Northwestern Mutual

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Employees say: 
 
“I know that this company will always do the right thing, even when no one is looking. We have a long history of doing business the right way. We are in business to serve our policyowners and actually help them become more financially secure, which is a major challenge for most people - and they need our help. We're solving a problem in society and growing a thriving business in the meantime. This is an exceptional organization and I'm proud to be part of it.”

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Demand for Northwestern Mutual’s products continued to grow during the pandemic’s second year. The company made $1.6 billion in new life insurance sales in 2021, up 52% from 2020, and recorded its highest-ever level of “policy-owner persistency”—the number of customers who continued to renew their coverage. With $36.8 billion in revenue in 2021, the company also announced its largest-ever dividend, distributing $6.5 billion to shareholders.

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Total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year—the first decline in half a decade.

<span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The deadly pandemic increased demand for life insurance, and privately held Northwestern Mutual has met that demand—a fact that helped it pass the $1 billion mark in new life insurance premium sales in 2020. Its record $33.8 billion in revenue boosts the company 12 spots on the Fortune 500—and makes Northwestern Mutual the largest company by revenue in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee-based life insurer also boosted headcount, client investment assets, and policyholder benefit payouts, which cut into margins: Its 2020 profits fell by nearly 67%.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:12673,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri, Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}" data-sheets-textstyleruns="{&quot;1&quot;:0}{&quot;1&quot;:279,&quot;2&quot;:{&quot;6&quot;:1}}{&quot;1&quot;:286}">The deadly pandemic increased demand for life insurance, and privately held Northwestern Mutual has met that demand—a fact that helped it pass the $1 billion mark in new life insurance premium sales in 2020. Its record $33.8 billion in revenue boosts the company 28 spots on the Global 500—and makes Northwestern Mutual the largest company by revenue in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The Milwaukee-based life insurer also boosted headcount, client investment assets, and policyholder benefit payouts, which cut into margins: Its 2020 profits fell by nearly 67%.

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F500-2021-90-Northwestern Mutual

<span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The deadly pandemic increased demand for life insurance, and privately held Northwestern Mutual has met that demand—a fact that helped it pass the $1 billion mark in new life insurance premium sales in 2020. Its record $33.8 billion in revenue boosts the company 12 spots on the Fortune 500—and makes Northwestern Mutual the largest company by revenue in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee-based life insurer also boosted headcount, client investment assets, and policyholder benefit payouts, which cut into margins: Its 2020 profits fell by nearly 67%.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:12673,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri, Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}" data-sheets-textstyleruns="{&quot;1&quot;:0}{&quot;1&quot;:279,&quot;2&quot;:{&quot;6&quot;:1}}{&quot;1&quot;:286}">The deadly pandemic increased demand for life insurance, and privately held Northwestern Mutual has met that demand—a fact that helped it pass the $1 billion mark in new life insurance premium sales in 2020. Its record $33.8 billion in revenue boosts the company 12 spots on the Fortune 500—and makes Northwestern Mutual the largest company by revenue in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee-based life insurer also boosted headcount, client investment assets, and policyholder benefit payouts, which cut into margins: Its 2020 profits fell by nearly 67%.

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The privately held life insurer is based in Milwaukee and was founded in 1857.

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Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

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CEO John Schlifske says AI drives growth: "It's faster, more effective and leads to better outcomes."

Northwestern Mutual CEO Advises Business Leaders: "Embrace the AI Change"

John Schlifske - CEO, Northwestern Mutual

Leadership

Northwestern Mutual CEO: "Embrace the AI Change"

jOHN artificial intelligence is getting a lot of attention these days and many C. E. O. S are thinking whether they will or will not invest in ai now you were an early adopter and in fact you really push your company Northwestern Mutual to go in this direction. Tell us why? Well I think at the heart of it, it's to improve our customer experience. It's, you know, there's all sorts of benefits around cost savings and things like that. But at the end of the day, what we're finding with artificial intelligence is that we can react to what our customers want in a much faster time frame, which improves the experience for everyone and how's it going so far? It's been two years since you started investing in using artificial intelligence. What's been the impact on your business because of this new technology, there's so many impacts. May be. The most obvious example is when it comes to underwriting in the old days, when you would apply for an insurance policy, it could take 60 70 80 days before we could approve it because of the manual processes that involved in the data that we needed. The the analysis of that data and the ultimate decision making with accelerated underwriting now we can get that down to probably less than two days for more than half of our applicants. And so it's a tremendous step forward in terms of not only the timeframe but the customer experiences I was talking about earlier. Well, as you look ahead, do you see uh Northwestern Mutual investing more money in more capabilities with artificial intelligence. How much of a differentiator could it be for your future growth? I think there's two key parts that differentiate it. One is the more that we do it, the more we can use the human capital we have for those, those harder judgment calls and the more routine sort of analytical things we can assign to a machine, so to speak and do it. The second thing that's really interesting is given our business model, we are getting privileged insights through the data that we have exclusively about our clients to help them become more financially secure. So not only are we faster and more effective, but we're actually getting to better outcomes for our clients because of the data that we collect on them, which we don't, we only use for their benefits. So it's really a win win for both us and our clients. What about being a win win for your employees? What's the feedback that you've gotten from them? I mean, do they, were they ready for this move into ai or did you get some pushback? I think initially employees thought that a I was a job replacement program and that we were going to take machines and and get rid of human beings, but what they've actually found and this is why engagement is going up is that, as I said earlier, what artificial intelligence allows us to do and machine learning is take the mundane stuff out of their hands, put it into a machine. But then the real hard judgment calls the stuff where they really need, we need human beings to sort of intuit what needs to be done is still left for our our business. Our employment has grown since we've used artificial intelligence. It's not getting rid of jobs. It's actually because we're going faster. It's created more job opportunities here. So what would you say was the key thing to get your employees on board? I think the key thing from an employment from an employee perspective is getting them to understand we're not trying to reduce employment, we're trying to improve our customer experience and once they got their head around that and they saw that it ultimately led to more growth, they were quite comfortable with it. You know, you've probably heard this a lot. There are many Ceos who are cautious about investing in ai right now, there a little hesitant when they're on the fence. But from your experience, do you have advice for the ones who have doubts about investing in Ai right now, I would encourage everyone to embrace the change, it's coming. It's not a bad thing, It actually makes things better. It's not it's not a it's not something to be afraid of, but it's something to embrace. And I think as you do that as you learn, and we've made some mistakes, you actually get better at this and you start to understand that it's actually a growth vehicle, not something that is a necessary evil.

CEO John Schlifske says "recession is a long way off."

Northwestern Mutual CEO: "Look at volatility as an opportunity not a risk"

John E. Schlifske - CEO, Northwestern Mutual

Northwestern Mutual CEO: "Market Volatility is not a risk" 

john, so good to see you again. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, you know, you probably hear this every day from your clients at Northwestern Mutual. How do I protect my portfolio? You know, people are getting panicky because of these messy financial markets we have and the confusion about the global landscape. What's your best advice? What are you telling people? The best advice that I can give and that we give to our clients is focused on the long term and stay focused on that regardless of what's going on around us. The war in Ukraine is an example. It's, it's a heartbreaking, uh, war, the devastation, the loss of life. Uh, and it's easy to get distracted by that as an investor. But ultimately, if you focus on the long run and don't let sort of these short term gyrations take your eye off the ball, That's the best advice we can give. Don't let the fear of what's going on on one side or the greed of euphoria if we get there cause you to do something different instead just focus on the long run because we know in the long run markets go up. Well, you know, the last time that you and I talked, it was just at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and your investment advice back then was stay the course and you said just because equities are down is no reason to sell them. But you know when people see all this news about huge market selloff, they feel they should be doing something and it's risky not to do anything. So how is this market volatility affecting the way that you're advising your clients and how you talk to them? Well, I think you have to look at volatility as an opportunity, not as a risk. And so when stock prices go down, uh, my personal view is that the time to buy them, right? So you, you never want to be buying something that you want when it's the most expensive, you want to buy it when it's the least expensive. And the opposite goes for when markets are at the top, That's probably a time to maybe lighten up a little bit and diversify into some more stable asset classes. And you're right. People do feel that they need to take some action when something happens. And we're okay with that on the margin. When stocks are down, put a little bit more inequities when they're up. Maybe take a little bit off the table and diversify into some safer asset asset classes if that'll make you feel better. But in the long run, stick to your plan and use volatility not as a, as a mechanism for risk, but as an opportunity. Well, it's april and as you know, this is national Financial literacy a month. So teaches some of the other critical dues and don't for individual investors three keys first. You need to say more than you thought in investment returns are probably going to be lower in the future. So you need to say more. Second of all you need to have a plan, it's just investing money isn't enough. You need to know where you're going, how you're going to get there and what the instruments to do that are. And then lastly, you need to work with a trusted advisor. This notion that you can do it yourself is crazy in the investment world as it is in the medical world. And so work with an advisor that helps you get where you want to go. When your clients or other people ask you, how do you feel about the situation? Economic and market wise, are you optimistic or pessimistic? What do you say? I'm quite optimistic right now about the economy. I think we're probably closer to the end of the game if you want to, if you want to think about that for maybe where there's a recession coming. But right now the consumer balance sheet has never been stronger, unemployment has never been lower wages and salaries are rising at a fast rate. So from a consumer perspective, we've never been in a better position. In fact, in some ways this is the best it's ever been. But you talked to any consumer and they're aware of all of the headlines about inflation. Uh and they say that they can feel it when they go grocery shopping and when they're paying for their uh gasoline and as a result now, we're hearing from economists, I'm saying we're in for a severe downturn, maybe a recession. So does that sound right to you? Uh, inflation is real right now. I know it hurts when you're buying certain things, especially anything energy related and, and we're seeing our costs go up. But at the end of the day, a huge part of this inflation I think is transitory, it's related to supply chain issues and it's going to go away over time. So even though it may hurt right now, it's going to get better. And I think the recession is always a possibility. But I think it's a long way off. There's just too many good things going on in the economy right now, inflation that was standing to even come close to derailing the economic progress. We've got, well, let's talk a little bit about Northwestern Mutual itself, you've just come off of a really strong year, Revenure rose to an all time high. Uh, your company set an industry record in 2021 for the most life insurance sales of any company. It was an increase of 52 Has the start of 2022 changed all of that. Or do you see the same trend lines going forward? We see the same trend lines going forward, customers of ours are policy owners. They need financial security more than ever. It's more of a latent demand. I'm not sure people wake up in the morning saying I'm gonna get financially secure, but they know it's there And that notion that I need to do something right now to become even more secure or begin to become secure financially has never been stronger. Well, that huge jump in your life insurance sales is unusual in your business. Do you attribute that to Covid and that people just felt for health concerns, I need a life insurance policy or was there something else? I think it's more than just Covid. Covid is definitely part of it. But if you look at our Uh, sales increases increases, it was both in 2020, and 2021, it was substantially higher than the rest of the industry. So there's something going on at northwestern mutual where we're sort of breaking out from the rest of the pack as it relates to life insurance. And I think it gets back to this notion of relevance combined with planning and a trusted advisor and and that value proposition is really resonating with our clients and their and they're really calling us up asking for help and advice versus us having to call them, which is a unique situation to be in. But it's very, it's very enjoyable for us right now. I understand that it's also help because you have pushed through this a digital approval process. Tell us how that technology has also been a factor in increasing your life insurance policy. So one of the things that we're working on pre pandemic, was this notion of improving the customer experience for our policy owners and our investment clients and that involves basically taking a lot of sort of old analog processes, filling out applications, uh doing telephone interviews, all that kind of stuff and digitizing it, trying to make it both easier to do faster to do. And actually in the end create a process for clients that's that's more satisfying. They know where they are, they know where they stand, they know what's going on and it's not quite as mysterious as it used to be. So, I think the digitization has been to help. I also think frankly this notion of being able to communicate more effectively through electronic devices on your phone when you want it when you need it. Not, not always having to talk to someone. That whole notion of of creating more digital processes has really increased our relevance with our client base. Yeah, yeah. I heard you were doing now zoom meetings as opposed to having somebody come to your house and talk to you. So it sounds like it became a much faster process. Maybe a couple of days instead of a couple of months. Is that it? Yeah, we've accelerated the purchase process substantially. And a huge part of that is zoom meetings. And when the pandemic started, we didn't know if people would like engaging with our our advisors through digital means like zoom and it's actually turned out not only do they like it, but they like it better. There's, there's something about zoom, you know when it's going to start, you know when it's gonna end, you can factor it into your calendar more easily. And I, and I think from our, from our advisors perspective it allows them to be more productive to, so when you add all that up plus the cycle times are much faster. We're in a much better place. Yeah, A lot of things have been changing in, in your industry. You wrote an op ed piece for fortune. Covid has rewritten the rules on financial planning and you say that the pandemic shifted expectations about some of the hard fast rules um that we're all used to retiring at 65 making sure you have a six months of savings of an emergency funds. What are the new reality first of all that the retirement isn't the end of the game, but it's the beginning of the game when it comes to investment. So you need to be just as uh sort of invested in your retirement savings and the way it's invested as you ever did before. Second of all this notion of a 60-40 portfolio, 60% equities, 40% fixed income is going to carry you in retirement doesn't work anymore. You need to feather in other, more secure assets like permanent life insurance and things like that that help you deal with the longevity risk in retirement because people are leaving leading longer and longer. And then lastly, I think at the end of the day, you need to think about In retirement how you're going to spend your money differently. You need an emergency cash for unsure. But this notion that I'm just locked into a 4% of my portfolio spend limit is crazy. Need to capitalize on that, enjoy retirement and spend appropriately while you can. Well, the pandemic has also changed our expectations about leadership. Um john you've worked at Northwestern Mutual for 35 years, 12 of them as Ceo in the last two years. How has your job as Ceo changed when there's a crisis like this going on? The role of a leader is not to sit back and wait, but it's too lean into it and to really a effectively deal with it. And we did that back in March and april and it's paid off and I keep telling people that that's I think part of the success that we're having right now now to do that, you have to have trust, you have to have financial strength, you have to have confidence. All that has to be built ahead of the, ahead of the whatever is going on. But ultimately where, where I think what people are looking from, C. E. O. S. Is leadership and leadership means taking advantage, leaning in doing the right thing when these things are going on

[ MUSIC ] John, thank you so much for joining us to talk about how the Coronavirus pandemic is impacting the pensions and 401 K's and, savings of Americans as as you know this is a really scary time for people Not just because of their health but also because of their investment. So what are you telling Northwestern Mutual policyholders to do right now ?>> I'd say it really comes down to two things. One is stay the course. Whatever your investment strategy was, this would be the worst time to. Sell stocks, pull out of risk assets. Just because the market is down is no reason to flee them. Equities will go up. We don't know when. I would say stay the course. And then the second is to build cash. We are all living at home now, we are all quarantined. We are not spending money the way we used to and the extent where people can Build cash little bit. I think cash is a great asset when you're in times of either volatility, uncertainty, economic stress and so to the extent that people can build cash a little bit in their portfolios, I think is a huge, it creates confidence and it also creates the ability to Take advantage of things if and when the time comes. So those would be the two pieces of advice we would give. At Northwestern Mutual, you have more than $ 450 billion of assets under management. Are you following that same advice? I mean, you've been through bull markets and bear markets, what are you doing now? Two things. One is we, for whatever reason, in January this year well before the virus became an issue, we started to get nervous about valuations. And we took our liquidity up about 60 % in our daily opening cash balances So we were following that advice, so to speak. And then as the market has come down, we've actually been buyers of equities and risk assets. So we went from a slightly underweight position in equities in mid to late February to overweight now and we actually increased our allocation equity. So as an institutional investor. Triple A rated strongest company in the industry. We're actually being aggressive in this environment and acquiring equities. I think for the average individual investor that message is fine if you have the risk tolerance or we clearly do at Northwestern Mutual Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen is saying that she is anticipating that the US economy so growth will fall off by 30 %. There are 10 million Americans who have filed for unemployment in just the past two weeks, and also the CEO of JP Morgan has been saying that we're in for a bad recession. So You're still buying, you're not scared off from those warning signs? Two things, one is to our long- term investors. So I agree with the general consensus, the second quarter GDP number is gonna be a disaster. I don't have a crystal ball, but anywhere from 30 to 50 percent down, that's a horrific decline in economic growth. You know, a recession, technically speaking is two quarters in a row. And I don't know exactly how the third quarter is gonna come out. But as a long term investor, I'm not we're not really worried about what's going on right now. We're looking at the economy long term and I think by 2021 we'll be back to GDP growth that's positive and we may even get to a point where we expect earnings in 2021. To be at or about where they were in 2019. And if we get that the markets going to be backward was so I'm actually an agreement that the economy's weak right now but if you're a long term investor you can see through this and I believe human ingenuity, the American engineer, we're going to get there. I think the equity markets will rebound at some point nine eight times soon but over the as we get through this thing, What about right now people are soon going to be receiving their stimulus checks in the mail, what should they do with those $ 1, 200 checks? Should they use it to pay bills or save it? You got to pay for food and rent and all the things that are required. But going back to what I said earlier, to the extent that people can accumulate cash, so cut out all non essentials, We're all eating more at home. We're not going out. We're not having the same entertainment. Everything that we used to spend discretionary income on, has been more or less taken away from us because of these quarantines and I would say stockpile that cash and have it ready for when we start getting on the other side of this. I know Johnny g don't the company doesn't manage 401 K's but wonder if you can still give us a little bit of guidance here. When does it make sense to take advantage of this new no penalty withdrawals for 401 Ks because of the COVID- 19 prices. I would say almost never. So my answer to people would be unless it's the last dollars that you have access to to pay some bill that you can't avoid paying. I would not touch your 401k though that money is for the way into the future. The stock market, as I said is going to be higher than it is now. And I would say. I would encourage everyone not to touch that money unless you're absolutely desperate. I understand that Northwestern Mutual is in solid financial shape. You have a cash surplus of more than $ 30 billion, which is a record If called upon if necessary, you're in a position to pay out every single life insurance policy. You haven't laid off a single employee. So , how did you make all that happen and what can other companies learn about what you've done over the past year or so? I've been at Northwestern Mutual 32 years. This is the sixth time or fifth time I guess I've seen this kind of market Disruption and what I'd noticed is that people tend to minimize things that have low probability, even though they have high consequences and so the kind of thing that's happening now, very low probability, nobody saw that coming even as recently as February And yet the the notion of a stock market going down 30, 40 or 50 % is hardly a surprise, it's as I said the fifth time it's happened in the last 32 years, so what we do at Northwestern Mutual's we know bad things are gonna happen. We just don't know when and if you do that and you believe it, you prepare in advance, you can't prepare for it while you're in it. And so we enter the year record, balance sheet, record liquidity, records. Strength, a highly rated company and what that gave us is the ability to, as I said, be aggressive when this happened and we're actually on the offensive. Now we're trying to both be offensive in terms of our investment strategy, buying discounted securities, but also with our clients and getting out and meeting with them and getting them to do the things they need to do. Well, your company has a long history 100 more than 160 years that it's gone through a lot of crises going back to the Spanish flu pandemic back to 1918. The Great Depression Couple of World Wars, many financial crises that you referred to just a moment ago from your perspective, how how does this COVID- 19 crisis pandemic compare with all those other crises? So far, I would say it is very terrible, but not at the level of some of the other things we've seen. So that cultural relevance that you talked about that ability to look into our past and see the Spanish flu pandemic or the depression, and the economic consequences of that make, what I think we're in now see much less acute the Spanish flu pandemic Was more lethal to younger people it we didn't have the same ability to self quarantine that we do today. The current called Coronavirus seems to attack older people more So I think net, we're ready for this pandemic. And my guess is that it's not going to be as bad as other things that we've seen in our past and we'll get through this. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Northwestern Mutual CEO: Financial advice during COVID-19 crisis

Finance

John Schlifske has been at the helm since 2010.

Northwestern Mutual's COVID-19 financial advice

John Schlifske has been at the helm since 2010.



 John, these are such confusing times. People don't know what's the next financial move, my financial planning I should do, what should I do with my investment portfolio. What are you telling your clients? First of all, manage for the long term. It's very difficult for any individual, let alone an institutional investor, to really know what's going on in the market. So know what your risk tolerance is, know what you're trying to invest for, stick with it long term. The two biggest enemies for investment performance are fear and greed. And people tend to let those drive their investing more than the actual sort of the rational process. So we like to tell people, take your emotions out of it. Don't get scared when the market goes down and don't get greedy when the market goes up. And just sort of maintain that disciplined approach to the markets. And then the third thing I'd say is really know what you're investing for. So if you don't really know what you're trying to invest for, it's hard to know how to maximize that investment. Well, let's talk a little bit about what you're investing for. Before you became CEO at Northwestern Mutual, you were in charge of all the wealth management investing at the company, which now manages nearly $400 billion of client money. What is your investment strategy right now? We're long term investors. We're willing to take liquidity bets. So we're willing to buy things that aren't liquid, because we know we won't have to sell them in tough times. We're willing to take more risk, whether it's the stock market, junk bond market, real estate, mortgages. Because again, we know if we underwrite those investments properly and can hold them for the cycles, the long term, we're going to get paid at the end of the day. So to put it in those simple terms-- are you bullish or are you bearish right now in the markets? Bullish. You always have to test your theory on what might happen with sort of the opposite, which is, is there something going on that would make us bearish which would be a recession or a slowdown? And I don't see that at all. Monetary policy's easing globally. You've got no major bubbles to worry about. The yield curve was inverted briefly, but it's not a big cause for concern. Earnings are strong. Companies continue to have positive cash flow. The consumer in the US is strong. We look at about 15 leading economic indicators-- there's only a couple that are even yellow. The rest are green. So all in all, there's nothing that would make me think not to be bullish. Let's go back to your point about the recession, because there are many economists and market strategists that a recession is coming. Why is it that you do not see a recession right now? Well, recession is coming. We don't know when. I just think it's further out on the horizon. I don't think it's going to happen in '19, and I doubt if that's going to happen in the first half of '20. I think that the consumer in our country is strong. They've de-levered, more or less. They've got spending power, full employment economy. Wages are growing a little bit. The tariffs have been a little bit of a tax on family income growth, but generally speaking, consumers are going to good space. So it's just reason to be optimistic. We're seeing headlines like trade tensions with China, war talk about Iran, oil prices on the rise, complications with Brexit. What impact do those events have on your investment strategy? So I think the world's always a dangerous place, and I don't think you can let the threat of war with Iran or something like that materially affect the way you position your portfolio. Because those things can happen, but they can also not happen. And if you're trying to always guess, you're getting it wrong more often than right. So this is why you have to have a good portfolio strategy and maintain it regardless of some of those external shocks. So I don't think right now I would say it's any-- it's probably slightly more likely than it's been, but not enough for us to somehow become in a risk averse posture or anything like that. So what is your best advice to individual investors? My best advice is to save a lot and invest for the long term. And I think that's the way anybody acquires wealth. That's how we operate the company, that's how I invest my own personal money, and I would encourage everyone to do that. 

Northwestern Mutual CEO Hasn't Given Up on the Stock Market

Sure, there was a selloff. But the underlying signals are still strong.

John. These are such confusing times. People don't know what the next financial move. My planning, financial planning I should do. What should I do with my investment portfolio? What are you telling your clients? First of all, managed for the long term, It's very difficult for any individual, let alone an institutional investor, to really know what's going on in the market. So know what your risk tolerance is. I don't know what you're trying to invest for. Stick with it. Long term, the two biggest enemies for investment performance, our fear and greed on. And people tend to let those drive. They're investing more than the actual sort of the rational process that we like to tell people take, take your emotions out of it. Don't get scared when the market goes down and don't get greedy when the market goes up and just sort of maintain that sort of disciplined approach to the markets. And then the third thing I'd say is really know what you're investing for. So you don't really know what you're trying to invest for. It's hard to know how to maximize that investment. Well, let's talk a little bit about what you're investing for before you became CEO at Northwestern Mutual, you were in charge of all the wealth management invested at the company, which now manages nearly $400 billion of client money. What is your investment strategy right now? We're long term Investors were willing to take liquidity bets, so we're willing to buy things that aren't liquid, because we know we won't have to sell them in tough times. We're willing to take more risk, whether it's a stack, market jumped bond market, real estate, mortgages Because again, we know if we underwrite those investments properly and can hold them for the cycles the long term, we're going to get paid at the end of the day. So, to put it in the simple terms, are you bullish on your parish right now on the market bullish. You always have to test your theory on what might happen in the ER with sort of the opposite, which is, is there something going on that would make us bearish, which would be a recession or slow down the neck, and I don't see that at all. I see no monetary policies easy and globally. You've got no major bubbles to worry about. The yield curve was inverted briefly, but it's not a big cause for concern. Earnings or strong companies continue to have positive cash flow. The consumer in the U. S is strong. We look at about 15 leading economic indicators. There's only a couple that are even yellow, the rest of green. So all in all, there's nothing that would make me think not to be bullish. Let's go back to your point about the recession because there are many economists and market strategy that a recession is coming. Uh, why is it that you do not see a recession right now? Well, recession is coming. We don't know when. I just think it's further out on the horizon. I don't think it's gonna happen in 19 and I doubt if it's gonna happen in the first half of 20. I think they can. The consumer in our country is strong. They've delivered more or less. They've got spending power, full employment, economy, wages, air growing a little bit. The terrorists have been a little bit of attacks on uh uh, family income growth. But generally speaking, consumers are going good space, So just reason to be optimistic. We're seeing headlines like trade tensions with China, war talk about Iran, oil prices on the rise, complications with Brexit. How do you factor in what impact do those events have on your investments? So I think the world's always a dangerous place, and I don't think you can let the threat of war with Iran or something like that materially affect the way you position your portfolio because those things can happen. But they can also not happen. And if you're trying to always guess if you're getting it wrong more often than right, so this is why you have to have a good portfolio strategy. You maintain it regardless of some of those external shocks. So I don't think right now I would say it's any. It's probably slightly more likely than it's been, but not enough for us to somehow becoming a risk averse posture, anything like that. So what is your best advice to individual investors? My best advice is to is to save a lot and invested long term, and I think that's that's way anybody acquires. Well, that's how we operate company, that's all. Spend my our invest my own personal money, and I would encourage everyone to do that

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