Mendelsohn [:They can. They can.
Eric Brotman [:So in that case, you're making a larger gift than maybe your bank account or brokerage account could withstand with an asset you have that you don't need for its intended purpose. And you're maybe changing somebody's life or an organization's trajectory today rather than waiting until you're gone so they can say nice things about you. That's a big deal.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:That is, I think there's something to be said about giving while living, being able to be there for the rep, the ribbon cutting ceremony, or be there to see the impact of the gift. You know, you always say you don't have to be an angel looking down to see what your life insurance policy, how it impacted the organization, that was important to you. I think another area where we're seeing the benefit of charities and nonprofits being aware of this life settlement option or their plan giving teams. Being aware of it is you have many donors that are living longer than expected. So many times we're seeing policies that were gifted every intention with enough cash in the policy to last until the insured passed away. Keep the policy force and then at the passing of the insured, the death benefit go to the charity. However, with increased longevity, which is wonderful in a lot of, A lot of ways. With increased longevity though, and life expectancy, many donors are outliving their gifts and the charities are coming back to them saying, hey, you know, wonderful that you're still here.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:However, can you start paying more premium? And many donors don't want to. So I think it's another opportunity for charities and that many times aren't set up to pay premium to be able to capture some value. And I think that's a, that's a big deal for your viewers that are philanthropic or maybe sit on the board of chair, boards of charities, I would say on a quarterly basis. We're speaking with charities around the country that have policies just by attrition falling off that they held on the books for a long time. They run out of cash and they just go away, you know, and no one's thinking until, you know, hopefully they hear you know this.
Eric Brotman [:So they sit next to you on a plane, apparently.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Or they sit next to me on a plane. That's right.
Eric Brotman [:Right.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Or they read maybe one of the magazines or journals, but that before they just cancel something. Value it.
Eric Brotman [:All right. None of our listeners, I shouldn't say none. That's painting with a broad brush. But I suspect no more than 2 of our listeners or viewers are reading those journals because that sounds dreadful. Quite candidly, I don't even like to read them. And I have to, I have to know this stuff or I have to rely on you to know this stuff. By the way, you did mention, you mentioned something about being an angel looking down on chair. There's nothing you're going to do during this podcast to get me to refer to you as an angel at any point.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Just so I thought we had to change the lighting because I have a glow. A glow.
Eric Brotman [:Well, you always have a glow, but I'm not referring to under any circumstances is incorrect. So, so let's get back to, to your story a little bit because we're, you know, we've talked, we've talked about the sort of the strategy and a little bit about it and we don't want to get technical. That's not, this is not the, the place for that. But just from a, from a human standpoint, can you maybe talk about one or two really exciting or, or wonderful wins that you've had over. I'm sure you have thousands of them, but can you think of one or two with. Without inadvertently sharing someone's identity? Of course. About some wins where you've seen this make a huge difference in a family's life or in a charity's or existence.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Yeah, I'll start with. Actually it's a case and a project that my brother worked on. But I think it really kind of leads into what we were just, just where we just came from. As we were working with an advisory team and their client that ran the nonprofits and drug addiction organizations, helping people to move away from addiction. Well, the owner of the company ended up being diagnosed with a very significant issue and health issue that was going to cause him to have to walk away from, from the business. But they were impacting so many lives that they looked at what can we do as an organization to keep everything running. And their life insurance ended up being. And they had a portfolio of life insurance.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:But one of the policies was viewed as the vehicle that could help them keep the business going while the individual had to step away and focus on his care. So the life insurance allowed them, it was able to be sold, I think it was about a $2 million policy. It actually sold for about a million. But it was able, they were able to take that cash event and hire a COO and a CEO to run those centers and allowed the owner to step away and focus on his family and his care. So this ability to take an insurance policy and monetize it to keep businesses going, to keep things on track and allowing people to focus on their own care, their families I think can be quite powerful. You know, we see other situations where maybe smaller policies, we see a number of policies, whether it's a 250,000 a face to 500,000 a face where families are having to make a decision on do we keep paying the life insurance or how are we going to fund our loved ones long term care needs. And in those situations it's more of a need based sale. But being able to take an asset that someone's paid into for decades that they're on the fence of saying we're going to just let it go, let it lapse or surrender for very little cash back to the carrier, or we can fund that, but then we don't have the funds to really pay for mom or dad to be in a Good facility.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:We've had the opportunity to help them monetize that policy that maybe the parent paid in for decades and then use that lump sum cash event to help fund their career. So it's quite powerful. You know those are kind of. One is that need based sale, like they can't afford both. The other is using the life insurance as that vehicle to create liquidity to keep things going. So you know, I think if the audience remembers life insurance is an asset as property, they'd never walk away from their house. They would never say, oh you know what, I've stopped wearing my nice watch, I'm going to just throw it away. I like my Apple watch or something else.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:But they would never do that, right? If you had a Rolex or Cartier or Patek Philippe, whatever it might be. If you've got a nice watch, you know better than to just throw it in the trash. If you're never going to wear it again, you'll value it and either sell it or maybe give it to a loved one to, to remember you buy. But you wouldn't just trash it. For decades, policy owners have been trashing their life insurance policies without realizing they could be worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of, of dollars. So you know, we, we see that impact every day with the clients that, that we're representing and that opportunity to create a significant cash event that could help someone stay in their home. We've had those scenarios help someone keep their business open during COVID It was, it was, Covid was terrible for a lot of things. But I will tell you, the impact we were able to have on businesses and individuals by helping them, you know, take advantage of the power of their life insurance policies to help fund other things that were important was quite meaningful.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:You know, that was, that was a time where we really, you know, I, I would say had had significant impact on the clients that we, we worked with, with client, with advisors.
Eric Brotman [:So we are, we are running short on time and I've got like half a dozen things I still want to talk to you about and share and share with our audience. First and foremost, if folks want to learn more about this for our listeners who have life insurance already and, or whose parents do or even whose grandparents do and they're trying to figure out what they want to do, would you advise them to start poking around and looking at your website? Would you advise them to talk to their financial advisor or insurance agent? Is it all of the above? What's the first step for somebody who wants to just Learn more about this.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:I think all of the above. I would start with you if they work with you, because I think you're a wonderful advocate for recognizing the value of life insurance. I think if people want to read up on it, I don't recommend just, you know, surfing online and doing that type of research or putting data in. I do think going to a website like. Like ours, and maybe any links that you put up associated with this, with this podcast can be quite relevant. There's lots of good information on our website. Ashergroup.com Asher actually comes from the Old Testament. My brother's wanted to.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:My father wanted to create a company name that would represent how we approach this market. And Asher means do what is right. You will be blessed. But it's two ways. So I like to point that at Ashar, and I would read up to it, but I would just call you or call their financial advisor or call our firm. We have people that can help provide additional details about it.
Eric Brotman [:And, Jamie, I get to ask you my favorite question on this show, which is, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Jamie Mendelsohn [:You know, it's. It's a great question. What immediately comes to mind is, I'd like to be my mom when I grow up. She's amazing. Makes me want to cry, but she's a. A wonderful person that I would. I aspire every day to be, like, patient, honest. Yeah, she's fighting cancer, but, yes, she's amazing.
Eric Brotman [:My goodness. Well, our. Our thoughts and prayers for your mom and for her health and. And. And that's a great answer.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:And I'm crying. Eric, what are you doing?
Eric Brotman [:No, no, we're not. We're not ending. We're not ending that way.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Okay, good.
Eric Brotman [:No show. No show ends with tears.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:First of all, I used to make people cry. I can't remember, but they're always like.
Eric Brotman [:Well, you know, look, I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm gonna. I'm gonna.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:I know. It's just.
Eric Brotman [:I'm gonna shift gears and have a little fun at your expense, which is, I hope you and I both live long enough to see the Orioles win a World Series. We found a picture in our archives that includes the two of us at a baseball game probably 12 years ago. There we are.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:It looks like yesterday.
Eric Brotman [:I want you to know you have a halo over your head there, too. So clearly, you actually are an angel, Jamie. And you got me to say it. And we are not ending on tears. We're ending on joy. That was a fun night, and I don't know if the girls won or not. I think they might have. It might have been a playoff game even.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Well, remember, my parents came from Maryland, so I grew up like with the Cal Ripken and watching all of the Orioles games and my aunt and uncle had seats over one of the dugouts when I was little. I remember it. So you brought back a lot of nostalgia with that event. It was amazing also to hang out with you and your colleagues.
Eric Brotman [:Very cool.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Very good.
Eric Brotman [:Very cool. Well, I can't thank you enough for, for joining. First of all, you. You. You dropped a lot of. A lot of knowledge on everybody, which is great. But. But moreover, I think you were very authentic and personable and I knew you would be.
Eric Brotman [:And you're an angel. Who knew?
Jamie Mendelsohn [:I knew.
Eric Brotman [:Thanks for being on the show, Jamie. So good to see you.
Jamie Mendelsohn [:Glad to be here. You're amazing.
Eric Brotman [:I'd like to thank everyone for listening and watching today. If you enjoy our show, please don't keep it a secret. Tell your family and friends so they can join you on your journey to financial freedom. And please take a moment to leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast platform. Those are priceless to us. We'll be back next week with another installment in our diary of a financial advisor, and in two weeks with another engaging guest. Maybe not an angel, but an engaging guest. For now.
Eric Brotman [:This is your host, Eric Brotman, reminding you don't retire. Graduate.
Voiceover [:Securities offered through Kestra Investment Services llc. Kestra is member finra, sipc, Investment advisory services offered through Kestra Advisory Services llc. Kestra as an affiliate of Kestra is. Kestra is or Kestra as are not affiliated with Brotman Financial or any other entity discussed.
