Ep196 Glen Starr - Common Sense Investing: A Chemical Engineer's Guide to Building Wealth

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Glen Starr
successful businesses. There's numerous ways to do that. Like I said, you can start your own, you can buy one that already exists, or you can buy into a number of wonderful businesses throughout the world. Throughout the United States,

00:00:24:01 - 00:00:33:22
Mike O'Neill
welcome to Get Unstuck and On Target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with competence and vision,

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Mike O'Neill
but also to achieve groundbreaking results.

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Mike O'Neill
I'm your host, Mick O'Neill. I coach top level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective

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Mike O'Neill
in each episode.

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Mike O'Neill
Join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you, providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward.

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Mike O'Neill
Let's get started.

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Mike O'Neill
Have you ever noticed how the right perspective can transform a problem into an opportunity? Today's conversation explores this powerful truth through the lens of both investing and leadership. You'll meet Glenn Starr, a Texas based financial advisor who approaches complex decisions with remarkable clarity and common sense. What caught my attention wasn't just his financial wisdom, but his brilliant analogy about perspective.

00:01:34:06 - 00:01:59:05
Mike O'Neill
Comparing professional guidance to getting a haircut. You can't see your own head from all angles, just like leaders sometimes can't see their full situation without outside input. This really resonates with what I've observed in my years of executive coaching. Leaders often get stuck not because they lack information or capability, but because their view and challenges from a limited perspective.

00:01:59:07 - 00:02:31:12
Mike O'Neill
Whether you're navigating financial market volatility or you're leading organizational change, the ability to step back and consider different viewpoints can be the difference between getting stuck and moving forward. In this episode, you'll discover practical insight about resilience, decision making, and the power of maintaining a long term perspective. Principles that apply whether you're managing investments or leading teams. I'm Mike O'Neill, and this is Get Unstuck and On Target.

00:02:31:12 - 00:03:04:09
Mike O'Neill
Joining me is Glen Starr, founder of Starr Financial. Glen journey from chemical engineering to financial planning. It's a powerful story of resilience and reinvention. After 12 years in oilfield services and industry. Darren Downturned well, if forced him to pivot his career despite significant personal and professional challenges. Glen successfully transitioned his problem solving skills and technical expertise into helping others achieve financial security.

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Mike O'Neill
Today, we're going to explore Glen's approach to common sense investing, drawn from his unique perspective of combining engineering precision with practical financial wisdom. Welcome, Glen.

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Glen Starr
Thanks for having me, Mark.

00:03:21:18 - 00:03:35:07
Mike O'Neill
For those who are looking, you're on camera and you've got what I suspect is something that everybody knows you by. You've got a good old cowboy hat. Let's see. Colorado. Texas. Is that where you're speaking from?

00:03:35:09 - 00:03:42:14
Glen Starr
Conroe, Texas is, north of, high prices. In Houston.

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Mike O'Neill
Well, that's kind of fitting, because, Glen, we've had an opportunity to speak, actually, at some length. I found you just easy to speak with, and I just thought that your common sense approach is something that our listeners would benefit from. I introduced you as someone who got an engineering degree. But you experience setbacks, and those setbacks kind of led to a career pivot.

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Mike O'Neill
How long have you been doing investing advice?

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Glen Starr
So I've been advising clients for over 32 years now. Having started out in a way that, I didn't anticipate, I was, having much difficulty to find a real job and, a friend of mine, that I was talking with that was in this business, and, we talked in, just through some, diligent effort, and with the clarity of hindsight.

00:04:49:13 - 00:04:56:14
Glen Starr
I guess that, determination came through, and here I am.

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Mike O'Neill
Glen, you've been doing this for a long time. Three decades plus. What's the biggest myth about financial planning that you find that you have to debunk with your clients?

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Glen Starr
I find that, Mike, we as an industry and even our society focuses on prices when it comes to their investments. And in my opinion, prices only matter twice when you buy something or when you sell some. Any time in between those two points in time price is irrelevant.

00:05:43:21 - 00:05:53:18
Mike O'Neill
Now I understood what you just said but you can you kind of put that in perspective. Why is price not relevant unless you're buying or selling.

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Glen Starr
Well because when you, when you own something you've, you've exchanged your money to own whatever it is that you own. So I, I try to use analogies and when I'm talking to clients and, and I use this analogy for prices. So let's say you've been to the grocery store, you've bought some groceries or some dry goods, and you put them on the shelf in a week or 2 or 3 later, you open up the newspaper and you see that the stuff that you bought sitting on the shelf is now on sale.

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Glen Starr
Did you lose money on what you own?

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Mike O'Neill
I did not.

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Glen Starr
Well, but there's an opportunity if you choose to add to what you already own, you can get a better price. You're buying it so if there is a price decline in the investment world, it really represents an opportunity and it doesn't represent a loss of money.

00:07:03:02 - 00:07:22:11
Mike O'Neill
Thank you for clarifying that. You know, you mentioned the ups and downs of the market and you've been doing this for a long time. When do you have clients get nervous? How do you help them stay kind of resilient and focus during these market downturns?

00:07:22:13 - 00:08:01:23
Glen Starr
I guess that's probably been some of the, largest challenges, in my career because no one wants to think they're losing money. It's, it's an emotional thing, no doubt, but, yet in our public marketplace, any time there's ever been prices that have gone down in a well diversified portfolio of investments, like represented by the S&P 500 index, for example.

00:08:02:00 - 00:08:16:16
Glen Starr
There's never been a time those prices didn't come back up. And continue to go higher later on. So sometimes it's best just to buckle up and sit there.

00:08:16:18 - 00:08:40:17
Mike O'Neill
You know I'm listening to you and there's this a practical way in which you're kind of walking us through this when you're working with clients. What is it that prompts people to pick up the phone and say, I want to talk to Glenn? Anything that happens that you see oftentimes results in them seeking you out.

00:08:40:19 - 00:09:14:11
Glen Starr
Well, a little bit, I, I listen to two clients and what their goals, objectives, concerns may be. And for those clients that have existing investments, I welcome their call when there is concern. Oh my gosh, the prices are going down. I'm not going to have time to wait. This Alabama. Well, unless you know something I don't maybe I think you probably will.

00:09:14:12 - 00:09:41:24
Glen Starr
Based on what I do know. And so I've had clients tell me particularly those who were, kind of real concerned in the beginning of our relationship. Eventually not call me when prices go down. Inevitably prices go down. And so I would check in with them like, hey, are you doing okay? Is everything alright? And he goes, well, yeah, you tell me the same thing when I call.

00:09:41:24 - 00:09:54:00
Glen Starr
And it's always true. I've always seen the prices come back. So I figured, well, I just wouldn't bother you, bother me any time.

00:09:54:02 - 00:10:25:02
Mike O'Neill
You know, you can open up any magazine in a newspaper and you can open up the internet, go to your browser. It can be a little bit overwhelming about all the places that you can invest money. We're not going to talk about any specifics today. But in terms of general guidance to the folks that you're talking to, are there any kind of rules of thumb that you have found has met most of the needs of your clients?

00:10:25:04 - 00:10:54:14
Glen Starr
You know, sometimes, get a little bit disgusted at our industry and that I believe we sometimes make it a little complex and complicated to put money to work. But in our society. And I'm going to talk about categories, there are very few places, categorically speaking, where you can invest your money, and I'm happy to describe those quickly if you'd like.

00:10:54:20 - 00:10:56:03
Mike O'Neill
Please.

00:10:56:05 - 00:11:27:12
Glen Starr
So number one is cash and it's equivalent. We all need some degree of cash. That's what we used to pay our bills with. But there's pros and cons to cash. There's risk associated with cash like inflation. Eating away at what our cash will buy for us as time goes by. But we have to accept that because we must and need to have that cash.

00:11:27:14 - 00:11:53:18
Glen Starr
Second, you can loan your money to someone. You can loan it to your family, friends, brother in law that I like to use and you can even loan it to the government. You can run it through. Municipalities are corporations, and if whomever you loan your money to are creditworthy and they'll pay you back and pay you some interest along the way.

00:11:53:20 - 00:12:25:01
Glen Starr
Well, in that, what banks do they make money at loaning money so you can do the same thing through the public markets. Bonds simply represent loans. Third category is real estate. Many people who own their home have financially a lot of their net worth invested in real estate. But you can buy real estate in addition to a home.

00:12:25:03 - 00:12:53:08
Glen Starr
You can buy real estate in all different forms, all the way from raw land to rental houses to business strip centers. And there's even publicly available security ese that focus on real estate. Real estate carries its own degree of pros and cons, cost of ownership, taxes and those kind of things, or are a little high in liquidity. And real estate is, not all that high.

00:12:53:08 - 00:12:59:18
Glen Starr
And and if you just need a little money and all you own is real estate, it's kind of hard to sell a room with it.

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Mike O'Neill
There it is.

00:13:01:06 - 00:13:31:24
Glen Starr
So the fourth category is businesses in our world, in our capitalist society, we're all free to go start our own business. You got a good idea for a product or a service. And you can make money with it. You're free to do so. Well. You can buy an existing business from somebody else in a capitalist society. Y'all just agree on what you're willing to sell or pay for that business.

00:13:31:24 - 00:14:03:18
Glen Starr
And you can own a business. You can own a piece of a business in the public market. Two can own a piece of the world's largest oil company, or you can own a piece of technology stocks that you're interested in. And owning stocks is actually owning a piece of business. And if there is a fifth category and this sums it up, I'm going to call everything else in our world the fifth category.

00:14:03:24 - 00:14:27:09
Glen Starr
It's precious metals, currencies, futures, commodities, derivatives and all those things that you might hear about. But most people don't need, those things. So that's it for primary categories in our society. Might if that's it.

00:14:27:11 - 00:14:49:12
Mike O'Neill
That's helpful. I appreciate you doing that. You know, Glenn, you have been doing this for a long time, and I suspect that a lot of your business is business that comes from referrals. Happy customers refer in business to you. That's, I'm going to go back to that question that I asked earlier, but I want to phrase it maybe a little bit differently.

00:14:49:14 - 00:14:57:20
Mike O'Neill
And that is people are listening to your right now. They're saying, you know what? Glenn's making sense. I now understand those categories.

00:14:57:24 - 00:14:58:10
Glen Starr
Okay.

00:14:58:14 - 00:15:04:22
Mike O'Neill
But what might prevent people from acting on that from taking action?

00:15:04:24 - 00:15:40:04
Glen Starr
Well, in some instances, people don't like the fact that prices fluctuate. And any time you step outside of that first category of cash, the price of everything in our society is negotiable, does fluctuate. And in fact, price fluctuation is a necessary component of capitalism. Yes. Don't be afraid of price fluctuations.

00:15:40:10 - 00:16:10:01
Mike O'Neill
Well, said Glenn, as you're thinking about what you've just shared, there's something about what you're discussing that says, you know, this is a trust relationship I'm entering into. What have you found? But we've got listening in watching this episode. These are leaders. And what role does trust play in your work with clients?

00:16:10:03 - 00:16:50:04
Glen Starr
Well, well, it's the foundation that, my relationships are based on. It's my job to tell things like, I know them. And if more information is obtained, and it will be as time goes forward, you call the proverbial spade a spade. Sometimes. No. And I've never hesitated to own a mistake. I've never hesitated to call it like it is.

00:16:50:04 - 00:17:14:07
Mike O'Neill
the technology has come on so, so fast. It has resulted in people doing business with folks not in their same city or state, time zone or country. That being said, I suspect that you have clients that are not down the road from you.

00:17:14:07 - 00:17:15:18
Mike O'Neill
Is that a fear assumption?

00:17:15:20 - 00:17:50:23
Glen Starr
Very, very fair. And I have clients from, one coast to the other coast and in multiple states in. Interesting enough, 30 something years ago, we were just down the street for most of our clients. But as time has gone by, those clients and naturally so, we work well together and if and when they moved, we were able to continue to work together.

00:17:51:00 - 00:18:10:14
Glen Starr
Now. Interesting. Many times somebody does want to meet somebody face to face across the beer, shake their hand and I get it. But even those that still live down the street, sometimes we do 99% of our business via telephone. Isn't that interesting?

00:18:10:16 - 00:18:14:01
Mike O'Neill
It is.

00:18:14:03 - 00:18:34:08
Mike O'Neill
We've said that we're going to talk about common sense investing and throwing some questions out to you. As you know, this is an unscripted conversation. But as you prepared for our time together, what might be some things that you'd want to share that maybe hasn't come up yet?

00:18:34:10 - 00:19:23:03
Glen Starr
So, so many times, it seems like the media, wait with bated breath on some piece of data that is going to be significant, earth shattering, perhaps. And in the overall scheme of things, it's not. The economy is a big, big thing. What happens in our governments, what happens in our political parties, our policies take a long, long, long time to filter through our economy.

00:19:23:05 - 00:19:48:21
Glen Starr
Events matter, no doubt, but for the most part, it's always something. Something always occurs that at the moment seems to be significant. But with the clarity of hindsight, we realized that it was all right. We figured it out. That's what human beings do. We figure it out.

00:19:48:23 - 00:20:07:03
Mike O'Neill
You know, you actually kind of leaned in when you said, it takes a long, long, long time. It would seem to me that the nature of your guidance to our listeners is you need to be thinking the long game. Is that a fair assumption book?

00:20:07:05 - 00:20:43:15
Glen Starr
The the long game is more than just a few years. It's actually more than a lifetime. You see, significant wealth can be accumulated and can be positioned in a way that takes care of future generations and in some instances that someone's goal in other instances, it. Well, I don't want to spend all my money until the day I die.

00:20:43:17 - 00:21:09:13
Glen Starr
You. Well, if we knew when that day was, we could plan accordingly. But since we don't, well, why don't we plan? You live in a long, long, long time to boot. Because I don't want to plan on somebody not living a long time. Because that would precipitate a call like. Okay. Yeah. Your plan ends today. Been nice knowing you.

00:21:09:13 - 00:21:13:03
Glen Starr
Well, that's a done. Make sense?

00:21:13:05 - 00:21:29:15
Mike O'Neill
You know, Glenn, there is one question that you can anticipate and that is in your experience, can you think of a situation where perhaps you or a client got stuck and when that happened, what did it take to get unstuck?

00:21:29:17 - 00:22:05:02
Glen Starr
So you know, my there's there's scenarios that my clients who are just as human as, as anybody else and even me, sometimes we'll get stuck with our perspective on some situation. And I've had clients call me up and say, hey, I'm on this particular company stock for a long, long time and it's not doing anything. Why don't we get rid of on what?

00:22:05:02 - 00:22:35:06
Glen Starr
Why don't you let me look at some other particulars and lo and behold, I find that, well, you know, you've done this thing for the last 25 years, and based on your cost, the dividend alone that's being distributed to you represents a percentage of your original investment that I can't dislocate today. And so I've had more no more clients.

00:22:35:06 - 00:22:50:12
Glen Starr
So I've never looked at it that way. And I believe that what I do and even in your business your job of coaching. It's perspective.

00:22:50:14 - 00:22:51:05
Mike O'Neill
Yes.

00:22:51:07 - 00:23:21:14
Glen Starr
I use an analogy Mike that I don't think what we do is complicated. It's not near as complicated as the media might make it out to be. Or someone wants to make you think they're smart because just like I go to somebody to get a haircut, not because I can't cut my own hair. I can. I got a pair of scissors, I can reach a pair, I could cut my hair.

00:23:21:16 - 00:23:42:13
Glen Starr
But why do I go to the professional? Well, they probably got better tools than I have. They probably have some training that I might not have. I could get that. Of course they've got experience and I could get that too. But they've got something I cannot get.

00:23:42:15 - 00:24:09:18
Glen Starr
And that's a perspective Mike. I see my head hair differently than I do. You know I can't get there perspective and I believe it. There's something unique about what I do or what a business coach like yourself does to help people. We bring a perspective that sometimes we just can't see.

00:24:09:20 - 00:24:22:19
Mike O'Neill
I love it, you know, Glenn, if you were to offer the most practical piece of financial wisdom to our listeners, what would that be?

00:24:22:21 - 00:24:55:12
Glen Starr
Well, it's, successful businesses. There's numerous ways to do that. Like I said, you can start your own, you can buy one that already exists, or you can buy into a number of wonderful businesses throughout the world. Throughout the United States, companies that are going to be successful, no matter what is put in front of them.

00:24:55:14 - 00:25:25:23
Glen Starr
Now, that's not guaranteed, of course. So you don't put all your money in one particular company either. You build a well-diversified portfolio of investments, and owning good companies gives you the ability to never outlive your money. Hopefully.

00:25:26:00 - 00:25:55:12
Mike O'Neill
Glenn, I love it. Before we wrap up, I've got a question for the leaders in the audience, and that is, why do people choose to follow your lead? Is it out of obligation, or do they truly believe in your vision? Leadership thrives on clarity, confidence, and decisive action. It's not just about holding authority. It's about making tough decisions that drive real bottom line results while keeping the team focused and motivated.

00:25:55:14 - 00:26:21:07
Mike O'Neill
As an executive coach, I help leaders develop their decision making capabilities and build the resilience needed to guide their teams through those challenges. At Bench Builders, we focus on transforming good leaders into great ones. So I invite you to lead in a way that draws people to your vision, not because they have to, but because they believe in your ability to guide them forward.

00:26:21:09 - 00:26:33:18
Mike O'Neill
Visit bench builders.com to learn more about how we can support your leadership journey. You know, Glen, as expected, your insights have been invaluable. Thank you for joining us today.

00:26:33:20 - 00:27:16:16
Glen Starr
Well, I really appreciate it and thank you for the work you do. I've already benefited from some of your other guests helping me to establish a practice of waking up every morning and before the day is out. Defining and documenting. What am I grateful for today? This morning didn't start out good with a computer problem before I left, but when I walked outside into the clear cool, calm weather, I immediately thought, well, I'm grateful for this, but I wasn't.

00:27:16:18 - 00:27:26:13
Glen Starr
I didn't start that way because of the problem that I had just with computer software. So thank you for the work you did. I've benefited.

00:27:26:15 - 00:27:49:16
Mike O'Neill
Well, I have to. That's the thing I have enjoyed most about hosting a podcast. Now, Glenn, I think you're referring to a recent guest, David George Brooke, known as that gratitude, guy. Yeah. And, you know, if folks want to reach out to you and they want to learn more about common sense investing, what's the best way for them to reach out?

00:27:49:18 - 00:28:21:05
Glen Starr
So my website is star with two hours financial dot net. There's abundant information there that I'm happy to share. Somebody wants to contact me through that website. I'm happy to help them understand and provide any guidance they're looking for. Just have a conversation. Common sense conversation.

00:28:21:07 - 00:28:43:24
Mike O'Neill
We're going to include that contact information in the show notes. You know, thank you Glenn. And I also want to ask that we also give a gratitude to the subscribers. If it weren't for the subscribers, this podcast would not be around. But I hope today's conversation with Glenn has provided you with some insights to help you get unstuck and on target.

00:28:45:14 - 00:28:49:14
Mike O'Neill
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Get Unstuck and on Target.

00:28:49:16 - 00:29:10:04
Mike O'Neill
I hope you gain insights to help you lead with competence and drive your organization forward. Remember it, Bench builders. We're committed to your success, your leadership excellence, and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review rate and subscribe to keep up with our latest episode.

00:29:10:13 - 00:29:14:13
Mike O'Neill
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00:29:14:12 - 00:29:18:00
Mike O'Neill
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00:29:18:09 - 00:29:25:14
Mike O'Neill
Until next time, I encourage you to stay. Focus on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path.