A Journey of Financial Lessons and Emotional Resilience

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Host:

Welcome to the RH podcast. We have a guest here; his name is Eric Gomez. He is the CEO of SG Wealth Managers, and yeah, welcome to the podcast, Eric. How are you doing?

Eric Gomez:
Good, thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you here and talk about some interesting topics.

Host:
All right, fantastic. If you could, could you just introduce yourself a little bit and start with a bit of your background—just a short summary so that people can get to know you a little better?

Eric Gomez:
Yeah, so my name is Eric Gomez. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of SG Wealth Managers. I have a background not only in business, specifically economics, but I also have a background in IT as well, and that's what we're here to discuss—a little bit of IT topics and a little bit of finance and investments.

Host:
All right, that's cool. Could you talk a little bit about SG Wealth Managers, what you guys do, and what you guys provide?

Eric Gomez:
Yeah, so we're a comprehensive wealth management firm. We specialize in everything from estate planning to investment management, with a strong focus on building wealth through financial lessons. We also concentrate primarily on high-income earners, tax efficiency modeling, and financial education. Typically, if we're dealing with larger estates, we like to educate the family on what's going on, provide them with resources and support to get that done, and help them understand the principles of building wealth through financial lessons. And if we're working with companies, we manage 401K plans and cash balance plans for defined benefit plans for the companies.

Host:
So, could you talk a little bit about the financial education piece? What's your philosophy on that? When people come to you, what do you try to encourage them to do?

Eric Gomez:
Really just get an idea of what their goals are and get an idea of the objective of the money that they're building up—the reason why they're accumulating wealth. Based on that, we build out a plan, factoring in taxes, the need for flexibility and liquidity, and factoring in if there's going to be a legacy that needs to be passed down to the next generation. We consider who will be inheriting those funds and what their knowledge level is on investing. So, there's a lot that goes into it—there are about 20 different talking points that we'll cover with clients when we're discussing wealth management.

Host:
I have a question here because you talked a little bit about the fact that you started off in IT actually and then moved into the wealth management sector. Could you tell us a little bit about your history with that? I think it's really cool to be in IT and then go all the way to wealth management. It seems like a completely different switch.

Eric Gomez:
Somewhat, yeah. So, when I was younger, my father worked for a company that was just implementing computers in the workplace for the first time—kind of aging myself here. He got the computer, and he was supposed to use it to train and really get familiar with the software that they were implementing at the company. I ended up going into his toolbox one day when he was at work, and he left it at home. I took that thing apart, got in trouble for it, and had to put it back together. I put it back together, pressed the button, crossed my fingers, and the computer booted up. So, I was very fortunate for that. But ever since then, I thought it was pretty fascinating that there was this thing I could take apart, switch things in, and press a button—it turns on. Then I could use my Netscape browser to go on the internet and find whatever I wanted, whatever I could really think of as far as information. So, I just was fascinated that there was a box that could do that for me.

Host:
So you got hooked once you dodged the first punishment?

Eric Gomez:
Yeah, yeah, I think I put the computer back together more out of fear than confidence that I could do it. But it just fascinated me, and I wanted to be a part of that world a little bit more. I ended up wanting to make money because I was young and I always knew I wanted to go to college. My family, we didn't have a lot of money, and I wasn’t in a position where we could cover my college tuition. I thought, I could probably work, make some money, and do that, and I also wanted things like a car. Let me see what I can do with these computers. So, I started learning about computer parts—I’d take out the RAM on the computer, look at the part serial numbers, and go online to Google the serial numbers and find out who made that RAM, who made the hard drive, where I could buy them if I had to replace them. I really thought, I think I could do this for business. I had no idea how to do a business, but I was going to learn, so I typed in “Arizona business, Phoenix, Arizona,” and the first thing that came up was the Small Business Association in Arizona. They had a bulletin board where they posted that they were going to be having a get together for anyone looking to start a business. So, I was about 14 years old. My mom drove me to this get together. She had no idea what was going on. I’m surprised my mom was like, “Yeah, I'll take you to this random place an hour away and hopefully you're there when I come back.” Yeah, so I walked into this room full of adults. I'm like, "I'm a kid, everyone's looking at me like, 'Now what are you doing here?'" I said, "I want to start a business buying computers." They walked me through, had a lot of great people that were like, "Hey, we want to help this kid. Here's the form that you need to register your business. This is how much money it's going to cost. Once you register your business, these are the steps you do afterward." And yeah, from there I started the business. The next step was figuring out how to get business.

Host:
So, what happened next? How did you find clients?

Eric Gomez:
So, I overheard some adults talking about Craigslist in one of the networking events. They said the SBA provided a resource on what Craigslist is. So, I went on there and found that businesses were posting. I posted some ads with my cell phone number and email address, and started getting clients that way. I didn’t have a car at the time, so I would take the bus to client homes, started doing individuals. Then over time, I met some business owners through networking events. They asked if I could do IT work for their office or help with printers. From there, I started scaling up a little bit with the company.

Host:
It sounds like you really had a strong work ethic from a young age. Where do you think that came from?

Eric Gomez:
I’ve always had a natural curiosity about life, but my strong work ethic definitely came from my mother. We grew up with very limited means, relying on food stamps and state assistance. I watched as my mother worked tirelessly to get us to a better place, teaching us the importance of building wealth through financial lessons. She juggled multiple jobs while raising two kids, often taking us on the bus to daycare, then heading to her first job, coming back briefly, and then going off to her second job. My grandmother would step in as a sitter so my mom could continue working. She never complained, never showed us her struggles, and she did it all with a smile. Thanks to her resilience, I didn’t have to face some of the hardships she did growing up, and I’ll never forget that. She expected us to put in the same hard work, and to me, that became the norm.

Host:
That’s an incredible story. So, you started the business, it was going well, and then at some point, you decided to step away. What happened there?

Eric Gomez:
As the business grew, I was still pretty young and attending college. I’d built up some commercial accounts, learned HTML, and created my own website. I thought, "I can build websites for other companies, and there’s probably good potential here since it wasn’t as common at the time." So, I began creating websites for businesses. One dealership client taught me a lot about contracts, and some attorneys helped me create formal agreements, which I hadn’t considered before. Building a network was some of the best advice I got, and these attorneys even drafted some documents for free. I ended up with a large project involving a dealership’s vehicle inventory, with a specific timeline and scope outlined in the contract.

Host:
So, it sounds like things were progressing well. What happened with that project?

Eric Gomez:
The project was significant, so I brought on some contractors to help with coding. We’d agreed on specific deliverables, but three months in, the client saw a different website and wanted to switch to a new design that was outside our original agreement. I explained, "We’d need to adjust the budget for that. I have contractors working on this, and we’ve already put in a lot of effort." We’d clearly outlined the terms in our contract, and any big change like that would require a new financial plan. That’s where things got complicated.

So, you're going to have to pay me, but they didn't want to pay me, so they sued me. That was extremely stressful, being in court and having an attorney help me out and go through our contract. I ended up winning, but I was like, "I'm done with this. That was stressful. I don't want to do this again." I was still a little young, and I thought, "If I want to own a business, I can do this again in the future." I ended up selling my business. There were two companies: one specialized in IT services, and another in programming and website development. So, I sold my book to those two companies.

My business banker was like, "Hey, man, you got a good chunk of change when you're young. You've got to figure out what you're going to do next." I'm like, "I have no idea." He said, "Hey, you have business bank accounts, business credit cards, merchant services. You use everything that the bank offers and know a lot about their products. Why don't you work for the bank?" I'm like, "I know nothing about banking. I didn't go to school for it. I specialized in economics. I didn’t do anything specifically for banking." He was like, "You’d be a good fit. At least try it out. Go to an interview and see if you like it." Through this experience, I learned a lot about building wealth through financial lessons, which helped shape my understanding of managing finances and the banking industry.

He ended up setting up an interview for me and connecting me with the right people. I interviewed for a banker position. I was like, "I’m not even 21 yet, and I’m about to go to a job interview. There's no way they're going to hire me. I’m going to get embarrassed." But I ended up going, and for whatever reason, they wanted to take a chance on me, and they ended up hiring me. That's been the path I’ve been on since around 2008.

Host:

So, this is basically how you started your journey to becoming a wealth manager. You got into an opportunity at the bank, and then, I guess, a few years later, you started your own business.

Eric Gomez:

Yeah, it’s been about a decade. It took that long to get to the point where I could start a registered investment advisory firm and an insurance company. There’s no way I could have done it without those 10 years of experience. I needed every single year, every single day, and every single hour of it to be able to do something like that.

Host:

Okay, so I wanted to ask you a question: How did you think about wealth before you got into this, and how does that differ from how you think about it now? I mean, from someone who actually had a business, understood what it was to have money and distribute it in a way that it would churn more, and now, becoming a wealth manager, seeing that this is a completely different skill set, a completely different way of thinking. What is that difference? What’s the mindset change?

Eric Gomez:

It’s 100% different. I had no concept of savings, no concept of taxes, no concept of risks like inflation. I especially didn’t have any knowledge of things like taxes. After I went through the legal process with the dealership and sold my book, I got a sizable amount of money. I made two smart choices: one, I paid off all my student loans, and two, I bought a car in cash. Those were the only two smart things I did. Everything else, I blew every single dollar that I had in my bank account. Again, I had no concept of what money really is and how to save.

I thought I was wealthy. I was like, "Hey, I made it! I was poor, and now this is the most money I’ve ever had. I can do whatever I want." So, I ate out all the time, bought my girlfriend nice things, got her nice jewelry, and I have none of that money left. It was a rough experience, going from thinking I had plenty of money to having nothing. My mindset changed when I got more into my season at the bank and started learning about some of these concepts. I realized there’s a different mentality that goes into growing wealth.

I had the opportunity to meet a lot of really wealthy clients, and I would just ask them as many questions as possible. They were super nice and would tell me things like, "Hey man, what do you do? How’d you get there? Why are you doing this with your money?" I noticed they met with investment advisers, so I’d ask, "What do you talk about?" I’d get their perspective, then talk to my investment adviser at the bank, saying, "Hey, this is what they told me. What are you doing for them, and why are you doing it?" I sucked in all this information because I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes I made before, especially on the tax side. This process taught me a lot about building wealth through financial lessons, which shaped how I approach managing money and investing today.

When I got my first bill from when I sold my business, I had no idea about taxes. And without getting a massive tax bill in the mail, I was like, "I didn’t know how to pay taxes on this." But now the little bit of money that I did have left had to go away for taxes. So, it was a humbling experience.

So, a lot of people in this industry pride themselves on logical thinking. Is there a part of that that works well in wealth management? And are there parts about logical thinking where it just doesn’t matter, where this field just doesn’t match? Are there illogical parts of the tax system, maybe?

Host:

That’s a really good question, actually.

Eric Gomez:
I would like to say I’m both an introvert and an extrovert. Sometimes I like to say the introverted side of me is the IT side, and the extroverted side of me is the investment side. Really, from the IT perspective, logical thinking is critical, especially when you're problem-solving and identifying the challenges in front of you, and figuring out what vehicles or tools or resources you need to solve those problems. What doesn’t transfer over is the emotional side.
One thing I’d say is, when I was doing IT, I was almost robotic. But doing the investment side, you have to factor in the emotional aspect of it. Because in all reality, someone might say, "Eric, what’s the best way to make money and the most money in the stock market? Throw it in there, don’t touch it, have it well-diversified, no matter what it does, never pull it out." It’s one thing to say that when you see your money go from 100% value to 120%, and then back down to 5%, or maybe 20%. Yeah, it’s going to cause panic in most people.
People, when they say, "Hey, make me the most amount of money," that’s the reality of doing it—not being willing to accept the truth that my money is going to go down significantly, and I’ve got to hang tight. And that’s where the wealth management side comes into place, understanding the threshold that a client can handle and seeing their assets be volatile. Is it a low-level volatility that they can handle, or a high level of volatility? That will ultimately dictate what kind of strategy you go with when you're talking about different levels of emotional intelligence for clients.

Host:
So, what makes you confident in the kinds of places you put clients' money? Is it the level of investigation? Is it the different industries that need to be successful? What really makes you feel confident when you say, "Hey, just trust us. This is a long-term play we’re going for, and we just need you to believe in us. We’ve made an assessment of you, and we know you can handle this"?

Eric Gomez:
So, we’re a little bit unique in our wealth management company. We really don’t work with just anyone. What we look for in clients are people who want to learn. There’s a reason why the majority of people do not have a significant amount of wealth in the United States and even in Canada. It’s really because they don’t have the proper guidance and they don’t understand the work that’s necessary. There is no easy money in this life, and even in investing, it requires some work from everyone. It’s not just the advisor. It’s not just the wealth management firm you’re working with. From you specifically, it will require some level of work. And that’s what we look for, because you have to get an idea of what we’re doing, and appreciate it. This is where building wealth through financial lessons plays a crucial role, as it’s not only about the investments but also about the education and effort you put in to understand the process.
For example, the example I gave earlier, where someone comes in and says, "I want to make the most return possible," I feel confident in what I’m putting them in because I get an idea of what they’re really comfortable with. I’ll say, "Hey, you have a million dollars. Seeing this million go to, let’s say, $100,000, what would you do? I need you to be honest with yourself. There’s going to be some work where you have to be honest with your emotional intelligence and yourself. If you say, ‘Hey, I’d panic. I’d probably sell before I even got to that point,’ then it’s probably not the best strategy to try to make the most money."
I’ll be honest and communicate that with the client, saying, "This is the truth of the stock market. Real money is made during times of volatility. If that’s something you’re not going to be comfortable with and you’re going to sell all your positions, I put you in this plan to make the most amount of money, and you will lose money."
The whole reason why people come to me is not to lose money, but to protect their money and to make money over a long period of time. So, it’s more that I get to know my clients on multiple layers—not just from a logical perspective of aligning the right tools and resources for personal finance, but also from an emotional intelligence perspective of diving into almost their psychological viewpoint of risk and comparing those two with the IT side.

Host:
What is the top three things you learned moving into wealth management that you think everybody in software should really start thinking about? What would you say are the top two or three things that would be really valuable for people in IT to take to heart?

Eric Gomez:
One, be honest with yourself. Stay in your lane. There are many clients that we work with who are senior executives at really successful companies, making millions and millions of dollars a year. What I’ve seen from those clients who’ve had great success through investing is that they understand they’re specialists in their fields, but they’re not specialists in investing. They don’t know everything that trickles with it. Just be honest with yourself. Do you have the genuine time to dedicate to investing? Do you have true knowledge in investing—not just with the stock market, but factoring in things like your taxes and your state? And third, do you have the desire to do it? If you have all three of those things, you can be successful investing your own money. But the knowledge piece is hard, especially for high-income earners. We have a lot of programmers we work with, and anyone who’s a programmer understands there are time constraints. Projects come up, and they don’t have that time. Maybe they do have the knowledge, but they might not have the desire. So, be honest with yourself.

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Eric Gomez: 

Two, know what you want to accomplish. For me personally, I’m not in this to get wealthy for myself. I grew up in a very poor area and did not have the resources to leverage my curiosity as a kid. I noticed that our school system, specifically in Arizona, is not the greatest. It’s somewhat broken, especially for minorities, and my goal is to hit a specific dollar amount to build a school without any funding from the state or private investors, so I can have that school run the way it needs to help kids in low-income areas. So, have your own goals and know what you need to accomplish those goals.

Eric Gomez: 

The third big thing is to keep appropriate cash reserves. Whether you're starting a business or investing, you need to have appropriate cash reserves. Over the decade I’ve worked in banking, I’ve seen that the companies that succeed are the ones that go into it with at least two years' worth of cash reserves. They can weather one or two bad years. This wasn’t something I thought of on my own; I took notes from people like Bill Gates. They’re very intelligent about keeping enough payroll to pay everyone from their programmers down to the janitors of the building for two years. Those really smart business owners are doing things like that. I’m just going to listen and follow their lead because they have way more success than I’ll probably want in my life. So, be honest with yourself, set goals, and keep adequate cash reserves.

Host: 

Could you talk a little bit about the school you’re interested in building? It’s one of your goals, and it would be really cool to hear how you would think about structuring a system that would provide financial education for low-income people to help bring them up, at least to the middle class.

Eric Gomez:
Going through school was a very unique experience. I didn’t always accelerate through school, nor did I excel at learning a lot of material quickly. It was somewhat embarrassing going to school, seeing all these kids pick up things so fast. When it came to tests, those kids would get way better grades than me. But when months went by, they had forgotten it all, while I still remembered what I learned. One thing I learned from navigating both the education system and the world of Wealth Management as a business owner is that people learn at different paces.

Now, many traditional school systems—I'm not sure how it is in other places, but it's often similar—are very linear. You progress through kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and so on, with a set curriculum to pass, standardized tests, and a certain amount of time before moving on to the next grade or getting held back, which is often seen negatively. This approach doesn't leave much room for flexibility. I envision a more Client-Centric Approach to education, similar to how we tailor Investment Strategies for each client. In this progressive school model, there are no rigid grades. You enroll and graduate at your pace; the middle is what you control. A fluid system would let students focus on areas where they are gifted, whether in mathematics, reading, or English, just as in Financial Planning, we focus on areas that help clients reach their goals.

In high school, I'll never forget my mathematics teacher’s role in fostering my Resilience. I was at risk of not graduating, and my slow pace in processing material made it tough to stay on track. But my teacher, knowing the importance of my future, challenged me to pass a cumulative final exam, an opportunity that forced me to push beyond my limits. That moment of encouragement planted the seed for my idea of a more adaptable and supportive school system, similar to the personalized guidance we provide in Wealth Management. It’s about recognizing strengths and weaknesses and allowing each person to grow where they can thrive.

Host:
That resonates. I think the personalized support you describe builds Emotional Intelligence, too, because you start understanding, “Hey, here’s where I’m strong and where I need help.” It’s like managing personal finances or Asset Growth—no one-size-fits-all solution works.

Eric Gomez:
Exactly. Another critical gap in most schools is Financial Literacy, especially at younger ages. My business partner has even started teaching his four-year-old daughter about Personal Finance, explaining simple Investment Strategies like how the stock market goes up and down. And she gets it! We’ve seen this with children from families where finances are openly discussed—they begin to grasp complex ideas early, even understanding Retirement Planning basics. That’s why I believe teaching Financial Literacy from a young age is key. Just like we educate clients on long-term wealth and Asset Growth, early financial education could change lives by equipping young people to make informed choices about their futures.

Host: 

That’s cool. Where would you build this school?

Eric Gomez: 

I’d build it in Arizona. A lot of my family is from the west side of Arizona, but there’s a place called Maryville, which is a really low-income area, and we have government housing there. That’s where I would look to build the school and provide these resources. It’s a big uphill challenge because there are a lot more variables that go into it besides just the education—parents being involved in the kids. So there has to be some outside help, not just with the students but with the teachers. It’s the intimidation factor of, “You know, I’m not—I’m not good enough for something like that,” or maybe they’re not smart enough. But with enough time, anyone can be intelligent. It just may take you a little bit longer and a lot more work, but anyone can get there.

Host: 

Well, with that, I’d like to thank you for coming on the podcast. Where can they find you?

Eric Gomez: 

Yeah, so you can visit our company at SGwealth.com. We post tons of educational articles, a lot of resources, calculators that people can use for their own finances. Also, I have a LinkedIn page by my name, Eric Gomez. I’ll be listed under SG Wealth Manager. Just hanging around, trying to help and change people’s lives.

Host: 

That’s great. Alright, Eric, thank you so much. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Eric Gomez: 

I appreciate it. Thank you again for the opportunity, and good luck with your ventures. I’ll be keeping an eye on the show and seeing how everything progresses.

Host: 

I hope so. Take care.

Eric Gomez: 

Alright, take care.

Host: 

All right, thank you!