2022-04-13_My_Hero_Bill_Gaither
00:00:00.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:03.920 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while
00:00:08.680 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:11.680 | My name is Joshua, I'm your host, and today I'm going to share with you one of my heroes,
00:00:16.340 | one of my career heroes specifically, and share with you a little bit about his life
00:00:22.760 | and his story in hopes that it may also inspire you.
00:00:27.960 | I believe that it's important to have heroes, people that you look up to.
00:00:32.360 | These can be heroes writ large, people that you would like to be like in most things,
00:00:38.000 | or it can be people that you admire for something specific.
00:00:42.840 | But I believe one of the healthiest personal habits that we can develop is to go through
00:00:47.520 | life looking to find things that we admire and look up to about other people, the way
00:00:53.920 | that other people behave, the way that other people live their lives, the kind of person
00:00:59.120 | they are.
00:01:00.240 | And even if those specific things that we can find to appreciate about somebody, even
00:01:06.120 | if they're quite small and there's maybe more things that we would not like about somebody
00:01:11.400 | rather than appreciate, rather than the things that we do, I believe that this practice is
00:01:15.940 | one of the healthiest things that we can possibly do.
00:01:18.900 | It's healthy for you and for me as individuals because it helps us to develop a positive
00:01:25.060 | outlook on life.
00:01:26.060 | We go through life being a good finder rather than a fault finder.
00:01:30.340 | We go through life treating people well, treating them as human beings who have something that
00:01:36.260 | we can learn from them, something that we can appreciate about them.
00:01:40.020 | And that allows us to see the world in a vastly different way than people who go through life
00:01:44.340 | seeking to be critical of others, trying to find things that they don't like about others.
00:01:49.660 | And I think it also has the wonderful effect of kind of a ripple effect in society that
00:01:55.580 | as we go out looking for the good in people, looking for the things that we can admire,
00:02:00.620 | the common ground that we can have, it leads to a more positive relationship with somebody
00:02:06.980 | and it leads to other people feeling more appreciated, feeling more admired, feeling
00:02:11.020 | more respected.
00:02:12.440 | And these are all things that will boost their self-esteem, their self-confidence when they
00:02:15.980 | sense that from us and generally make the world a better place.
00:02:20.340 | But I think it's also just a really good selfish habit to get into because when you go around
00:02:26.220 | looking for things that you admire in other people, you wind up systematically building
00:02:32.260 | a clearer and clearer vision of the things that you want to be able to admire about yourself.
00:02:39.440 | And this gives you, at its core, goals.
00:02:43.080 | It gives you aspirations, ambition.
00:02:46.620 | It gives you something to want to be.
00:02:49.540 | And even if you and I are imperfect in actually achieving our goals, the fact that we have
00:02:56.500 | goals, the fact that we're working towards something, and especially the fact that we're
00:03:00.540 | working towards being the very best version of ourselves that we're capable of being,
00:03:06.460 | is, I believe, a positive aspect that can affect us in a very positive way.
00:03:11.800 | And so I try to make note of things that I admire about other people.
00:03:17.780 | And as I said, sometimes I can admire another person quite broadly, right?
00:03:21.460 | I admire my father and I would very much like to be like my father in many, many ways.
00:03:29.580 | But not all.
00:03:30.580 | And I think that's fine.
00:03:31.580 | There may be other people that I would find vastly more things that I don't admire about
00:03:37.980 | them, but I can still find a few things that I appreciate about them.
00:03:42.100 | I don't have to agree with them.
00:03:43.420 | I don't have to...
00:03:47.340 | I just focus on the good, right?
00:03:48.660 | I focus on the things that I do admire about them.
00:03:52.620 | And since people are often the easiest for us to observe, because we see them as humans,
00:03:57.820 | as creatures like us, especially if we can learn to facilitate our brains admiring relatively
00:04:05.300 | normal people, not just airbrushed figures on the big screen, but admiring people that
00:04:11.260 | we know, right?
00:04:12.260 | Our family members, our neighbors, our co-workers, just ordinary people like us, then it helps
00:04:20.300 | us to see real lives.
00:04:23.180 | And by the way, it's important that we do that because these are the people that we
00:04:26.020 | actually know.
00:04:27.240 | These are the people that we can actually understand who they are, their character,
00:04:30.980 | their way of living, etc.
00:04:32.940 | But today I'm going to share with you a little bit of one of my heroes.
00:04:37.220 | I have many again, but I was just inspired to talk about this hero today because of,
00:04:42.460 | frankly, his music.
00:04:44.840 | And this particular hero is Bill Gaither.
00:04:47.180 | I'll explain in a moment who Bill Gaither is and why I admire him, because I think that
00:04:53.780 | in Bill Gaither's career, you and I can find some very important lessons to integrate into
00:05:00.060 | our own lives.
00:05:02.480 | If you've listened to more than a handful of episodes of Radical Personal Finance, you
00:05:05.740 | know that virtually every episode I open with that little statement, how to live a rich
00:05:11.240 | and meaningful life now while also building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or
00:05:17.160 | less.
00:05:18.160 | And you'll notice that there is a dual mandate.
00:05:20.480 | There is a goal of living a rich life now in every sense of the meaning of the word
00:05:26.480 | "rich."
00:05:28.040 | And there's also the goal or the mandate of building financial freedom.
00:05:32.840 | Now you'll notice I don't use the term "financial independence."
00:05:37.480 | And it's not that I don't appreciate financial independence.
00:05:40.400 | I'm very grateful for all of the significant measures of financial independence that I
00:05:45.600 | have been able to achieve.
00:05:46.600 | It's not that I don't want financial independence for more people, even in its fullest sense,
00:05:52.320 | the sense where you have more money than you need or will ever want to spend the rest of
00:05:58.240 | your life.
00:05:59.240 | Thus, you can truly live your life without regard to generating money for need.
00:06:05.800 | I want those things, but I'm not so keen on certain aspects of the financial independence
00:06:12.960 | movement.
00:06:13.960 | It's not that I wish to tear it apart.
00:06:16.440 | It's that I feel like certain people fixate too much on financial independence.
00:06:23.160 | I saw a post on Reddit, in one of the Reddit financial independence groups this past week,
00:06:27.840 | and it was written by an 18-year-old.
00:06:31.120 | And the 18-year-old, to summarize what he was saying, was basically saying, "I've
00:06:35.400 | decided I want to be financially independent.
00:06:37.000 | I've saved $10,000.
00:06:38.000 | I think, actually, sorry, it was something like $5,000.
00:06:41.000 | I've saved $5,000.
00:06:42.000 | Can someone tell me what to invest in so I can be financially independent as quickly
00:06:44.960 | as possible?"
00:06:46.800 | And it struck me because I recognized myself in that Reddit commentator.
00:06:54.720 | I realized that if somebody had come to me at 18 years old or at 20 years old and laid
00:06:59.640 | out financial independence as a goal, I would have been asking the similar question.
00:07:05.200 | In fact, I was asking similar questions in various message boards, not at 18, but more
00:07:10.520 | at 21, 22, etc., because I was working a job I didn't like, and I wanted to get rich
00:07:15.680 | quick so I could get out of it.
00:07:17.340 | That was my goal.
00:07:18.340 | Today, I look at it, and I, my heart, it's too hard, I just, I look at it and I think
00:07:23.800 | that 18-year-old, I feel bad for him, right, because I think that's a fundamentally horrible
00:07:28.660 | way to approach life.
00:07:30.000 | And again, it's something that I did.
00:07:32.480 | But the concept that at 18 years old you would be looking to get out of work, I see as a
00:07:37.720 | fundamentally flawed concept.
00:07:40.000 | It's a horrible way to approach life, to think that here I am at 18 years old, presumably
00:07:45.440 | I'm debt-free, I've got $5,000 in the bank, literally the world is open to me and all
00:07:50.000 | I can think about is getting out of work.
00:07:52.240 | All I can think about is how do I save enough money so that I don't have to work.
00:07:55.920 | When I'm at the very dawn of my life and I've got decades, God willing, that lie in front
00:08:01.940 | of me in which I can accomplish great things, I can live a great life.
00:08:07.600 | But I think what happens is it all comes down to what heroes does that 18-year-old have.
00:08:14.440 | When I was 21 and I was asking those questions in online message boards, I was choosing certain
00:08:22.920 | heroes but without thinking about all of the options that were available to me.
00:08:29.680 | And I think that if you recognize that there are many paths open to you, then, and you
00:08:37.360 | choose a different hero who's walked a different path, it can give you a different model, a
00:08:41.760 | different way of living.
00:08:43.240 | So to wrap up my comments on financial independence, I see financial independence as a valuable
00:08:48.060 | step along the way, a valuable goal that expresses a measure of achievement, but not as something
00:08:56.380 | that should be the top goal or a primary goal of life.
00:09:00.760 | I think there are other goals that will give more lasting satisfaction than simply achieving
00:09:05.680 | financial independence.
00:09:07.680 | And I think that if you can recognize and develop a career hero, whoever that happens
00:09:13.220 | to be for you, it'll give you an idea of how not that you can get out of work, but rather
00:09:20.120 | you can lean into work.
00:09:22.280 | Let me tell you a little bit about Bill Gaither.
00:09:24.280 | And for context, these are just things that I know from listening to a lot of his music
00:09:28.160 | over the years.
00:09:29.160 | I've never met him.
00:09:30.480 | I've been to one Gaither concert, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I have no intimate
00:09:34.620 | connection to him.
00:09:35.620 | This is publicly available data.
00:09:37.400 | Bill Gaither is well known in the evangelical Christian culture in the United States as
00:09:46.360 | a singer, songwriter, producer, band coordinator, band leader, etc.
00:09:51.520 | And he's simply well known due to his age.
00:09:54.640 | Yes, his chronological age.
00:09:56.760 | He's currently about 86 years old.
00:10:01.160 | But more important, due to his age in the industry.
00:10:04.880 | According to his Wikipedia entry, he started performing in the mid 1950s, which would have
00:10:10.240 | put him as a teenager, was when he started singing and performing.
00:10:14.600 | And that means that he's had a career of basically over 50 years actively performing and actively
00:10:23.640 | being involved in Christian music in the United States.
00:10:27.360 | And so he's quite well known for that.
00:10:29.680 | He's also well known because at various times in his career, he did a lot of television
00:10:34.600 | and he would run a lot of advertisements for concerts and things, selling DVDs on television
00:10:40.120 | on Christian channels and other channels.
00:10:42.280 | So people came across him and so his name would be well known.
00:10:46.800 | But if it's been a while since you've thought of Bill Gaither, he's probably extraordinarily
00:10:52.300 | different today than you think he was, than the image you have of his 1980s television
00:10:58.720 | commercials or his 1990s music.
00:11:01.800 | So let me share with you some things that I really admire about Bill.
00:11:06.080 | First I admire his longevity in the arts.
00:11:09.880 | I admire the fact that he's been working diligently for 50 years, more than 50 years.
00:11:18.440 | Sorry, it's actually, sorry, I did my math wrong.
00:11:20.720 | Forgive me.
00:11:21.720 | More than 70 years.
00:11:22.720 | From the 1950s was when he first started performing as a musician until now in 2022.
00:11:28.080 | It's over 70 years he's been working actively in his career.
00:11:31.720 | And while I don't know anything specifically about his personal tour schedule, I don't
00:11:35.200 | know how many months of the year he works, I do know that he does still work a lot.
00:11:40.960 | His band tours, they are continually producing new albums, new music.
00:11:47.560 | He's very active in his YouTube channel, etc.
00:11:50.880 | He is still working hard.
00:11:53.160 | He's still producing music and still generating new fans today.
00:11:59.560 | And he's done that for an exceedingly long period of time.
00:12:03.360 | And I believe that a major secret to financial abundance, as well as a secret to high quality
00:12:10.080 | life is to try to choose a career that you can have for a very long time.
00:12:16.200 | If you can imagine yourself working for 70 years, think of yourself getting a job and
00:12:21.800 | starting to work at 18 years old.
00:12:24.380 | Add 70 years to that, and Bill is almost, again, he's 86 now, so you do the math.
00:12:33.440 | But 60 or 70 years and you just work.
00:12:36.000 | Think about the money that you can earn and the money that you can accumulate over that
00:12:40.400 | period of time.
00:12:41.840 | One of the great errors that we make is we often cut off our earnings too soon to actually
00:12:46.800 | accumulate significant amounts of money.
00:12:49.160 | But if you imagine that Bill is working at 86, still earning excellent money, increasing
00:12:54.540 | his family's fortunes at a time when many other people would have quit 20 years previous
00:12:59.440 | at 66.
00:13:01.600 | Even if he was broke at 66, there's no reason for him to be broke at 86.
00:13:05.560 | You say, "Well, Joshua, yeah, I get that, but why would I want to do that?"
00:13:08.460 | Well, I think the key is find a job that you don't want to retire from.
00:13:13.740 | And here, when I look at the arts, I often find examples of the kinds of career lifestyles
00:13:21.100 | that you don't want to retire from.
00:13:23.840 | If you think about the job of a performing artist, to me there's something exceedingly
00:13:29.000 | attractive about the job of a performing artist.
00:13:31.740 | First, we know that it's hard work.
00:13:34.100 | Anybody who's been on the road or worked, we know that it's hard work.
00:13:38.120 | But I think one benefit of the kind of work that an artist has, when an artist goes on
00:13:42.820 | the road and does a tour, is that it's a form of seasonal work.
00:13:47.580 | You may have a three-month tour through 30 states or 10 countries or wherever you're
00:13:51.980 | traveling, and during that period of time you're working hard, but that's not 365 days
00:13:59.060 | a year.
00:14:00.060 | It's not 50 weeks a year.
00:14:02.260 | There's a seasonality to it.
00:14:04.020 | And over the years, I've admired, I've expressed my admiration for seasonal work again and again
00:14:08.780 | and again.
00:14:09.780 | But in the modern age, when we're not connected so much in our work to the flow of the seasons,
00:14:15.460 | we miss the benefits of seasonality.
00:14:19.100 | We miss the idea of having a rest during the wintertime.
00:14:22.920 | And then when the weather gets well and we can go out and we can break the ground, we're
00:14:25.700 | just thrilled to be outside in an agrarian society.
00:14:28.500 | Well, not having that, we just work all the time.
00:14:31.460 | We sit in offices that are climate-controlled.
00:14:33.260 | We sit in houses that are climate-controlled.
00:14:35.420 | And so we work without regard to the weather outside, without regard to the elements.
00:14:39.760 | We plan our work with very little regard to the seasons.
00:14:43.380 | And most of us don't have work that is seasonal in small chunks.
00:14:48.780 | Most of us have work that can be done all year long.
00:14:51.320 | But when I think about the idea of having a career where, say, I go on the road for
00:14:55.100 | three months at a time, and then I go home for three months on the time, and then maybe
00:15:00.100 | I go on the road again for three months at a time.
00:15:02.960 | That fills me with a sense of desire.
00:15:05.660 | It's like, yes, I want to do that.
00:15:07.780 | I want to work hard for three months, and then I want to rest for three months.
00:15:11.980 | It feels more attractive to me than work 50 weeks a year.
00:15:15.700 | I think there are many careers in which you can have this.
00:15:18.420 | It's not just musical artists.
00:15:19.780 | It might be a sports player.
00:15:21.700 | A football player might have the games of the season, you have preseason, et cetera,
00:15:26.860 | but you have significant periods of rest.
00:15:29.060 | A teacher might have this, with an extended summer vacation.
00:15:32.180 | There are many jobs, many businesses that can have this.
00:15:35.080 | You might be an accountant, and you filter your work based upon your seasons of tax seasons
00:15:40.380 | and tax filing deadlines, et cetera.
00:15:42.220 | You might be a snowboard instructor.
00:15:44.100 | There's so many ways you can do it.
00:15:45.920 | But if you could have some sense of seasonality in work, I think that's really attractive.
00:15:50.740 | I think that the seasonality allows you to really work hard during that season.
00:15:54.740 | I find that when I'm working and when I'm in work mode, working long hours is a joy
00:16:00.900 | because my creativity is flowing, but then I need to make sure that I flip that for a
00:16:04.980 | serious season of rest.
00:16:05.980 | But I don't want to rest all the time.
00:16:07.700 | I need to get back to work.
00:16:08.980 | I admire the seasonality of a singing career, a touring career.
00:16:14.220 | Another thing I think is worth noting about somebody who is a musical performer is their
00:16:19.540 | job is varied, but their most important results come from their area of core genius, meaning
00:16:27.420 | we know that if you are the leader of a band like Bill Gaither is, or if you're a producer,
00:16:32.860 | et cetera, there are many responsibilities that he has.
00:16:37.660 | But a singer's most important results come from his ability to create wonderful music.
00:16:48.700 | And for a singer to build his career upon singing, he's going to need to feel confident
00:16:55.220 | that he has something really good to offer, and the marketplace is recognizing that.
00:17:00.860 | And so when you do something that you're good at and you feel like you're good at, and you
00:17:05.700 | know that you're good at it because the audience responds and says, "Here's our money.
00:17:10.740 | Take our money.
00:17:11.740 | We want to listen to you," and you have good proof of it, it allows your work life to be
00:17:15.620 | far more joyful.
00:17:18.020 | And when you know that you're operating an area of skill, an area of genius, an area
00:17:24.460 | where people appreciate your work, it dramatically transforms how you feel about your work.
00:17:29.940 | It's not to say you're always going to be enthusiastic about it.
00:17:33.460 | A performer will frequently feel tired.
00:17:36.060 | A performer will frequently not look forward to a performance.
00:17:42.580 | But a performer knows when he goes on stage, he's doing something that he's good at, and
00:17:47.500 | he's doing something that people appreciate.
00:17:50.060 | Even if it's on a big scale or a little scale, he knows that he's doing something that people
00:17:54.340 | appreciate.
00:17:55.780 | And if you continue in the career, there's lots of people who've tried to have bands
00:18:00.020 | and it hasn't worked out for a few years, but if you can build a career in something
00:18:03.500 | where you have longevity because there's desire there, I think you can get a tremendous sense
00:18:08.020 | of satisfaction out of your work.
00:18:10.140 | That's one thing I admire about singers and other performers.
00:18:13.340 | But you don't have to be a singer or performer in order to do that.
00:18:16.800 | You can just be really competent and skilled and be working in an area of your core skill.
00:18:22.540 | It might be creating a podcast.
00:18:24.600 | It might be being a coach.
00:18:26.480 | It might be being an accountant.
00:18:28.360 | It might be any number of things, being a teacher.
00:18:30.700 | But knowing that you are in an area where you are effective and where you are good brings
00:18:36.220 | a great deal of satisfaction.
00:18:38.240 | If most of your time or your most important results are related to something that you're
00:18:42.540 | skilled at, it gives you the ability to deal with the rest of the stuff.
00:18:46.700 | I'm sure Gaither has many days where he has to go to the office and have meetings and
00:18:51.540 | look over the books, etc.
00:18:52.860 | We all have that.
00:18:54.180 | But that should be a minor component of your time.
00:18:57.200 | So if you imagine a career in which, let's say 80% of your time and your most important
00:19:02.780 | 80% of results are based upon things that you're skilled at and you're good at, I think
00:19:07.340 | those are some things that are really, really valuable and really, really important.
00:19:12.500 | The next thing that is, I think, important about Gaither's career is that he has been
00:19:18.920 | able to grow with his career.
00:19:21.820 | So I mentioned that I was inspired to do this based upon his music.
00:19:26.940 | He's actually been on my list for a long time and I've had this list of show ideas.
00:19:30.020 | This is the first in the series that I've done.
00:19:32.540 | But I was playing for my children at bedtime some of my favorite songs, some of my favorite
00:19:43.180 | Gaither songs related to Easter.
00:19:46.260 | Every night when I put my children to bed, I sing to them.
00:19:49.220 | Usually we sing, we do a hymn study so I sing a certain set of hymns.
00:19:54.180 | I sing throughout the month so they can learn them.
00:19:56.420 | We sing some other songs as well.
00:19:58.960 | So we do that.
00:19:59.960 | But when there's a special event, if it's Christmas or Easter or some other holiday,
00:20:04.380 | then I'll bring in some other music.
00:20:06.780 | So my brother sent me a playlist of some of his favorite songs related to Easter.
00:20:12.500 | My brother and I share a significant amount of musical taste and most of them are by the
00:20:17.700 | Gaither vocal band.
00:20:20.460 | So I was playing those for my children, just realizing how much I like the music.
00:20:25.260 | But the music is very different than what you might have seen on TV in the 1990s.
00:20:31.020 | The music is phenomenally built music, but it's all sacred Christian music.
00:20:38.940 | But the performers are world class.
00:20:42.140 | David Phelps, who has sung with Gaither and solo as well for many years, is world class.
00:20:48.340 | So many other singers are world class.
00:20:51.300 | And what Gaither has done over the years is he has been able to change his sound.
00:20:57.180 | He's been able to change with the times.
00:21:00.040 | And so in 2022, I'm still a relatively young man, I can without fear say my favorite band
00:21:09.620 | is the Gaither vocal band and not have the fear that, well, I guess it's a little bit
00:21:15.740 | of a fear, but just know that it's not the same thing as it was in the 1980s.
00:21:19.780 | I enjoyed the 1980s music, but I wouldn't go around saying I'm a fan of that.
00:21:24.200 | And so you see that they've been able to grow as musicians and change and adapt with the
00:21:28.300 | times.
00:21:29.460 | And for me, at least for my musical taste, they found a really wonderful balance of bringing
00:21:38.540 | things that I appreciate about classic music, meaning really phenomenal musicianship, really
00:21:46.900 | phenomenal singing, really wonderful harmonies, etc., but with a modern sound and in a really
00:21:53.820 | quality way.
00:21:55.900 | And so I think that this is a key thing to look for in a career.
00:21:59.900 | Do you have a career or can you develop a career that will allow you to grow and to
00:22:05.220 | adapt?
00:22:06.300 | And I see this as having multiple benefits.
00:22:08.700 | The first benefit is it keeps you relevant in the marketplace.
00:22:13.300 | Imagine that you were a computer technician in the 1990s, but you didn't keep your skills
00:22:17.660 | current.
00:22:18.660 | You'd be out of luck, out of a job.
00:22:22.380 | Virtually all of us will be completely, we will have to completely reinvent ourselves
00:22:27.420 | a couple of decades from now.
00:22:29.620 | And so the key is can we find ways to choose a career that will allow us to take our core
00:22:36.300 | skills and competencies and then adapt them as our industry changes so that we will maintain
00:22:43.380 | relevance and will continue to have customers.
00:22:47.620 | I'm a professional speaker.
00:22:50.740 | Professional speaking is going to have relevance 20 years from now, even if I'm doing it in
00:22:59.500 | a currently unimagined way.
00:23:03.340 | And I'm a financial planner.
00:23:05.600 | Financial planning is going to have extreme relevance 20 years from now, even if the deliverables
00:23:11.300 | are totally different, the products are totally different.
00:23:14.260 | It's a fundamental part of life.
00:23:17.340 | You may be a doctor.
00:23:18.340 | Well, people are going to need a doctor just as much 20 years from now as they do today.
00:23:24.380 | And so you want to make sure that you have a career that's going to stay relevant and
00:23:28.780 | a career that you can change and adapt to so that you can stay relevant in the marketplace.
00:23:33.700 | Bill Gaither has been able to stay relevant as a musician for almost 70 years.
00:23:40.620 | But his relevancy is based upon his changing in the marketplace.
00:23:46.660 | He has a core competency of singing, musicianship, et cetera.
00:23:50.660 | We'll get to his songwriting in a moment.
00:23:53.260 | But he has a core competency, but that core competency can change on the edges in order
00:23:57.920 | to stay relevant.
00:23:58.920 | And that means that he can continue bringing offerings to the marketplace and stay current.
00:24:03.580 | If he were singing the same songs, the same style today in 2022 as he was in 1990 or in
00:24:10.780 | 1960, then nobody would be interested in him.
00:24:15.980 | His career would be dead.
00:24:17.600 | But because he's adapted and changed over time, his career is very much alive.
00:24:22.100 | Then the flip side is that the individual also benefits.
00:24:27.400 | Gaither himself benefits by staying relevant in the music industry because it keeps him
00:24:33.420 | challenged.
00:24:34.420 | At its core, no doubt he loves music.
00:24:38.300 | Clearly he loves music.
00:24:39.300 | Musicians love music.
00:24:40.780 | And yet music has an infinite number of ways that it can be expressed.
00:24:47.020 | And so for a musician, one of the biggest benefits of staying in the career is that
00:24:52.380 | you can change and you can try different styles.
00:24:54.540 | You can adapt to different things.
00:24:55.940 | You can adjust as time goes on.
00:24:58.940 | And you can keep that sense of challenge.
00:25:04.440 | As humans, we need challenge.
00:25:07.540 | When you feel like you've conquered everything, what, am I able to die now?
00:25:11.460 | But if you feel like, no, I can get better, I can adjust, and you have a new skill that
00:25:14.700 | you're working on, a new way that you're seeking to improve, that helps you to feel alive.
00:25:19.140 | It helps you to feel young.
00:25:20.140 | It helps you to feel engaged.
00:25:21.140 | So you want to be thoughtful to have a career that will keep that sense of engagement with
00:25:25.940 | you.
00:25:26.940 | The next thing that I admire about Bill Gaither is that his career is one that has allowed
00:25:32.660 | him to really grow into an elder statesman.
00:25:38.220 | And I think it's so valuable for you and I to think forward 20 years, 50 years, 80 years,
00:25:44.700 | and ask ourselves, how can I be relevant 20, 40, 50, 80 years from now?
00:25:51.020 | And what you will need to do if you're going to be successful in that is you'll need to
00:25:55.220 | grow into the role of some form of elder statesman where you now bring a sense of, now you bring
00:26:05.500 | genuine wisdom, you bring character, you bring experience to the marketplace.
00:26:11.460 | And then as your previous qualities fade, you replace those qualities with a new quality.
00:26:20.780 | And here I want to juxtapose Bill Gaither versus Madonna.
00:26:28.140 | I was really surprised with the video that Madonna released recently on her social media
00:26:34.460 | feeds.
00:26:35.740 | And I don't follow pop music.
00:26:37.060 | I literally couldn't without Googling, excuse me, without asking the duck, I slipped out.
00:26:44.460 | Without doing a web search for Madonna's songs, I could not list a single Madonna song.
00:26:52.380 | But I know who she is.
00:26:53.380 | I know she's a performer.
00:26:55.100 | And it's my impression of her career from a great distance that she built her career
00:27:01.820 | off of her music and a significant component of her music and the attraction of her music
00:27:11.940 | was based upon her youth, her beauty, her sex appeal.
00:27:16.340 | But then I saw this video that she released of what seemed to me, I got to look up how
00:27:23.820 | old Madonna is.
00:27:25.820 | All right, found it.
00:27:30.300 | Madonna is 63 years old.
00:27:33.140 | And so here was this video of her at 63 years old, basically trying to do this like sexy
00:27:41.300 | kiss thing at her phone.
00:27:43.980 | And I found the whole thing utterly repulsive.
00:27:47.540 | And I don't use that word lightly.
00:27:50.260 | In fact, one of the opinions that I have, a little speech that I frequently find myself
00:27:58.580 | saying to women, is that I think that one of the worst things about American culture
00:28:05.820 | is the idolization of youth, physical beauty, and sex appeal.
00:28:12.780 | Because what happens is, I think it's a really destructive thing in our culture where we
00:28:20.220 | say that your value in society for young women is 80% driven by your physical attractiveness.
00:28:29.940 | And that our definition of physical attractiveness is a definition that is usually most idolized.
00:28:35.780 | Ideally created by those who are between about 18 and 22, where their body is well-toned,
00:28:44.500 | their breasts are fully developed, their skin is perfect and clear, etc.
00:28:49.780 | And I think this is such a destructive tendency in society, because what it means is that
00:28:55.900 | once a woman passes the height of her youthful sex appeal, then it's just all downhill from
00:29:02.220 | there.
00:29:03.220 | And you get these stupid things like, you're not supposed to ask a woman how old she is,
00:29:05.460 | and all these ridiculous things like, well, I'm turning 30 years old, minus 20, or whatever
00:29:11.500 | the dumb ways that women say it.
00:29:13.660 | And I think this is really destructive in a society, it's really bad for the mindset
00:29:18.860 | and self-confidence of many women.
00:29:21.780 | Because instead of having an aspiration of something to grow into, where I admire cultures
00:29:27.180 | that have a cultural sense of honor for the aged, there are many cultures where people
00:29:33.920 | look forward to growing older because they will receive higher and higher levels of honor
00:29:41.620 | from the society around them.
00:29:43.060 | And I think that's really healthy and right, and that's how it should be.
00:29:46.700 | We should honor the aged, we should respect the aged in many, many ways.
00:29:52.500 | And yet our American society, we've very much lost that.
00:29:57.180 | And we disrespect the aged, we make jokes about age.
00:30:02.100 | None of the jokes are positive, they're all hurtful, they're all cutting, and is it any
00:30:08.160 | wonder why people don't want to grow old?
00:30:10.940 | And so, sorry for the comment, but for me to say that I was repulsed by Madonna because
00:30:17.140 | she's 63 is not a comment on saying that age is bad.
00:30:26.340 | It's a comment on saying that the 63-year-old should not be trying to reach out to the world
00:30:31.460 | in the same way that an 18-year-old is.
00:30:35.340 | Set aside whether an 18-year-old should be trying to create a sexy video on whatever
00:30:41.320 | social media platform is in vogue, the point is that it's deeply hideous for a 63-year-old
00:30:47.740 | to be doing that.
00:30:49.300 | A 63-year-old should be embracing wisdom, a 63-year-old should be embracing the role
00:30:56.340 | of, in Madonna's case, a mother, a grandmother, an advisor, a mentor.
00:31:03.380 | And there are so many performers and actresses who do this, and they're beautiful.
00:31:09.720 | They're beautiful outside, but they're outside their external beauty flows from them being
00:31:15.900 | a beautiful person, a beautiful soul.
00:31:18.700 | And then when we see them aging, we admire how graceful and how beautiful they are in
00:31:23.940 | their aging process.
00:31:25.580 | And it doesn't matter the number of wrinkles that they have or the amount of fat on their
00:31:28.820 | thighs or anything like that.
00:31:30.740 | We admire them because they have a sense of decorum, a sense of gravitas, a sense of wisdom
00:31:39.700 | and age and just respect for themselves.
00:31:44.180 | So back to Bill Gaither, right?
00:31:45.800 | I was thinking about Madonna in comparison to Bill Gaither, and I was thinking, Bill
00:31:51.660 | Gaither, he is not the same musician that he was many years ago.
00:31:58.380 | There was a time when Bill Gaither was a singer, right?
00:32:02.280 | He is a singer.
00:32:03.420 | He sings constantly.
00:32:05.220 | But there was a time in which his voice was a fundamental part of the performance.
00:32:12.540 | Bill Gaither today has a reasonable voice where he can stay on tune, but he's never...
00:32:20.140 | And when he sings and when he solos, you are drawn to him, but you wouldn't listen to him
00:32:26.700 | and say, "Oh, he's got this world-class voice."
00:32:30.260 | He's not David Phelps.
00:32:31.600 | He's not Josh Groban.
00:32:32.740 | He's not that kind of voice.
00:32:38.260 | It's a perfectly reasonable, attractive, fine male voice, but it's not anything distinguished.
00:32:45.280 | And yet it doesn't matter.
00:32:47.520 | So similarly, Madonna is not in any way attractive, in the sense that she's not distinguished.
00:32:55.200 | She's not ugly, but she's not distinguished by her voice, sorry, her looks.
00:33:00.680 | But if she chose to say that, "I'm going to embrace my looks for what they are and develop
00:33:04.820 | these other attributes of my life," she would be, in my opinion, much more attractive.
00:33:10.420 | Just like Bill Gaither, he's a very attractive person, even though his voice is no longer
00:33:15.500 | the star voice.
00:33:17.640 | So what has he developed?
00:33:19.660 | Well, he's developed those other qualities.
00:33:23.100 | He's developed those other skills, those other things.
00:33:27.260 | So one of the things that he's really good at over the years has been finding young talent
00:33:35.220 | and then developing and launching that young talent.
00:33:39.380 | Let me read a few names, and if you are familiar with evangelical Christian music in the US,
00:33:46.860 | then some of these names will be quite recognizable to you.
00:33:49.780 | If not, they're many of them well-known performers.
00:33:54.040 | But here's from his Wikipedia article.
00:33:56.420 | "Gaither has been a father figure and career booster to many younger performers in the
00:34:01.420 | Christian music industry, while helping to prolong the careers of those who came before
00:34:06.220 | him, for example by producing homecoming recordings and tours.
00:34:10.620 | The following are all CCM artists who either got their start or became popular while touring
00:34:15.740 | with the Gaithers.
00:34:17.340 | Mark Lowry, Michael W. Smith, Carmen, Sandy Patty, Steve Green, Don Francisco, Amy Grant,
00:34:25.620 | Michael English, Jonathan Pierce, Carla Worley, and Cynthia Clausen.
00:34:31.100 | He has maintained the Gaither vocal band with a variety of singers through the years, including
00:34:35.940 | Gary McSpadden, Steve Green, Lee Young, John Moore, Larnell Harris, Michael English, Lemuel
00:34:42.940 | Miller, Jim Murray, Mark Lowry, Terry Franklin, Buddy Mullins, Jonathan Pierce, Guy Penrod,
00:34:49.740 | David Phelps, Russ Taff, Marshall Hall, Wes Hampton, Adam Crabb, Todd Suttles, and Reggie
00:34:55.820 | Smith.
00:34:56.820 | Penrod, Lowry, and Hampton were the members of the Gaither vocal band with the longest
00:35:00.380 | tenure besides Bill Gaither himself."
00:35:04.060 | So what you can see is that he has built skills of finding young voices, young talent, and
00:35:12.340 | then I would assume coaching those young voices and young talent.
00:35:16.940 | I'm sure that he's coaching musically, being influenced by the younger voices and talent,
00:35:23.740 | and then also coaching the younger voices and talent, coaching in terms of everything
00:35:28.460 | related to a music career.
00:35:30.380 | And so here he is at 86 years old and he is leading the performances of some of the most
00:35:38.860 | phenomenal vocalists in the world in that particular niche.
00:35:44.900 | And so he's just as relevant at 86 as he was at 26.
00:35:50.500 | And yet it's because he's adjusted and adapted to the changes and he's developed more skills
00:35:55.940 | around the edge.
00:35:57.180 | He understands.
00:35:59.100 | And I think this is really important to recognize, that many of us have talents or things that
00:36:06.820 | will fade with time.
00:36:09.140 | If you make a living performing delicate surgery with your hands, you're not going to be able
00:36:14.300 | to do that with the same level of confidence 80 years after you begin.
00:36:19.940 | But that doesn't mean you can't be just as relevant in your industry.
00:36:23.060 | You have to simply think and begin with the fact that, "Hey, I'm going to change.
00:36:27.180 | This is going to develop."
00:36:28.860 | If you're earning your living based upon your physical beauty, your physical beauty is going
00:36:34.020 | to change as the years go by.
00:36:37.040 | And so what other things can you bring in addition to physical beauty or your voice
00:36:41.300 | or anything?
00:36:43.100 | And so I just find it so inspiring to watch a current Gaither video of a wonderful song
00:36:51.900 | and see Bill Gaither singing there.
00:36:53.700 | I can't pick him out in the music.
00:36:56.460 | I can't hear his voice because he knows that he's playing a backup role.
00:37:00.980 | But he's hosting the event.
00:37:03.260 | It's his name on it.
00:37:05.020 | He's hosting the event.
00:37:06.480 | He's making the jokes.
00:37:07.500 | He's leading, but he's profiling the stars.
00:37:10.740 | And that keeps him relevant.
00:37:12.780 | And I think it also keeps him exceedingly young.
00:37:15.040 | When you look at him, he's blessed with a wonderful head of hair.
00:37:18.860 | I assume he colors it.
00:37:20.660 | I don't know.
00:37:21.940 | It's great brown.
00:37:23.060 | He doesn't allow his hair to go gray.
00:37:26.020 | But he just is a very young 86-year-old.
00:37:29.860 | He's a very young 86-year-old.
00:37:31.740 | And I think that part of that must come from being around young people.
00:37:37.140 | I think that this is also something that we need to watch out for is don't allow yourself
00:37:42.400 | to be segregated with old people when you're old.
00:37:45.900 | I don't think we should segregate young people exclusively with young people when they're
00:37:49.100 | young.
00:37:50.100 | And I also don't think we should segregate old people when they're old.
00:37:53.340 | We need that cross-pollination.
00:37:56.860 | Old people need to be around young people so that they maintain that sense of energy
00:38:01.420 | and optimism and enthusiasm.
00:38:03.900 | And so they maintain the young, fresh ideas.
00:38:06.600 | And you can see this even in Gaither's performances.
00:38:11.940 | He's adapted.
00:38:12.940 | They have a huge YouTube channel.
00:38:14.620 | He's adapted himself to the world of YouTube, to the modern expressions of music.
00:38:18.460 | They figured out ways to continue to make it as a musician, even as the music industry
00:38:22.940 | has utterly transformed itself.
00:38:25.700 | And I admire how they've been able to stay current.
00:38:30.180 | I think it's really wonderful.
00:38:33.260 | And I think that it must provide him with so much satisfaction to recognize the role
00:38:38.460 | that he's played in so many careers.
00:38:41.780 | I've always been inspired by people who can help launch other people.
00:38:46.620 | I've always wanted to do that myself.
00:38:48.500 | How can I use what I have to launch other people?
00:38:52.580 | And I love that Gaither has accomplished that.
00:38:58.260 | What else do I admire about Gaither?
00:39:02.740 | I don't know much about his family life, but I do know that he's married.
00:39:07.260 | His wife's name is Gloria, and they have been married for a very long time.
00:39:12.340 | And they have worked together in their career.
00:39:15.540 | This is another thing that I think is really wonderful.
00:39:17.820 | Gloria is an incredible songwriter.
00:39:21.940 | They say that they write their songs together.
00:39:23.580 | I don't know what their creative process is, but they're wonderful songwriters and have
00:39:28.380 | written more than 700 songs together.
00:39:31.340 | Many of those songs are really part of the modern Christian core.
00:39:40.580 | I'll share a few titles right here from his Wikipedia profile.
00:39:44.380 | Gaither and his wife Gloria have written many songs, including "The Longer I Serve Him,"
00:39:48.980 | "Because He Lives," "The King is Coming," "Sinner Saved by Grace," "Something Beautiful,"
00:39:54.460 | "He Touched Me," "It Is Finished," "Jesus, There's Something About That Name," "I'm Gonna
00:39:59.380 | Sing," and "Let's Just Praise the Lord."
00:40:01.700 | His songs have been performed by Christian artists—David Crowder Band, Carmen, the
00:40:05.420 | Imperials, Sandy Patty, the Cathedral Quartet, the Spears, and Heritage Singers; country
00:40:09.940 | singers, the Statler Brothers; and pop artists—Elvis Presley.
00:40:15.020 | So there's just wonderful impact, and those songs will live on.
00:40:21.700 | I will sing for the rest of my life, "Because He Lives."
00:40:25.180 | I will sing for the rest of my life, "Jesus, There's Something About That Name."
00:40:29.480 | It's a song that my parents sang to me every single night of my childhood, and it's a song
00:40:35.600 | that I sing to my children regularly.
00:40:38.580 | And so those songs are part of my life, and songs are the kind of thing that will continue
00:40:43.900 | throughout generations.
00:40:46.460 | And I think that's something worth admiring.
00:40:48.580 | Can you create something that has some chance of continuing to influence people in a positive
00:40:55.700 | way?
00:40:56.700 | It's not to say that they're going to know your name, right?
00:40:58.700 | We all have songs that we love that we don't know who wrote them, and even if we did, it's
00:41:05.060 | just a name.
00:41:06.540 | But I think that when you think about being on your deathbed, right, the idea that you
00:41:12.700 | could create something, that you could do work and create some kind of work that could
00:41:18.660 | continue to help your fellow man, continue to minister to your fellow man in some way.
00:41:25.340 | Right here I see on the Wikipedia, it says, "A video of a man surreptitiously recorded
00:41:33.460 | playing 'Jesus, There's Something About That Name' on a piano in his destroyed house was
00:41:37.960 | shared by many people following the tornado outbreak of December 10 and 11, 2021."
00:41:42.740 | I haven't seen that video, but I can imagine what it is, because it's the kind of situation
00:41:51.060 | that so many of us have been in or are in, right?
00:41:54.820 | We're in a situation where everything is hopeless, and if you're a Christian, right, you fall
00:41:59.700 | on your knees and you say, "Lord, help me."
00:42:01.940 | And music is often a way of communing in your spirit with God, and it allows you to express
00:42:08.000 | something that you often don't know another way to express.
00:42:11.360 | And so a song is a powerful thing.
00:42:13.880 | And you know, Gaither, again, I don't know Gaither, he doesn't know me, but when you
00:42:17.840 | recognize, right, and you imagine, you know, last summer I was together with all my family
00:42:27.380 | members, and when my family members get together, we get together and often we sing.
00:42:32.640 | Growing up, my dad doesn't play any instruments, but he sings, my mom would play the piano,
00:42:37.320 | but then all my siblings and I all learn some kind of instrument.
00:42:43.000 | And so frequently we would get together and we would have family song night at our house.
00:42:47.880 | And so over the years we've sung together a lot.
00:42:50.480 | So now we're a little bit more dispersed when we get together, we still enjoy singing together.
00:42:56.380 | And it's something that blesses my parents, it blesses us, and it's part of our family
00:43:00.760 | culture that I really like and admire.
00:43:03.360 | And so we were together and we sang Jesus, Jesus, or something about that name, it's
00:43:07.880 | a classic Christian song that we sang when we were children.
00:43:11.720 | And my sister actually asked and said, "Do you guys all sing that to your children?
00:43:15.240 | All of us sing it to our children."
00:43:17.000 | And so I think about that testimony multiplied by about a bazillion times with many, many
00:43:22.680 | other people, that's something to be proud of, right?
00:43:25.760 | When you're 86 years old and you think, "I was able to create something that helped people.
00:43:30.760 | I was able to create something that served people.
00:43:32.760 | I was able to create something that created times of closeness with parents and children.
00:43:37.960 | I created something that was pure, that was good, that was powerful."
00:43:44.520 | And a song is one of those things that can leave a legacy.
00:43:49.440 | And then when there's a story with that song, it goes so far, right?
00:43:54.360 | Here I, like one of my favorite of, I met, there's one of my favorite singers is a man
00:44:01.440 | named Wently Phipps.
00:44:03.600 | And I met him, quote unquote, through finding him on the Gay Through YouTube channel.
00:44:08.480 | And Wently Phipps does this amazing version of Amazing Grace.
00:44:14.440 | And the reason it's amazing is because he tells the story of Amazing Grace and how the
00:44:18.640 | words and the tune were created.
00:44:20.840 | And Eric Carnegie Hall and Wently Phipps is singing the song.
00:44:24.400 | And he's just an amazing guy, big, huge black guy.
00:44:26.920 | He's got this wonderful voice.
00:44:29.160 | And he's telling the story of the origin of the song.
00:44:33.560 | If you're unfamiliar with the song, the well-known Christian hymn, Amazing Grace, it was penned,
00:44:38.960 | the words were penned by John Newton, who was in, early in his life, was a slave trader.
00:44:46.320 | And so he was a captain of a slave ship, bringing slaves from West Africa to the United States
00:44:52.040 | until he was born again.
00:44:54.040 | And then he renounced that and he became very active in working to abolish the slave trade.
00:45:00.520 | But the, I shouldn't ruin it for you, I should list the video.
00:45:04.040 | In fact, I will list the video and you can go and watch it.
00:45:06.280 | But the, no one knows where the tune of Amazing Grace comes from.
00:45:12.840 | And Phipps performs it in his version of where the tune comes from.
00:45:17.040 | I won't spoil it for you.
00:45:19.120 | But it's just the most touching thing.
00:45:20.680 | And so you think about a song like Amazing Grace, that was the work of one man's hand.
00:45:26.520 | Sat down and wrote a poem and created a song that is now known as the quintessential Christian
00:45:33.520 | song.
00:45:34.520 | It's the song that everybody knows.
00:45:37.320 | And there have been times, I remember when my grandmother was in the hospital, she was
00:45:44.200 | in, and we went in and we would go in and sing to her.
00:45:46.480 | And we would go and sing to her in the hospital and we'd sing loud for the people around to
00:45:51.280 | be able to enjoy as well.
00:45:53.040 | And there'd be all these old people that come up and just say, it touched my heart, right,
00:45:57.480 | to listen to that song.
00:45:59.040 | So the point here is that if you can create some kind of work that might have some enduring
00:46:05.080 | value, I think that can provide you with tremendous satisfaction.
00:46:09.080 | Whether it's to create a sculpture or to influence an industry or to just simply love the people
00:46:15.880 | who are unloved.
00:46:17.680 | Whatever it is, having that sense of purpose in your work and having something that goes
00:46:22.520 | beyond the money, beyond the time to a sense of impact is, I think, important for you.
00:46:31.280 | I don't think you should be under any illusion that anyone's really going to remember your
00:46:35.160 | name.
00:46:36.160 | They're not, right?
00:46:37.640 | We're not.
00:46:38.640 | Once we're dead, maybe our family members will remember our name for a generation or
00:46:43.800 | two, but they're not going to remember your name.
00:46:46.280 | But it's for you to know that something that you've created has impacted and helped other
00:46:51.680 | people is, I think, a wonderful thing.
00:46:53.760 | And when I think about Bill Gaither and his wife Gloria writing those songs and creating
00:46:58.480 | them and performing them, it's just, to me, a powerful expression of how you can do work
00:47:05.520 | that matters.
00:47:07.400 | Speaking of Bill and Gloria, I think another thing that I admire about Bill is that, to
00:47:12.440 | my knowledge, he's lived a straight life.
00:47:16.160 | A good Christian man with a clear testimony.
00:47:18.000 | In fact, I wanted to make sure I went and did a web search and I searched for "Bill
00:47:23.280 | Gaither scandal."
00:47:25.160 | There was one article that popped up that was written from a hyper-Puritan Christian
00:47:31.880 | guy talking about how Bill Gaither has sacrificed and been too ecumenical in his work.
00:47:39.720 | Which whatever.
00:47:40.720 | But the point is that I couldn't find any, there was nothing about any scandal in his
00:47:45.240 | life.
00:47:46.240 | And I think that's also something that's really important.
00:47:48.160 | He and Gloria have been married for a very long time.
00:47:51.480 | Evidently, they have three grown children.
00:47:54.120 | I know nothing about the testimony of his children, but when you look at and you reflect
00:47:58.800 | on that, I think you see that even in Bill's face, right?
00:48:03.320 | Or in Gloria's face.
00:48:06.100 | They have a sense of settledness in their life, right?
00:48:09.080 | The healthiest lifestyle you can possibly have is simply good, upright, Christian living.
00:48:18.200 | It removes so much stress from your life.
00:48:20.160 | It removes so much pain from your life.
00:48:22.160 | Here I was thinking of, I was watching Will Smith at the, whatever the show was that he
00:48:29.080 | decked Chris Rock at.
00:48:31.720 | And I was just comparing, like, here's Will Smith.
00:48:34.120 | Here's this guy that has an amazing repertoire of movies that he's done.
00:48:38.480 | We've all enjoyed so many movies.
00:48:41.120 | Here's a guy who's got it all, right?
00:48:43.640 | Who has, who's got it all, right?
00:48:47.760 | From an outside perspective.
00:48:49.640 | And yet, look at his son, look at his wife, look at his marriage relationship, and his
00:48:54.120 | life is in shambles.
00:48:56.080 | It's an absolute shambles to the point where he, as a, what, 60-year-old man, something
00:49:01.540 | like that?
00:49:02.680 | He walks up on stage at an award show and clocks a guy in the face.
00:49:07.880 | It just expresses a fundamental cry for help.
00:49:16.240 | And so I compare Bill Gaither, who of course has not even a fraction of the wealth that
00:49:25.080 | Will Smith has, not a fraction of the notoriety and fame that Will Smith has, and yet the
00:49:31.440 | difference in lifestyle is night and day.
00:49:34.120 | And there are plenty of actors in Hollywood who have very big names who you can admire.
00:49:39.480 | But having a spouse by your side and having that marriage relationship over decades and
00:49:46.600 | loving each other and growing old together, having no scandal, no infidelity, no anything,
00:49:55.080 | then that's something to be proud of.
00:49:57.920 | Which brings me to the next thing that I admire.
00:50:00.240 | I admire that Bill and Gloria have been able to work together over the years.
00:50:04.280 | Gloria, again, is a remarkable musician and she's such a great songwriter.
00:50:10.880 | She has this amazing repertoire of songs that she has written for other people.
00:50:16.040 | And they've worked together for years.
00:50:18.640 | They don't always perform together.
00:50:21.360 | Most of the time she doesn't perform on the road.
00:50:24.200 | And so I have the impression that she doesn't go on the road for months and months like
00:50:29.320 | Bill does.
00:50:30.460 | But they always perform together at some of the special events, right?
00:50:32.880 | They host their events together.
00:50:34.960 | And I think that's another thing that's really wonderful to aspire to is can you have
00:50:41.200 | something where you can be together with your spouse and have some expression where both
00:50:47.080 | of you can shine in different ways and yet those ways be compatible, collaborative, where
00:50:54.880 | they're productive.
00:50:55.880 | You're not competing with one another, not trying to one-up one another, but where you
00:51:01.520 | can have unique roles and yet have the opportunity to work together and appreciate the good things
00:51:07.640 | and the hard times that come from a business.
00:51:11.000 | I don't know that's always the best, but I admire it when I see that.
00:51:15.280 | And when I see it in Bill and Gloria Gaither, it really is just something that I take note
00:51:19.960 | of and I say, "That's really wonderful.
00:51:21.560 | I'd like to have that as the years go by.
00:51:23.600 | I'd like to have some kind of business where my spouse is not separate, where it's not
00:51:27.680 | something where it's just my thing, but rather something where we're in it together."
00:51:32.320 | And again, that looks different in different relationships depending on what the business
00:51:35.720 | is, what the skills of the people are.
00:51:37.520 | But when I see it, I admire it.
00:51:41.840 | In conclusion, when I think about all these things that I have said and you basically
00:51:47.440 | put the whole package together, it gives me some things to which I aspire.
00:51:57.360 | I don't know how necessarily I'm going to achieve them all.
00:52:01.320 | I may not.
00:52:02.320 | It doesn't matter.
00:52:03.320 | The point is that these are things that I think are worth thinking about and worth aspiring
00:52:08.160 | to.
00:52:09.560 | And when I compare that against that 18-year-old's post on Reddit about how can I be financially
00:52:17.120 | independent and quit my work quicker, I want to cry out to the 18-year-old and say, "Take
00:52:24.120 | the money you have right now and just find a different job, find a different career."
00:52:29.840 | Because if you're in a situation like Bill Gaither, why would you retire?
00:52:37.280 | Why would you quit?
00:52:40.180 | Why would you not want to keep doing something that you're skilled at, that people love and
00:52:45.200 | appreciate, people pay you money because they want you to do it?
00:52:50.440 | Why would you do it?
00:52:52.320 | So that you could have more free time?
00:52:53.840 | Well, that makes sense if you're working 80 hours a week at a dead-end job that has no
00:53:02.360 | personal rewards and you get two weeks of paid vacation a year.
00:53:06.480 | Well, yeah, I get it then.
00:53:08.680 | But you can develop something where you work three months on, two months off, or where
00:53:14.000 | you do some kind of seasonality to your work, to your lifestyle.
00:53:19.160 | Now it changes things.
00:53:21.280 | And I think that it provides kind of the perfect antidote to boredom.
00:53:26.440 | You go to work so that you escape from the boredom of not working.
00:53:31.280 | You go to work, you experience the stress, you experience the invigoration of working,
00:53:38.440 | of providing something, of solving those things, of doing something that you're good at, and
00:53:43.360 | then you have your times of rest, times of relaxation.
00:53:46.920 | Then you go back to work, etc.
00:53:49.040 | And then you have the opportunity to build something that can last.
00:53:52.720 | And then when you're working in an area where you're genuinely skilled, an area of core
00:53:56.200 | genius, then you can make a contribution to the world.
00:54:00.960 | And I, for one, am thrilled that Bill Gaither didn't quit his work 30 years ago.
00:54:06.620 | If he had quit, you know, he made some money performing and decided, "Okay, I'm financially
00:54:10.600 | independent and stop singing," I couldn't introduce my children to his music, to his
00:54:16.600 | band, to the performers.
00:54:20.080 | And it was a joy to me.
00:54:21.080 | I played this Easter playlist to my children, and it was a joy to me to introduce them to
00:54:28.080 | that and give them really good music with really great performers that they can enjoy.
00:54:34.720 | And when you think about that, it's like, "Why wouldn't you want that?"
00:54:39.640 | I have other heroes, right?
00:54:41.000 | Clint Eastwood.
00:54:42.000 | I probably won't do a standalone show on it.
00:54:45.480 | But Clint Eastwood, I could have done this whole show about Clint Eastwood.
00:54:51.240 | Would you really have wanted Clint Eastwood to quit working 30 years ago because he was
00:54:55.680 | rich?
00:54:58.080 | Think about all the incredible movies that we wouldn't have if Eastwood had hung up his
00:55:04.720 | spurs 30 years ago when he was rich enough to retire.
00:55:09.120 | Can you imagine Clint Eastwood retiring?
00:55:12.560 | Why would you want him to retire?
00:55:15.840 | The only reason you would want him to retire is if he couldn't do the work.
00:55:20.800 | Here I think of Bruce Willis recently announced his retirement because he's experienced a
00:55:25.800 | degenerative condition that is causing him to not be able to do his work with his normal
00:55:31.480 | level of excellence.
00:55:33.040 | That's understandable, and I think retiring is the right move in that situation.
00:55:38.080 | But if you can avoid that, you want to avoid it.
00:55:40.440 | And if you can't avoid it, then you want to keep working.
00:55:45.440 | I hope that Eastwood makes movies for another 20 years, and I hope that he dies literally
00:55:51.000 | on set.
00:55:52.000 | Wouldn't that be a great way to go?
00:55:58.480 | Find your own heroes.
00:56:01.360 | Find heroes that you admire.
00:56:04.060 | Find things that you admire about them.
00:56:06.680 | And then think creatively of how you may be able to put some of that into your own life.
00:56:13.120 | I said in conclusion, I'm always nervous to say that, let me make one more point.
00:56:19.280 | Even if you don't know how to achieve it, having an aspiration of something that you
00:56:25.360 | admire, something you think would be cool to achieve is enough.
00:56:30.240 | Because you don't need to know how to achieve something in order for it to start working
00:56:38.680 | its magic.
00:56:41.640 | Your brain is a computer, and it will notice what you tell it to notice.
00:56:47.000 | The fact that you've listened now to me expound on one particular man's career, talk about
00:56:53.520 | the things that I admire about him.
00:56:56.520 | Tomorrow, when you see someone else, you're going to notice some of those things that
00:57:00.120 | you admire, or you're going to notice the exact opposite of them.
00:57:02.840 | Your brain is clued into them.
00:57:04.960 | And so if you just simply recognize, you know what, those are some things that I also admire.
00:57:09.560 | I'd like to be like Clint Eastwood, or I'd like to be like Bill Gaither, or I'd like
00:57:13.760 | to be like Tom Brady, or I'd like to be like whomever.
00:57:19.400 | Then you'll start to see over the years the moves you can make.
00:57:25.100 | It may have been my comments on becoming an elder statesman.
00:57:27.960 | You may recognize, you know what, my voice is probably not, at 86, my voice may not fill
00:57:33.800 | the seats.
00:57:35.660 | So how can I become a mentor, and how can I figure out how to use what I do have?
00:57:39.800 | Gaither had a platform, had a name.
00:57:42.520 | How can I attract really high quality musicians and bring them together, knowing that I can
00:57:48.880 | launch their careers, and they'll be better off being with me, even if it's for a time.
00:57:55.480 | We'll do great work together, and then they'll go on their way.
00:57:59.720 | There's some version of that in your career, in my career, for all of us to pay attention
00:58:03.160 | to.
00:58:04.160 | So I hope that these ideas have been helpful to you, and I hope that you'll be able to
00:58:08.560 | consider them and think of how you can apply them in the days to come.
00:58:12.800 | If you want to get rich, one of the best ways you can do that is never retire.
00:58:18.520 | And I'm not joking.
00:58:20.360 | If you want to get rich, one of the best ways you can do that is never retire.
00:58:25.280 | Keep working, and pay off your debts, save some money, pay for your kids' expenses, etc.
00:58:31.640 | And then keep working.
00:58:33.200 | And you can get very, very rich just simply by keeping working.
00:58:40.520 | But I think more importantly, if you can build a career that you don't want to retire from,
00:58:44.720 | then you can live rich and still enjoy your financial freedom at every step along the
00:58:51.080 | way.
00:58:52.080 | As we go, I want to remind you that I have a brand new course written four times like
00:58:58.360 | these.
00:58:59.360 | It's called theinternationalescapeplan.com.
00:59:02.240 | If you'd like more information about that course, go to internationalscapeplan.com.
00:59:06.560 | Remember also that I am currently providing personal consulting, so if you want to consult
00:59:11.000 | with me on career changes, adjustments, etc., I tell you, I would say probably, well, a
00:59:18.320 | significant percentage of my clients are wealthy, successful people who want to talk about personalized
00:59:24.680 | applications to things like these.
00:59:27.040 | So if that's you, go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.
00:59:32.200 | Radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult, and you can book a call with me there.
00:59:34.960 | Thank you.
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