2022-11-11_What_to_Do_If_Youve_Just_Lost_All_Your

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00:00:30.260 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement

00:00:34.940 | you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

00:00:40.180 | My name is Joshua Sheets. I'm your host and today I want to create a show

00:00:44.600 | specifically talking about what to do when you are facing financial disaster and

00:00:51.500 | catastrophe. Now in yesterday's show I talked about the meltdown at the cryptocurrency exchange

00:00:58.460 | FTX and I was very aware that it was affecting, it is affecting

00:01:03.040 | lots of people. It's a huge

00:01:06.220 | catastrophe for many and I know that there are many in my audience who are being affected.

00:01:12.120 | But I just kind of shared off the cuff a few basic very quick things

00:01:16.460 | that I hoped would be useful and helpful to you. I had several listeners write to me simply saying

00:01:22.380 | thank you so much for the short comments that I made and how much they helped and I want to

00:01:28.360 | take today's show and speak directly to you and

00:01:32.200 | amplify those comments. I want to give you a broad perspective

00:01:35.640 | on what to do when you're facing

00:01:38.600 | financial catastrophe, when you've lost all your money, when

00:01:42.080 | all your funds have disappeared, when something bad has happened. I want to give you a broad perspective on this.

00:01:48.280 | I want to speak directly to you and give you some useful and actionable and practical advice.

00:01:54.600 | And so this is applicable if FTX, you know, if you're wiped out in FTX and you've lost your life savings

00:02:01.360 | and now you're completely penniless, this is applicable. If your business has collapsed for some other reason, this is applicable in many

00:02:07.800 | circumstances and many situations. So I want you to

00:02:11.800 | sit back, relax and

00:02:14.880 | listen because this is going to help you.

00:02:19.600 | To begin with

00:02:21.720 | we need to start by putting the money in perspective.

00:02:26.240 | This is the most important thing for us to begin with. You have to put money into perspective.

00:02:31.940 | Financial catastrophe is a big deal.

00:02:38.120 | It is going to dramatically affect your life in many many ways. It is important.

00:02:46.840 | It is exceedingly important.

00:02:51.480 | Bankruptcy, poverty, etc. These things affect lives.

00:02:56.000 | But it is in no way the worst catastrophe that can happen to you.

00:03:02.760 | What I'm about to say is going to sound exceedingly insensitive.

00:03:08.040 | But I believe that in the fullness of time you will come to recognize that it is true.

00:03:15.200 | If you have money problems and

00:03:21.240 | money problems alone

00:03:23.240 | you don't really have that many problems.

00:03:28.000 | There's an old saying that if we all came into a room and we took all of our problems off of our backs and we

00:03:37.960 | put them on the floor together

00:03:39.760 | and said, "Okay, you can pick whichever problems up from this pile that you want."

00:03:44.320 | Most of us would probably walk over and get our own problems, the ones that we're accustomed to and

00:03:49.000 | be happy then that we have those problems.

00:03:51.720 | I genuinely deeply believe that if you only have money problems

00:03:57.920 | you don't actually have that big of a problem.

00:04:02.800 | Because not only are money problems...

00:04:06.360 | Where do I use? I'm gonna say fake for right now, and I'm gonna expand on that and clarify.

00:04:14.200 | Not only are money problems fake,

00:04:18.800 | but they are some of the simplest, most straightforward problems to solve.

00:04:25.200 | Because I can lay out for you the plan of how to solve them and you will be able to solve them.

00:04:31.920 | No matter how bad and catastrophic your situation is today, for whatever reason,

00:04:38.640 | I promise you that you can lay out a roadmap to where you can solve those problems.

00:04:46.200 | And in the course of human history, if you know what to do, even if the road is difficult,

00:04:52.200 | knowing what to do and knowing that there is a road means that you can walk down it.

00:04:58.000 | The worst problems to face are the ones that are unsolvable.

00:05:03.400 | And money problems are always solvable.

00:05:08.600 | The world is full of unsolvable problems.

00:05:14.400 | The ones that affect us the most in our personal life usually involve relationships and health problems.

00:05:23.200 | Relationships such as marriages that are going awry, relationships with our children that are not healthy,

00:05:30.000 | health problems where you're ill, a loved one is ill,

00:05:35.200 | you're watching your child self-destruct and go off on a dangerous and deadly path.

00:05:42.600 | There are many more, but those are the ones that usually cut to us the most.

00:05:46.400 | And those problems are the most difficult because they are often unsolvable.

00:05:51.200 | You may have a child who is grown, you have no legal authority over your child,

00:05:57.400 | thus you can't force anything on your child.

00:05:59.400 | Your child is 20-something years old and yet he's going off in a stupid direction,

00:06:05.000 | destroying his life, very likely to end in death.

00:06:10.800 | There are few things in life that are more painful than those situations.

00:06:14.800 | And what makes them exceedingly painful is that there's nothing you can do.

00:06:21.000 | And yet you have to watch those things play out.

00:06:25.000 | Or watching a loved one suffer from a deadly illness over the course of years,

00:06:30.800 | knowing that this illness is going to result in death.

00:06:37.000 | Even in those situations, you can find joy, you can find redemption,

00:06:49.000 | you can find God's faithfulness in the middle of them.

00:06:52.600 | I think of a close friend of mine a number of years ago, she had a son,

00:06:59.000 | and the son had muscular dystrophy.

00:07:01.400 | And it started to present itself, he became aware of it at the age of some years old,

00:07:06.600 | four or five years old, something like that, after he had started to have trouble walking.

00:07:09.600 | And I was close to the family for ten years,

00:07:14.800 | and they knew that this particular kind of muscular dystrophy was going to result in death.

00:07:19.200 | And every day you have to watch, in their case, the son,

00:07:24.800 | in my case a young boy that I knew, but I was close,

00:07:28.200 | you have to watch this medical condition advance,

00:07:31.600 | knowing that absent a divine intervention, it's going to result in death.

00:07:37.000 | And that's what happened, died at 15 years old.

00:07:40.000 | That's hard.

00:07:42.600 | Health situations, relationship situations, I've had friends whose children committed suicide.

00:07:51.000 | It happens to all of us, right? All of us know these things, we know people in them.

00:07:57.400 | If you are asked, if you, let me just ask you,

00:08:04.200 | no matter how great the financial catastrophe that you are facing right now is,

00:08:09.200 | no matter how desperate it is, would you, right now, take all of your money back

00:08:18.200 | if it meant the loss of your child over a very long and painful ten-year journey?

00:08:25.800 | The loss of your wife over a long and painful ten-year journey?

00:08:29.800 | The loss of your own health, watching yourself deteriorate with some degenerative disease?

00:08:35.800 | If there were a health factor involved, would you spend all of your money trying to get your health back?

00:08:46.800 | Now, my point is not to say that those situations are hopeless, they're not.

00:08:51.800 | Again, there is redemption, there is encouragement, etc. in those situations.

00:08:56.800 | My point is simply to say that whenever I have a money problem,

00:09:01.800 | or whenever I am coaching or counseling somebody who has a money problem,

00:09:07.800 | let's first get this straight, it's just money.

00:09:10.800 | Sounds insensitive to say it, but it's just money.

00:09:19.800 | The next thing that we need to be clear on is you will be able to continue living your life.

00:09:27.800 | You will be able to rebuild everything, and you will face nothing like the challenges of the past.

00:09:37.800 | If you're living in the year 2022, and you've lost all of your money,

00:09:46.800 | and you've experienced financial catastrophe, be grateful that you live in the year 2022.

00:09:51.800 | Because I promise you, you're not going to go hungry, you're not going to die of exposure,

00:09:58.800 | your children are not going to go naked, you will be able to do all of the things that you want to do.

00:10:06.800 | I promise you. If you're listening to my voice, that is the case.

00:10:12.800 | Everywhere in the world, right now there are still many people who will go hungry.

00:10:16.800 | There are many places in the world where if you do not pay a debt, you'll still go to prison today.

00:10:22.800 | But in the Western world, we've made tremendous progress,

00:10:27.800 | and you are going to be insulated from most of those most dire consequences.

00:10:31.800 | So be grateful.

00:10:33.800 | Throughout human history, going broke, losing all your money,

00:10:39.800 | has very frequently resulted in the starvation of you and your family, your homelessness.

00:10:45.800 | And so, recognize that although what you're going to go through is going to be very intense,

00:10:53.800 | it's not the end of the world. It's not the end of the world.

00:10:58.800 | And on the other side of this, you are going to emerge victorious.

00:11:06.800 | You are going to emerge with a story. You are going to emerge with hard-won experience.

00:11:11.800 | You are going to emerge wiser, more experienced,

00:11:16.800 | and you're going to have something to share with others that will be helpful.

00:11:21.800 | Your situation is not unique. The particular circumstances are.

00:11:25.800 | But the idea of making a bad investment, taking a risk and losing it all,

00:11:30.800 | opening a business and having it fail,

00:11:34.800 | these things are normal throughout human history.

00:11:36.800 | And many, many wealthy, powerful, and influential men have come before you,

00:11:42.800 | have gone through what you are going through,

00:11:45.800 | and have emerged victorious on the other side.

00:11:49.800 | You can do this too.

00:11:53.800 | Sounds trite, but I repeat it. It helps me.

00:11:58.800 | I'm going to give you a bunch of stuff that helps me.

00:12:01.800 | You pick and choose from what helps you, but I'm going to tell you what helps me.

00:12:04.800 | Whenever I'm going through a particularly miserable situation,

00:12:07.800 | I simply try to remind myself,

00:12:09.800 | "This is going to give me one of the world's best stories on the other side of it."

00:12:13.800 | You're out camping in the wilderness, and it's freezing cold,

00:12:17.800 | and your tent is... water is billowing in the side of your tent,

00:12:21.800 | and you're sitting there with nothing to do in the middle of the night.

00:12:24.800 | Cold, wet, hungry, miserable, freezing.

00:12:29.800 | I just tell myself, "This sucks. This sucks big time."

00:12:32.800 | I am going to be telling this story for the rest of my life,

00:12:35.800 | about this particular time.

00:12:37.800 | And you'll be able to laugh about it on the other side.

00:12:39.800 | So if you know that you're going to be able to laugh about it at some point,

00:12:42.800 | then try to put it in its proper place now.

00:12:45.800 | Recognize that... just put it in its proper place now.

00:12:50.800 | Next point.

00:12:53.800 | Money is fake.

00:12:56.800 | It's all made up.

00:13:00.800 | We print this stuff on sheets of fabric,

00:13:04.800 | and then we spend our lives chasing it.

00:13:07.800 | The balances in your investments, the balances in your portfolio,

00:13:11.800 | they're digits printed on a screen.

00:13:13.800 | All of the profits that you had in your trading portfolio,

00:13:17.800 | all the profits you had in your mutual fund account,

00:13:20.800 | all these profits, they're all fake.

00:13:22.800 | It's just made up.

00:13:25.800 | Now, it's not that they don't have real utility and real use.

00:13:28.800 | Obviously, they do.

00:13:30.800 | My point is that it was never really real in the first place.

00:13:35.800 | The implosion of FTX is obviously a spectacular catastrophe.

00:13:42.800 | But I want you to imagine that it doesn't stop there.

00:13:45.800 | I want you to imagine that every single cryptocurrency invented

00:13:49.800 | over the last 10 years goes to zero.

00:13:53.800 | I want you to imagine that Bitcoin goes to zero.

00:13:55.800 | It was always fake.

00:13:58.800 | Once you recognize that, you can realize that, you know what?

00:14:09.800 | It's all fake.

00:14:11.800 | That means that the loss of it is purely a mental game.

00:14:16.800 | And what I want to emphasize is that most financial problems

00:14:22.800 | are far more a mental game than anything else.

00:14:26.800 | And so your number one goal to escape your problems

00:14:32.800 | is to discipline and control your brain.

00:14:37.800 | The good thing about this is

00:14:41.800 | that's literally the only thing you can do in life.

00:14:44.800 | You can't actually control anything else in the world.

00:14:50.800 | The only thing that you have absolute control over is your brain.

00:14:55.800 | And so you can choose the story that you tell yourself.

00:15:02.800 | You can choose the meaning and the impact.

00:15:06.800 | You can choose the thoughts that you think,

00:15:09.800 | the things that you consider.

00:15:11.800 | You are the master of your brain.

00:15:14.800 | And it is the only thing in the world that you can master.

00:15:19.800 | So when you look at your financial catastrophe,

00:15:22.800 | your experience of coming out the other side

00:15:26.800 | is going to be driven 100%

00:15:30.800 | by the thoughts that you hold in front of yourself,

00:15:34.800 | the thoughts that you allow to be in your mind.

00:15:38.800 | There are many paths that you can take,

00:15:41.800 | and a middle path of some kind is almost certain to be the correct path.

00:15:48.800 | But let me lay out two paths on the extremes.

00:15:50.800 | And I want you to recognize that both of these are accessible to you.

00:15:56.800 | First, the path of doom and gloom and surrender.

00:16:02.800 | You can look down at your life and you can say,

00:16:05.800 | "I've lost all my money.

00:16:07.800 | My business failed.

00:16:09.800 | My crypto is gone.

00:16:11.800 | I've lost all my money.

00:16:14.800 | Life is never going to be the same.

00:16:17.800 | I had this taste of what it was like to be wealthy

00:16:20.800 | for a very short period of time,

00:16:22.800 | and now it's all gone."

00:16:24.800 | And let's assume that you lever it up.

00:16:26.800 | Margin is wiping you out.

00:16:28.800 | You've got debt all over the place.

00:16:30.800 | Let's assume that you are completely and utterly and entirely destroyed, 100%.

00:16:35.800 | You can allow that

00:16:41.800 | to cause you to think thoughts of failure,

00:16:46.800 | depression, darkness.

00:16:48.800 | You can see yourself as a failure.

00:16:50.800 | You can nurse those thoughts.

00:16:52.800 | You can imagine how your life is all going to fall apart.

00:16:56.800 | Your wife is going to leave you.

00:16:58.800 | Your children are going to hate you.

00:17:00.800 | You're going to go out there and you're going to end it all.

00:17:03.800 | Might as well just delete yourself from the face of the earth.

00:17:06.800 | After all, it's never going to get better.

00:17:08.800 | That's the path that, unfortunately, many are probably going to go down.

00:17:14.800 | You see this and virtually all collapses.

00:17:16.800 | It's very pronounced in honor societies.

00:17:19.800 | It's less pronounced in societies like the United States,

00:17:22.800 | kind of Western culture, where we're not so much an honor society.

00:17:26.800 | But it happens.

00:17:28.800 | And you can start that black spiral.

00:17:31.800 | If you feed yourself those thoughts, that's where you're going to end up.

00:17:37.800 | On the other hand, you can feed yourself the positive thoughts.

00:17:41.800 | You get to choose.

00:17:44.800 | For me, the phrase that is beat into my head is,

00:17:49.800 | "Failure is an event. It's not a person."

00:17:52.800 | Failure is an event. It's not a person.

00:17:56.800 | I am not a failure.

00:17:58.800 | I simply failed.

00:18:00.800 | And guess what? Failure is normal.

00:18:04.800 | It's normal, especially among high-achieving people.

00:18:11.800 | You can win or you can learn.

00:18:14.800 | You can learn the lessons from the catastrophe that you're facing.

00:18:19.800 | And you can go on and you can live to fight another day.

00:18:22.800 | And you can choose the path that the future has.

00:18:26.800 | If you have your health, if you have your family,

00:18:32.800 | if you have people that love you,

00:18:34.800 | if you have the ability to go and work,

00:18:37.800 | be it physical work or mental work, etc.,

00:18:40.800 | all of these things are available to you.

00:18:42.800 | You have everything that you need to start again.

00:18:45.800 | And the next time, you'll do it faster, better, and more safely.

00:18:50.800 | And you can put this in front of yourself as one of the ultimate challenges.

00:18:55.800 | What I like to do is simply pay attention to people who've lost it all and rebuilt it all.

00:19:00.800 | My favorite example to use in the personal finance community is simply Dave Ramsey.

00:19:04.800 | Dave's story is remarkable.

00:19:08.800 | He was flying high and he lost it all.

00:19:11.800 | He fought for years along the process of losing it all to stave off bankruptcy.

00:19:18.800 | Eventually, he was forced into bankruptcy by his creditors,

00:19:21.800 | declared bankruptcy, and had to rebuild everything from nothing.

00:19:24.800 | And yet, that story, the catastrophe,

00:19:28.800 | wound up being the very thing that allowed him to rebuild everything.

00:19:34.800 | And the same is possible for you.

00:19:37.800 | This story of your personal catastrophe may be the very thing that allows you to rebuild everything.

00:19:45.800 | I don't know how, but I promise it's available to you.

00:19:49.800 | Let's pivot to some practical items, and we'll come back to the mindset.

00:19:55.800 | But I want to show you what's available to you from the practical perspective.

00:19:59.800 | First thing is this.

00:20:01.800 | When you suffer a great financial loss,

00:20:06.800 | in almost all circumstances, your external life doesn't have to change all that much right now.

00:20:13.800 | There are some people for whom it does.

00:20:16.800 | If you had a big business and you were spending a million dollars a year,

00:20:19.800 | living a high lifestyle, and your business completely imploded,

00:20:22.800 | you're probably going to have to change if you're going through bankruptcy.

00:20:25.800 | But many people, especially many people who are hurt by the FTX implosion,

00:20:30.800 | many people, they'd never built those profits into their life.

00:20:35.800 | You've lost your trading account.

00:20:36.800 | You've lost your nest egg.

00:20:38.800 | But you probably haven't lost, you probably weren't already changing to living on that.

00:20:44.800 | If you were, there will be lifestyle effects.

00:20:47.800 | First thing to do is to sit down and look at your current expenses.

00:20:52.800 | Pull out a sheet of paper.

00:20:55.800 | Write down an up-to-date balance sheet.

00:20:58.800 | Figure out where you are today.

00:21:02.800 | Go through your bank accounts.

00:21:04.800 | Go through your crypto reserves.

00:21:08.800 | Go through your assets.

00:21:10.800 | Write down everything that you own.

00:21:12.800 | Everything that you have control over.

00:21:14.800 | Everything that you could sell.

00:21:16.800 | Make a complete list of all of your assets.

00:21:18.800 | Include everything.

00:21:20.800 | Everything, again, from investments, 401k, house.

00:21:25.800 | Go through your house.

00:21:28.800 | If you have a fancy watch collection or expensive golf clubs you could sell or a gun collection, etc.

00:21:33.800 | Make a complete list of your assets.

00:21:35.800 | Number two, make a complete list of your liabilities.

00:21:39.800 | Who do you owe and what do you owe them?

00:21:42.800 | Make a complete list and while you're making that list,

00:21:46.800 | ask yourself what kind of debt this is.

00:21:49.800 | Is this a mortgage where somebody has a claim on my house?

00:21:53.800 | Is this a credit card where it's an unsecured debt

00:21:57.800 | but eventually they could sue me if I don't pay them?

00:21:59.800 | Is this an account to a person, etc.?

00:22:02.800 | Go through all your debts.

00:22:04.800 | Is it a car loan, etc.?

00:22:06.800 | Make a complete list.

00:22:08.800 | Then number three, go through your expenses

00:22:10.800 | and write down all of your necessary expenses.

00:22:12.800 | Your current monthly living expenses.

00:22:16.800 | This exercise is often exceedingly difficult to do

00:22:22.800 | because it requires you to face reality.

00:22:26.800 | But if you will do it, no matter how bad the numbers are,

00:22:31.800 | on the other side of it you will feel better

00:22:35.800 | because you took action.

00:22:39.800 | I've experienced this myself straight up.

00:22:43.800 | You're in a mess.

00:22:45.800 | Business is failing, income's kind of there, etc.

00:22:49.800 | You're hiding all of your problems and debt.

00:22:51.800 | You come across and you say, "Ah, you know what?

00:22:55.800 | I should go do that but I don't want to face the facts.

00:22:57.800 | I don't want to look at the numbers."

00:22:59.800 | Then you go and you face the facts and you look at the numbers

00:23:01.800 | and no matter how bad it is,

00:23:03.800 | you're going to feel better on the other side

00:23:05.800 | because the numbers will answer your questions for you.

00:23:07.800 | When you don't put the numbers on paper,

00:23:10.800 | you're going to be lost in a black haze of uncertainty.

00:23:15.800 | The black cloud will be there and you won't know what to do.

00:23:19.800 | But when you put the numbers on paper,

00:23:22.800 | your path forward is going to be evident to you.

00:23:26.800 | It's going to show you what you need to do.

00:23:29.800 | So put all the numbers on paper,

00:23:33.800 | all of your assets, all of your liabilities,

00:23:36.800 | and write out your living expenses,

00:23:38.800 | especially required payments.

00:23:40.800 | This is the start of basically a budget.

00:23:42.800 | If you currently have income,

00:23:45.800 | write down how much that income is.

00:23:51.800 | If you don't have income,

00:23:52.800 | at least you'll know how much income you need to start generating.

00:23:56.800 | In many cases, just doing this will show you

00:24:02.800 | that although you've suffered a serious setback,

00:24:06.800 | no question about it,

00:24:09.800 | life is not terminal.

00:24:12.800 | Imagine you're a guy, right,

00:24:14.800 | you're making $100,000, living in the suburbs,

00:24:16.800 | married, three children, two children.

00:24:19.800 | You got $200,000 in your 401k.

00:24:24.800 | You started off with $100,000 in your crypto account.

00:24:28.800 | You blew it up to a million three,

00:24:30.800 | and now it was all on FTX and you lost a million three.

00:24:34.800 | Well, you were still working.

00:24:37.800 | You lost a lot of money.

00:24:39.800 | That stinks.

00:24:41.800 | But you also didn't have that money three years ago.

00:24:44.800 | It was all fake.

00:24:47.800 | It was paper profits.

00:24:48.800 | It was all fake.

00:24:50.800 | So you can live to fight again.

00:24:52.800 | What do you still have?

00:24:54.800 | You have a house, you got a wife, you got children, you got a job.

00:24:57.800 | You probably are not going to see any outward expression or change

00:25:01.800 | on your lifestyle.

00:25:04.800 | You can still keep your children in school,

00:25:06.800 | you can still feed your family, etc.

00:25:08.800 | Everything's still available.

00:25:10.800 | You're going to be fine.

00:25:12.800 | What I'm trying to show you is that

00:25:16.800 | this isn't going to be mental.

00:25:17.800 | You're going to choose the story you tell yourself,

00:25:20.800 | and it's all in your head.

00:25:22.800 | The single biggest impact of losing money,

00:25:29.800 | having a business failure, etc.

00:25:31.800 | is the story that you tell yourself.

00:25:35.800 | It's all in your head.

00:25:40.800 | It's not in actuality.

00:25:42.800 | It's not real.

00:25:45.800 | It's the story that you tell yourself.

00:25:46.800 | The thing that drives people crazy

00:25:50.800 | when they lose a bunch of money

00:25:52.800 | is they spend all their time thinking about

00:25:55.800 | what could have been

00:25:57.800 | instead of what is.

00:26:01.800 | But if you'll just simply focus on what is

00:26:05.800 | and what is real,

00:26:07.800 | you can adapt to that.

00:26:12.800 | In life, human beings are very, very adaptable.

00:26:16.800 | In the personal finance world,

00:26:18.800 | we usually talk about this on the upside,

00:26:21.800 | where we talk about so-called hedonic adaptation.

00:26:23.800 | The idea being you get used to a fancy lifestyle,

00:26:27.800 | you get used to nicer things,

00:26:29.800 | and very quickly it's just normal for you.

00:26:33.800 | You go from a cheap old apartment

00:26:35.800 | to a nice big fancy house,

00:26:37.800 | and that's normal for you.

00:26:39.800 | The good news is that adaptation

00:26:41.800 | can happen up,

00:26:43.800 | it can also happen down.

00:26:45.800 | You can very quickly adapt yourself

00:26:48.800 | to difficulty,

00:26:50.800 | lack of comfort, etc.

00:26:53.800 | And if you'll maintain your brain

00:26:55.800 | to focus on what is wonderful about that,

00:26:58.800 | you will be fine.

00:27:00.800 | I want to insert a small rabbit trail here

00:27:04.800 | to talk to those of us

00:27:06.800 | who perhaps haven't lost all of our money

00:27:08.800 | in the last few days.

00:27:10.800 | Because I believe that training

00:27:12.800 | for the loss of all your money

00:27:14.800 | is actually a valuable tool of preparation.

00:27:16.800 | And what I like to do

00:27:19.800 | is not only play mental games, war games,

00:27:22.800 | with it, but actually test it out.

00:27:25.800 | And long-time listeners have heard me say this repeatedly,

00:27:28.800 | try out different things

00:27:30.800 | to see what it's actually like.

00:27:32.800 | One of my favorite experiences

00:27:34.800 | of the past few years of my life

00:27:36.800 | was when I took my family traveling in an RV.

00:27:39.800 | And I did that

00:27:41.800 | because I wanted to go in an RV with my family.

00:27:43.800 | I thought it sounded like fun.

00:27:45.800 | I always wanted to try out

00:27:47.800 | the perpetual traveler nomad lifestyle.

00:27:49.800 | And I wanted to show my wife and I

00:27:51.800 | hadn't traveled much, we'd been having babies,

00:27:53.800 | it was inconvenient,

00:27:55.800 | it just seemed like a great thing to do.

00:27:57.800 | I wanted to try living and working on the road.

00:27:59.800 | I did it on the cheap.

00:28:01.800 | I bought a,

00:28:03.800 | round number is a $6,000 travel trail

00:28:05.800 | and a $6,000 pickup truck.

00:28:08.800 | I loved it.

00:28:09.800 | I loved it.

00:28:11.800 | And one of the things I loved about it

00:28:13.800 | was seeing

00:28:16.800 | how much I could enjoy

00:28:20.800 | a very simple, minimalist lifestyle.

00:28:23.800 | We had a 30-foot travel trailer,

00:28:26.800 | bunkhouse travel trailer,

00:28:28.800 | queen-size bedroom up front,

00:28:30.800 | four bunks in the back for the children,

00:28:32.800 | little tiny living room area,

00:28:34.800 | little tiny kitchen,

00:28:37.800 | little tiny bathroom,

00:28:38.800 | little tiny dinette, that was it.

00:28:40.800 | Cheap old trailer.

00:28:42.800 | One of my favorite places to be

00:28:45.800 | was in that front bedroom

00:28:47.800 | because it just felt so cozy.

00:28:49.800 | And some nights we would be parked

00:28:51.800 | in a spectacular location.

00:28:54.800 | I'd get up in the morning,

00:28:56.800 | open up the shades,

00:28:58.800 | look out the window and just think,

00:29:00.800 | wow, I get to sit here and look at this.

00:29:02.800 | Some nights we'd park in a parking lot,

00:29:04.800 | Walmart parking lot,

00:29:06.800 | little tiny living room area,

00:29:07.800 | cracker barrel, et cetera.

00:29:09.800 | I loved that just as much.

00:29:11.800 | And what it showed me

00:29:13.800 | was simply how you can go

00:29:15.800 | from a nice big house

00:29:17.800 | and all of the joys of that

00:29:19.800 | to something totally different

00:29:21.800 | and enjoy all of the joys of that.

00:29:23.800 | And that's a skill

00:29:25.800 | that I think is worth practicing.

00:29:27.800 | I love nice houses, big houses,

00:29:30.800 | all the amenities, et cetera.

00:29:32.800 | But if you only ever

00:29:35.800 | can experience and enjoy nice things,

00:29:36.800 | you're a very weak person.

00:29:38.800 | You don't have to have all that

00:29:41.800 | to enjoy it.

00:29:43.800 | And so let's talk about another example.

00:29:45.800 | Let's say you've lost all your money.

00:29:47.800 | Let's say you wake up,

00:29:49.800 | you've lost literally all your money.

00:29:51.800 | You have no, you have nothing, right?

00:29:54.800 | A few hundred dollars here and there.

00:29:56.800 | You had everything at FTX

00:29:58.800 | or whatever it was.

00:30:00.800 | You had to put it all in your business

00:30:02.800 | and your business has collapsed.

00:30:04.800 | Not only that,

00:30:05.800 | but you have bills,

00:30:07.800 | but you can't make those bills, right?

00:30:09.800 | You're not gonna, a few months from now,

00:30:11.800 | you're not gonna be in your apartment

00:30:13.800 | or a few months from now

00:30:15.800 | the mortgage company's gonna foreclose

00:30:17.800 | on the house, et cetera.

00:30:19.800 | And you're gonna be left with nothing.

00:30:21.800 | You're gonna wind up literally homeless.

00:30:23.800 | But you know what?

00:30:25.800 | Even if you were quite literally homeless,

00:30:27.800 | and I mean,

00:30:29.800 | when I say literally,

00:30:31.800 | I don't mean non-literally

00:30:33.800 | literally homeless.

00:30:34.800 | Guess what?

00:30:36.800 | You can live better

00:30:38.800 | and you can live well today.

00:30:41.800 | You can live better today

00:30:43.800 | as someone who is quite literally homeless

00:30:46.800 | than in many cases

00:30:48.800 | the wealthiest person in the world

00:30:50.800 | could have a century ago.

00:30:52.800 | I call it my tent experiment.

00:30:55.800 | If I went literally homeless,

00:30:57.800 | first thing I would do

00:30:59.800 | would be to get my hands on a tent.

00:31:02.800 | A nice one, like a nice wall tent,

00:31:03.800 | something comfortable to be in,

00:31:05.800 | put some cots in there, et cetera.

00:31:07.800 | But if my family and I wound up

00:31:09.800 | in a 10 by 20 wall tent

00:31:11.800 | with a bunch of cots,

00:31:13.800 | do you know how amazing

00:31:15.800 | the world we live in is today?

00:31:17.800 | If we're cold,

00:31:19.800 | I can get a heater.

00:31:21.800 | 50 bucks, 100 bucks, grab a heater,

00:31:23.800 | tank of propane,

00:31:25.800 | little wood stove to go in the tent.

00:31:27.800 | If you don't have any of this stuff

00:31:29.800 | and you have literally no money,

00:31:31.800 | your friends will help you out,

00:31:32.800 | your family members will help you out.

00:31:34.800 | They'll lend you a few bucks

00:31:36.800 | and you can get yourself a wood stove

00:31:38.800 | for your tent.

00:31:40.800 | You can be warm.

00:31:42.800 | You won't die of exposure to the cold

00:31:44.800 | as millions have throughout history.

00:31:46.800 | You're not going to go hungry.

00:31:48.800 | You can go today to any grocery store

00:31:50.800 | in the United States

00:31:52.800 | and for 20 bucks

00:31:54.800 | you can buy enough food

00:31:56.800 | to feed your family for a couple of days.

00:31:58.800 | How do you do it?

00:32:00.800 | Buy flour,

00:32:01.800 | buy a bottle of olive oil,

00:32:03.800 | buy a little thing of salt.

00:32:05.800 | If you can afford it,

00:32:07.800 | buy a jar of peanut butter

00:32:09.800 | and a jar of jelly.

00:32:11.800 | But flour, salt, oil,

00:32:13.800 | you got calories,

00:32:15.800 | you can fill your children's stomachs,

00:32:17.800 | you can eat for pennies a day.

00:32:19.800 | Not only that,

00:32:21.800 | but of course your town

00:32:23.800 | has an abundance of food pantries,

00:32:25.800 | free food,

00:32:27.800 | set-aside for you

00:32:29.800 | in your time of need.

00:32:30.800 | You can apply for food assistance programs

00:32:32.800 | where you'll be able to feed yourself

00:32:34.800 | and your family

00:32:36.800 | with other great food from the grocery store.

00:32:38.800 | There are friends,

00:32:40.800 | people around who in your time of need

00:32:42.800 | will be happy to step in and support you.

00:32:44.800 | Barring that,

00:32:46.800 | go dumpster diving.

00:32:48.800 | You'll find all the food that you need

00:32:50.800 | right from the dumpsters in your local area.

00:32:52.800 | Plenty available.

00:32:54.800 | You're not going to starve.

00:32:56.800 | In terms of everything else,

00:32:58.800 | grab yourself a battery,

00:32:59.800 | grab yourself a little solar panel.

00:33:01.800 | If you got one,

00:33:03.800 | a little generator,

00:33:05.800 | charge a battery from someone else's.

00:33:07.800 | If you got a cell phone,

00:33:09.800 | you need a cell phone,

00:33:11.800 | but you got free Wi-Fi at your local library.

00:33:13.800 | You got free Wi-Fi everywhere these days.

00:33:15.800 | You got a free computer at your local library.

00:33:17.800 | All kinds of stuff.

00:33:19.800 | With that,

00:33:21.800 | you have the world's knowledge at your fingertips.

00:33:23.800 | All the books basically ever written

00:33:25.800 | for free available to you.

00:33:27.800 | You need to cook,

00:33:28.800 | grab yourself a camping stove.

00:33:30.800 | You need light.

00:33:32.800 | It's all available.

00:33:33.800 | We like to joke about glamping,

00:33:35.800 | but one of the things that's remarkable about glamping

00:33:37.800 | is how convenient everything is.

00:33:39.800 | The last missing piece, by the way,

00:33:41.800 | has been solved now.

00:33:43.800 | Starlink.

00:33:45.800 | Starlink is in the middle of revolutionizing the world.

00:33:47.800 | I used to think about this

00:33:49.800 | because I came across years ago

00:33:51.800 | this story of a coder, a programmer

00:33:53.800 | who was living in a tent in the woods

00:33:56.800 | and he was a programmer working on his own thing

00:33:57.800 | instead of working for a company to make his bills.

00:33:59.800 | He was, I think, tethering to a cell phone,

00:34:03.800 | but of course that was difficult a few years ago.

00:34:05.800 | If you go and you look at his system,

00:34:07.800 | today you can live so well.

00:34:09.800 | I know this is a bit of a rabbit hole,

00:34:11.800 | but I just want to encourage you

00:34:13.800 | that even if you were literally homeless,

00:34:15.800 | if you've got a few thousand dollars,

00:34:17.800 | if I woke up and I was literally homeless,

00:34:19.800 | had lost everything,

00:34:21.800 | and I had four or five thousand bucks,

00:34:23.800 | I'd go buy a nice tent.

00:34:25.800 | They call them solar generators, bad name,

00:34:26.800 | but battery system to run on,

00:34:28.800 | that I can use to run my lights.

00:34:30.800 | You can use to run electronics, et cetera.

00:34:33.800 | I have electricity.

00:34:35.800 | I'd buy a nice camp stove,

00:34:37.800 | bunch of bottles of propane,

00:34:39.800 | grab some coolers to keep my food cold,

00:34:41.800 | and go set up a camp in the woods.

00:34:43.800 | This is the normal human experience,

00:34:47.800 | and we're so far from this in our modern world,

00:34:50.800 | and yet it's all in our head.

00:34:53.800 | It's all, and what I'm trying to drive at

00:34:56.800 | is to show you that this is in your head.

00:34:58.800 | Throughout virtually all of human civilization,

00:35:03.800 | this is how people lived.

00:35:06.800 | They slept on the ground with nothing,

00:35:09.800 | and this was a century ago or less.

00:35:12.800 | I always think about this,

00:35:14.800 | you remember the story in the Bible of Jacob,

00:35:17.800 | when he is traveling,

00:35:19.800 | he ran away from his brother Esau

00:35:22.800 | after taking his brother's birthright,

00:35:23.800 | and he's traveling to his uncle's house.

00:35:25.800 | Remember it says what he used for a pillow

00:35:27.800 | when he was traveling?

00:35:29.800 | A stone, right?

00:35:33.800 | I love that because this is the classic example.

00:35:36.800 | Here's a guy who's traveling.

00:35:38.800 | It means a dude wearing a robe

00:35:40.800 | or a blanket around his shoulders,

00:35:42.800 | a small bag of some things he can carry,

00:35:45.800 | and when it gets cold at night,

00:35:47.800 | he lies down on the ground,

00:35:49.800 | and he pulls up a stone for a pillow.

00:35:52.800 | Fast forward.

00:35:53.800 | I've been listening to,

00:35:55.800 | with my children,

00:35:57.800 | reading the Lord of the Rings.

00:35:59.800 | We've been listening to the audiobooks.

00:36:01.800 | By the way, if you don't have it,

00:36:04.800 | get the Andy Serkis recordings

00:36:06.800 | of the Lord of the Rings.

00:36:08.800 | It is the best audiobook I've ever listened to.

00:36:10.800 | Incredible actor.

00:36:12.800 | It's better than reading it yourself,

00:36:14.800 | and I don't usually say that about audiobooks.

00:36:16.800 | We've been listening through it as a family.

00:36:18.800 | We're in the second book right now,

00:36:20.800 | and we're off on this journey,

00:36:21.800 | and what I do is I picture how they were traveling.

00:36:23.800 | Now, they had, in some cases,

00:36:25.800 | basically, you most of the time

00:36:27.800 | just have what they could carry,

00:36:29.800 | but recognize that when they lay down at night,

00:36:31.800 | they didn't have a tent.

00:36:33.800 | They had a blanket that they rolled up in.

00:36:36.800 | That's it.

00:36:39.800 | That's how they lived.

00:36:41.800 | Go back to the far west,

00:36:43.800 | in the cowboys,

00:36:45.800 | which you see in a western.

00:36:47.800 | What does a cowboy have?

00:36:49.800 | He's got a bed roll,

00:36:50.800 | blanket,

00:36:52.800 | little canvas cover he can put down on the ground,

00:36:54.800 | lies down around the fire,

00:36:56.800 | sleeps in the open air.

00:36:58.800 | To this day,

00:37:00.800 | there are millions,

00:37:02.800 | hundreds of millions of people around the world

00:37:04.800 | who are still living like this.

00:37:06.800 | Want to go to sleep?

00:37:08.800 | You lie down on the floor in the corner.

00:37:10.800 | My dad told me stories.

00:37:12.800 | My dad grew up in the mountains of Colorado,

00:37:14.800 | and his family was in California.

00:37:16.800 | This would have been back in the 1950s, I think,

00:37:18.800 | and so they would drive back and forth on occasion.

00:37:19.800 | I don't know if it was annually or biannually,

00:37:21.800 | something like that,

00:37:23.800 | between Colorado and California.

00:37:25.800 | They didn't stop at a hotel

00:37:27.800 | and pay $100 a night for a holiday in Express.

00:37:29.800 | They drove along the desert.

00:37:31.800 | When they got tired at night,

00:37:33.800 | they pulled the car off into the desert.

00:37:35.800 | My grandmother would sleep in the backseat of the car.

00:37:37.800 | The men would go and lie down on the ground

00:37:39.800 | and sleep.

00:37:41.800 | In the morning, they'd wake up,

00:37:43.800 | get back in the car, and go on their way.

00:37:45.800 | You can do this.

00:37:47.800 | Just share a personal story.

00:37:48.800 | About 10 years ago,

00:37:50.800 | more than that, 12 or 13 years ago,

00:37:52.800 | I went and I spent a month in the Philippines.

00:37:54.800 | We were traveling, doing some missionary work,

00:37:56.800 | preaching in some very remote churches

00:37:58.800 | in the middle of nowhere

00:38:00.800 | with some very poor people.

00:38:02.800 | For an entire month,

00:38:04.800 | I didn't see a bed.

00:38:06.800 | I slept on the ground like everyone.

00:38:08.800 | That is very normal

00:38:10.800 | in the rural Filipino culture

00:38:12.800 | where we were.

00:38:14.800 | Usually,

00:38:16.800 | the local people would sleep

00:38:17.800 | in what's called a nipah hut

00:38:19.800 | in the local parlance

00:38:21.800 | which has soft bamboo floors.

00:38:23.800 | I wound up sleeping on a plank floor

00:38:25.800 | with nothing.

00:38:27.800 | They usually have mats.

00:38:28.800 | I think I got a little braided mat

00:38:30.800 | at some point in time.

00:38:32.800 | The first couple days,

00:38:34.800 | the hardship was sore.

00:38:36.800 | After a few days, I adapted.

00:38:38.800 | I spent a month sleeping on a hardwood floor,

00:38:40.800 | plank floor, nothing.

00:38:42.800 | I adapted, got used to it.

00:38:45.800 | One of the things is recognize

00:38:46.800 | that even if you lost it all,

00:38:48.800 | you wouldn't lose it all.

00:38:51.800 | You would be fine.

00:38:53.800 | You'd be able to rebuild.

00:38:55.800 | You'll figure out a way.

00:38:57.800 | I'm using that extreme circumstance

00:38:59.800 | for a reason.

00:39:01.800 | If we start with the worst case scenario,

00:39:03.800 | you'll see that every step up is better.

00:39:06.800 | I don't want to go and sleep

00:39:08.800 | on a tent in the forest if I can avoid it.

00:39:10.800 | I'll go and buy an RV.

00:39:12.800 | I'd rather be in an RV

00:39:14.800 | than in a tent in the forest.

00:39:15.800 | If I can't have an RV,

00:39:17.800 | I'll go and I'll get a $500 a month apartment.

00:39:19.800 | It may not be great,

00:39:21.800 | but it's better than the tent in the forest.

00:39:23.800 | More convenient.

00:39:25.800 | You just systematically upgrade.

00:39:27.800 | Hopefully, what I can do

00:39:29.800 | is just change your perspective a little bit.

00:39:31.800 | The vast majority of us

00:39:33.800 | who lose it all,

00:39:35.800 | lose a bad investment, et cetera,

00:39:37.800 | we're never going to wind up

00:39:39.800 | in that hardcore scenario.

00:39:41.800 | You probably can keep your home.

00:39:43.800 | You've got months to figure it out.

00:39:45.800 | Let's say that you're facing foreclosure

00:39:47.800 | because you don't have any money

00:39:49.800 | you lost at all.

00:39:51.800 | They're not going to kick you out

00:39:53.800 | for at least several months.

00:39:55.800 | That gives you time.

00:39:57.800 | You can go get a job.

00:39:59.800 | You may not be able to pay everything.

00:40:01.800 | You may not be able to pay the car,

00:40:03.800 | the truck, kids, private tuition, et cetera,

00:40:06.800 | but you could probably at least pay your mortgage.

00:40:08.800 | Buck up. You're going to be fine.

00:40:12.800 | Recognize how bad it could be.

00:40:13.800 | Then you'll be more grateful

00:40:15.800 | for the fact that you're not there.

00:40:17.800 | If you think that you're there,

00:40:21.800 | recognize that even there

00:40:23.800 | is probably pretty good.

00:40:25.800 | Next, when you're thinking

00:40:27.800 | about the assets that you have,

00:40:29.800 | recognize that those assets include people.

00:40:35.800 | If you're a normal person

00:40:39.800 | with normal relationships,

00:40:41.800 | you probably have a huge network of people

00:40:44.800 | that would be thrilled to help you.

00:40:47.800 | What would keep you from accessing that help?

00:40:53.800 | Answer is your pride.

00:40:57.800 | That's what will keep you from it.

00:40:59.800 | Once again, we come down to the fact

00:41:03.800 | that this is all a mental game.

00:41:05.800 | If you're proud that you're not there,

00:41:10.800 | if you're proud and unwilling to admit

00:41:12.800 | that you made a mistake,

00:41:14.800 | it's going to be a long and difficult road.

00:41:18.800 | If you can simply own up to yourself

00:41:21.800 | and recognize, "I screwed up.

00:41:24.800 | I made a mistake."

00:41:26.800 | Or if you didn't make a mistake,

00:41:28.800 | maybe you didn't make a mistake

00:41:30.800 | and the market was against you.

00:41:32.800 | I don't think you're stupid for trusting FTX.

00:41:34.800 | I don't think you should think you're stupid either.

00:41:36.800 | By all accounts, this was a good business.

00:41:39.800 | Would it have been great if you held your own keys?

00:41:42.800 | Yeah.

00:41:44.800 | But even if you held your own keys,

00:41:45.800 | there's still no guarantee.

00:41:47.800 | Even if you never invested in some popular token,

00:41:50.800 | maybe you only invested in Bitcoin

00:41:52.800 | and you held all your own keys,

00:41:54.800 | there's no reason to say that Bitcoin itself

00:41:56.800 | doesn't go to zero.

00:41:58.800 | There's no guarantee.

00:42:00.800 | Don't play a game with yourself.

00:42:02.800 | Don't let yourself be shamed.

00:42:04.800 | Just say, "I screwed up."

00:42:06.800 | Or, "The market turned against me.

00:42:08.800 | I didn't do everything right in business."

00:42:09.800 | And the whole thing can come right against you.

00:42:12.800 | Just imagine, right?

00:42:14.800 | Two years ago, you were running a great business.

00:42:16.800 | The government comes in and shuts your doors

00:42:18.800 | and says, "You can't have people here."

00:42:20.800 | And you did everything right.

00:42:22.800 | You didn't make the pandemic

00:42:24.800 | and they come in and they bankrupt you.

00:42:26.800 | And they go on to make fun of you two years later

00:42:28.800 | when you take out money from them shutting you down

00:42:30.800 | and they use you as a political pawn.

00:42:32.800 | So the point is,

00:42:34.800 | don't beat yourself up unnecessarily.

00:42:37.800 | Maybe you could have avoided it

00:42:38.800 | if you'd held your own keys.

00:42:40.800 | Yeah, but maybe you couldn't have.

00:42:42.800 | Again, we don't know.

00:42:44.800 | It's perfectly plausible

00:42:46.800 | that two years from today,

00:42:48.800 | Bitcoin would be completely worthless.

00:42:50.800 | And all the people that are poking fun at you

00:42:52.800 | for having your money on FTX

00:42:54.800 | because you didn't hold your keys,

00:42:56.800 | they're also wiped out and totally broke.

00:42:58.800 | So don't, just ignore them.

00:43:00.800 | Ignore that.

00:43:02.800 | Recognize it's all in your head.

00:43:04.800 | So humble yourself.

00:43:06.800 | Humble yourself.

00:43:07.800 | Acknowledge the mistake

00:43:09.800 | and you'll find around you

00:43:11.800 | or acknowledge the loss.

00:43:13.800 | And you're going to find around you

00:43:15.800 | loads of people anxious to help you out.

00:43:18.800 | Why are you never going to end up

00:43:20.800 | in a tent in the forest?

00:43:22.800 | Because your parents would be thrilled

00:43:25.800 | to offer you their garage apartment.

00:43:27.800 | There's no shame in taking it.

00:43:29.800 | Your buddy will say,

00:43:35.800 | "Hey, I got a cheap car.

00:43:36.800 | Why don't you just take my car

00:43:38.800 | and drive it for six months?"

00:43:40.800 | All of what you need

00:43:43.800 | to rebuild your life

00:43:45.800 | is at your fingertips.

00:43:47.800 | As long as you can conquer

00:43:51.800 | the pride and the emotions

00:43:54.800 | and the craziness in your head,

00:43:57.800 | you'll be able to rebuild your life.

00:44:04.800 | Next,

00:44:05.800 | if you're not currently employed,

00:44:08.800 | then

00:44:12.800 | the most important step for you to take

00:44:15.800 | is to get a job.

00:44:17.800 | As quickly as possible,

00:44:19.800 | get a job.

00:44:21.800 | Most of you who have been wiped out

00:44:24.800 | probably are still employed.

00:44:26.800 | So this advice

00:44:28.800 | affects most likely

00:44:30.800 | someone who's lost his business

00:44:32.800 | et cetera.

00:44:33.800 | But if you're not currently employed,

00:44:36.800 | a job is going to change your world.

00:44:39.800 | One of the biggest benefits of the job

00:44:43.800 | is going to be for your mental health.

00:44:46.800 | As a man,

00:44:51.800 | you must work.

00:44:53.800 | You will feel good

00:44:56.800 | when you are at work.

00:44:58.800 | If you have work,

00:45:01.800 | you have a good,

00:45:02.800 | honest,

00:45:04.800 | upright,

00:45:05.800 | morally helpful work,

00:45:06.800 | work that benefits society.

00:45:08.800 | No matter how menial,

00:45:10.800 | you can find great meaning

00:45:12.800 | and significance in your work.

00:45:14.800 | Whatever job you take,

00:45:18.800 | it doesn't need to be

00:45:20.800 | the 10-year job.

00:45:22.800 | You just need something.

00:45:24.800 | Because something,

00:45:26.800 | even if you start from nothing,

00:45:27.800 | some kind of income

00:45:30.800 | will make decisions.

00:45:31.800 | The most difficult place

00:45:35.800 | to be in from a financial perspective

00:45:37.800 | is unemployed.

00:45:39.800 | Because

00:45:41.800 | if you don't have any revenue

00:45:43.800 | coming into your household,

00:45:45.800 | then you can't know

00:45:47.800 | what decision is right.

00:45:48.800 | You can't know whether you can afford

00:45:50.800 | $2,000 a month of rent

00:45:52.800 | or $500 a month of rent

00:45:54.800 | or $0 a month of rent.

00:45:56.800 | Thus, you can't tell whether you should go

00:45:59.800 | to a remote wilderness to live in

00:46:00.800 | or whether you should go

00:46:02.800 | to your dad's garage apartment

00:46:03.800 | or to his garage

00:46:05.800 | and put your tent inside of it

00:46:06.800 | or whether you should go to

00:46:07.800 | the local

00:46:12.800 | rent-by-the-week hotel room

00:46:13.800 | or whether you should go

00:46:15.800 | and get a perfectly ordinary apartment

00:46:16.800 | for $2,000 a month.

00:46:18.800 | You don't know.

00:46:19.800 | So you have to get a job.

00:46:21.800 | And as soon as you have a job,

00:46:23.800 | you can start making those decisions intelligently.

00:46:25.800 | And as your job changes,

00:46:28.800 | you can change all those situations.

00:46:29.800 | The job will give you

00:46:31.800 | structure for your days.

00:46:35.800 | It will allow you to not be alone,

00:46:37.800 | which is deadly for you.

00:46:39.800 | It will allow you to produce in society

00:46:41.800 | and feel like you have

00:46:43.800 | an opportunity to contribute.

00:46:45.800 | So you've got to get a job.

00:46:48.800 | Now, you shouldn't just go out

00:46:50.800 | and get the first job, right?

00:46:52.800 | Check your runway.

00:46:54.800 | This is why we go back to your assets

00:46:55.800 | and liabilities.

00:46:56.800 | Maybe you quit your job

00:46:57.800 | and you're a full-time trader

00:46:58.800 | and now you've lost all your money

00:46:59.800 | through a bad trade, right?

00:47:00.800 | You were day trading

00:47:01.800 | and boom, it's all gone.

00:47:02.800 | Okay.

00:47:03.800 | If you've got three months of runway,

00:47:06.800 | then do an intelligent job search.

00:47:08.800 | You don't have to just go

00:47:10.800 | and take the first thing,

00:47:11.800 | but focus on it quickly.

00:47:13.800 | Go after it.

00:47:15.800 | One of the biggest assets you have,

00:47:19.800 | especially for my primarily American audience,

00:47:22.800 | is you have access

00:47:26.800 | to one of the world's biggest

00:47:27.800 | and most robust labor markets

00:47:31.800 | that is right now

00:47:33.800 | desperate for workers.

00:47:35.800 | There are jobs galore available to you

00:47:39.800 | in the United States.

00:47:40.800 | So if you have the legal right

00:47:42.800 | to work in the United States

00:47:43.800 | as a US citizen

00:47:45.800 | or a resident of some kind

00:47:46.800 | with a work visa,

00:47:47.800 | you have everything you need

00:47:48.800 | to rebuild your financial life.

00:47:49.800 | I promise you.

00:47:51.800 | It's not always great.

00:47:53.800 | You might be doing entry-level,

00:47:55.800 | but you have everything you need

00:47:56.800 | to rebuild your financial life.

00:47:58.800 | And if you're listening to this podcast,

00:48:01.800 | that tells me

00:48:04.800 | that you're the kind of person

00:48:05.800 | that no matter where you start,

00:48:07.800 | six months from now,

00:48:08.800 | you can be far ahead

00:48:09.800 | of where you start.

00:48:10.800 | I'm convinced

00:48:14.800 | that a good, honest, hardworking person

00:48:17.800 | can go into any kind of just

00:48:19.800 | entry-level retail job

00:48:21.800 | and in six months

00:48:22.800 | be a manager of the place.

00:48:24.800 | There is such a dearth

00:48:26.800 | of work ethic,

00:48:28.800 | responsibility,

00:48:30.800 | reliability,

00:48:32.800 | kindness,

00:48:34.800 | social skills, etc.

00:48:36.800 | that if you just have normal,

00:48:38.800 | ordinary qualifications

00:48:40.800 | in those regards,

00:48:41.800 | you can completely separate yourself

00:48:43.800 | from the competition.

00:48:44.800 | So get yourself a job.

00:48:46.800 | If your job is very low income,

00:48:51.800 | let's assume that

00:48:53.800 | you find something

00:48:54.800 | and you're making $15 an hour.

00:48:55.800 | It's going to be tough

00:48:57.800 | to make it on $15 an hour.

00:48:59.800 | $15 an hour times 40 hours

00:49:03.800 | is $600 a week.

00:49:04.800 | Hopefully you can get more than 40 hours,

00:49:06.800 | but $600 a week,

00:49:07.800 | that's $2,400 a month.

00:49:09.800 | So let's assume that you started there.

00:49:11.800 | Well, if that's all you got,

00:49:15.800 | then now at least you know

00:49:17.800 | what your budget is.

00:49:18.800 | You know what you can do.

00:49:19.800 | You ain't going out

00:49:21.800 | renting an apartment

00:49:22.800 | for $10,000 a month.

00:49:23.800 | You're going to be possibly

00:49:25.800 | putting a tent in your dad's backyard.

00:49:26.800 | But at least you have

00:49:28.800 | a starting place.

00:49:29.800 | And you can go on

00:49:31.800 | and start making decisions.

00:49:32.800 | So get to work.

00:49:33.800 | Do not allow yourself

00:49:36.800 | to be alone.

00:49:37.800 | And most importantly,

00:49:39.800 | do not allow yourself

00:49:40.800 | to be alone,

00:49:41.800 | sucked into the electronic vortex

00:49:43.800 | of a social media feed.

00:49:44.800 | I find this to be

00:49:47.800 | a major problem in my own life.

00:49:51.800 | If you fight against it,

00:49:52.800 | 80% success.

00:49:54.800 | The 20% failures though,

00:49:56.800 | make me miserable.

00:49:58.800 | You sit there on Twitter

00:49:59.800 | following this thread,

00:50:00.800 | that thread,

00:50:01.800 | this thread,

00:50:02.800 | that thread,

00:50:03.800 | whatever your platform of choice is.

00:50:04.800 | And it just,

00:50:06.800 | it makes you feel worse

00:50:07.800 | and worse and worse and worse.

00:50:08.800 | Real life is not like that.

00:50:10.800 | Real life is engaging.

00:50:13.800 | And so one of your goals

00:50:15.800 | needs to be to get around people

00:50:16.800 | as much as possible.

00:50:17.800 | Get around people at work,

00:50:21.800 | even get around people physically.

00:50:23.800 | If you're single

00:50:24.800 | and you've lost everything,

00:50:25.800 | don't sit at home in your apartment.

00:50:27.800 | At least go to a coffee shop

00:50:29.800 | and work there,

00:50:31.800 | even if you don't buy anything,

00:50:32.800 | or go to a park,

00:50:34.800 | or just be around people

00:50:35.800 | so you don't feel isolated.

00:50:36.800 | If you've got family,

00:50:39.800 | wife, children, parents, whatever,

00:50:41.800 | get around them.

00:50:42.800 | Get around friends

00:50:43.800 | as much as possible.

00:50:44.800 | Be with real people

00:50:45.800 | who can look you in the face,

00:50:47.800 | commiserate with you,

00:50:48.800 | empathize with you,

00:50:49.800 | encourage you,

00:50:50.800 | slap you in the head.

00:50:51.800 | Don't be around

00:50:53.800 | the digital hordes of people

00:50:55.800 | who you know nothing about,

00:50:57.800 | who pump into you

00:50:59.800 | nasty stuff.

00:51:01.800 | Be around real people.

00:51:04.800 | Look at

00:51:10.800 | what you're going through

00:51:11.800 | as an opportunity

00:51:12.800 | to change everything.

00:51:13.800 | One of the things that's interesting

00:51:16.800 | about life,

00:51:17.800 | people talk about,

00:51:18.800 | you've heard the old saying that,

00:51:20.800 | you know,

00:51:21.800 | the first million is the hardest.

00:51:22.800 | I think it truly is.

00:51:23.800 | And there's a real

00:51:25.800 | financial reason to it as well, right?

00:51:26.800 | Once you've got a million bucks,

00:51:27.800 | you can,

00:51:28.800 | the second million is going to be easier

00:51:29.800 | because you got a million dollars

00:51:30.800 | the first time,

00:51:31.800 | you can just do a lot more.

00:51:32.800 | But one of the things that's interesting

00:51:34.800 | is I want you to reflect on your life

00:51:35.800 | and ask yourself,

00:51:37.800 | if I had to start all over again,

00:51:38.800 | what would I start?

00:51:39.800 | What would I do?

00:51:40.800 | And I've played a lot of these games

00:51:42.800 | publicly with things that I've recorded

00:51:44.800 | for the podcast, etc.

00:51:45.800 | But to me,

00:51:47.800 | it's obvious that most of us,

00:51:49.800 | if we went back

00:51:50.800 | a decade to relive

00:51:52.800 | the previous decade,

00:51:53.800 | we could completely do everything

00:51:55.800 | totally differently

00:51:56.800 | and be back where we are

00:51:58.800 | much, much quicker.

00:51:59.800 | I'm telling you,

00:52:01.800 | no matter how bad the scenario,

00:52:04.800 | you're probably three to five years

00:52:06.800 | from a very ordinary looking life.

00:52:09.800 | Let's go in this direction first.

00:52:13.800 | We're going to go in terms of

00:52:14.800 | like physical stuff,

00:52:15.800 | but let's go into finances.

00:52:17.800 | If you find yourself

00:52:18.800 | in a giant mess,

00:52:20.800 | creditors on all sides,

00:52:22.800 | you borrowed money

00:52:23.800 | on your credit cards,

00:52:24.800 | you maxed out your mortgage,

00:52:26.800 | you borrowed money on your credit cards,

00:52:27.800 | you invested all that money

00:52:28.800 | into risky stocks

00:52:29.800 | on a margin account,

00:52:30.800 | you got margin loans

00:52:31.800 | and you lost everything.

00:52:32.800 | All right, let's assume

00:52:33.800 | that you're in the worst case scenario.

00:52:35.800 | You're probably,

00:52:37.800 | number one,

00:52:38.800 | you're some months

00:52:39.800 | from resolution

00:52:40.800 | of the whole situation

00:52:41.800 | and you are three to five years

00:52:43.800 | from a very normal looking life.

00:52:45.800 | Let's talk about resolution.

00:52:48.800 | In the United States,

00:52:49.800 | we are very, very fortunate

00:52:51.800 | to have a wonderful institution

00:52:54.800 | called bankruptcy.

00:52:55.800 | Bankruptcy was invented

00:52:59.800 | to help people

00:53:01.800 | be willing to take risk

00:53:03.800 | and not be saddled

00:53:05.800 | with that risk

00:53:06.800 | for the rest of their lives.

00:53:07.800 | For many years,

00:53:09.800 | I myself wrestled

00:53:11.800 | with the question of bankruptcy.

00:53:12.800 | Let's talk about it for a moment.

00:53:14.800 | The reason I wrestled with it

00:53:16.800 | is first of all,

00:53:17.800 | I'm a Christian

00:53:18.800 | and in the Bible,

00:53:19.800 | people are clearly commanded,

00:53:21.800 | not just Christians,

00:53:22.800 | all people, right?

00:53:23.800 | But of course,

00:53:24.800 | Christians are generally those

00:53:25.800 | who say I'm going to take

00:53:26.800 | the commands of the Bible

00:53:27.800 | very seriously

00:53:28.800 | and seek to conform my life to them,

00:53:29.800 | but commanded to pay your debts.

00:53:32.800 | Commanded to pay your debts.

00:53:34.800 | In fact, it says a wicked man

00:53:36.800 | doesn't pay his debts.

00:53:37.800 | So the Bible is very clear

00:53:38.800 | about pay your debts.

00:53:41.800 | In addition,

00:53:42.800 | I myself had a major

00:53:44.800 | personal family example

00:53:47.800 | of somebody

00:53:49.800 | who didn't declare bankruptcy

00:53:51.800 | because of this sense of honor.

00:53:54.800 | My grandfather

00:53:55.800 | was a farmer.

00:53:57.800 | He was born and raised as a farmer,

00:53:59.800 | but he was also an entrepreneur.

00:54:00.800 | Many farmers are.

00:54:01.800 | And there was a time

00:54:03.800 | in his 30s

00:54:04.800 | where he got involved,

00:54:05.800 | in addition to his farming operations,

00:54:07.800 | he got involved

00:54:08.800 | in a road construction business.

00:54:10.800 | And he had a business partner

00:54:11.800 | and he and his business partner

00:54:12.800 | built their road construction business.

00:54:14.800 | They had a lot of equipment, etc.

00:54:16.800 | My grandfather's from Colorado.

00:54:18.800 | They got a contract

00:54:19.800 | to go to Texas

00:54:20.800 | and build a road.

00:54:21.800 | And so they took the contract.

00:54:23.800 | But when they went to Texas,

00:54:24.800 | they found something

00:54:26.800 | that they had not planned on,

00:54:28.800 | which was the Texas soil.

00:54:30.800 | And long story short,

00:54:32.800 | as I understand it,

00:54:33.800 | the dirt,

00:54:35.800 | the Texas soil

00:54:36.800 | that they were building a road in

00:54:37.800 | basically destroyed their equipment.

00:54:39.800 | It was so...

00:54:40.800 | What's the adjective?

00:54:44.800 | Sandpapery, basically rough.

00:54:45.800 | It was so abrasive

00:54:47.800 | that it destroyed their equipment.

00:54:50.800 | And they wound up

00:54:51.800 | struggling massively

00:54:53.800 | to even finish it.

00:54:55.800 | And in the middle of the thing,

00:54:56.800 | they lost all their money.

00:54:57.800 | They lost all their profit.

00:54:58.800 | They were in huge amounts of debt.

00:55:00.800 | And my grandfather's partner

00:55:03.800 | walked away and said,

00:55:04.800 | "That's it. I'm out.

00:55:05.800 | I'm done with this.

00:55:06.800 | Bob, I'd encourage you

00:55:08.800 | to be done with it too

00:55:09.800 | and declare bankruptcy."

00:55:11.800 | But my grandfather refused to do it.

00:55:13.800 | He went deeply into debt.

00:55:15.800 | He refused to declare bankruptcy.

00:55:17.800 | And he...

00:55:18.800 | And he fought his way out of it.

00:55:21.800 | It took him decades.

00:55:22.800 | But he finally was able

00:55:23.800 | to fight his way out of it,

00:55:24.800 | finish paying off

00:55:25.800 | all of his creditors, etc.

00:55:27.800 | And he never declared bankruptcy.

00:55:29.800 | And he did that because of honor.

00:55:30.800 | He didn't want to be one

00:55:31.800 | who declared bankruptcy.

00:55:34.800 | And so having that

00:55:35.800 | as part of your family heritage

00:55:36.800 | was obviously a big thing.

00:55:37.800 | Because I want to be

00:55:38.800 | that kind of honorable man.

00:55:40.800 | But over the years,

00:55:41.800 | I've thought a lot about this.

00:55:43.800 | And I've come to this conclusion.

00:55:45.800 | I believe that it is perfectly,

00:55:50.800 | morally acceptable

00:55:52.800 | for you to declare bankruptcy

00:55:55.800 | if you can indeed

00:55:56.800 | not pay your creditors.

00:55:58.800 | And my reason for that is

00:56:02.800 | in the modern era,

00:56:03.800 | we all go into

00:56:06.800 | a contract with one another

00:56:09.800 | knowing what the law is.

00:56:11.800 | The way I think about it is this.

00:56:13.800 | If I went to my brother

00:56:16.800 | and I said,

00:56:17.800 | "Hey, brother,

00:56:18.800 | lend me $100,000."

00:56:20.800 | And he lends me $100,000.

00:56:22.800 | And I go broke.

00:56:23.800 | That's very different than

00:56:27.800 | if I go to a commercial lending company

00:56:29.800 | and I say, "Lend me $100,000."

00:56:31.800 | And then I go broke.

00:56:33.800 | Because the commercial lending company

00:56:36.800 | we have clearly spelled out

00:56:38.800 | in our contractual agreement

00:56:40.800 | what will happen

00:56:42.800 | in the result of non-performance.

00:56:44.800 | So if I don't perform on my car loan,

00:56:46.800 | the car lending company will come

00:56:48.800 | and collect my car.

00:56:49.800 | If I don't perform on my mortgage loan,

00:56:51.800 | the house,

00:56:52.800 | the mortgage company will come

00:56:54.800 | and they'll repossess my house,

00:56:55.800 | foreclose on my house and sell it.

00:56:57.800 | If I don't perform on my credit cards,

00:56:59.800 | then the credit card company will come,

00:57:01.800 | they'll sue me in court,

00:57:02.800 | and they'll take my assets

00:57:04.800 | if they get their judgment against me.

00:57:06.800 | Bankruptcy laws are created.

00:57:09.800 | They're public,

00:57:10.800 | they're clearly understood,

00:57:11.800 | and they're a fundamental foundation

00:57:13.800 | of contract law.

00:57:14.800 | And declaring bankruptcy thus

00:57:18.800 | is not an immoral thing to do.

00:57:21.800 | It is contractually expected

00:57:24.800 | with all of its pros and cons

00:57:26.800 | and difficulties, etc.

00:57:27.800 | It is understood that this is part

00:57:30.800 | of the basic agreement of a debt.

00:57:32.800 | And it's the same with your brother

00:57:34.800 | or with a company,

00:57:35.800 | but it has a very different scenario

00:57:37.800 | when you're dealing with a commercial lender,

00:57:39.800 | which is where most of us face our bills.

00:57:43.800 | So if you are in that worst scenario,

00:57:47.800 | and I've wrestled with this for years,

00:57:49.800 | but at this point I feel confident,

00:57:51.800 | bankruptcy court is perfectly available to you,

00:57:55.800 | perfectly reasonable,

00:57:58.800 | and in many situations is the right solution.

00:58:02.800 | Don't rush to declare bankruptcy.

00:58:04.800 | Do not rush to declare bankruptcy.

00:58:06.800 | In many cases,

00:58:07.800 | you should just simply stop paying your creditors first

00:58:10.800 | for a time and then work it out,

00:58:12.800 | try to set up a workout plan.

00:58:13.800 | In many cases, bankruptcy doesn't save you anything.

00:58:16.800 | But you should sit down and do the triage

00:58:19.800 | and figure out where things are going to be.

00:58:21.800 | So let's assume that the worst happens, right?

00:58:24.800 | You're deeply in debt,

00:58:25.800 | you've borrowed everywhere,

00:58:26.800 | put money into your investments,

00:58:28.800 | your investments have been struck down to zero,

00:58:31.800 | and now you've got debts everywhere,

00:58:33.800 | nothing going for you.

00:58:35.800 | You're going to declare bankruptcy.

00:58:37.800 | You're going to lose all of your assets,

00:58:39.800 | except those assets that are exempt

00:58:41.800 | according to the bankruptcy laws of your estate,

00:58:44.800 | and you're going to start over again.

00:58:46.800 | You'll probably have some debts that come through

00:58:48.800 | that survived the bankruptcy, right?

00:58:49.800 | The debt to your brother or something,

00:58:51.800 | a debt that you create a workout plan

00:58:54.800 | or maybe a mortgage that you cover

00:58:56.800 | so you can stay in the house.

00:58:57.800 | But on the other side of bankruptcy court,

00:59:00.800 | you can start again.

00:59:01.800 | And most of those debts will be cleared.

00:59:04.800 | Bankruptcy is going to stay on your credit.

00:59:06.800 | You're not going to have any access to that.

00:59:08.800 | It's going to hinder some of your financial opportunities,

00:59:10.800 | some of your job opportunities,

00:59:11.800 | because you're not going to be able to get certain jobs

00:59:13.800 | because you've declared bankruptcy in the past.

00:59:15.800 | But that's okay.

00:59:16.800 | The world is full and available to you.

00:59:18.800 | And again, you're going to go and you're going to get a job,

00:59:20.800 | you're going to have income,

00:59:21.800 | you're going to start saving money.

00:59:23.800 | Once the whole legal process is settled,

00:59:25.800 | you'll know what you owe your creditors,

00:59:27.800 | how much to whom.

00:59:28.800 | Maybe you'll be working with a bankruptcy trustee

00:59:30.800 | to work your way through,

00:59:32.800 | depending on what chapter of bankruptcy you file,

00:59:34.800 | whether it's a total liquidation or not.

00:59:36.800 | You'll be working your way through those debts

00:59:39.800 | and you'll systematically work your way through the problems.

00:59:42.800 | It's not the end of the world.

00:59:44.800 | And based upon your new situation,

00:59:50.800 | it'll take you six months to save some thousands of dollars.

00:59:54.800 | You'll start to establish yourself.

00:59:56.800 | You'll need to rent an apartment.

00:59:57.800 | You may have to furnish it.

00:59:59.800 | You have to get transportation.

01:00:00.800 | You have to get your children's clothes, etc.

01:00:03.800 | But you're three to five years,

01:00:04.800 | in the worst case scenario,

01:00:05.800 | you're three to five years from living a perfectly normal life.

01:00:10.800 | Five to ten years, probably save enough money,

01:00:13.800 | buy another house, etc.

01:00:16.800 | And what'll happen is you'll do it much smarter

01:00:18.800 | and much faster the next time around.

01:00:22.800 | If you combine all of those personal finance moves

01:00:26.800 | with what we talk about here on the show,

01:00:28.800 | about increasing your income, decreasing your expenses,

01:00:32.800 | being thoughtful and strategic,

01:00:33.800 | even optimizing your lifestyle, which I'll get to in a moment,

01:00:36.800 | this transformation, this massive setback,

01:00:41.800 | can turn out to be one of the biggest blessings of your life

01:00:44.800 | because you have to redesign your life.

01:00:47.800 | It usually doesn't feel like that at the front end,

01:00:50.800 | but on the back end of it,

01:00:52.800 | you'll often come off the other side

01:00:55.800 | with recognizing that it turns out to be a blessing.

01:01:01.800 | Let me give you just two stories.

01:01:03.800 | I've not been bankrupt, or at least not yet.

01:01:06.800 | I hope I don't, but hey, if I do, that's life.

01:01:09.800 | I've not been bankrupt, but I have been laid off.

01:01:12.800 | I'll tell you a story in just a moment

01:01:13.800 | about someone who has been bankrupt.

01:01:14.800 | I have been laid off.

01:01:15.800 | I just remember so much how, and most, many of us have, right?

01:01:19.800 | This is not unique to me,

01:01:20.800 | but when I got laid off in the first couple days,

01:01:24.800 | I was angry about it.

01:01:26.800 | After a couple, after a year, a couple years,

01:01:30.800 | I look back and I was so glad that I had gotten laid off

01:01:33.800 | because it gave me a chance to reset,

01:01:36.800 | and the decision was made for me.

01:01:38.800 | It's not a decision I would have chosen,

01:01:40.800 | but the decision was made for me.

01:01:43.800 | In my case, I got laid off in the fall of 2008.

01:01:46.800 | I had been planning to leave the company I was working for

01:01:49.800 | in January 1 of 2009.

01:01:51.800 | In hindsight, I don't think I would have had the guts to leave

01:01:54.800 | because the world was falling apart.

01:01:56.800 | And so the fact that they laid me off,

01:01:58.800 | and sorry, it was the summer of 2008, in July, June or July.

01:02:02.800 | The fact that they laid me off in the summer of 2008

01:02:04.800 | turned out to be a blessing

01:02:05.800 | because the decision was made and I could go forward,

01:02:08.800 | and even though I was facing a bad economy

01:02:10.800 | and a recession, et cetera,

01:02:11.800 | I was able to go forward because my hand was forced.

01:02:14.800 | You hear this a lot of people when they get divorced.

01:02:18.800 | Before the divorce, they say, "Oh, I don't want to."

01:02:21.800 | It's this impending thing that's over their head,

01:02:24.800 | but finally when the divorce is finalized, they accept it.

01:02:27.800 | You accept, the divorce is done.

01:02:30.800 | I've got to press forward and I've got to build a new life.

01:02:33.800 | And in many cases, talk to them a few years later,

01:02:36.800 | and while they wouldn't choose that path,

01:02:39.800 | they can reflect on the blessings

01:02:42.800 | that they've received from that path,

01:02:44.800 | and they can say, "Okay, I'm going to press forward

01:02:46.800 | and I'm glad for these things."

01:02:48.800 | The story I was going to tell you

01:02:49.800 | was one of my favorites, Dan Sullivan,

01:02:51.800 | the great strategic coach founder.

01:02:54.800 | Dan Sullivan, I think in the '70s, he was a young man.

01:02:57.800 | He got divorced and declared bankruptcy on the same day.

01:03:04.800 | He'd had a bunch of problems.

01:03:06.800 | He said that he, let's see, he did divorce in the morning.

01:03:09.800 | Literally, he went to divorce court in the morning,

01:03:11.800 | finalized his divorce, went out, had lunch,

01:03:14.800 | went to court in the afternoon, finalized his bankruptcy.

01:03:16.800 | Divorced and bankrupt on the same day.

01:03:19.800 | Now, when you hear him talk about it now as an older man

01:03:22.800 | and he reflects back on it,

01:03:24.800 | he looks back to that as a tremendously difficult thing,

01:03:27.800 | but also as one of the great blessings of his life

01:03:30.800 | because he was forced by circumstances

01:03:33.800 | to recognize that he's screwed everything up

01:03:36.800 | and he's going to have to do something differently.

01:03:38.800 | He made a certain number of life decisions

01:03:41.800 | that from now on, I'm going to live my life this way.

01:03:45.800 | Well, fast forward decades later,

01:03:47.800 | he's exceedingly wealthy, married, wealthy,

01:03:51.800 | huge business, huge prestige and influence

01:03:54.800 | all around the world, lives a dream life.

01:03:57.800 | So bankruptcy is not the end of the world.

01:04:00.800 | That's, in the Western context,

01:04:02.800 | that's the worst that you're facing financially is bankruptcy.

01:04:06.800 | Now, if you're not bankrupt,

01:04:08.800 | again, you're probably still three to five years away.

01:04:12.800 | So, some people faster,

01:04:15.800 | but if you're more than five years away

01:04:16.800 | with a non-bankruptcy plan,

01:04:18.800 | then usually bankruptcy is going to be a better situation.

01:04:20.800 | But your next time through,

01:04:22.800 | even if you've lost everything,

01:04:23.800 | your next time through, you're going to do it smarter,

01:04:25.800 | do it better.

01:04:26.800 | You're going to make wiser decisions.

01:04:28.800 | You're going to be more aggressive.

01:04:29.800 | You're going to make more money.

01:04:30.800 | You're going to keep lower expenses.

01:04:31.800 | You'll quickly rebuild your accounts.

01:04:33.800 | You'll focus on making wiser investments

01:04:35.800 | so you don't lose them.

01:04:36.800 | Step by step by step,

01:04:37.800 | you're in a much better situation.

01:04:41.800 | 10 years from now,

01:04:43.800 | you can be financially independent.

01:04:45.800 | That's what we talk about here at Radical Personal Finance.

01:04:47.800 | 10 years from now,

01:04:48.800 | you can be financially independent,

01:04:49.800 | financially free.

01:04:50.800 | Various paths open to you,

01:04:52.800 | but you can do it.

01:04:55.800 | One of the best things about,

01:04:57.800 | let's talk for a moment

01:04:59.800 | about a truly dire circumstance.

01:05:02.800 | I want you to imagine,

01:05:03.800 | I mentioned on yesterday's show,

01:05:04.800 | I want you to imagine you're Alex Jones.

01:05:10.800 | You've been found by a court.

01:05:13.800 | Oh, what was it?

01:05:14.800 | I mean, they should have just said trillions of dollars,

01:05:16.800 | but $1.5 billion,

01:05:18.800 | something like that,

01:05:19.800 | final settlement,

01:05:20.800 | awarded him another $437 million judgment yesterday.

01:05:25.800 | So here's what's interesting about this.

01:05:27.800 | So you're clearly bankrupt.

01:05:30.800 | The question is what form of bankruptcy you are

01:05:34.800 | and what the ultimate payout winds up being.

01:05:38.800 | How do you do it?

01:05:42.800 | So I don't know what Jones is going to do.

01:05:45.800 | But the reason I say that is that

01:05:46.800 | when you go bankrupt because of a court order,

01:05:49.800 | that's very different than some other bankruptcies

01:05:51.800 | because there are certain super creditors

01:05:55.800 | that can intervene.

01:05:56.800 | The IRS is treated differently.

01:05:58.800 | Tax debt is treated differently in a bankruptcy proceeding

01:06:00.800 | than if you just had credit card debt.

01:06:03.800 | I don't know the intricacies of law that he's facing

01:06:06.800 | with regard to a court order.

01:06:08.800 | But even if you wind up facing a debt

01:06:11.800 | that you can never pay,

01:06:13.800 | even this is an option for you.

01:06:15.800 | My favorite story on this regard

01:06:17.800 | is the story of Randy Alcorn.

01:06:20.800 | Back in the 1980s,

01:06:21.800 | Randy Alcorn was involved in an anti-abortion movement

01:06:25.800 | called Operation Rescue.

01:06:26.800 | Randy Alcorn is a Christian preacher.

01:06:28.800 | Planned Parenthood and various pro-abortion advocates

01:06:33.800 | were very successful at that time

01:06:35.800 | in passing a wave of new laws

01:06:38.800 | about special protections for abortion mills.

01:06:42.800 | Alcorn was arrested for protesting

01:06:45.800 | in front of these abortion mills

01:06:47.800 | and he wound up losing his case.

01:06:50.800 | So in the court case,

01:06:52.800 | he was forced by the judge and the judgment

01:06:57.800 | to make a huge payout to Planned Parenthood,

01:07:00.800 | millions of dollars.

01:07:01.800 | And Alcorn, due to his conscience,

01:07:03.800 | said, "I will never pay Planned Parenthood a cent.

01:07:07.800 | "I'm never going to do it.

01:07:09.800 | "I'm not going to pay them anything."

01:07:10.800 | If you go back and you read his books,

01:07:12.800 | he's written a number of excellent books on money,

01:07:14.800 | it's quite interesting because that moment to him

01:07:16.800 | was such a freeing moment

01:07:18.800 | where in order for him to never pay that judgment

01:07:21.800 | to Planned Parenthood,

01:07:22.800 | it meant that he could not have any money.

01:07:26.800 | Because if he had any money,

01:07:28.800 | Planned Parenthood had a judgment against him

01:07:30.800 | that they were going to be able to come and collect from it.

01:07:32.800 | And so for decades,

01:07:34.800 | until the judgment expired,

01:07:36.800 | for decades,

01:07:37.800 | he could never earn more than minimum wage

01:07:41.800 | because he had a minimum wage

01:07:42.800 | that was protected by the laws of his state

01:07:44.800 | that the predator could not garnish.

01:07:50.800 | And so he was protected.

01:07:52.800 | But that freeing,

01:07:53.800 | he found it an incredibly freeing feeling to say,

01:07:57.800 | "I can't accumulate any money.

01:07:59.800 | "I cannot accumulate money

01:08:00.800 | "because otherwise Planned Parenthood will come and take it

01:08:02.800 | "and I will not contribute to their evil."

01:08:06.800 | And so he was guaranteed to be poor.

01:08:11.800 | But it was an incredibly freeing thing for him.

01:08:14.800 | And I myself actually use this

01:08:16.800 | as a standard coaching question when I coach people.

01:08:21.800 | One of my favorite ways that I phrase the question is this.

01:08:25.800 | I say to people,

01:08:27.800 | usually we'll talk about,

01:08:28.800 | "Hey, if you were wealthy, what would you do?" etc.

01:08:30.800 | But the way that I phrase it now is this.

01:08:32.800 | I say, "Let's play a game.

01:08:36.800 | "I want you to assume that I'm your accountant.

01:08:42.800 | "And I call you up and I say, 'Listen, Joe,

01:08:47.800 | "'I got bad news for you.

01:08:49.800 | "'Bad news is this.

01:08:51.800 | "'I know you thought I was doing a good job

01:08:53.800 | "'in preparing your tax returns properly for you,

01:08:56.800 | "'but in reality, what I've actually been doing

01:08:59.800 | "'is I've been filing false tax returns with the IRS

01:09:02.800 | "'and I've been embezzling and swindling the money

01:09:05.800 | "'that I've been getting from them.

01:09:07.800 | "'And so you, unfortunately, Joe,

01:09:09.800 | "'are now in the situation

01:09:10.800 | "'where you owe the IRS $58 bajillion.

01:09:14.800 | "'And I'm sorry, but this means that

01:09:16.800 | "'for the rest of your life,

01:09:18.800 | "'you're going to have to pay this debt.'"

01:09:20.800 | And, "Yeah, I know, but they caught me.

01:09:22.800 | "I'm going to go to prison, but I promise you, Joe,

01:09:24.800 | "there's no way to get out of it."

01:09:25.800 | "You owe the IRS $58 bajillion."

01:09:28.800 | So what that means, Joe,

01:09:29.800 | is you're never going to be able to own anything

01:09:32.800 | for the rest of your life.

01:09:34.800 | Because if you own it,

01:09:35.800 | then the IRS is going to come and they're going to seize it.

01:09:38.800 | You're never going to be able to accumulate any money.

01:09:41.800 | Because if you have any money left in your bank account

01:09:43.800 | at the end of the month,

01:09:44.800 | then the IRS is going to swoop in

01:09:46.800 | and they're going to take it.

01:09:48.800 | So my question, Joe, is if that happened,

01:09:52.800 | what would you do?

01:09:54.800 | What would you do if you knew you could never retire?

01:09:57.800 | What would you do if you knew

01:09:58.800 | you could never accumulate any money?

01:10:00.800 | What would you do?

01:10:03.800 | How would you live?

01:10:05.800 | If you find yourself at the moment destitute financially

01:10:09.800 | because of a business loss or an FTX implosion or whatever,

01:10:13.800 | I urge you to think about that.

01:10:16.800 | What would you do?

01:10:18.800 | I could tell you exactly what I would do myself.

01:10:22.800 | First thing I would focus on is,

01:10:24.800 | where do I want to live?

01:10:26.800 | And I would choose to live in a place that I loved.

01:10:29.800 | I said I would live in a place that I loved.

01:10:32.800 | I would choose to live in a place that I loved.

01:10:35.800 | Myself, I'd probably choose a mountain town somewhere,

01:10:38.800 | Utah, Colorado, something like that.

01:10:40.800 | Kind of a ski town type of thing.

01:10:43.800 | Montana.

01:10:45.800 | I'd live in the United States in that scenario.

01:10:49.800 | As long-time listeners know,

01:10:51.800 | although I think there are many places in the world

01:10:52.800 | that have a lot to offer,

01:10:53.800 | I think the United States has a lot to offer.

01:10:56.800 | That would be the first thing,

01:10:57.800 | is I'd choose carefully a place to live that I loved

01:11:00.800 | and offered me a really cool lifestyle.

01:11:04.800 | Second thing that I would focus on is

01:11:08.800 | making sure that I'm around people that I like.

01:11:10.800 | I want to love my neighbors.

01:11:11.800 | I want to be with the family members, etc. that I like.

01:11:13.800 | And the third thing I'd focus on is

01:11:15.800 | I'd focus on getting a job that was well-suited to me.

01:11:18.800 | I myself, I'd probably go and be a teacher.

01:11:20.800 | If I couldn't be a college professor, that would be ideal.

01:11:23.800 | I don't have a PhD myself,

01:11:25.800 | so I don't think I have the credentials necessary

01:11:27.800 | to be a college professor.

01:11:28.800 | I'm not sure actually what I'm interested in teaching

01:11:29.800 | at the college level,

01:11:30.800 | but I would love to go and be a high school teacher.

01:11:34.800 | I would teach something like economics, history,

01:11:38.800 | politics, government, civics, personal finance,

01:11:42.800 | something like that.

01:11:43.800 | I'd go be a high school teacher.

01:11:46.800 | I wouldn't make a ton of money,

01:11:48.800 | but I would make enough money to live comfortably on.

01:11:52.800 | And by being thoughtful and strategic

01:11:54.800 | and surrounding myself with work that I'm passionate about,

01:11:57.800 | meaning to be able to impact people with ideas,

01:12:00.800 | to be able to inspire, to be able to teach, etc,

01:12:03.800 | I would enjoy going to work every day.

01:12:06.800 | And by choosing a job that has a comfortable work-life balance,

01:12:10.800 | go to work at 7, get out at 3,

01:12:13.800 | do that 180 days a year,

01:12:15.800 | the other 180 days of the year I'm off,

01:12:18.800 | life is good.

01:12:20.800 | This is a much lower workload

01:12:21.800 | than virtually anyone has had throughout history.

01:12:25.800 | On my grandfather's day, the standard work week

01:12:27.800 | was 10 hours a day, 6 days a week.

01:12:31.800 | That would give me plenty of time for other things.

01:12:34.800 | If I couldn't earn money,

01:12:35.800 | I would take the balance of my time,

01:12:37.800 | I would pick a problem in the world

01:12:40.800 | that I'm passionate about

01:12:42.800 | and focus my efforts on seeking to solve that.

01:12:47.800 | Could be something local, my neighborhood.

01:12:52.800 | Could be something in my state.

01:12:54.800 | Could be something online, kind of a macro problem.

01:12:58.800 | Various ways of solving it.

01:13:00.800 | And then I would focus on enjoying being in my local community.

01:13:03.800 | I'd join a local church, build strong friendships,

01:13:09.800 | relationships, etc.

01:13:12.800 | Now, none of that requires you to accumulate money.

01:13:15.800 | None of that requires you to be wealthy.

01:13:17.800 | It just so happens that there are some nice things, right?

01:13:19.800 | If I went and got a job at a government school being a teacher,

01:13:22.800 | I'd probably have a government pension of some kind.

01:13:24.800 | That's nice.

01:13:25.800 | But I'd try to choose a career

01:13:27.800 | that I could continue for a long time.

01:13:28.800 | My goal with teaching would be to be able to teach

01:13:30.800 | until I was 85, 90 years old.

01:13:33.800 | My grandfather taught until he was in his early 80s.

01:13:36.800 | So, that's doable.

01:13:39.800 | You think about it, but the point is that money is not necessary,

01:13:43.800 | being wealthy is not necessary for you to live a great life.

01:13:48.800 | So play that game out.

01:13:51.800 | You're sitting in your room thinking your life is over

01:13:53.800 | because you lost all your money.

01:13:56.800 | My friend, it's not.

01:13:59.800 | You don't owe the IRS $58 bajillion

01:14:02.800 | such that you'll never be able to save money.

01:14:04.800 | You're 3 to 5 years away from a radically different life.

01:14:09.800 | Everything is available to you.

01:14:12.800 | It's not the end of the world.

01:14:15.800 | Let's go on and talk about some disciplines.

01:14:17.800 | I mentioned yesterday on the show things like exercise, sun, etc.

01:14:22.800 | What I've tried so far in this show to emphasize

01:14:26.800 | is that the war is in your own head with your own thoughts,

01:14:33.800 | not external.

01:14:35.800 | I can solve all your financial problems,

01:14:37.800 | coach you through all the right financial decisions.

01:14:39.800 | Anyone else can too.

01:14:41.800 | It's not me.

01:14:43.800 | Get the money stuff on paper where you can look at it,

01:14:46.800 | sit down with an informed person.

01:14:48.800 | If you're broke, bankrupt right now,

01:14:51.800 | I encourage you to write out all the numbers.

01:14:55.800 | Create a balance sheet, cash flow statement, etc.

01:14:58.800 | Find somebody that is around the money business.

01:15:02.800 | Local accountant, buddy of yours who's a businessman,

01:15:06.800 | attorney, financial advisor, insurance agent,

01:15:09.800 | somebody who's around the business.

01:15:11.800 | Sit down and say, "I need to talk to somebody.

01:15:13.800 | I need some help.

01:15:14.800 | I've screwed up.

01:15:15.800 | I lost a bunch of money.

01:15:16.800 | My business went broke.

01:15:17.800 | What do I do?

01:15:18.800 | What would you do in these numbers?"

01:15:19.800 | Start getting counsel on that.

01:15:21.800 | The point is that the number stuff is easy.

01:15:24.800 | What's not easy is winning the war in your head.

01:15:27.800 | In order to win the war in your head,

01:15:30.800 | you need a variety of tactics.

01:15:33.800 | Positive thinking isn't enough.

01:15:35.800 | It's a good start.

01:15:37.800 | Failure is an event.

01:15:38.800 | It's not a person.

01:15:39.800 | It's a good start, but you can say that to yourself

01:15:41.800 | and still be in a pretty bad spot.

01:15:43.800 | Let's talk about at least what I focus on.

01:15:46.800 | I'm no psychologist, psychiatrist.

01:15:47.800 | They probably have more things that can help you,

01:15:50.800 | but here's what I focus on.

01:15:55.800 | Number one, you need to be honest,

01:16:00.800 | and you need to be free, mentally free,

01:16:03.800 | spiritually free.

01:16:06.800 | Honest with yourself.

01:16:08.800 | That's what the process is, but honest with others.

01:16:11.800 | If you lost a million dollars,

01:16:13.800 | and that was the family's life savings,

01:16:16.800 | you can't keep that to yourself.

01:16:18.800 | You got to go to your wife.

01:16:19.800 | You got to go to your husband.

01:16:20.800 | You got to go to whomever and acknowledge it.

01:16:23.800 | If other people were involved, you got to say,

01:16:25.800 | "Here's what happened.

01:16:26.800 | I screwed up."

01:16:27.800 | You got to clear it out and be honest.

01:16:30.800 | The very first element of forgiveness is confession.

01:16:42.800 | You must always confess your sins,

01:16:46.800 | confess your mistakes, confess those things.

01:16:51.800 | You need to focus on identifying and admitting

01:16:55.800 | where you were wrong, what you did wrong.

01:16:59.800 | If you made a mistake, try to identify

01:17:01.800 | why did you make the mistake?

01:17:04.800 | What did you do wrong?

01:17:07.800 | This honesty is important for yourself

01:17:10.800 | so that you can learn from the lesson.

01:17:13.800 | The only thing that makes a horrible mistake worse

01:17:17.800 | is not learning anything from it

01:17:18.800 | and going through it again.

01:17:21.800 | So when you make a mistake, when you screw up,

01:17:24.800 | learn from it.

01:17:25.800 | At least that way, you got some benefit from it.

01:17:29.800 | And so identify what it is.

01:17:32.800 | If you defrauded somebody,

01:17:35.800 | you need to go and acknowledge,

01:17:36.800 | "I defrauded you.

01:17:38.800 | I swindled you."

01:17:40.800 | If you've just simply made a mistake,

01:17:42.800 | you may acknowledge it.

01:17:44.800 | Acknowledge where you are

01:17:46.800 | so that you can build for the future.

01:17:49.800 | By acknowledging it out loud, verbally,

01:17:52.800 | confessing it if you're single,

01:17:54.800 | find a friend that you trust

01:17:55.800 | and acknowledge what's going on.

01:17:57.800 | Don't try to maintain a facade of who you are.

01:18:02.800 | Be honest.

01:18:05.800 | Almost all things can be forgiven.

01:18:10.800 | First of all, certainly all things can be forgiven by God.

01:18:15.800 | And if you have God's forgiveness,

01:18:16.800 | what else matters?

01:18:18.800 | But even by other people,

01:18:19.800 | when you are honest

01:18:21.800 | and you honestly acknowledge what you've done wrong,

01:18:24.800 | again, if it's on the level of a moral level,

01:18:27.800 | such as fraud or something like that,

01:18:29.800 | acknowledge it.

01:18:30.800 | If it's just on the level of mistake,

01:18:31.800 | acknowledge, "Here's the mistake I made.

01:18:33.800 | I trusted FTX.

01:18:36.800 | It seemed smart, right?

01:18:37.800 | Tom Brady said I should."

01:18:39.800 | Well, now we've learned a hard lesson.

01:18:42.800 | This sucks.

01:18:43.800 | It really sucks.

01:18:44.800 | But this is--

01:18:45.800 | Now we learn, I shouldn't have trusted.

01:18:47.800 | But acknowledge the mistakes and confess them.

01:18:49.800 | Get them out there clearly.

01:18:52.800 | Learn the lessons from them.

01:18:55.800 | And by acknowledging them,

01:18:56.800 | you can bring yourself to a place of peace.

01:18:58.800 | It's not to say the road ahead is going to be easy,

01:19:01.800 | but the worst thing is to still have that stuff in your head

01:19:03.800 | or be harboring secrets

01:19:05.800 | or trying to maintain an image or a facade

01:19:07.800 | of the way that you want people to see you

01:19:09.800 | instead of acknowledging it.

01:19:11.800 | When you do that,

01:19:12.800 | it may feel like it,

01:19:13.800 | but it's pride.

01:19:15.800 | It's stupid pride.

01:19:16.800 | And what it does is it keeps anybody

01:19:17.800 | from stepping in and helping you.

01:19:20.800 | So the first step is acknowledging it.

01:19:22.800 | Think of how effective this is in the AA

01:19:25.800 | and various anonymous groups.

01:19:27.800 | You step in and you say,

01:19:28.800 | "This is who I am and this is what I've done."

01:19:30.800 | And everyone else says,

01:19:31.800 | "Yeah, we know.

01:19:32.800 | We've been there too."

01:19:33.800 | So acknowledge it.

01:19:34.800 | Acknowledge the problem.

01:19:37.800 | I'm not necessarily saying to broadcast it.

01:19:40.800 | You should acknowledge it to people

01:19:41.800 | who love you and can help you.

01:19:44.800 | But in terms of acknowledging it,

01:19:46.800 | you want to be focused on actually acknowledging it.

01:19:52.800 | By verbally, openly acknowledging where you are,

01:19:57.800 | you can achieve peace with the situation

01:20:01.800 | and start to rebuild.

01:20:03.800 | You can eliminate the mental torture.

01:20:06.800 | You can face the facts honestly and forthrightly.

01:20:11.800 | No matter how ugly those facts are,

01:20:15.800 | at least if you can face them directly,

01:20:19.800 | you can achieve that mental freedom

01:20:21.800 | to know what to do next.

01:20:23.800 | But if it's all wrapped up in your head,

01:20:25.800 | then it ain't going to work.

01:20:29.800 | Next is get counsel.

01:20:31.800 | We've talked about that extensively,

01:20:33.800 | but the point is don't try to fight it alone.

01:20:35.800 | So get advice, get counsel.

01:20:37.800 | That advice and that counsel

01:20:38.800 | could be specific to the situation.

01:20:41.800 | You may need financial advice.

01:20:42.800 | You may need to talk to a bankruptcy attorney.

01:20:44.800 | You may need to talk to a friend in business,

01:20:46.800 | kind of determine how and best to fight through.

01:20:49.800 | You may need to talk to an accountant.

01:20:50.800 | You may need to talk to your landlord,

01:20:51.800 | explain that you're not going to be able to pay your rent.

01:20:54.800 | Get advice and counsel.

01:20:56.800 | But also in terms of your brain,

01:20:58.800 | get advice and counsel.

01:21:00.800 | Speak to a friend.

01:21:01.800 | Explain to your friend what you're going through

01:21:04.800 | and how the world is black.

01:21:05.800 | Talk to your pastor.

01:21:07.800 | Talk to a psychiatrist.

01:21:08.800 | Talk to a counselor, a therapist.

01:21:11.800 | Seek out counsel that is appropriate

01:21:14.800 | so that you can verbalize the problems

01:21:16.800 | and not try to solve them all in your head.

01:21:19.800 | Next, I fundamentally believe that exercise

01:21:22.800 | is one of the most important habits to build in.

01:21:26.800 | I have failed at this again and again and again in my life.

01:21:30.800 | When I succeed,

01:21:32.800 | as thankfully I'm succeeding myself at the moment,

01:21:34.800 | I see the positive impact.

01:21:37.800 | But as a human being,

01:21:39.800 | you need to set up a system of exercise for yourself.

01:21:43.800 | That should probably be just simply going out and walking.

01:21:46.800 | Leave your phone behind.

01:21:48.800 | Find a nice place to walk,

01:21:50.800 | a nice park or wherever you have appropriate

01:21:52.800 | and go out and walk 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes.

01:21:56.800 | Get your brain right.

01:21:58.800 | And moving will affect your brain.

01:22:02.800 | Tony Robbins' thing for years,

01:22:03.800 | that your mental state can be produced--

01:22:06.800 | your mental state can change your physical state,

01:22:09.800 | but it goes the other way as well.

01:22:11.800 | So you can change your mental state to affect--

01:22:13.800 | excuse me, change your physical state to change your mental state.

01:22:16.800 | You can do his exercises.

01:22:17.800 | You can do other people's great exercises if you're hardcore.

01:22:20.800 | But just focus on physical exercise.

01:22:24.800 | A man who has physical daily activity,

01:22:27.800 | a hard walk, hiking the hills,

01:22:30.800 | a hard session with the weights,

01:22:31.800 | going to the boxing gym, etc.,

01:22:34.800 | is going to be better in all of these situations

01:22:37.800 | than the man who sits around and mopes in his own misery.

01:22:40.800 | Inactivity and sedentary lifestyle

01:22:43.800 | will make everything you're facing worse.

01:22:45.800 | And so find something that's available to you.

01:22:48.800 | I think it's ideal if it fits for you to do something that is social.

01:22:53.800 | So joining a local boxing gym

01:22:55.800 | or being at a gym where there's people,

01:22:57.800 | especially if there's friends or there's a class or something like that,

01:23:00.800 | can again help to activate that social connection

01:23:04.800 | to where you're not alone all the time.

01:23:06.800 | Don't be alone all the time

01:23:08.800 | because everything is worse when you're alone.

01:23:10.800 | Next, sunshine.

01:23:12.800 | Make it a specific habit

01:23:15.800 | to make sure that you're getting abundant sunshine.

01:23:18.800 | Your brain and your body need sunshine to feel good.

01:23:22.800 | And so figure out how to regularly get consistent sunshine.

01:23:28.800 | And there's more that could be said,

01:23:33.800 | but I've covered it and I'll be repeating myself.

01:23:35.800 | Social connection, go to church,

01:23:38.800 | go to be with people,

01:23:40.800 | have an anchoring point and don't try to fight it alone.

01:23:43.800 | As human beings, we're not meant to be alone,

01:23:45.800 | and you can work your way through it.

01:23:49.800 | I believe that concludes everything that I want to say.

01:23:53.800 | I didn't have a tight outline for this show,

01:23:55.800 | so I hope that my comments were sufficiently coherent to help you.

01:24:03.800 | I just want to remind you and inspire you

01:24:10.800 | that this is all doable.

01:24:12.800 | And let me talk for just a moment about the black path.

01:24:19.800 | Do not kill yourself.

01:24:23.800 | I've tried to discuss

01:24:27.800 | and I've tried to put this into proper perspective

01:24:29.800 | by saying it's only money.

01:24:30.800 | That's been my focus.

01:24:34.800 | Many times people with money kill themselves,

01:24:37.800 | and people kill themselves for other reasons too.

01:24:40.800 | What's remarkable about our brains

01:24:42.800 | is how even when things are going well,

01:24:46.800 | we wind up doing stupid stuff.

01:24:48.800 | And I don't even pretend to understand

01:24:54.800 | what people who are suicidal go through.

01:24:59.800 | There's clearly a wide variety.

01:25:02.800 | But I guess what I want to say is

01:25:05.800 | what always stands out to me is

01:25:07.800 | you can be one of the most successful guys in the world

01:25:11.800 | and still put the gun in your mouth.

01:25:14.800 | So it's just astonishing.

01:25:17.800 | Probably the biggest one for me,

01:25:19.800 | because I always loved him so much,

01:25:20.800 | was Anthony Bourdain.

01:25:22.800 | Here's a guy who has the dream life

01:25:25.800 | and yet still winds up...

01:25:28.800 | It's sad.

01:25:30.800 | So just recognize that

01:25:33.800 | ending the pain the way that you're thinking of doing it,

01:25:37.800 | if that's your situation,

01:25:38.800 | it's not going to end anything.

01:25:40.800 | It's just going to make more pain.

01:25:42.800 | First of all, recognize very clearly

01:25:45.800 | if you commit suicide,

01:25:47.800 | you are murdering someone,

01:25:49.800 | which is a grave sin.

01:25:52.800 | You must never murder someone,

01:25:54.800 | especially yourself.

01:25:57.800 | Don't do it.

01:25:59.800 | Acknowledge also that

01:26:01.800 | it's going to make everything worse

01:26:03.800 | for everyone around you.

01:26:06.800 | One of the most selfish things you could possibly do.

01:26:11.800 | And the only reason...

01:26:14.800 | If you're suicidal for some other reason,

01:26:16.800 | again, I don't understand it.

01:26:19.800 | I've been in pretty black places,

01:26:22.800 | never contemplated suicide,

01:26:24.800 | so I acknowledge that.

01:26:26.800 | But if you're there because of money,

01:26:28.800 | if you're thinking that,

01:26:29.800 | "Oh, financially this is going to fix everything,

01:26:32.800 | because I got a life insurance policy or whatever,"

01:26:35.800 | it's not.

01:26:36.800 | It's going to be far worse.

01:26:38.800 | And what pisses me off so much

01:26:42.800 | is when people don't just open their mouth

01:26:44.800 | and talk about it,

01:26:45.800 | because we can fix it.

01:26:46.800 | I'm hoping to convey to you

01:26:48.800 | the confidence that I have

01:26:49.800 | that you can fix the finances.

01:26:52.800 | There's no financial problem that you can bring me

01:26:54.800 | that I can't fix.

01:26:55.800 | I can't guarantee you're going to be a billionaire, obviously.

01:26:57.800 | What I mean is you can live a really great life

01:27:01.800 | no matter how deep your hole is right now.

01:27:05.800 | So this is all a mirage,

01:27:06.800 | all this mental game of,

01:27:07.800 | "Oh, I lost all my money,

01:27:08.800 | so I'm just going to kill myself because it's over."

01:27:10.800 | You idiot, it's not over.

01:27:12.800 | Don't be stupid.

01:27:13.800 | Don't be a coward.

01:27:14.800 | Step up and fix it

01:27:16.800 | and make yourself someone to be proud of

01:27:19.800 | by facing your problems

01:27:21.800 | and tackling them and fixing them.

01:27:24.800 | Don't be stupid and a coward

01:27:26.800 | and think, "Oh, I lost all my money,

01:27:28.800 | so there I'm going to go and kill myself."

01:27:32.800 | That would be the stupidest possible thing you could do.

01:27:38.800 | As a human being,

01:27:40.800 | a creature made in the image of God,

01:27:42.800 | put here on this earth

01:27:45.800 | to rule and to reign here and now,

01:27:49.800 | you owe it to yourself

01:27:51.800 | to use your setback and transform yourself.

01:27:55.800 | And you owe it to your fellow travelers

01:27:57.800 | who are also facing tragedy,

01:27:59.800 | in many cases vastly worse

01:28:01.800 | than the tragedy that you're facing.

01:28:03.800 | You owe it to them to be an inspirational example

01:28:06.800 | of somebody who presses forward

01:28:08.800 | and solves his problems

01:28:10.800 | rather than sitting back

01:28:11.800 | and taking the coward's way out.

01:28:18.800 | Just think for a moment,

01:28:20.800 | how many men,

01:28:23.800 | a guy like Dan Sullivan,

01:28:25.800 | has inspired over the years

01:28:27.800 | with his story of divorce and bankruptcy

01:28:31.800 | on the same day.

01:28:35.800 | Think of how big his impact has been.

01:28:42.800 | The premier entrepreneur's coach in the world

01:28:46.800 | coached thousands and thousands of high performers.

01:28:51.800 | The hardship, the tragedy,

01:28:54.800 | is the tool that can be used to better the world.

01:28:58.800 | Think of the story I told you about my grandfather.

01:29:01.800 | Just imagine my grandfather,

01:29:03.800 | failed in business, bankrupt, etc.,

01:29:05.800 | puts a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

01:29:08.800 | What does that do to your family legacy?

01:29:11.800 | Versus here's a man who spent decades,

01:29:14.800 | I think something like 30 years,

01:29:16.800 | the next 30 years,

01:29:18.800 | paying off these debts systematically.

01:29:21.800 | And think of the legacy.

01:29:23.800 | So I have no idea what I'm supposed to say

01:29:27.800 | to people who are suicidal.

01:29:28.800 | I don't know how to do it.

01:29:30.800 | I don't know what to say

01:29:31.800 | other than just to be honest

01:29:32.800 | and to say you are stupid

01:29:35.800 | if you think that killing yourself

01:29:37.800 | because of a financial loss

01:29:41.800 | is a smart thing to do.

01:29:43.800 | You're behaving stupidly.

01:29:46.800 | And you ought to be ashamed of yourself and stop it.

01:29:50.800 | We can fix all your problems.

01:29:53.800 | The next week, I don't know,

01:29:56.800 | I guess probably I should say

01:29:58.800 | I'm opening up consultations here.

01:30:01.800 | If you're suicidal

01:30:02.800 | and you're thinking that killing yourself is the solution,

01:30:05.800 | book a consultation with me.

01:30:06.800 | I won't charge you a dime.

01:30:07.800 | I'll yell at you for being stupid for thinking about it

01:30:09.800 | and I won't charge you a dime.

01:30:10.800 | And then I'll fix your problems for you.

01:30:12.800 | I'll tell you how you can do it.

01:30:13.800 | Again, I can't do it for you,

01:30:15.800 | but I'll tell you the path.

01:30:17.800 | So book a consultation with me.

01:30:18.800 | Go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.

01:30:23.800 | So I'm activating that again for a limited time

01:30:25.800 | here in the next few days.

01:30:27.800 | So the point is don't be stupid.

01:30:29.800 | It's just money.

01:30:30.800 | It's only money.

01:30:33.800 | It's only money.

01:30:35.800 | It's all fake.

01:30:37.800 | Easy come, easy go.

01:30:39.800 | It went.

01:30:41.800 | All right, sucks.

01:30:42.800 | Would have been smarter to sell out, learn the lessons.

01:30:45.800 | But you can get it all back

01:30:46.800 | and times a bazillion times

01:30:48.800 | because it's only money.

01:30:50.800 | It's the most unlimited resource in the history of the world.

01:30:55.800 | Get out of your head, however you do it.

01:30:58.800 | Again, I'm not a psychiatrist.

01:30:59.800 | I don't know what I'm supposed to say

01:31:00.800 | to people who are suicidal.

01:31:02.800 | So go talk to someone who knows.

01:31:04.800 | But that's what I tell you is it's only money.

01:31:08.800 | We can fix it.

01:31:10.800 | And this trial, this catastrophe that you're facing,

01:31:16.800 | if you will allow it,

01:31:19.800 | can be the seed of a transformed life

01:31:24.800 | and everything can be better.

01:31:27.800 | Guarantee you it'll be hard to work your way out.

01:31:29.800 | But you know what?

01:31:30.800 | Hard is actually rewarding.

01:31:35.800 | Some of the most rewarding work that we do is the hard work.

01:31:40.800 | Think of how you feel after a long, hard day of physical labor.

01:31:45.800 | Come in at the end of the day,

01:31:46.800 | been out mowing the grass, trimming your trees,

01:31:49.800 | digging a ditch, working.

01:31:50.800 | Your body aches.

01:31:51.800 | You sit down in a chair and you feel satisfied with hard work.

01:31:56.800 | My favorite quote on success is, or happiness,

01:31:59.800 | I think it was W. Clement Stone who said,

01:32:01.800 | "Happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal."

01:32:07.800 | "Happiness is the successive or progressive realization of a worthy ideal."

01:32:12.800 | The journey is the point, not the destination.

01:32:17.800 | Anybody who's achieved any goal in life knows

01:32:19.800 | that the destination is never the point.

01:32:21.800 | You've graduated high school.

01:32:22.800 | You thought, "Oh, I graduated high school.

01:32:23.800 | It's going to be great.

01:32:25.800 | It was great for two days."

01:32:26.800 | And then you felt lost.

01:32:28.800 | The journey is the point.

01:32:32.800 | It's not the destination.

01:32:33.800 | It's not the goal.

01:32:34.800 | It's the struggle.

01:32:36.800 | That's the entire goal.

01:32:39.800 | That's the point.

01:32:41.800 | And so if you struggle to dig your way out of this hole that you're in,

01:32:45.800 | embrace it.

01:32:46.800 | You're going to rebuild it.

01:32:48.800 | Just remember that no matter how rich or how poor you are,

01:32:51.800 | at the end of your life, it's all gone anyway.

01:32:54.800 | You don't take it with you.

01:32:56.800 | If I could snap my fingers, right, poor Sam, what's his name?

01:33:01.800 | Poor Sam.

01:33:02.800 | I mean, obviously, he deserves a huge amount of criticism, but even he.

01:33:06.800 | Here's a guy who overnight becomes a multibillionaire,

01:33:09.800 | and then overnight he's not a multibillionaire anymore.

01:33:13.800 | But guess what?

01:33:14.800 | Even if he remained a multibillionaire, the end of his life, it's all gone.

01:33:21.800 | 30 years later, who knows, right?

01:33:24.800 | It's money.

01:33:26.800 | It's not that big a deal.

01:33:28.800 | What matters is what you learn in the process

01:33:32.800 | and how that affects other people.

01:33:35.800 | The money is not the point.

01:33:36.800 | It's the path.

01:33:37.800 | It's the journey.

01:33:38.800 | It's the work.

01:33:39.800 | It's the labor.

01:33:40.800 | It's the toil.

01:33:41.800 | That's the point.

01:33:42.800 | This is why some of the best, happiest people, those are getting out of debt,

01:33:46.800 | even if they haven't faced catastrophe.

01:33:48.800 | They're just focused on getting out of debt.

01:33:51.800 | The journey is its own reward.

01:33:55.800 | I don't have anything more useful to say.

01:33:57.800 | I just want to say that my heart's with you.

01:33:59.800 | If I were with you, I'd cry with you.

01:34:01.800 | It sucks.

01:34:02.800 | Have a good cry.

01:34:03.800 | Get it out of your system.

01:34:05.800 | Build a plan.

01:34:06.800 | Look at the numbers.

01:34:07.800 | I promise you it's not the end, and you will look back on this.

01:34:14.800 | Three years from now, five years from now, ten years from now,

01:34:17.800 | you will look back on this as an exceedingly valuable part of your life.

01:34:23.800 | I promise you.

01:34:25.800 | I love you.

01:34:27.800 | If I can help you at all, like I said, I'm not planning to open up consultations,

01:34:30.800 | but if you need a free consultation, I'm here to serve.

01:34:33.800 | Just tell me.

01:34:34.800 | Email me, Joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.

01:34:36.800 | If you're destroyed, I'll help you.

01:34:39.800 | Have a good weekend.

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2022-11-11_What_to_Do_If_Youve_Just_Lost_All_Your_Money