2023-03-24_Friday

00:00:00.000 | The holidays start here at Ralph's with a variety of options to celebrate traditions old and new.

00:00:05.800 | Whether you're making a traditional roasted turkey or spicy turkey tacos,

00:00:10.200 | your go-to shrimp cocktail, or your first Cajun risotto,

00:00:13.800 | Ralph's has all the freshest ingredients to embrace your traditions.

00:00:17.800 | Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.

00:00:20.000 | Choose from a great selection of digital coupons and use them up to five times in one transaction.

00:00:25.000 | Check our app for details.

00:00:26.600 | Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.

00:00:30.000 | Your tough Tacoma is here.

00:00:33.000 | Your powerful 4Runner.

00:00:36.000 | Your stylish Camry.

00:00:38.000 | Your versatile RAV4.

00:00:41.000 | Even your fully electric VZ4X.

00:00:44.000 | Your new Toyota car, truck, or SUV is available now.

00:00:50.000 | So see your Toyota dealer today.

00:00:53.000 | We make it easy.

00:00:56.000 | Toyota. Let's Go Places.

00:01:00.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now,

00:01:07.000 | while building a plan for financial freedom in ten years or less.

00:01:10.000 | My name is Josh Rasheeds. I'm your host.

00:01:12.000 | Today is Friday, March 24, 2023.

00:01:16.000 | And today on the show we have a live Q&A show each and every Friday when I can arrange the appropriate technology

00:01:21.000 | and have my children quiet and my baby happy and have everything plugged in.

00:01:27.000 | Then I record a Friday Q&A show.

00:01:29.000 | Works just like Call and Talk Radio.

00:01:31.000 | Live show. You call in, talk about anything that you want.

00:01:33.000 | If you would like to gain access to one of these shows to be able to call in,

00:01:36.000 | please go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.

00:01:39.000 | Support the show on Patreon and that will give you access to one of these Q&A shows

00:01:43.000 | where you can call in, ask any question, talk about anything that is on your mind.

00:01:46.000 | patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance

00:01:49.000 | We begin with James in Colorado. James, welcome to the show. How can I serve you today?

00:01:53.000 | Hi, Joshua. Thanks for having me.

00:01:56.000 | So my question is actually about AI.

00:01:59.000 | There's been a lot of talk lately about AI and specifically artificial general intelligence

00:02:05.000 | and artificial super intelligence happening within the next 15 to 20 years

00:02:11.000 | and what that might mean for us in life as we know it.

00:02:15.000 | There's this article out there about basically it could mean extinction or immortality and that sort of a thing.

00:02:22.000 | If you've read a lot about this, I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions about the likelihood of that timeline.

00:02:27.000 | But more to my actual question for you, if we assume that that timeline is actually the case,

00:02:33.000 | I'm curious what your thoughts are and how that affects your long-term financial planning and also raising children.

00:02:41.000 | I don't have any insight as to the timeline.

00:02:44.000 | I have certainly been reading about this subject with interest,

00:02:49.000 | but I don't have any actual competency to judge the timeline.

00:02:54.000 | I have heard various pundits talk about AI with a distinction between basically simple AI and "real AI"

00:03:04.000 | and it seems like we're still quite some time away from real AI.

00:03:10.000 | But I'm not close enough to the technology to comment on it.

00:03:15.000 | I would be skeptical of claims saying that any form of technology is going to completely revolutionize and transform the world in a good way,

00:03:24.000 | and I would be skeptical of any claim that's saying that technology is going to lead to mass extinction.

00:03:30.000 | I don't buy most of those arguments, and I'll explain why.

00:03:34.000 | Quite simply, it's because when people write arguments like that, they're generally trying to engage in hyperbole to gain attention.

00:03:42.000 | And so I think we should listen to what they have to say,

00:03:47.000 | but it's very unlikely that extreme case scenarios actually come true.

00:03:53.000 | I've also pretty much pulled back from making predictions about the future because it's just impossible to predict.

00:03:59.000 | There's so many moving parts.

00:04:01.000 | What I look at is quite simply past revolutions in technology that have fundamentally transformed society.

00:04:09.000 | And in each transformation of society, there have been people who said, "This is the end of the world as we know it.

00:04:16.000 | Everything is going to be different. We're not going to survive this."

00:04:20.000 | And in each previous transformation of society through a technological innovation,

00:04:26.000 | there has been something completely new and different, and there was a complete transformation.

00:04:31.000 | But on the other side of it, human beings continue to be human beings with similar wants, desires, and lifestyles, and we just changed.

00:04:41.000 | And so probably some of the visible examples would be people losing jobs, for example, as elevator operators.

00:04:48.000 | There was a time in which when you got onto an elevator, there was always an attendant who ran the car for you.

00:04:53.000 | Well, none of us today want to go back to that world of actually being an elevator attendant or many menial jobs in the past.

00:05:03.000 | What I do think is the most interesting about this current technological change is who it is likely to affect.

00:05:12.000 | For a long time, those of us who've been white-collar workers have been quite smug and self-satisfied about our future.

00:05:21.000 | And especially those who were involved in technology.

00:05:24.000 | There's the old joke about, "We'll learn to code. We're always going to need computer jobs."

00:05:29.000 | As I have studied the coding question quite a lot, I've come to the conclusion that it's unlikely that my children will interact much with computer code.

00:05:39.000 | And so while I'm planning to teach my children to code, I don't think it's going to be a big factor in their lives because of the no-code revolution.

00:05:50.000 | What I see as most interesting about AI is that AI is basically writing code.

00:05:57.000 | I've watched people basically tell it, "Here's the piece of software I want you to create."

00:06:02.000 | And the computer creates the code for that piece of software.

00:06:08.000 | And that's fantastic.

00:06:10.000 | Also, I've seen it doing conversions from one coding language to another.

00:06:14.000 | And so it seems interesting to me that blue-collar work seems totally safe and totally insulated from this particular expression of technology, whereas white-collar work is not.

00:06:27.000 | So I don't know. I think it's going to be disruptive.

00:06:30.000 | I don't know how far away we are from "true AI."

00:06:34.000 | I don't see any reason for alarm of the extinction of the human species.

00:06:39.000 | But I do think it's going to transform our lives in the way we interact with computers, the way we interact with information.

00:06:48.000 | I see also a huge component of this affecting education.

00:06:52.000 | And this is where most of my thinking has been, is how does this affect education?

00:06:57.000 | Right now, there was an immediate change in terms of people just simply using AI to write their essays in school and things like that.

00:07:06.000 | And I've been trying to prepare for a very long time for a future or an educational system in which my children can just ask their phone any fact they're trying to figure out.

00:07:17.000 | And I've been trying to come up with a theory of education that works together with that amazing technology.

00:07:24.000 | And now this just takes it to another level where a lot of the things that we used to prize as being the proof of a good education, a great essay, etc., they're just not as impactful as they once were.

00:07:35.000 | So I don't have any great vision for it.

00:07:38.000 | But I do have a strong confidence in us as humans that we will figure out how to take this, incorporate it into our lives, and come out on the other side with bigger and better opportunities, more interesting applications.

00:07:51.000 | And I doubt any of us can really dream of what those things are likely to be.

00:07:59.000 | Yeah, it sounds like you're relatively optimistic about it.

00:08:03.000 | I don't see how you could look at history and not be optimistic about it.

00:08:07.000 | I don't want to go back to any previous era in history.

00:08:10.000 | There's not a single time that -- there's not a single era in human history that I would rather live in than the world we're living today.

00:08:17.000 | I am confident in human beings.

00:08:19.000 | I'm confident in the future of our societies.

00:08:23.000 | We're certainly facing on all sides.

00:08:25.000 | We're certainly facing headwinds and difficulties, etc.

00:08:28.000 | But at the end of the day, we're just getting started.

00:08:30.000 | And so I spend a lot of time dreaming about where we're going to be 1,000 years from now.

00:08:33.000 | And I'm not a technologist.

00:08:35.000 | But when I look back at the last few thousand years and the progress that we've made, and I think forward over where we could be 500 years from now, 1,000 years from now, the pace of change in the world is increasing substantially, which means that as long as we get it right and we make wise decisions informed by good thinking, good analysis, good frameworks informed by history, then we have the opportunity to transform the world in a way that's going to be more and more interesting.

00:08:59.000 | We can transform the world in a positive direction much more quickly than ever before in human history.

00:09:05.000 | So I'm not just saying everything is perfect.

00:09:09.000 | Certainly, there's going to be challenges and disruption.

00:09:12.000 | But in disruption, there's opportunity.

00:09:14.000 | And I think it's crazy to look at the history of the world and wish to be back in any previous era.

00:09:21.000 | So if that's true, then why would we look any differently about where we are today?

00:09:35.000 | I'm going to have to think about that. I guess I've kind of been thinking through it from a lens of something similar to like the invention of a nuclear weapon where it could potentially be very, very life changing.

00:09:51.000 | Obviously, that hasn't been the case with nuclear weapons, but could be the case with AI.

00:09:59.000 | Anything, it certainly could be.

00:10:06.000 | So I guess there'd be a couple things.

00:10:08.000 | Number one is at the core of my worldview and my optimism is a strong faith and confidence in the sovereignty of God.

00:10:17.000 | So if you don't believe in God, then I think that would be a very different perspective.

00:10:26.000 | I have friends who are hardcore atheists.

00:10:30.000 | And basically, if you believe that where you wind up with that worldview is the concept that humanity is an accident and the progress that we have made is meaningless.

00:10:47.000 | Because if you're a true materialist, then you have no basis for moral values and duties.

00:10:56.000 | You have no basis for thinking that today is better or worse than the past.

00:11:01.000 | You have no basis for those things.

00:11:02.000 | But if you are a theist of some kind, and if you believe in any kind of a personal God, even if you would, for example, even if you were a deist and you believe that God had enough foresight to start the universe in a positive direction, that has to be a transformative thing.

00:11:20.000 | And so when I look at the world, number one, I believe in an all-powerful sovereign God who has divinely ordered the universe for the good of mankind in general and for my own good.

00:11:35.000 | And so in that space, if I can believe that God has ordered the very physical structure of the cosmos so that I could be here and so that humanity could be here today, and I'm here with some seven or eight billion of my fellow human beings,

00:11:57.000 | and we're blessed to be living in a time in history when there's more human beings on the face of the earth than ever before, there's more Christians than ever before, there's more opportunity than ever before, there's more good in the world than ever before,

00:12:12.000 | it's just, how could I lose faith in God's divine ordering of the universe and of the specific details of my life just because of a new technology that we invent?

00:12:25.000 | Ultimately it doesn't make any sense. And since I believe that there is a God who knows the end from the beginning, there's a God who spoke the world into existence, and there's a God who eventually will bring an end to this world after all of his purposes and plans are realized,

00:12:41.000 | then I don't see how I could look to the future and be despondent or despairing.

00:12:47.000 | Now, there's a philosophical sense in that, right? Do I have a responsibility in that? I believe I do. It's my personal conviction that God has divinely ordered the circumstances of the world to achieve his objection, his ultimate objectives, for mankind and for me, through my faithful obedience and through my actions.

00:13:13.000 | If you want to argue about that, I'm sympathetic to the theological view of Molinism, which integrates the actions, the free will of mankind into God's eternal plan.

00:13:24.000 | But I'm filled with—but when I just recognize that there's a God who holds the universe in his hands, and who knows when a sparrow falls out of a tree, and who numbers the hairs on my head, and who knows the end from the beginning, and who has divinely ordered that evil will be defeated by good,

00:13:44.000 | that his church will grow throughout the world until Satan is ultimately and utterly defeated by the preaching of the gospel, by the actions of mankind, then I look at a technology and I say that my job is—or probably not my job because I'm not close enough to it, but the job of those people who are close to that technology—is to bring in and control the potential for its use, to control the potential of its use for evil.

00:14:13.000 | So a technology can certainly be used for evil. Nuclear technology is certainly a good example, right? It has the potential to be used for evil. It has exterminated hundreds of thousands of lives.

00:14:25.000 | Now, that's a very difficult moral question to look at, of whether that was warranted or not, but on the flip side, that same technology has the potential to power our homes and allow us to live longer and allow us to control the world in a way that is incredible.

00:14:45.000 | And at this point in time, the future of energy, as far as I can see, is going to be heavily dependent upon nuclear technology. And so I'm less worried about nuclear war than I've ever been, but I'm more interested in nuclear power as being something that is fundamentally good for mankind.

00:15:05.000 | And so, again, I don't want to just look at it as a committed optimist, but that is at the foundation of my personal worldview that causes me to feel so optimistic. It's just a belief in the sovereignty and the controlling power of God Almighty.

00:15:23.000 | Okay, awesome. Joshua, thank you. I really, really appreciate your insights.

00:15:28.000 | My pleasure.

00:15:29.000 | It's really invaluable.

00:15:30.000 | My pleasure. We move on to John in Florida. Welcome to the show. How can I serve you today?

00:15:36.000 | Hey, Joshua. Good to speak with you again. So I'm looking for your insight. I am retiring from the military later this year after 21 years of service.

00:15:48.000 | Pardon me, which is maybe I'd heard your episode that you did on military service 21 years ago, but too late for that now. Although the military has been really good to me, so I can't complain.

00:16:03.000 | Absolutely.

00:16:04.000 | It's all I've known. I've been in the Navy longer than I've been out of the Navy and never had a real job. And I am lost and stressed and nervous about making the transition and figuring out what I'm going to do for a real job and was looking for any insight and tips you might have.

00:16:25.000 | You are going to be somewhere around the age of 40 when you get out?

00:16:29.000 | Correct. I'll be a few months shy of 40, yes.

00:16:32.000 | Okay. And are you married? Do you have children?

00:16:35.000 | Yep. Married with two kids.

00:16:37.000 | How old are your children?

00:16:40.000 | Six and two.

00:16:41.000 | You'll have a military retirement that will begin immediately when you retire. Have you been able to save other assets?

00:16:48.000 | Yeah, I have some other assets. We have an emergency fund in place and some other funds available that, you know, needing work to get out is not a complete necessity.

00:17:01.000 | About how much would you estimate will be your income without your getting a job immediately?

00:17:08.000 | My pension will be worth in the range of $35,000 and then there should be some VA disability on top of that, which is an unknown. So I would estimate somewhere around $45,000 to $50,000 without working.

00:17:25.000 | Does your wife have an income or a career that she's enthusiastic about?

00:17:31.000 | She's currently not working, but isn't opposed to pursuing work as long as child care wasn't an issue.

00:17:45.000 | Is there anything fun when you think about kind of fun ways to spend time? Buy a tent and a station wagon and drive across the United States or go and hike the via the Camino de Santiago or something in Spain or visit, you know, beat every hike every 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado. Is there any kind of those like weird things that you've thought would be interesting to you?

00:18:11.000 | Well, it's funny you mentioned that. I have been poignant with the idea of getting an RV and traveling the country for a year. You know, that considering it's a transitory time in our lives anyhow, that that would be a good opportunity to do that.

00:18:27.000 | Right, right. Where is home for you as far as where you came from originally before you started being deployed all around the country without your choices?

00:18:37.000 | So I'm originally from Tampa, Florida. I'm currently in New Orleans, Louisiana.

00:18:41.000 | Okay. So I would say, I don't have a perfect answer. I would say clearly you're probably going to want to find a second career for yourself.

00:18:55.000 | Even if you could live exclusively on your retirement and disability, you're going to need some way to contribute to the world. And to me, that's really, really important, especially for you as a man and as a father.

00:19:09.000 | You need to feel like your contributions to the world make a difference. And you have served faithfully in one capacity for almost 21 years. And now you'll need to look forward to the next 21 years and make a plan for that.

00:19:26.000 | And I think that it certainly can be, it's obviously overwhelming to sit at the end of one thing where everything was charted out for you and try to think of something new and fresh and different.

00:19:40.000 | But it shouldn't be too overwhelming if you will give yourself a few bits of permission.

00:19:47.000 | So number one, the great, the huge benefit of the military is it sets you up for a financial independence plan that is so wonderful.

00:19:57.000 | And knowing that for the rest of your life, you have this amount of income coming in from your retirement plan, potentially from your disability, you could live on that for the rest of your life.

00:20:07.000 | You wouldn't be living like a mega billionaire, but you can live on that very comfortably.

00:20:12.000 | And that brings a sense of peace and security to your financial planning that is really, really powerful.

00:20:18.000 | And it allows you to take some liberties in your thinking for the next phase of your career.

00:20:24.000 | The most important thing I would think would just be to take time.

00:20:28.000 | Right now, you are at the perfect place in life for you to not rush any decision.

00:20:36.000 | I don't want to put my goals on you.

00:20:38.000 | If being in an RV sounds fun to you, you're the one who said it, not me.

00:20:43.000 | That's what I would do.

00:20:44.000 | If I had a six-year-old and a two-year-old, I'm getting out after 21 years of someone else running my life, telling me where I have to go, I would plan to take minimum a year off, maybe as much as two or three, depending on what interesting things you have to find or what interesting things you guys find that you would like to do.

00:21:05.000 | And I would just focus on being together with my family and kind of decompressing and seeing what's out there in the world, seeing what opportunities there are that would present themselves to me.

00:21:16.000 | I think an RV lifestyle would be ideal if you're attracted to it because it would allow you to travel widely, visit with your friends.

00:21:25.000 | Undoubtedly, you have friends all across the country.

00:21:28.000 | With a six-year-old and a two-year-old, it's hard to visit friends unless you do have an RV.

00:21:32.000 | One of my favorite things about RV travel with children is that it allows you to see friends in a really great way.

00:21:37.000 | You pull up to their house, you park your RV in the street, you put your children to bed at 7.30 in their own beds, you put on a baby monitor, and you go in and you get to spend the evening with your friends without having to rush home to go for bedtime.

00:21:50.000 | It's the greatest thing ever.

00:21:51.000 | They put their children to bed and you actually get to see your adult friends.

00:21:55.000 | You're at a stage in life where you've been ripped away from friendships every few years as you've changed assignments, etc.

00:22:04.000 | You know people all across the country.

00:22:06.000 | If you're interested in that, notice I'm trying to be clear.

00:22:10.000 | I don't want to give you my ideas, but that's what I would do.

00:22:13.000 | RV travel with children is wonderful because you have—in fact, it's the least stressful form of travel that I have been able to test.

00:22:22.000 | The reason it's so great is you know where you're going to sleep every night and you know where you're going to eat.

00:22:28.000 | Then the only thing you have to decide is how many miles do we go today, if any at all.

00:22:34.000 | When you travel with children, say in a hotel or in people's houses, and you're traveling for an extended period of time, it can be very uncomfortable because you're constantly having to make fresh and new decisions.

00:22:47.000 | Where are we going to eat today?

00:22:48.000 | What restaurant are we going to eat in?

00:22:50.000 | Should we go to the grocery store and try to get food for lunch?

00:22:52.000 | What hotel are we going to be in?

00:22:54.000 | Can we afford it?

00:22:55.000 | Is there a hotel near us?

00:22:56.000 | Are we going to go over budget?

00:22:57.000 | When you're in an RV, you buy the RV, and depending on how much savings you have, I'd encourage you to get something that's comfortable.

00:23:05.000 | Don't go into debt for it.

00:23:07.000 | Don't take out payments.

00:23:08.000 | Don't buy anything new unless you already have the money saved.

00:23:11.000 | Buy something that is new enough to be comfortable but don't have any payments on it.

00:23:16.000 | Then you have—and make it yours, make it comfortable, make it how you and your wife like it—but then you can control your budget very easily based upon the decisions that you make.

00:23:27.000 | You always know you're going to have a bed to sleep in.

00:23:29.000 | You always know that you at least have access to a refrigerator where you can get the food and cook and eat in the RV even if you're in a rest stop on the side of the road.

00:23:41.000 | Then, as far as the rest of your budget, you decide that based upon what you're doing on a daily basis.

00:23:48.000 | Let's say that you have a monthly budget of $4,000 just from your income.

00:23:54.000 | Let's say you have, I don't know, $700 or $800 that's taken for various things, maybe insurance payments or whatever it is.

00:24:02.000 | You actually have a travel budget of $3,000 to $3,500.

00:24:06.000 | You can travel on that very comfortably as long as you're a little bit cautious because you get to choose your expenses in RV travel.

00:24:14.000 | The way I did it was if we have a long driving day and I'm putting all of our daily budget into the gas tank, then that's a day that I'm going to camp for free.

00:24:23.000 | We're going to stay at a rest stop or a boondocking free camping or a Bass Pro Shops parking lot or Cracker Barrel or Walmart, etc.

00:24:33.000 | There's no reason to have a fancy campsite if we're putting money through the fuel tank that day.

00:24:44.000 | On a different day, if we are not putting money through the fuel tank, then certainly we want to be camping in a nice place.

00:24:51.000 | If we're camping in a nice place and it's inexpensive, let's say we're at some spectacular government campground at the top of a mountain and it's $20 a night.

00:25:01.000 | If my daily budget is $150 or $200 a day or whatever your number winds up being, let's just say $100 because that would be $3,000 a month.

00:25:10.000 | If your daily budget is $100 a day and you have a $20 campsite, now you know we can easily afford to eat out or easily afford to go on an excursion that costs more money.

00:25:22.000 | In RVing, you can control your expenses very easily and stay on a budget and yet have some great expenses.

00:25:31.000 | With a six-year-old and a two-year-old, it's a perfect time frame to do it. It's a perfect age to do it.

00:25:36.000 | Go all around the United States. Visit your friends. See the different regions of the country.

00:25:41.000 | Talk about what might be great for you guys for the next stage of your life.

00:25:46.000 | Then along the way, be open to career ideas.

00:25:50.000 | As I'm traveling, I would be talking to all my friends, people that have retired already from the military, find out what they like, what they're into.

00:25:57.000 | As I'm talking to people at campgrounds, I would strike up conversations about what's happening in this region of the country, what kinds of opportunities are there.

00:26:05.000 | When you're camping, you'll meet all kinds of people. You'll meet people in the oil business. You'll meet people who are retired CEOs.

00:26:10.000 | You'll meet people who are retired everything. Just ask them questions.

00:26:15.000 | A good question for a retired CEO would be, "Hey, if you were getting started today, what kind of career would you go into if you'd just gotten out of the military?"

00:26:23.000 | Visit the different regions of the United States. See what appeals to you.

00:26:27.000 | If you did that for two or three years, while simultaneously you can put miles in on the road, listen to some career planning podcasts, take some courses, read some books, etc.

00:26:35.000 | Give yourself two years to think of the next career. To me, that would be a really great way to approach it.

00:26:41.000 | Don't try to make a decision right now when every decision of your life has been controlled for 21 years.

00:26:47.000 | Give a little time for you to get used to taking control back yourself.

00:26:52.000 | That sounds like good advice.

00:26:58.000 | If you have interest that's international, I think you can do international as well.

00:27:03.000 | Even though your budget, again on say $3,000 to $4,000 a month budget, you can travel quite well on that budget internationally.

00:27:12.000 | It's just a little bit may not be of interest to you.

00:27:15.000 | If it is of interest to you, each region that you choose would drive your decisions.

00:27:19.000 | But I think that since you guys are Americans, touring the United States in an RV for a couple of years, being with your children, helping them with their...

00:27:26.000 | Starting the homeschooling with your six-year-old and just being with your wife and enjoying that, it's awesome.

00:27:33.000 | If you do it as a sabbatical, I don't think it's a great lifestyle permanently.

00:27:37.000 | But doing it for a year is an awesome sabbatical, a great way to spend a year and you'll build some family memories that I think you'll treasure.

00:27:46.000 | Thank you for that.

00:27:50.000 | It makes it sound a lot more intriguing too.

00:27:54.000 | Take your time. There's no rush.

00:27:57.000 | The great thing is you have an income that is a base for you and you don't need to rush out.

00:28:04.000 | You're clearly going to want to increase your income in the long term, but you don't need to rush out and do it today.

00:28:12.000 | It'll make more sense for you to approach it very thoughtfully with intention than just rush out and get a job.

00:28:20.000 | Finding freedom is very challenging and very difficult in the world.

00:28:25.000 | When you have an opportunity for freedom, I think it makes all the sense in the world to take a sabbatical and engage in it.

00:28:32.000 | With a six-year-old and a two-year-old, this is a great time to do it.

00:28:35.000 | You have enough money that I think you could do it very comfortably if you just make some thoughtful, careful decisions about the lifestyle that would be appropriate for you.

00:28:44.000 | Then don't be stupid. Don't go in over your head. Don't go into debt. Don't overspend your income.

00:28:49.000 | Keep your savings. You want to make sure that whatever savings you have, you have a place to land so you can buy a house.

00:28:55.000 | A year from now might be a great time to buy a house if the real estate market goes down, things like that.

00:29:00.000 | Keep your money. Just figure out a lifestyle where you get a necessary, whatever equipment you need, and then just live on your income while traveling.

00:29:10.000 | As long as you'll be a little flexible with how you spend money, then you can live very comfortably on that amount of money.

00:29:17.000 | All right. Well, thank you, Joshua. I appreciate it.

00:29:20.000 | My pleasure. We go on to Lucas in New Jersey.

00:29:24.000 | Lucas, welcome to the show. How can I serve you today?

00:29:26.000 | Now for a limited time at Del Amo Motorsports of Orange County, get financing as low as 1.99% for 36 months on Select 2023 Can-Am Maverick X3.

00:29:36.000 | Considering the Mavericks taking home trophies everywhere from King of the Hammers to Uncle Ned's Backcountry Rally, you're not going to find a better deal on front row seats to a championship winner.

00:29:47.000 | Don't lose out on your chance to get a Maverick X3. Visit Del Amo Motorsports of Orange County in Santa Ana and get yours.

00:29:54.000 | Offer in soon. See dealer for details.

00:29:57.000 | Hey, Joshua. On to your earlier comment, I would argue that even those in the atheist camp have a lot to be rationally optimistic about given the reductions in human suffering over the last several hundred years.

00:30:11.000 | I'm a huge proponent of—oh, now it left me. What's his name? The British guy, the rational optimist, Matt Ridley.

00:30:20.000 | I've recommended his book all over the place. I think that it's not necessary to be a theist in any way to appreciate where we are.

00:30:31.000 | I would point to atheist Matt Ridley and his wonderful book as evidence of that. Absolutely, 100%.

00:30:39.000 | Yeah, totally agree. On to my question. I'm considering the idea of pursuing a business opportunity. I just wanted to see if you could poke some holes in this idea, help me identify flaws, because it's relatively new.

00:30:56.000 | My wife and I are considering purchasing a residential house that we would eventually turn into a brick-and-mortar business.

00:31:04.000 | We've been talking for a while about starting a child care center and had some start and stops over time, but the current idea is to purchase a home as a primary residence, rent out our current residence,

00:31:17.000 | and over the course of the next year, convert the home to all the requirements for a child care center where we live.

00:31:25.000 | We've talked to lenders and realtors about this. The numbers seem to work out, but I wanted to see, just get a baseline idea.

00:31:37.000 | Is there any hole that you would poke in this or what your thoughts were more generally?

00:31:43.000 | The idea being that you would always keep this home as a home that you didn't live in, but that you did indeed operate a full-time child care facility out of, is that right?

00:31:56.000 | Yeah, it's essentially the nomad real estate strategy, but instead of flipping this to a rental in a year, we would flip it to a business.

00:32:05.000 | If the numbers work from the business perspective, and that seems like an attractive business, absolutely.

00:32:12.000 | The first thing that occurs to me is quite simply that if you use this residence, first of all, do you have any taxable gain in the house if you sold it today?

00:32:23.000 | We would not have taxable gain in the house.

00:32:28.000 | That was the only thing that stood out to me, is if you had taxable gain in the house, it's always nice to sell a house and use the exclusion of capital gains for having lived in the house for two years, rather than to lose that.

00:32:41.000 | If you take a house and you put it in under a business, and you start depreciating it as business property, then you lose out on your potential to sell it capital gains tax-free.

00:32:52.000 | However, in your case, you don't have any capital gains, and so by not selling it, you would save all of your transfer costs, you would continue to own and control the real estate, hopefully it would appreciate in the future, you could start taking expenses and depreciation against it.

00:33:07.000 | No, I don't have any problem with it.

00:33:09.000 | If I were to poke holes in it, the hole that I would poke would be, do you need to control the physical property in order for your business to grow?

00:33:19.000 | And while you're thinking about that, I would say, many times when people start a business, based upon their business idea, they limit themselves as to their ultimate long-term potential.

00:33:36.000 | If you are, say, a 65-year-old grandmother who needs to earn an extra few thousand dollars a month, and you have a large home that your husband left you when he died, then converting it and bringing it up to code and doing what's necessary to register it as a childcare facility could be a wonderful source of income for you to be able to

00:34:05.000 | use this asset that you have of a house and earn revenue from it.

00:34:13.000 | That can be wonderful.

00:34:15.000 | But if you have all the options in the world, you want to think in terms of your biggest possible long-term scale.

00:34:36.000 | I'm not saying that you would.

00:35:01.000 | It may be great to have this house, and it could be first, and you move on from one to ten, and you get a chance to try it out and see if we like it.

00:35:07.000 | Just make sure that you're not artificially limiting the maximum size of your business by thinking that I have to own the house and it has to be inside of a home.

00:35:17.000 | >> Sean: So, I'm going to ask you a question.

00:35:34.000 | If we were to, instead of selling our current primary home, flip that for rental itself and purchase the new one to live in as a primary and then convert to the business, does that add any measure of complication or any new holes?

00:35:53.000 | >> Adam: As you describe it, nothing occurs to me immediately.

00:36:07.000 | I would just ask, is this better than renting commercial real estate?

00:36:16.000 | What area of the country are you in?

00:36:20.000 | >> Sean: The southeast.

00:36:22.000 | >> Adam: Okay.

00:36:24.000 | >> Sean: A house is often your highest priced form of real estate because people can live in it.

00:36:31.000 | Commercial real estate in many places has been suffering due to the online shopping revolution.

00:36:37.000 | In some places, you're able to get commercial real estate that is at a discount compared to what you can get residential real estate.

00:36:49.000 | I would just look around, before I commit to this plan, I would look around at other forms of real estate, be it commercial, be it rented part-time, right?

00:37:01.000 | Is there a church that you can rent their facilities during the week?

00:37:04.000 | Churches waste bazillions amounts, tons of real estate, empty all week.

00:37:09.000 | If you could work out some deal where you just rent a facility from somebody where they use it on the weekends and you use it during the week, that may be something.

00:37:18.000 | Is there some way that you could rent the property so that your focus is on expanding the business rather than on being constrained to actually acquiring the property to grow the business?

00:37:31.000 | I don't know the answer to that.

00:37:33.000 | I would run the numbers, though, before I made the decision to definitely go with property that I own.

00:37:39.000 | >> Adam: Fair. Thank you.

00:37:42.000 | If I were starting this business, the things that have occurred to me years ago, I read a manual from a guy who had started a string of daycares using church facilities.

00:37:54.000 | Basically, he would go into the church facilities and he was starting Christian daycares.

00:38:00.000 | So, based upon our first comment, that may not work for you, but he was starting Christian daycare facilities.

00:38:05.000 | He would go into the church. He would rent the facilities from the church.

00:38:08.000 | By doing that, he was able to have lower cost rent because the church building is just sitting empty all week.

00:38:13.000 | So, he could use the common space and make it appropriate for childcare, but that gave revenue to the church.

00:38:21.000 | Because there was ideological alignment with his Christian daycare, then that was great.

00:38:25.000 | This guy was also on the front, on the leading edge of teaching children academics at a young age as well.

00:38:34.000 | It wasn't just pure childcare. He was talking about, "We'll teach your children to read."

00:38:39.000 | I think, if you've heard any of my recent comments on early childhood education, I think there's so much that can be done that would really impress a parent in terms of early childhood education that would really set apart a childcare operation in a really compelling way.

00:38:56.000 | I think that there are enough opportunities available today that you don't have to bring in staff.

00:39:02.000 | So, whether it's just reading to the children instead of watching cartoons, and you could do that with playing audio books and things like that.

00:39:11.000 | If it's bringing in some of the high quality Montessori type manipulative environment where they set up that parents all over the world pay premium for this stuff.

00:39:21.000 | There's no reason why it can't be offered even if it's not the full experience with a Montessori trained teacher, which would be very expensive.

00:39:28.000 | Multilingualism, I think, is a big attraction.

00:39:31.000 | Bringing in a learning environment to me would allow you to offer a premium daycare model.

00:39:37.000 | In addition to that, I think that there is an opportunity for using facilities basically as homeschool pods, so to speak.

00:39:47.000 | I recently, who was it, I was reading about somebody who had done this, an idea that I talked about on the show a few years ago.

00:39:53.000 | Basically, many parents would love to homeschool their children, but they can't because both parents have jobs and they don't see a way to commit a parent to a full-time job.

00:40:04.000 | But they want to homeschool their children or they want to unschool their children.

00:40:08.000 | What they need is they need facilities.

00:40:11.000 | The idea of having small facilities, a house is perfect, that's appropriate where working parents could bring their children, where there's adult supervision.

00:40:21.000 | Then the adults are not teachers, but they are coaches and facilitators.

00:40:25.000 | The child teaches himself the things that he's seeking to teach through online learning, online classes, books, etc., independent study, unschooling approaches to things.

00:40:37.000 | I think that there is a great business model there, that somebody who is knowledgeable or insightful in those areas could find the parents.

00:40:47.000 | I think there are a lot of parents who would love to just have the ability to have childcare for their children without putting their children into the local government school.

00:40:55.000 | Finally, that some of those kinds of things could potentially increase the usage of your facilities.

00:41:03.000 | Maybe if you have a childcare center that is occupied by young children from 8am to 4pm, this same exact center might work really, really well for you to do evening learning classes.

00:41:19.000 | Whether it's coding or whatever version of that is to fill the facility.

00:41:24.000 | A lot of times the decor and whatnot doesn't cross those boundaries and the size of the furniture.

00:41:31.000 | I think that just recognize that if you go into something like this, the facilities are going to be very expensive.

00:41:36.000 | Yet the facilities at their core, you don't want them to be your constraining factor.

00:41:41.000 | You want to be able to expand as quickly as possible and you want to attract as much revenue as possible rather than just being constrained by the facility.

00:41:52.000 | If the house works, great, but run the numbers on other options and think about how you can get maximum usage of your money that you spend on the property and how you can get maximum dollar by offering the highest quality services that your area will handle.

00:42:11.000 | Yeah, fantastic. I think you actually recommended that manual and shared the idea of the homeschool place to me a couple years ago.

00:42:22.000 | So I was part of the process.

00:42:25.000 | Yeah, definitely. I really appreciate that as well as the series you've done on giving your children an early start.

00:42:34.000 | It's been really, really formative. Thank you for that.

00:42:36.000 | I'm so glad. Anything else?

00:42:38.000 | I guess on that subject, my daughter is eight months old. She's already really into books, not reading obviously, but really into them.

00:42:50.000 | Is there anything specifically that you would say for under a year in that regard of getting her the head start before she can read or talk or anything?

00:42:59.000 | It's all about time with mommy and daddy. Make reading books something really lovely. Snuggle time, draw her up into your lap. The book reading is five minutes, ten minutes.

00:43:10.000 | You're going to read the same five favorite books a bazillion times.

00:43:14.000 | But it's the fact of being snuggled together and the fact that she really loves it and don't expect it to be long term.

00:43:21.000 | And if you do that, everything else will flow from there. It's not necessary, as you perhaps have heard over the years.

00:43:29.000 | I've abandoned the – at one point I was working on the teach your baby to read stuff.

00:43:35.000 | I'm still not convinced that that stuff can't have an impact, but it requires such an extraordinary level of dedication.

00:43:43.000 | And it seems like if there is an impact, the gains are lost very, very quickly.

00:43:49.000 | So it's huge amounts of work for very modest differences.

00:43:55.000 | And so I just look at it and say the goal is snuggle time with mommy and daddy, lots of relationship building.

00:44:03.000 | And again, it's going to be a few favorite books that are repeated again and again and again.

00:44:08.000 | But if books are a pleasurable thing, then all the rest of that academic stuff that comes from those will work out in the fullness of time.

00:44:17.000 | Great. Well, she loves turning pages already, so step in the right direction.

00:44:22.000 | Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you.

00:44:23.000 | My pleasure. All right, we go to Chuck in New Jersey. Chuck, welcome to the show. How can I serve you today?

00:44:29.000 | Hi, Joshua. I actually first started listening to you back about ten years ago.

00:44:34.000 | Somebody pointed me to your make a million dollars working at minimum wage at Walmart.

00:44:39.000 | And that was at a time in my life actually right after I'd gotten laid off from my job.

00:44:43.000 | I retooled, got a degree in accounting, started working for a company.

00:44:48.000 | I've been there for almost nine years. I was only in accounting for a year.

00:44:52.000 | I've worked in various roles in the company. I'm currently a programmer doing COBOL coding.

00:44:57.000 | But before that, I was doing a lot of stuff with SQL and databases.

00:45:02.000 | I'm coming up to a turning point again. And so I figured you'd be a good person to talk to.

00:45:08.000 | So I was really happy to see that you had this call today.

00:45:12.000 | So I'm trying to figure out what to do next.

00:45:14.000 | The company that I work for has been bought and sold a few times, and it's been fine up until the end of last year and into this year.

00:45:22.000 | And the environment's changed significantly. Our benefits have been reduced.

00:45:27.000 | I've effectively took a 12 and a half percent pay cut at the beginning of the year.

00:45:32.000 | I don't enjoy the job the way that I used to. So I've been thinking about looking for something else.

00:45:38.000 | And I thought that there was an option for me to stay because it was an opening that was going to be coming up.

00:45:46.000 | That seemed like it would be a great fit for me. It was more along the lines of the things that I really like to do.

00:45:51.000 | Had some initial meetings about it. Had another meeting today where it turns out that they do want me to do the job,

00:45:56.000 | but they don't want to give me any type of promotion or pay increase for it.

00:46:00.000 | And I'm already well under what the market should be paying for that type of role or even the type of role that I'm doing.

00:46:09.000 | So that's made me think that I think it's definitely time for me to leave. I've been doing job applications.

00:46:16.000 | I'm actually currently scheduled for two different second round interviews, ones with an international company,

00:46:23.000 | doing quality control and some other stuff that's got to do with management, which would be a new thing for me.

00:46:29.000 | But something I'm willing to try out and it's it would be a pretty significant pay increase.

00:46:35.000 | The other option that I have, which is where you also would have some special knowledge, is going to work for Northwestern Mutual.

00:46:43.000 | I've had a few people that asked me if I'd ever considered becoming a financial advisor.

00:46:48.000 | And my advisor actually saw something that I posted on LinkedIn and got in touch with me and asked me if I'd be interested.

00:46:54.000 | And so I'm in the second round stages of interviews with that.

00:46:59.000 | And so I'm looking for some guidance for how I should think through these, assuming that even these would come to the point where their job offers.

00:47:09.000 | And. Yeah, so that's that's my question. It's a little rambly.

00:47:14.000 | How old are you at this point? I'm 41. And do you have children?

00:47:20.000 | I have one son, 15 months old. My wife and I have been married for just over three years.

00:47:26.000 | Do you are you on a stable financial foundation?

00:47:30.000 | I would say that we're on a pretty good finance financial situation.

00:47:35.000 | The only debt that we have is the mortgage, and that's all that's less than sixty thousand dollars that'll be paid off in about 10 years.

00:47:42.000 | My after all of my retirement and it just say contributions, I'm clearing about two thousand dollars a month right now after taxes,

00:47:52.000 | which obviously I would like to have that a little bit better. So we have a little bit more wiggle room.

00:47:59.000 | My wife is currently a stay at home mom working on getting her coaching practice established to the point where it's going to create enough income for it to be a decent source of income right now.

00:48:12.000 | It's it's not really she's still in the early stages of that. So right now I'm the primary income earner, although we're supplementing with some savings.

00:48:23.000 | Do you like where you live in terms of the town where you live and do you anticipate living there as far as you can see into the future?

00:48:31.000 | That's a question that we are undecided on. I never originally planned to move to New Jersey.

00:48:38.000 | It's not well known for being necessarily a great place to live. Taxes, housing prices are pretty expensive.

00:48:46.000 | The we live in a condo, which helps with the expenses for that. But even with that, taxes and association fees are about five and a half thousand dollars a year,

00:48:56.000 | which is a good chunk of our budget. And especially when you add the mortgage on top of that, we are not attached to New Jersey.

00:49:04.000 | We would consider leaving. We started going to a new church last year and we're making working on making connections there.

00:49:11.000 | And so we're not super tied to the area. We don't have family here. Both of our families are in other states,

00:49:17.000 | but we're not necessarily looking to be closer to either of them either.

00:49:23.000 | Tell me about if you went in the direction of the consulting gig, what could that look like five or 10 years from now?

00:49:32.000 | That's one of the things that I'm I'm not sure about.

00:49:36.000 | One of the things that we're looking at is when our son is old enough to start school, we would like to homeschool him.

00:49:42.000 | And most likely that's going to be me doing it because I was homeschooled for all 12th grade.

00:49:47.000 | So I'm much more familiar with it than my wife is. And from our discussions, we think that I would probably be the better option for that.

00:49:55.000 | So ideally, our original goal was to put enough away into savings and retirement accounts that we could essentially retire me when it's time for our son to start school.

00:50:09.000 | And then I could be the primary caretaker. So that that would be the ideal.

00:50:14.000 | Although doing something part time to supplement income would be would be good,

00:50:19.000 | which is one of the reasons that the Northwestern Mutual appeals to me, because that it sounds from what I'm hearing so far,

00:50:27.000 | that there are a lot of options for scheduling and it's more what you make it more.

00:50:33.000 | It has to do with the amount of work that you put into it. So you don't have to work at full time.

00:50:37.000 | You're obviously not going to make as much. But if you've got your business established at that point, you can still make some some decent money and still work a more part time basis.

00:50:48.000 | And I was actually curious to hear from your experience how accurate you think that sounds.

00:50:53.000 | Yeah, I'll answer that in just a second. But just for the record, I'm 10 years gone from that business.

00:50:58.000 | So I'll give you my naturally my insights are cold at this point.

00:51:03.000 | But I will I will give that in a moment. Your current monthly living expenses are about how much?

00:51:09.000 | Just ballpark. Let's see. Our ballpark for our joint is probably about twenty five hundred dollars.

00:51:17.000 | And then I have about another five hundred on top of that. That's my own stuff.

00:51:22.000 | And your wife's coaching business. Tell me about that.

00:51:26.000 | So she is working on establishing a business to coach moms that are involved in entrepreneurial stuff.

00:51:34.000 | She doesn't not like multi-level marketing type stuff.

00:51:37.000 | Moms that are actually working some kind of actual business and working with them to help them with the balance between motherhood and being an entrepreneur.

00:51:48.000 | Because there's a for women, there's a lot of guilt with, you know, you're not doing your job because you're working on your kids.

00:51:56.000 | And, you know, if you're working with your kids, you're you're not putting time into your job.

00:52:00.000 | And so she's trying to help mom entrepreneurs work with that and be able to have a good balance between work and family obligations and still being able to make income for it to help with the family needs.

00:52:15.000 | This year, how much do you expect to be listed on her tax return as profit this year?

00:52:22.000 | I don't know. That would be a question for her.

00:52:26.000 | I would say as of right now, I have no idea what the what the end of the year look like.

00:52:33.000 | Of course. And I'm not saying anything against it. Just trying to get a sense of where we are in that process.

00:52:38.000 | Yeah, it's very early stages, which is one of the things that complicates it for us, because if I was going to think about taking on a job that was primarily driven by commissions, that's both of us trying to do a similar type job.

00:52:50.000 | So we would have far less income stability than we would prefer.

00:52:55.000 | Right. Right. And I think this is my last question.

00:52:59.000 | In terms of the opportunity in the consulting space, is this something that you see as a limited time opportunity that if I'm going to go for it now is the time or is this something you think would be there two years from now?

00:53:13.000 | I would imagine it would probably be there two years from now.

00:53:19.000 | I don't see why I don't see why it wouldn't. I think there's there's always a need for insurance agents and financial advisors.

00:53:28.000 | I'm talking about the consulting. You said management consulting, not insurance.

00:53:32.000 | Oh, OK. No, it's not consulting. It's the the other job is with a international company that the actual job title is manager production and control quality control.

00:53:48.000 | Is that a job that's of limited duration, meaning it's available now and you don't know whether it's going to be available two years from now, or is this the kind of thing that could easily be available a couple of years from now?

00:53:58.000 | That's a good question. I don't know. It seems like from talking with the recruiters, the company has been growing pretty substantially.

00:54:06.000 | And so like this exact job might not be available in two years from now, but they probably will have other stuff.

00:54:15.000 | Well, I'm glad you got a couple of good options. And the biggest constraint for you is just basically going to be how do you want to manage your time, given some of your ambitions?

00:54:27.000 | You're 40, I think you said 41 years old now. So and you've got a new baby. And so you want to be available to homeschool him, which means you're going to need if you're going to do that, you're going to need something that is provides you with a little bit of flexibility in the next few years.

00:54:44.000 | Now, in a perfect world, you would be totally financially independent and not care at all. Five years, you can do the math in terms of what the potential salary is, but it may or may not be achievable.

00:55:01.000 | My original calculation before the downturn in the market last year was that I would most likely be able to hit it or be pretty close to it within five years. I think that it's still doable, especially if I can increase my income.

00:55:16.000 | However, the complicating factor with that is if we want to buy a house, that's definitely going to bump our expenses up quite a decent bet.

00:55:23.000 | So let's, so right, in a perfect world, if you can kind of hit your number, then semi-retire or retire for a few years, that would be ideal.

00:55:33.000 | In terms of let's, let's first start with kind of the homeschooling commitment. Let's assume that you are going to take primary responsible for the homeschooling of your child.

00:55:41.000 | As I see it, that's a basically in terms of the active schooling, let's say you start around six years old, six or seven, doesn't have to be specifically that time.

00:55:55.000 | If you have one to two hours a day to work with your child consistently, then that's pretty ideal. At say eight or nine, if you have two to three hours a day to work with your child, that's, that's ideal.

00:56:10.000 | Primarily in terms of supervision, that handholding in the early stages of learning, and then hopefully by say 10, 11, 12, I think that your time should be reduced down to a couple hours a week of basically feedback, guidance, direction, etc.

00:56:28.000 | Rather than needing it on a daily basis. Most of homeschooling, depending on your style, but most of homeschooling is just providing a studious environment rather than actually hands-on teaching.

00:56:42.000 | There's a little bit of hands-on teaching when you're teaching to read, there's a little bit of hands-on teaching when you're teaching the basics of arithmetic.

00:56:47.000 | But as soon as you've accomplished those two things, most of the rest of education can be, and I think should be, self-directed by the learner with some checking in, guidance, supervision, etc.

00:57:01.000 | And so most of homeschooling is simply providing a studious environment where your student can, can learn and can work.

00:57:08.000 | Now, if you, that can change, if you have say, a really vision that's super intense in terms of activities, maybe you imagine yourselves going to the zoo on Monday, going to the science museum on Tuesday, going to the water park on Wednesday, going to playgroup on Thursday, etc.

00:57:28.000 | Well, then that obviously is going to require much more of your time. But when we think about academic instruction, not involving constant field trips and whatnot, you don't need a ton of time.

00:57:38.000 | What you primarily need is just a safe environment for your child. And so, I think that you could still, depending on where your wife is working, you could be a primary teacher of your children, even if you were going to an office, as long as you had the ability to direct them for a couple of hours.

00:57:57.000 | At the moment, I'm directing the homeschool, you know, my wife has a new baby, so basically she's in the house taking care of things, making sure that at least no one's dying, and doing her best while taking care of a new baby who's had some, a few minor issues to deal with.

00:58:16.000 | And so, I try to stay in the house for an hour or two, get the children started, get them through math, which is where they need a little hand-holding sometimes, or they need me to make sure they stay focused, and then once we get to reading and whatnot, okay, go ahead and do it on your own.

00:58:31.000 | And so, you can do that even with a traditional job, if you have a little bit of flexibility, is my point.

00:58:37.000 | My point is that you don't have to be there eight hours a day, and it can be not counterproductive, but you don't have to be there eight hours a day.

00:58:45.000 | But what you do need is supervision and care for your children so that they're safe, and then, if at all possible, if you have the ability to be more flexible, and you can do five outings a week, great, that's awesome.

00:58:56.000 | But probably almost any opportunity with that vision could work for you unless you had to be at a desk at 8 a.m. ready to answer the phone or something like that.

00:59:08.000 | The insurance sales opportunity, I think, is a great opportunity.

00:59:15.000 | Today, when I started in that business, I was 23 years old, and I had angst about being a life insurance salesman.

00:59:26.000 | The biggest issue I faced was two things, actually.

00:59:30.000 | Psychologically, number one, I had angst about being a life insurance salesman.

00:59:34.000 | I thought I would be a big shot and be an investment advisor, and so I didn't want to sell life insurance.

00:59:39.000 | So today, at my advanced age, today I look back and I could be happy as a clam selling life insurance.

00:59:49.000 | Even if that was all I did, even if I never had a securities license, never touched a stock or bond or mutual fund or any of that stuff, I love life insurance.

00:59:57.000 | And the great thing about life insurance sales is that I think it's one of those careers that still has plenty of legs.

01:00:04.000 | At its core, for whatever reason, it seems that life insurance has to be sold.

01:00:10.000 | Certainly, a lot of people go and buy life insurance today from online websites, and I'm glad that they're getting insurance.

01:00:19.000 | But very few people seem to actually make the decision to go and buy insurance unless there's an insurance salesman selling them on the value of it.

01:00:29.000 | And I don't think, before you got on the phone, my first question was being asked about AI.

01:00:35.000 | I don't think AI is going to replace good salespeople.

01:00:38.000 | And at its core, life insurance sales is sales.

01:00:43.000 | You're selling people on the value of having life insurance and then providing good advice on what works best for their situation.

01:00:51.000 | Today, I could very happily go back and sell life insurance.

01:00:56.000 | I could very happily go join Northwestern Mutual and be completely content with it.

01:01:01.000 | I think it's a wonderful job and a wonderful lifestyle.

01:01:05.000 | And most people who are attracted to it are attracted to it for the reasons that you said, of flexibility.

01:01:11.000 | And truly, there is flexibility.

01:01:14.000 | You truly can decide when you're going to work and arrange your schedule to that.

01:01:21.000 | Now, in the beginning, it's a huge amount of work because you have to fill your pipeline, which means you work like a maniac for your first few years.

01:01:30.000 | And for you at this stage of life, that would be ideal.

01:01:32.000 | It would not be ideal for you to try to go into that business five years from now.

01:01:36.000 | It would be ideal for you to go into it now.

01:01:39.000 | If your wife can take care of your child and you put in three, four years of heavy, heavy work to build a broad base of clients, build the experience that you need, build the knowledge and gain those things that you need.

01:01:53.000 | And then you say, "I'm going to pull back for a few years and pull back my hours a little bit."

01:01:58.000 | You absolutely can do that.

01:02:00.000 | And it can work.

01:02:02.000 | And the great thing about the life insurance business is you get residuals.

01:02:06.000 | And so I would say it would be very reasonable in addition to your upfront earnings.

01:02:12.000 | I would think it would be very reasonable with a successful practice of -- and I'm not putting you in the top 1% -- but just success, five years from now, you could very reasonably have $5,000 a month of residuals without too much trying.

01:02:28.000 | So then if you pull back for five years and you have your life insurance renewals plus whatever new business you're doing and you're managing your clients and you're kind of on 50% power, and then as your child grows, then you go ahead back in and you start to produce more heavily, etc., because you really want to make some money and have the ability to live a higher lifestyle, then you can do that.

01:02:56.000 | The great thing about the life insurance business is you get most of the benefits of entrepreneurship with few of the hassles.

01:03:08.000 | So you've got a company.

01:03:10.000 | You've got several -- dozens of companies, truly, because, yes, you're working with Northwestern Mutual, but you have also dozens of other life insurance companies that you may work with.

01:03:19.000 | So you've got a company that's being run by a professional CEO and a professional management, and they're doing a good job of taking care of their products.

01:03:27.000 | You go out on the streets, and your job is to sell those products.

01:03:31.000 | And the company services them, but you also service them, and you have a symbiotic relationship with them.

01:03:37.000 | They don't tell you what you have to do.

01:03:39.000 | Yes, you do have minimums, but the minimums are -- if you're not hitting minimums, you're out of the business just because you don't like it.

01:03:45.000 | It's not like -- it's not -- so you have to hit your minimums, but the minimums are not unreasonable.

01:03:52.000 | Again, it's not -- we're not doing -- this is not Prime-Erica where there's no minimums.

01:03:57.000 | And forgive me if Prime-Erica does have minimums.

01:03:59.000 | I'm not aware of them.

01:04:00.000 | But you need to actually produce, but if you have the skills of production and you do the heavy lifting over the first few years, hitting your minimums should not be in any way difficult for you.

01:04:11.000 | And so you've got a company that is maintaining the plant, the equipment, the product, et cetera, and your job is just to service your customers.

01:04:20.000 | But you do have a significant amount of flexibility in that.

01:04:23.000 | You don't have total flexibility.

01:04:25.000 | So this goes back to the second thing that -- the reason I don't do it.

01:04:30.000 | Number one is you're not going to have the flexibility to do a podcast like I do.

01:04:35.000 | You don't have the flexibility to -- like you have to deal with all of the standard registrations of the financial business, supervision, social media, supervision, et cetera.

01:04:45.000 | All of that is standard.

01:04:47.000 | And you have to abide by their rules.

01:04:50.000 | But the rules are very reasonable from a financial perspective.

01:04:55.000 | They're very reasonable.

01:04:56.000 | So I love that business.

01:04:58.000 | I think it's a great business.

01:04:59.000 | I could happily go into it without any problem.

01:05:02.000 | It's not a short-term business, though, and it's not a business that you should do if you're not where you want to be living.

01:05:09.000 | So I think it would be foolish for you to try to go into that business, do it for five years, and then retire.

01:05:16.000 | That would be crazy because in the up front of the business, you're dramatically overworked and dramatically underpaid.

01:05:24.000 | As you mature in the business, you can become underworked and overpaid.

01:05:28.000 | But you have to earn that with all of your up front effort.

01:05:31.000 | And so if you went into that business and you did it for five years and then quit, you would have, I think, behaved fairly foolishly if you knew that going in.

01:05:42.000 | So that would be the first thing.

01:05:44.000 | The second thing is that business, while you can and probably will work all around the country, right, you'll be licensed in many states.

01:05:52.000 | You can do most of the business virtually.

01:05:55.000 | And I think it's easier to do it virtually today than ever before.

01:05:58.000 | But there's no – I still don't think there's a substitute for planning to work in person.

01:06:05.000 | And so you will want to start, if at all possible, where you have a strong network because most of your business in the early years will be built on referred lead prospecting,

01:06:18.000 | where you are using your network to refer you to new people that may be interested in becoming clients of yours.

01:06:24.000 | And in the up front years, you'll need that network.

01:06:31.000 | It's just too difficult to get started in that kind of business with cold calling and being in a place where you don't know anybody.

01:06:38.000 | But also you want to be in a place where you see yourself for a long period of time because if you leave three years from now, you're setting yourself up for failure.

01:06:49.000 | So if you don't like New Jersey and you don't see yourself living in New Jersey, I think you should be skeptical about starting that kind of business today

01:06:55.000 | and be sure that you're in a place where you think you want to be for 10 or 20 years because it's just going to be a lot easier for you if you are in the place where you want to be.

01:07:04.000 | Great thing about New Jersey, there's a lot of money there.

01:07:07.000 | And so if you have access to it, you have access to the money, yes, it's a great market to be in and has great potential.

01:07:15.000 | The flip side on the other company, analyze it based upon the same basic principles.

01:07:21.000 | The nice thing about insurance is the business isn't going anywhere.

01:07:25.000 | The reason to go after it today is to try it out and to get after and either be successful or fail as quickly as possible.

01:07:35.000 | If you think you're interested in it, you want to get after it and either succeed or fail as quickly as possible based upon the time that you said.

01:07:43.000 | Now when you flip it, the reason to go after a more traditional salaried job would be if the salary is sufficient to allow you the lifestyle and the savings rate that you want

01:07:56.000 | and if you have a clear vision as to why you would be financially independent five years from now.

01:08:01.000 | And so if you said, "No, Joshua, I don't want to just do one hour a day with my child homeschooling while I'm also working 25 hours a week.

01:08:12.000 | I want to be financially independent and I'm not going to keep working after five years," then I would advise you away from the insurance business.

01:08:19.000 | I would say take the job, save the money based upon aggressive savings, and then just plan to quit when you become a homeschool dad.

01:08:26.000 | If the numbers work for your financial independence plan, I think that would be a great option as well.

01:08:31.000 | Okay, that's really encouraging to hear about the involvement for the homeschool because I was kind of operating under the assumption that I'd need to be doing like four hours a day or something like that.

01:08:42.000 | And as you're talking about it, I was like, "Yeah, I don't think my mom was super involved with me after a point either."

01:08:48.000 | Yeah, you're not. And again, I think four hours a day is probably the right number, maybe as high as five.

01:08:57.000 | But in terms of the involvement, you would only ever go more than four hours a day when the child is able to direct himself.

01:09:04.000 | And so it's nice if you're available. There needs to be supervision, obviously, in the home, a safe environment.

01:09:11.000 | But in terms of actual requirements from you, it should be very, very minimal.

01:09:16.000 | And I think at its core, this should be part of your vision, is that it be minimal.

01:09:20.000 | Because one of the reasons I homeschool is I want to teach my children how to learn.

01:09:25.000 | And I'm not going to try to recreate school at home where I stand in front of a blackboard and lecture.

01:09:30.000 | I'm simply a facilitator, and I get them books that are good for self-teaching.

01:09:34.000 | I get them resources, coaches if necessary, teachers if necessary, but primarily resources.

01:09:39.000 | And I just simply establish an environment where they have the time and the flexibility to use those things.

01:09:45.000 | And I'm there to answer questions in those first few years of, again, learning to read, learning the basics of arithmetic.

01:09:51.000 | Other than that, I think it's parent-overseen, child-directed education. That should be our vision.

01:10:00.000 | Okay. Can I ask a follow-up question about getting started in insurance?

01:10:04.000 | Sure, go ahead.

01:10:05.000 | So you mentioned that in the beginning, the first couple of years, you're overworked and underpaid.

01:10:10.000 | And I was wondering exactly what that means. Are we talking like 60 hours a week and you're making like $30,000?

01:10:17.000 | Obviously, you've been out of the industry for 10 years.

01:10:21.000 | So I think that starting, first of all, it all depends on the specifics of your situation, your skills, how good you are at the job, how much you like it,

01:10:34.000 | what market you have access to, what you sell, what you stumble into, etc.

01:10:43.000 | So a guy who lives in a little town in the middle of nowhere who has just a few thousand people in his local market,

01:10:50.000 | and he's working with them and he's selling lots of little term insurance policies,

01:10:54.000 | he's going to have a very different thing than a guy who's going to downtown New York City and doing $10 million whole life policies.

01:11:01.000 | So there's just a massive difference in terms of the experience that you have, etc.

01:11:08.000 | The reason you're overworked in the beginning stage is that your primary job up front is building contacts with people who might at some point want to buy an insurance product from you.

01:11:23.000 | And you have to build contact with a lot of people in order to have a sales funnel where over the next three, four, five years,

01:11:33.000 | when those people go through the appropriate life changes where buying insurance is appropriate for them,

01:11:39.000 | then they think of you and you're on their radar screen.

01:11:42.000 | That's the goal.

01:11:43.000 | But you have to meet a lot of people in order to start that ball rolling.

01:11:48.000 | So in the beginning, what I assume you'll be taught, or at least what I was taught, in the beginning, just to give a context,

01:11:55.000 | you need to keep a minimum of 15 appointments per week.

01:11:59.000 | So 15 appointments a week, just talk through the hours, right?

01:12:02.000 | 15 appointments a week means minimum 15 hours face-to-face with people.

01:12:07.000 | Now, not all your appointments are going to be an hour, some will be two, some will be 20 minutes, but 15 hours a week of face-to-face with people.

01:12:14.000 | Then plus, if you are going out of your office to visit with those people, which is common when you're first getting started,

01:12:21.000 | because you'll be able to get more appointments in that way, then now, of course, you have time, transportation time as well.

01:12:28.000 | But then you have other responsibilities.

01:12:30.000 | And so in order for you to keep 15 appointments in a week, you need to have a lot more than that scheduled because many of your appointments will cancel.

01:12:40.000 | So the numbers that I was taught, again, I assume nothing has changed because the numbers that I was taught was from the 1950s,

01:12:46.000 | is that you have to have at least 25 appointments scheduled in a week.

01:12:50.000 | So ideally, you'll keep 25, but of course, people will cancel and you'll wind up keeping 15.

01:12:55.000 | So you have about 25 appointments that you're committed to on a weekly basis.

01:13:02.000 | And those 25 appointments, not all of them, again, some of them will cancel, but that's 25 hours plus transportation time, which is very reasonably 30 to 35 hours.

01:13:14.000 | Plus then you have to schedule appointments.

01:13:16.000 | That's a lot of times done on the phone, of course.

01:13:18.000 | And so you need an hour a day of phoning, calling people to schedule appointments up front.

01:13:24.000 | Then on top of that, you need case preparation time and office time.

01:13:28.000 | So you have to sit down and analyze and work and prepare things for clients, et cetera.

01:13:34.000 | And so I think, you know, 50 hours a week is probably pretty reasonable.

01:13:39.000 | The way I did it when I was starting is I would be at the office, usually at 7.

01:13:44.000 | I would spend an hour or two in the morning doing case prep.

01:13:48.000 | I would start phoning around, I think if memory is right, around 8.30 or so, 8.30 or 9, I'd phone for an hour in the morning.

01:13:54.000 | I'd have appointments lined up at, I think I did it 10 o'clock, 11.30, 1 o'clock.

01:14:00.000 | I did them on the hour and a half, 10 o'clock, 11.30, 1 o'clock, 2.30, 4 o'clock, and that gives you five slots a day.

01:14:10.000 | So that's 25 slots.

01:14:11.000 | And then I would usually keep one or two evenings a week for evening appointments and then one or two early mornings.

01:14:17.000 | So that's the amount of, like, work that's necessary in the beginning.

01:14:22.000 | Plus in the beginning, you need to be learning, you need to be studying.

01:14:25.000 | So there's study time as well to getting certifications, getting credentials, learning product, reading all of the manuals and everything so you understand what you're talking about and you can suggest the right product.

01:14:36.000 | So I think that, I mean, minimum, if you're not planning on a 50 to 60-hour work week for the first few years, I think you're planning to fail.

01:14:45.000 | Now, you get to choose when that work week is.

01:14:47.000 | There's a lot of flexibility.

01:14:48.000 | You can go home for lunch a lot of times.

01:14:50.000 | You have cancellations.

01:14:51.000 | You can take time off.

01:14:52.000 | I took a month off every year.

01:14:54.000 | And so there's lots of flexibility in that.

01:14:57.000 | But the right mindset is going to be this is a time where I'm going to really, really be building.

01:15:04.000 | Then, like a flywheel, you get a lot of momentum up front.

01:15:08.000 | Then you can pull the energy back and everything just works from there.

01:15:11.000 | So if you make contact with 1,200 people in your first year, 1,200 people in your second year, 1,200 people in your third year, by the time you get to your fourth year, you can just pull way back on the amount of contacts because now you have people that, "Hey, I got married.

01:15:25.000 | I want to buy life insurance.

01:15:26.000 | Hey, I got a new job.

01:15:27.000 | I want to buy disability insurance.

01:15:29.000 | Hey, I had a kid.

01:15:30.000 | I want to buy life insurance."

01:15:31.000 | Hey, all the stuff that kind of comes out once you're a go-to guy for a lot of people.

01:15:37.000 | But up front, definitely, you want to plan on, I would say, a 50-hour week minimum.

01:15:44.000 | Okay.

01:15:45.000 | All right.

01:15:46.000 | That was very helpful.

01:15:47.000 | Thank you.

01:15:48.000 | My pleasure.

01:15:49.000 | All right.

01:15:50.000 | We finish up today with Dan in Las Vegas.

01:15:53.000 | Dan, welcome to the show.

01:15:54.000 | How can I serve you today?

01:15:55.000 | Hi, Josh.

01:15:56.000 | Can you hear me well?

01:15:58.000 | Sounds great.

01:15:59.000 | Go ahead.

01:16:00.000 | Can you hear me well?

01:16:01.000 | Yes, go ahead, Dan.

01:16:03.000 | Okay, great.

01:16:04.000 | Yeah, cool, cool.

01:16:07.000 | I think there's a little bit of a lag.

01:16:09.000 | So, my question is around working together with a partner and how that works out.

01:16:17.000 | So, what are the different dynamics?

01:16:19.000 | We need to be considered.

01:16:21.000 | We need to be discussed because, obviously, the constellation is different as if the man

01:16:28.000 | is just working and the woman is at the house with the kids.

01:16:33.000 | That's a simple constellation.

01:16:35.000 | So, how would that work out if man and woman work together in an entrepreneurial sense?

01:16:41.000 | That's the basic premise.

01:16:42.000 | I'm sure you have some specific questions.

01:16:45.000 | Yeah, I was just going to clarify.

01:16:47.000 | When you say partner, you mean romantic partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, etc.

01:16:51.000 | Yeah, exactly.

01:16:52.000 | So, also, with the…

01:16:53.000 | Maybe the info…

01:16:54.000 | I called in about a year ago, spoke briefly, and also, I think, three years ago.

01:17:02.000 | Three years ago, you gave me the advice about building my brand and industry while studying.

01:17:12.000 | I ended up getting a refund for the studies and just working with a startup, which turned

01:17:18.000 | out well.

01:17:19.000 | And then, lastly, we spoke about also finances and relationship and how the dynamics are

01:17:27.000 | if the woman is earning more than the man.

01:17:32.000 | My question is, if the goal is for both to get married and have kids as well, because

01:17:40.000 | that's another dynamic to the whole thing.

01:17:42.000 | It's not just working together as romantic partners, but also building a family, timing

01:17:48.000 | of the kids from 28 to 26.

01:17:52.000 | So, probably, the next two, three years will be a good time frame to start building a family.

01:17:58.000 | There's not too much time left to figure everything out.

01:18:04.000 | Right.

01:18:05.000 | Yeah.

01:18:06.000 | Okay.

01:18:07.000 | So, let's begin with a couple of big picture things.

01:18:10.000 | These are things that I think are true generally and broadly.

01:18:14.000 | So, first, on the topic of partnerships.

01:18:17.000 | Let's pretend that you were asking me about a partnership and there was no romantic connection

01:18:22.000 | between you and your potential partner.

01:18:25.000 | And you were just talking about building a partnership in business.

01:18:28.000 | Well, here's the speech I would give you.

01:18:30.000 | Number one, partnerships don't work unless the partners are unequal and different in

01:18:37.000 | skill.

01:18:39.000 | So, if you come with two partners and both of us swing a hammer well, and we're going

01:18:45.000 | to start working together as partners and both of us are going to be swinging a hammer

01:18:49.000 | and we're going to be 50/50 partners and that's all we're going to do is swing a hammer, then

01:18:53.000 | I think that that partnership, generally speaking, doesn't work out great in the long term.

01:18:59.000 | Not always.

01:19:00.000 | Always, there's going to be exceptions.

01:19:02.000 | There's guys that, "Hey, we just enjoy working together and we get along well.

01:19:06.000 | And yes, we have the same skill, but we get along well."

01:19:09.000 | But what frequently happens if you have a partnership where people have equal skills,

01:19:13.000 | meaning matching skills, the same skills, frequently you have one person who says, "Hey,

01:19:20.000 | I just had a baby.

01:19:21.000 | I'm going to take some time off."

01:19:22.000 | And the other person really wants more money because he's trying to get out of debt and

01:19:25.000 | all of a sudden you start to say, "Well, I'm working harder than you are and yet we have

01:19:28.000 | to split our profits 50/50."

01:19:30.000 | And it just often doesn't make sense.

01:19:32.000 | And if the partners have the same skills, then at some point life changes are going

01:19:38.000 | to come along and they're going to be looking at each other and each of them is going to

01:19:42.000 | feel cheated because they're going to say, "I'm working harder than this guy is."

01:19:45.000 | Or he's going to know, "I'm not working as hard as this guy is."

01:19:48.000 | And that is its own problem.

01:19:50.000 | So the kinds of partnerships that work best in business are partnerships where the partners

01:19:56.000 | have different complementary skills.

01:19:59.000 | If you're good at swinging a hammer and I'm really good at selling jobs, then now we have

01:20:05.000 | the basis for a great partnership because I can go out and sell the jobs and you can

01:20:09.000 | swing the hammer and we're doing really well.

01:20:11.000 | And these skills, when they complement, it starts to build synergy.

01:20:15.000 | And that synergy that develops leads to a successful business.

01:20:20.000 | Synergy means one plus one is more than two because of the fact that we have great chemistry

01:20:27.000 | and we work together effectively.

01:20:30.000 | Now, even so, in the partnership there still can be big problems.

01:20:36.000 | For example, a 50/50 partnership is just brutal to work through.

01:20:41.000 | A lot of times it says, "Hey, that's great.

01:20:43.000 | We're 50/50 partners.

01:20:44.000 | Let's go ahead and work together."

01:20:45.000 | But you get a few years in, things change, and now you're frustrated by the fact that

01:20:50.000 | neither of you has majority control.

01:20:53.000 | And then there are problems with 80/20 partnerships, et cetera.

01:20:57.000 | Partnerships are problematic, generally speaking.

01:21:00.000 | The only partnerships that really work in business long term are partnerships where

01:21:08.000 | it's very evident that we're way, way better off together than we are apart because our

01:21:14.000 | skills are just beautifully complementary and one plus one is four or one plus one is

01:21:19.000 | three.

01:21:20.000 | It's really obvious.

01:21:21.000 | Or partnerships where it's the kind of thing where the business is structured and it's

01:21:27.000 | very predictable.

01:21:29.000 | So I think law partnerships work really well.

01:21:31.000 | You can have good functioning in dental or medical partnerships, et cetera.

01:21:35.000 | And in those situations there's just a good synergy and there's an established approach

01:21:41.000 | and those things can work well.

01:21:43.000 | So it's not that it always has to be very different, but that is something you're looking

01:21:48.000 | for.

01:21:49.000 | Now, I think this at its core actually applies quite obviously to romantic relationships.

01:21:56.000 | So when I look at romantic relationships, if you have a husband and a wife who are exactly

01:22:01.000 | the same and we're going to be 50/50 partners and we're going to split everything, we're

01:22:05.000 | going to take a list of the housework and these 10 items, you're going to take five

01:22:08.000 | and I'm going to take five.

01:22:09.000 | We're going to take a list of the family bills that we have and there's 10 bills.

01:22:13.000 | Okay, you're going to pay 50% of them and I'm going to pay 50% of them.

01:22:16.000 | We've got your career and we've got my career and we've got, line it up down the

01:22:20.000 | road.

01:22:21.000 | So to me that you don't get much value from the partnership other than cost sharing and

01:22:27.000 | whatever romantic fulfillment there is of being together with this person.

01:22:31.000 | But it doesn't lead to the couple feeling like we're stronger as a unit than we are

01:22:40.000 | as individuals coming together.

01:22:42.000 | And so, and it comes back to this basic principles of what do I need you for?

01:22:47.000 | Whereas when I think about the marriages that seem to work the best, it's where the

01:22:53.000 | marriage partners, it's just obvious to each of them that I'm way better off when

01:22:56.000 | I'm with you.

01:22:57.000 | I'm way better off when I'm with you because you compliment me.

01:23:01.000 | You're the dark to my light, you're the yin to my yang and it's obvious that the

01:23:06.000 | things that I like to do, the things that I'm skilled at, you're not skilled at,

01:23:10.000 | you don't like to do, etc.

01:23:11.000 | That's where you get a really strong connection.

01:23:15.000 | And then when you add romantic attraction to that, you get a really great synergistic

01:23:20.000 | relationship.

01:23:22.000 | So there are always exceptions to this stuff.

01:23:24.000 | I don't think it has to be a cut and dry rule, but I think it is, it's a good

01:23:30.000 | general, this is some good general principles to look out for.

01:23:33.000 | So now you think about going into business with your wife, right, with your romantic

01:23:38.000 | partner.

01:23:39.000 | Is this a good thing?

01:23:41.000 | Well, on the one hand, absolutely.

01:23:43.000 | It can be an incredibly attractive thing.

01:23:46.000 | I have often looked at husbands and wives who have a business that they work on

01:23:50.000 | together, a synergy, etc.

01:23:52.000 | And I just think, that's beautiful.

01:23:58.000 | And clearly there are many benefits of this from a financial perspective, from an

01:24:02.000 | accounting perspective, if both of you are employees of the company, works really,

01:24:05.000 | really well, if you have a good working relationship, I think it can work really,

01:24:09.000 | really well.

01:24:10.000 | If you have a good marriage and you have complementary skill sets, it can work so

01:24:15.000 | well.

01:24:16.000 | I think many marriages, at their core, are business partnerships.

01:24:21.000 | I've known people all over the years that if they didn't have their spouse working

01:24:27.000 | with them and supporting them and doing the things that they didn't like to do,

01:24:30.000 | etc., they would just not be nearly as successful in their business or their job

01:24:34.000 | as they are.

01:24:37.000 | On the other hand, introducing business stress, business activities to your family

01:24:50.000 | life, I think can be a major source of problems, a major source of trial and a

01:24:57.000 | major source of stress.

01:24:59.000 | And so are you going to do it intentionally if you don't need to?

01:25:06.000 | When I think about the good things of my wife working with me in business, I can

01:25:11.000 | see that working well in certain aspects.

01:25:15.000 | And then there are other aspects where I think, "I really don't want to be

01:25:18.000 | working with my wife.

01:25:19.000 | I really want this to be my business where I don't have to think about the

01:25:25.000 | challenges of interpersonal dynamics and relationship dynamics in the context of a

01:25:31.000 | business."

01:25:33.000 | And then when you get into the context of an actual business partnership in some

01:25:39.000 | way, it starts to introduce all kinds of difficulty.

01:25:42.000 | What if we have a 50/50 business ownership with husband and wife and then we

01:25:47.000 | divorce?

01:25:48.000 | What happens to the business then?

01:25:50.000 | It's agonizing when that happens.

01:25:52.000 | And so if it's not obvious that this is just such a great synergistic scenario, we

01:26:01.000 | love working together, it really is working well, then if that's not obvious,

01:26:07.000 | then I think you should be skeptical about the idea.

01:26:10.000 | Not that skepticism can't be overwritten, but I think you should be skeptical

01:26:14.000 | about it.

01:26:15.000 | You mentioned dynamics of husbands, wives, children, et cetera.

01:26:22.000 | I don't want my wife to be burdened with trying to run a business.

01:26:26.000 | For the last few months, I have been primarily running my household.

01:26:30.000 | We have a new baby, we have four older children, we've got five children now,

01:26:35.000 | and the baby had some minor medical issues that have taken us a little while to

01:26:41.000 | work out.

01:26:43.000 | And it's been really time-consuming.

01:26:44.000 | So I've been a dad, a really, really focused dad.

01:26:48.000 | And it is not possible for me to be the kind of father that I want to be and then

01:26:58.000 | simultaneously be running a business.

01:27:00.000 | There are so many mothers out there, I guess I should be inclusive and say

01:27:04.000 | fathers too, I just noticed with the mothers that are like hardcore about,

01:27:07.000 | "I'm going to be the world's greatest mother and then I'm going to run this

01:27:09.000 | business in my two hours spare time."

01:27:11.000 | I don't know how it's possible.

01:27:13.000 | I can't do it.

01:27:14.000 | I couldn't do it.

01:27:15.000 | And I look at my wife and I'm very, very glad for the fact that she doesn't need

01:27:20.000 | to worry about running a business.

01:27:21.000 | I'm happy to handle the stress, but I don't want to put the stress on her.

01:27:25.000 | I want her just to be a mother.

01:27:27.000 | And for me, that's important.

01:27:29.000 | As a husband, if I can't provide for my wife and I can't provide, I don't want a

01:27:34.000 | business partner, I want a wife.

01:27:36.000 | And part of that means I want her life to be really, really wonderful.

01:27:40.000 | I want her to feel like when she's with the children, she's not competing for.

01:27:44.000 | And my wife is wonderful in that.

01:27:45.000 | She's not on her phone.

01:27:47.000 | I can barely get a hold of her during the day because she's just with the children.

01:27:51.000 | And when she's not with the children, because of the fact that children,

01:27:54.000 | especially, are a very long -- trying to express the idea that they don't fit into

01:28:03.000 | neat little packages like jobs do.

01:28:06.000 | The care for children is not -- it's not the hardest job in the world.

01:28:11.000 | That's ridiculous.

01:28:12.000 | I think we're wrong when we say, "Oh, it's the hardest job in the world."

01:28:16.000 | It's not the hardest job in the world.

01:28:17.000 | But the care for children doesn't fit well into business hours.

01:28:21.000 | And so it's a lot easier to go to a job, do your job, and then leave and go home

01:28:25.000 | and have your quiet and your peace than it is to deal with children when sometimes

01:28:30.000 | it's all day and it's all night.

01:28:32.000 | And it's not that it's the hardest job in the world, but it is that it's a very long job.

01:28:37.000 | And I can't imagine wanting to force my wife to work and earn money and contribute

01:28:43.000 | to the family business at this stage of life.

01:28:46.000 | I can't imagine it at a different stage.

01:28:48.000 | I can't imagine that, okay, our children get a little older, she's bored, doesn't have

01:28:52.000 | anything to do, I don't want her to go and have to work for some other guy

01:28:55.000 | and be beholden to him.

01:28:58.000 | Then we'll build her a nice cushy job that fits her interests and her activities,

01:29:04.000 | and we'll make sure that she has a sense of meaning and purpose.

01:29:07.000 | And I want her working in my family business.

01:29:09.000 | I don't want her working in some other guy's business.

01:29:12.000 | I want her working in our business.

01:29:13.000 | And then we'll adapt the business to her needs.

01:29:16.000 | So I guess in conclusion, I would say that there should be a natural flow.

01:29:26.000 | And for me as a husband, I can't conceive of going and working in my wife's business.

01:29:31.000 | Some men do it, more power to them.

01:29:34.000 | In fact, I think some men do it very, very well.

01:29:37.000 | And I know of some where it's very, very healthy and it's great.

01:29:41.000 | I can't conceive of doing it.

01:29:45.000 | If that's you, just be honest with yourself and honest with your wife about that.

01:29:50.000 | I couldn't conceive of myself going and working in my wife's business with her being the boss.

01:29:56.000 | I can conceive of a family business where I bear all the responsibility

01:30:03.000 | and she works with me in our family business.

01:30:06.000 | And I can conceive of working really hard to make sure that she has an opportunity

01:30:11.000 | for her gifts to shine and to really feel like a sense of satisfaction

01:30:18.000 | and a sense of contribution.

01:30:19.000 | Because my wife is an incredible asset.

01:30:21.000 | And she would be an incredible asset to our business.

01:30:25.000 | I started this business after we had children.

01:30:29.000 | And I'm not going to make my wife work for money on top of caring for children.

01:30:37.000 | That just seems crazy to me.

01:30:39.000 | So maybe there will be a--I think there probably will come a time in which we'll work together in that.

01:30:44.000 | But to me, it's just a mark of pride that I'm a husband.

01:30:47.000 | This is my wife.

01:30:48.000 | And I don't need to be in a business partnership and for her to be making money.

01:30:55.000 | That's my job.

01:30:56.000 | I want her to live a dreamy life as my wife and a mother of our children, my wife.

01:31:02.000 | If she has ambitions, I think, I guess that's the last thing I haven't talked about

01:31:08.000 | that doesn't need to be mentioned.

01:31:10.000 | My wife has never had strong career ambitions.

01:31:13.000 | She doesn't have some dream job that she just--I'm just desperate to go and work in this thing.

01:31:18.000 | If your wife does, then you need to make sure you help her and support her in that.

01:31:23.000 | Because if she has a dream and, "I've always wanted to do this, and this is really important to me,"

01:31:30.000 | and then she has to come and work for the family business

01:31:33.000 | and she feels like she's giving up in her dream, those kinds of things can build resentment.

01:31:37.000 | So I don't see this as a black and white issue of this is how it's always going to be.

01:31:42.000 | This is how every business should be.

01:31:44.000 | I think it should be a natural give and take in the context of your relationship.

01:31:48.000 | I think you should be careful about getting into an equal partnership with anybody.

01:31:52.000 | I think you should be careful about putting too much on your wife.

01:31:57.000 | And yet if there's a kind of an obvious natural synergy, then when that works out, I think that's awesome.

01:32:04.000 | I have worked for and observed a lot of really healthy husband and wife businesses.

01:32:10.000 | And when you have that natural connection, that natural trust, and there's a good synergy in the relationship,

01:32:17.000 | I think it can work, but it should be fairly obvious based upon the unique contributions of two individual people and their personality

01:32:26.000 | rather than a black and white do it or don't do it.

01:32:29.000 | Make sense?

01:32:30.000 | Yeah, that makes sense.

01:32:31.000 | Yeah, that makes sense.

01:32:32.000 | So more specifically, I think our situation is a little unique.

01:32:36.000 | She's running a business for a couple of years now doing between three and seven million a year revenue with about 89% margins.

01:32:46.000 | So it's quite possible in the next two, three years to have an exit with a multiple of, let's say, four, five, six of yearly revenue.

01:32:59.000 | So that's very possible for her, right?

01:33:01.000 | So that could be something that we set as a goal to, she does her thing until she kind of wraps it up.

01:33:10.000 | I took her to her dad because our skill sets are complimentary the way we think the work is very different.

01:33:16.000 | So let's say she has the hammer and I have the paper and pen or something like that.

01:33:23.000 | So that's very possible.

01:33:24.000 | On my end, I'm working in the fintech space, minority shareholder of a business.

01:33:32.000 | Currently, it's valued, like my part is valued at, let's say, between three and five hundred thousand.

01:33:41.000 | So I could effectively sell them at any point and find a buyer.

01:33:45.000 | So in the next 18 months, it's also very possible that I take some of that out.

01:33:52.000 | So we're both very comfortable.

01:33:54.000 | We could be on our own, but we also could put things together.

01:33:59.000 | So there's no immediate need to start something because we're starving or something like that.

01:34:05.000 | It's more just something we like spending time with each other.

01:34:09.000 | We think in complimentary ways and we might explore working together as well.

01:34:18.000 | I just want to put a timeline on that.

01:34:22.000 | And also, obviously, you saw from the numbers, there's a discrepancy between the networks and basically the income.

01:34:33.000 | So essentially, what I take home yearly is sometimes what she takes home in a month.

01:34:38.000 | Right, right.

01:34:40.000 | I mean, clearly, she's an extraordinarily competent business owner.

01:34:44.000 | Obviously, you don't reach that kind of success without being incredibly competent.

01:34:48.000 | So what you need to be super careful of is, as a husband, this is important to her.

01:34:57.000 | And you're going to have to figure out how to support her in that while also simultaneously working to figure out how that integrates with your other goals.

01:35:08.000 | I think it's an incredible challenge when a woman is incredibly competent at business, etc., and she wants to have children.

01:35:20.000 | It's very unlikely that she's going to be a 1950s stay-at-home housewife.

01:35:26.000 | That's probably not going to be her scenario.

01:35:30.000 | And so that means you're going to have to adapt to that and then think about what business opportunities are appropriate for your family design.

01:35:38.000 | So she'll probably want to exit from this company before you have children and then figure out what would be a great way to handle that.

01:35:45.000 | And you'll need some creativity.

01:35:48.000 | I guess I can't answer it beyond what I've said.

01:35:51.000 | I've tried to kind of lay out what makes sense to me.

01:35:53.000 | I think you need to be really careful about these dynamics.

01:35:58.000 | I think it is often dangerous for you -- oops, wrong mute button.

01:36:03.000 | I think it is dangerous for you to -- there's a lot of potential dangers.

01:36:12.000 | And so you need to have both eyes wide open and be paying very, very careful attention to the specifics of your relationship, your plans, your dreams, your finances, etc.

01:36:23.000 | It's a difficult road to go down.

01:36:25.000 | I don't think it's a bad road.

01:36:27.000 | Working with your wife is awesome.

01:36:29.000 | It can be the seedbed of some major dangers.

01:36:34.000 | And so both of you guys need to have your eyes wide open, be facing those things up front, talking about them, discussing them, and working on solutions to them in some productive way.

01:36:44.000 | Right, right.

01:36:46.000 | Makes sense.

01:36:47.000 | Can you recommend some premarital counseling that also encompasses the business sense?

01:36:53.000 | Because we have spoken to different premarital counselors, but they're quite standard.

01:36:59.000 | And they're like, "Oh, well, you guys are doing fantastic."

01:37:01.000 | And there's not much they can tell us.

01:37:04.000 | I don't even know where to start, man.

01:37:06.000 | I don't know.

01:37:08.000 | Short answer is no, I can't.

01:37:10.000 | And I'm conscious of the challenge.

01:37:16.000 | What can I say that would be useful?

01:37:20.000 | I would just say I don't know what premarital counselors do or what that means in today's world.

01:37:29.000 | It's kind of a standard thing.

01:37:31.000 | Oh, you should do premarital counseling, but why?

01:37:34.000 | What's the point?

01:37:36.000 | My questions would be a few things.

01:37:39.000 | And I would encourage you to answer these questions.

01:37:41.000 | There's probably good books and such that you could read, but my questions would be these.

01:37:44.000 | Why do you want to get married?

01:37:46.000 | What's the point?

01:37:48.000 | She writes it down.

01:37:49.000 | Here's why I want to get married.

01:37:50.000 | You write it down.

01:37:51.000 | Here's why I want to get married.

01:37:52.000 | What's your vision?

01:37:53.000 | Why do you want to get married?

01:37:54.000 | Neither of you needs each other financially.

01:37:56.000 | So what's the point?

01:37:57.000 | Why are we getting married in the first place?

01:38:00.000 | Number two, the question I ask all couples who are thinking about getting married is I always ask them, I say,

01:38:07.000 | "Under what conditions are you going to divorce each other?"

01:38:11.000 | Like, "Under what conditions will you divorce your wife?

01:38:14.000 | Under what conditions will you divorce your husband?"

01:38:17.000 | And the answer to that question tells me a lot.

01:38:21.000 | And I listen very, very carefully to see what someone says.

01:38:24.000 | And so I would encourage you to answer that question to yourself, not here and now, but to yourself.

01:38:30.000 | "Under what conditions will I divorce my wife?"

01:38:32.000 | And then answer to yourself, "Under what conditions do I think she would divorce me?"

01:38:36.000 | If I'm doing counseling, I ask it directly.

01:38:38.000 | "Under what conditions will you divorce your husband?"

01:38:40.000 | Find out the answer to that.

01:38:42.000 | And I think those questions, and there's many other good questions,

01:38:46.000 | but those questions drive at the heart of what marriage means to people.

01:38:52.000 | And here's why I'm talking about this.

01:38:55.000 | I don't know anything about your background, but I observe in my worldview and in the world around

01:39:00.000 | that the meaning of marriage and what a couple understands marriage to be,

01:39:06.000 | what they understand their purpose in marriage to be, is going to drive how they approach these things.

01:39:12.000 | So as best as I can generalize or stereotype the concept of marriage as it exists in the United States of America,

01:39:21.000 | in 2023, in broadly acceptable culture, marriage kind of sort of means that we have a relationship together,

01:39:33.000 | but we want to have children and we don't want them to be bastards, so we have a marriage license.

01:39:40.000 | And we go into the marriage for as long as we love each other, and by loving each other,

01:39:45.000 | it feels like a more intense feeling that this person makes me happy.

01:39:53.000 | And I don't think I'm being too unfair in talking about it,

01:39:58.000 | but I think that's about how a lot of people seem to approach it.

01:40:01.000 | And in that mindset, it's hard to see why marriage is a good thing.

01:40:07.000 | And this is what I see as the breakdown of marriage in our modern day.

01:40:12.000 | That marriage, for people who are very, very successful, especially, this is where you see all the stuff.

01:40:20.000 | You can go into the manosphere, you can listen to the feminists, and the point,

01:40:25.000 | and what you hear at the end of it all is that I don't really need anything from marriage.

01:40:29.000 | I'm not looking for anything from marriage. It doesn't really mean anything.

01:40:32.000 | It's just a legal contract, and it's just a thing.

01:40:36.000 | And so in that situation, the danger signs are that if you under-earn your wife,

01:40:42.000 | unless you have some other very high-status personal characteristics that have attracted her to you,

01:40:52.000 | and that are going to keep her attracted to you, you may lose her respect.

01:40:57.000 | And you wake up all of a sudden, five years from now, you or she wakes up, and you think,

01:41:01.000 | "You know, I just don't have the feels for this guy anymore."

01:41:04.000 | Well, divorce is coming when you get into that situation.

01:41:09.000 | Now, if marriage means something more than that to both of you guys, and there's a shared vision,

01:41:15.000 | it doesn't have to be my traditional conservative Christian marriage viewpoint,

01:41:22.000 | but it needs to be something akin to marriage being deeper than a contract

01:41:28.000 | that somehow is a higher level of what we're already doing, then I think, "Okay, this is worth considering."

01:41:36.000 | For me, what I think of marriage is marriage is the foundation of society.

01:41:41.000 | Marriage is an expression to the world around of the love of a husband and a wife,

01:41:47.000 | and their commitment to one another is an expression to the world around of God's love for us and for His Church.

01:41:56.000 | And that means that when I went into—my wife and I, when we talked about it before marrying,

01:42:02.000 | I said, "Don't ever leave me, because I'm going with you. We're not divorcing for any reason.

01:42:09.000 | I believe that marriage is permanent."

01:42:11.000 | And so she and I both have that basic foundational bedrock, and marriage is the place where sexual activity is sanctified and made holy.

01:42:21.000 | Marriage is the place in which we raise children, which—and our responsibility is to produce children

01:42:28.000 | that are going to make the world a better place in the future.

01:42:32.000 | Marriage is the place in which our rough edges are scrubbed off.

01:42:37.000 | Marriage is the place in which it's just a kind of—it is the fundamental human institution that is the foundation of society.

01:42:44.000 | And so I'm very confident in that, and she—we both believe it.

01:42:50.000 | So when we enter into marriage, it's something that is the central organizing principle of our life,

01:42:56.000 | and it's not something that is a casual going into just because I've got the feels for you.

01:43:01.000 | I do have the feels, but the feels are not the foundation of our relationship.

01:43:05.000 | And so if you're going to go into marriage—and this is to everyone—if you're going to go into marriage,

01:43:11.000 | you need to go into marriage with eyes wide open.

01:43:13.000 | And there was a day and time in our society in which marriage was supported by the culture around.

01:43:22.000 | That day and time is dead and gone. Marriage is not supported.

01:43:26.000 | And so you're going to face, as a married couple, it's you against the world to keep your marriage strong and active.

01:43:33.000 | And so you need to be—you need to have communicated at a deep level about why we want to marry,

01:43:39.000 | what marriage means to us, and make sure that both of you feel confident about that decision.

01:43:44.000 | Because otherwise, it's just—it becomes a very expensive business proposition in many cases.

01:43:52.000 | Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And also, that's why I bring this up.

01:43:58.000 | We've seen each other for just over a year, so let's say 15 months.

01:44:04.000 | And it's better to test it out now to just say, "Hey, let's discuss all these questions and let's put it on the table,

01:44:10.000 | make a concrete timeline, because we don't have eternity to live."

01:44:14.000 | And if it doesn't work out, then we can—either we subscribe to the institution of marriage and then commit to it,

01:44:23.000 | or we say, "Let's be modern people and try to find an alternative path," which I don't know how that works, but that could be the alternative.

01:44:33.000 | And being indecisive, I think, leads to the second and not the first option.

01:44:39.000 | Right. Right. It does. It does.

01:44:43.000 | Yeah.

01:44:44.000 | So I—I mean, she sounds like a lovely woman. You sound like a great guy.

01:44:48.000 | And if you—as you move forward in your relationship, I do think—I mean, it can be wonderful.

01:44:57.000 | And sharing things with your spouse, sharing a lifetime together with your spouse, I think it's beautiful.

01:45:05.000 | I wish I had married younger. I married at kind of an acceptable age, but I wish I had married younger,

01:45:12.000 | and I think about building a life together with my wife. It's such a beautiful thing to know someone in a young—

01:45:19.000 | know someone in middle age, know someone when they're older. I think it's easier to marry young.

01:45:24.000 | You don't have so many, you know, hard and fast opinions and convictions and ways of doing things, etc.

01:45:32.000 | And so I love it. And if she's a wonderful woman, and if you guys can work together,

01:45:37.000 | and you can build a vision that is mutually acceptable, I'm a firm fan of marriage for all people.

01:45:43.000 | I just acknowledge—I find it very frustrating to try to figure out how to give good advice in this space,

01:45:49.000 | because at the end of the day, you've got to come back to worldview and perspective,

01:45:55.000 | and you've got to figure out how to navigate that.

01:45:58.000 | And when society—when a tradition—when you have a society, and this is the same in any kind of traditional long-lived society,

01:46:05.000 | any religion, any tribe, any part of the world, but when society puts expectations upon you,

01:46:12.000 | those guardrails can feel very frustrating to many people. You can chafe at them.

01:46:19.000 | But there's a great safety in that, because at least you understand a little bit about what the world looks like.

01:46:25.000 | Right now, we live in the United States. We live in a world in which all of the guardrails of society have been removed and dismantled.

01:46:34.000 | And those guardrails now leave every person basically having to make every decision all afresh with no external support.

01:46:43.000 | And that is really, really overwhelming.

01:46:46.000 | Or even confusion. As you said, basically everything is conspired against it, and even maybe your own personal history,

01:46:55.000 | because how you grew up in kindergarten, in school, all the friends around you, weird things are normalized,

01:47:00.000 | and then you feel weird for trying to build a marriage that is normal.

01:47:05.000 | Right, right. So all I know is that I have a lot of friends who are married.

01:47:11.000 | Other than most of my friends, I think that my generation, our marriages are going to change marriage statistics significantly,

01:47:22.000 | because all of us that went into marriage, we basically went in with no societal support.

01:47:30.000 | And what that means is, at least most of my friends, now granted, most of my friends, I'm not in mainstream culture much,

01:47:39.000 | I don't go clubbing, I have a skewed vantage point, a very limited sample set.

01:47:46.000 | But all of us went into marriage with just a deep conviction of knowing what this is.

01:47:52.000 | Many of our families and friends and parents have been divorced, and so watching that, I think it can drive people,

01:47:59.000 | and watching the fracturing of the institution of marriage, the society, it can drive people in a couple of directions.

01:48:06.000 | On the one hand, you wind up as Andrew Tate, right? No belief in marriage, have as many women and as many wives as you can,

01:48:18.000 | and basically destroy human relationships, monogamy is for the birds, etc.

01:48:24.000 | So you have this strong move in that direction. I view him as kind of the prototypical example of where many men wind up.

01:48:34.000 | On the other hand, you got me, right? My wife and I have only ever been with each other.

01:48:41.000 | We have exactly one sexual partner, each other. We have a very traditional lifestyle.

01:48:49.000 | And yet I look at that, and I look at the chasm in between, and I see this as kind of the proto... like the... these are the options.

01:48:58.000 | So these days, you can choose, right? You get to choose the path that you go on, but you got to see the direction that these choices take you.

01:49:06.000 | To me, I think that the direction, my direction, I've followed Tate for years and watched him very carefully,

01:49:14.000 | because I try to understand his perspective. I don't want his life.

01:49:20.000 | And so I believe there's tremendous value in what we have come up with as a culture of understanding what is right and wrong,

01:49:30.000 | and the strength that it leads to. And I see that strength in so many of my friends,

01:49:35.000 | that we married with a very different perspective, and it leads to stability, it leads to all kinds of great things.

01:49:41.000 | But you have to go into that with a clear conviction, because society is not going to support you.

01:49:47.000 | The reason I ask that question that I do, of "Under what conditions will your wife divorce you?"

01:49:53.000 | is you have to be confident that... I'm willing to accept two answers.

01:49:59.000 | Answer number one is "Under no condition." Answer number two is "Under the condition in which I commit adultery against her or abandon her."

01:50:10.000 | And the reason I say that is these are the trend of the traditional arguments of marriage.

01:50:14.000 | Prior to the no-fault divorce revolution of the 1980s, thanks Governor Reagan,

01:50:19.000 | prior to the no-fault divorce revolution, the only reason that the government would dissolve a marriage was for cause, for fault.

01:50:29.000 | Adultery, abandonment, I'm not sure if the other... for criminal acts, abuse, etc.

01:50:37.000 | So as a husband, you could be very, very confident going into marriage knowing that as long as I do my job,

01:50:47.000 | I'm going to be married 20 years from now.

01:50:49.000 | Now, if I commit adultery against my wife, of course, that's not.

01:50:54.000 | But I can control whether I commit adultery against my wife.

01:50:56.000 | I can control whether I abandon her.

01:50:59.000 | I can control whether I criminally abuse her in some way.

01:51:03.000 | So I can control the fact, and I know I'm always going to be married.

01:51:07.000 | Now, since no-fault divorce, all of that certainty that you have as a husband is gone.

01:51:15.000 | And when we combine no-fault divorce from a legal perspective with the stupidity of the modern ideology

01:51:25.000 | that romantic feelings of attraction are the be-all, end-all of life,

01:51:29.000 | and we've been fed this garbage by Hollywood romantic movies for 80 years,

01:51:35.000 | that, "Wow, these two people just love each other, and because they love each other,

01:51:39.000 | and they have this intense attraction, then they go off into the sunset, and everything is happy ever after."

01:51:45.000 | Then when we go through the normal vicissitudes of life,

01:51:49.000 | as a husband, if your wife wakes up five years from now,

01:51:54.000 | and she's lost her sense of attraction for you,

01:51:57.000 | and she goes to her girlfriend, and she says, "You know what?

01:52:00.000 | I just don't love him the same way I did five years ago."

01:52:04.000 | You know that the first bit of advice that she's going to get is,

01:52:07.000 | "Well, honey, you deserve to be happy.

01:52:09.000 | Don't you deserve to be with a man who makes you feel happy?"

01:52:13.000 | Well, how can I, as a husband, control the feelings of my wife?

01:52:17.000 | I will do everything I can to inspire those feelings,

01:52:21.000 | but at the end of the day, I can't control another person's feelings.

01:52:25.000 | I can't control how my wife feels about me on any given day.

01:52:30.000 | All I can control is my actions.

01:52:33.000 | And so I need to be confident.

01:52:35.000 | If I'm going to go into marriage, I need to be confident that if my wife is talking to one of her girlfriends five years from now,

01:52:43.000 | and saying, "You know, I just don't feel the way I did before,"

01:52:49.000 | I need to be confident that that girlfriend says,

01:52:51.000 | "Well, honey, you should go and find a man who makes you feel that."

01:52:54.000 | She looks her in the face and she says, "Don't ever say that to me again," and gets up and walks out.

01:52:58.000 | Because that's poison in her mind.

01:53:01.000 | So I need to be confident that she's going to leave that girl,

01:53:05.000 | and she's going to go find someone else who's going to help her and say,

01:53:09.000 | "Here's how you regenerate those feelings that you had for your husband."

01:53:13.000 | And that's something that she's got to do and that I've got to do,

01:53:16.000 | because it's not supported by society.

01:53:19.000 | Society is the enemy of marriage at this point in time.

01:53:22.000 | So I wish I had less sobering news,

01:53:26.000 | but I find it very frustrating to know how to give good advice,

01:53:31.000 | because marriage is exceedingly dangerous in our current era.

01:53:36.000 | For those who go into it with a strong conviction in the sanctifying power of marriage,

01:53:42.000 | I think it's wonderful.

01:53:44.000 | For those who don't, it can often be one of the most destructive things in their lives.

01:53:50.000 | So may God give you wisdom and courage as you and your prospective wife

01:53:55.000 | explore your relationship and its future.

01:53:59.000 | Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks, Joshua.

01:54:01.000 | I think the sobering advice is good.

01:54:03.000 | Maybe you can do a sobering series,

01:54:07.000 | dig up all the most sobering things you can say,

01:54:09.000 | just like the Educating Your Children series. That would be good.

01:54:13.000 | I started it years ago, and I've chickened out on it.

01:54:15.000 | I got a few episodes in, and it was actually this subject.

01:54:19.000 | So I got into the series.

01:54:21.000 | I have a series called "How to Marry an Excellent Wife,"

01:54:24.000 | because I believe that...

01:54:26.000 | Yeah, listen to it. That's a good one.

01:54:28.000 | So I got three or four episodes in,

01:54:30.000 | and I felt like I was dealing with things properly,

01:54:33.000 | but then I had all these men writing me emails,

01:54:35.000 | like, "Joshua, you're underestimating blah, blah, blah."

01:54:37.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:39.000 | And so I paused the series to just think.

01:54:42.000 | I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:44.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:46.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:48.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:50.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:52.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:54.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:56.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:54:58.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:00.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:02.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:04.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:06.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:08.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:10.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:12.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:14.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:16.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:18.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:20.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:22.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:24.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:26.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:28.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:30.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:32.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:34.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:36.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:38.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:40.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:42.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:44.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:46.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:48.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:50.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:52.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:54.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:56.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:55:58.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:00.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:02.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:04.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:06.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:08.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:10.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:12.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:14.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:16.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:18.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:20.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:22.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:24.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:26.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:28.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:30.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:32.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:34.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:36.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:38.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:40.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:42.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:44.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:46.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:48.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:50.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:52.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:54.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:56.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:56:58.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:00.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:02.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:04.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:06.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:08.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:10.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:12.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:14.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:16.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:18.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:20.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:22.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:24.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:26.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:28.000 | And I thought, "Do I really understand it?"

01:57:30.000 | The answer to this question is going to depend on the specific property.

01:57:33.000 | Normally, in a mortgage loan,

01:57:37.000 | there are clauses that are going to say

01:57:40.000 | what the current mortgagee can and cannot do

01:57:44.000 | in that mortgage.

01:57:47.000 | And in a standard residential mortgage,

01:57:50.000 | I've never reviewed a thousand mortgages,

01:57:53.000 | but I'm pretty confident, I have 95% certainty

01:57:57.000 | and confidence,

01:57:59.000 | simply saying that if you go out and you review

01:58:02.000 | all those mortgages,

01:58:04.000 | buying a house in an LLC

01:58:06.000 | that has a traditional residential mortgage on it,

01:58:09.000 | that that transfer of ownership

01:58:12.000 | would trigger potential clauses

01:58:15.000 | of paying back the mortgage immediately,

01:58:17.000 | and legally speaking, would not work out.

01:58:20.000 | I would bet that this is done from time to time,

01:58:24.000 | and it's done simply by not reporting it

01:58:27.000 | to the bank in some way.

01:58:29.000 | There's infinite variations that you could do it,

01:58:31.000 | but it's not something that I think would pass the documents,

01:58:34.000 | generally speaking.

01:58:35.000 | But you wouldn't know until you actually examined

01:58:37.000 | the documents of the mortgage to see,

01:58:39.000 | "Is it an assumable mortgage?

01:58:41.000 | Is there some way that I could assume it?"

01:58:43.000 | Now, there are, of course, other forms of financing

01:58:46.000 | that are more assumable than just your normal residential mortgage.

01:58:50.000 | And so, if you wound up with one of those forms of financing,

01:58:54.000 | and it was clearly written in the mortgage document

01:58:57.000 | that you could assume it, then, okay, it could work out.

01:59:00.000 | The problem with all of this is I have no idea

01:59:02.000 | how you're going to go find a house that's in an LLC

01:59:04.000 | that also fits your other needs as a family.

01:59:08.000 | In most places, even if this could work,

01:59:12.000 | you're just not going to find that many houses

01:59:15.000 | that are owned in this manner,

01:59:17.000 | and the specific needs of your family structure

01:59:20.000 | and the specific needs of your need as a home

01:59:23.000 | are more important.

01:59:25.000 | So, I don't have a great solution for you

01:59:28.000 | to tell you how to do this.

01:59:30.000 | Just that when you find a property,

01:59:34.000 | examine it for any opportunities that are there.

01:59:37.000 | And if you can assume a mortgage from a seller,

01:59:40.000 | regardless of the ownership of the house,

01:59:42.000 | then consider trying to assume it.

01:59:46.000 | It is possible to assume some mortgages.

01:59:48.000 | And so, as part of your negotiations with the seller,

01:59:50.000 | perhaps you approach the mortgage company

01:59:52.000 | and find out, would there be some way

01:59:54.000 | that we could assume this mortgage

01:59:56.000 | that is already in place?

01:59:58.000 | But I'm skeptical that that's actually going to work.

02:00:02.000 | In general, as interest rates go up,

02:00:06.000 | obviously financing costs go up.

02:00:08.000 | So, what happens?

02:00:09.000 | Well, first, this should, over time,

02:00:12.000 | have an impact on the purchase price of a home.

02:00:15.000 | It can be quite maddening

02:00:17.000 | when it doesn't happen immediately.

02:00:19.000 | But remember that a huge portion,

02:00:21.000 | in general market, right?

02:00:22.000 | Not on Palm Beach or not in Beverly Hills

02:00:24.000 | where the houses are bought with cash.

02:00:26.000 | But in general, people are choosing their housing

02:00:31.000 | based upon the monthly payment.

02:00:33.000 | And so, there will be a pressure on home prices

02:00:37.000 | as interest rates rise.

02:00:38.000 | It may take time for it to fully emerge,

02:00:40.000 | but if you're going out and you're shopping

02:00:42.000 | and you're getting a 7% mortgage,

02:00:44.000 | you can expect to pay less for a house

02:00:47.000 | than you did at 2.5% mortgage

02:00:51.000 | because people are buying based upon monthly payments

02:00:54.000 | and the mortgage rate drives the monthly payment.

02:00:57.000 | Then, in addition,

02:00:58.000 | if you do wind up with a higher rate mortgage,

02:01:01.000 | it becomes a higher target for early payoff.

02:01:05.000 | It's been very frustrating over the years,

02:01:08.000 | the last few years as a financial advisor,

02:01:10.000 | because I haven't once, in good faith,

02:01:13.000 | recommended that somebody pay off

02:01:15.000 | one of these 2% or 3% or 4% interest rate debts.

02:01:19.000 | I've talked about some potential reasons

02:01:21.000 | why it can be a good idea,

02:01:23.000 | but I've never recommended it

02:01:24.000 | because I can't in good faith.

02:01:25.000 | On the other hand, 10% mortgages,

02:01:28.000 | okay, paying them off quickly

02:01:30.000 | makes a much better target,

02:01:32.000 | and I may turn to recommending that.

02:01:37.000 | So, it's hard to grasp where we are,

02:01:40.000 | and I'll close with this.

02:01:41.000 | I want to just give you my framework.

02:01:43.000 | It's so hard to predict where we are

02:01:44.000 | from a macroeconomic perspective

02:01:46.000 | or what's going to happen with the market.

02:01:48.000 | I appreciate so much the hard work

02:01:50.000 | that good prognosticators do

02:01:52.000 | to give us some insight

02:01:53.000 | into what could happen in the future.

02:01:55.000 | We can apply our own brains

02:01:56.000 | and try to come up with our own predictions.

02:01:59.000 | At the end of the day, though,

02:02:01.000 | even the best in the business

02:02:02.000 | are wrong quite frequently.

02:02:04.000 | So, when we look at the world,

02:02:06.000 | the only reliable framework that I have

02:02:08.000 | is to say, "Do what makes sense for you

02:02:11.000 | "at this stage of where you are

02:02:13.000 | "in this current moment."

02:02:15.000 | So, don't make your decisions

02:02:19.000 | primarily based upon numbers.

02:02:21.000 | Make your decisions based upon

02:02:22.000 | what's right for your family.

02:02:24.000 | If it were right for my family

02:02:25.000 | to move from a house with a low mortgage rate

02:02:28.000 | to a house with a high mortgage rate

02:02:30.000 | because of proximity to family

02:02:31.000 | or proximity to a better lifestyle, et cetera,

02:02:33.000 | I would do it.

02:02:35.000 | And the cost is just the cost.

02:02:37.000 | It's the cost, right?

02:02:38.000 | You're not taking your money with you

02:02:39.000 | when you go.

02:02:40.000 | You're not taking your money.

02:02:41.000 | So, focus on what does matter,

02:02:43.000 | which is people

02:02:44.000 | and getting into those circumstances.

02:02:47.000 | And then, after you've figured out

02:02:49.000 | the decision that's right for you

02:02:51.000 | as a family,

02:02:53.000 | where you are right now

02:02:54.000 | with your income,

02:02:55.000 | what you can afford, et cetera,

02:02:56.000 | then say, "How do we minimize

02:02:59.000 | "the hassle or the expense

02:03:00.000 | "of this particular decision?"

02:03:02.000 | So, can we come up with more cash

02:03:05.000 | and pay this house off faster?

02:03:09.000 | Or can we borrow from dad at 6%

02:03:13.000 | instead of from the bank at 8%

02:03:15.000 | because dad would like to have

02:03:17.000 | a nice steady rental payment?

02:03:18.000 | Or can we assume a mortgage?

02:03:20.000 | Or can we do something else?

02:03:22.000 | But don't worry too much

02:03:24.000 | about making money

02:03:25.000 | the center of your family decisions.

02:03:27.000 | I think that when money

02:03:28.000 | is the first and primary decision driver,

02:03:31.000 | it's just a very fickle master.

02:03:35.000 | Money should be your, perhaps,

02:03:37.000 | third, fourth, fifth, and sixth considerations.

02:03:40.000 | But your first and second considerations

02:03:42.000 | should primarily be

02:03:43.000 | the non-financial considerations

02:03:45.000 | of your life

02:03:46.000 | and then make the money fit to them.

02:03:48.000 | That's it for today's Q&A show.

02:03:50.000 | Thank you all so much for listening.

02:03:51.000 | I really enjoyed doing these.

02:03:52.000 | If you would like to join me

02:03:53.000 | on next week's show,

02:03:55.000 | go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance,

02:03:58.000 | support the show on Patreon,

02:03:59.000 | and that'll give you access to the number.

02:04:01.000 | patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.

02:04:03.000 | I'll be back with you very soon.

02:04:05.000 | The holidays start here at Ralph's

02:04:07.000 | with a variety of options

02:04:08.000 | to celebrate traditions old and new.

02:04:10.000 | Whether you're making

02:04:11.000 | a traditional roasted turkey

02:04:13.000 | or spicy turkey tacos,

02:04:15.000 | your go-to shrimp cocktail,

02:04:17.000 | or your first Cajun risotto,

02:04:18.000 | Ralph's has all the freshest ingredients

02:04:21.000 | to embrace your traditions.

02:04:22.000 | Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.

02:04:25.000 | Choose from a great selection

02:04:26.000 | of digital coupons

02:04:27.000 | and use them up to five times

02:04:28.000 | in one transaction.

02:04:30.000 | Check our app for details.

02:04:31.000 | Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.

02:04:35.000 | Your tough Tacoma is here.

02:04:38.000 | Your powerful 4Runner.

02:04:41.000 | Your stylish Camry.

02:04:43.000 | Your versatile RAV4.

02:04:46.000 | Even your fully electric VZ4X.

02:04:50.000 | Your new Toyota car, truck, or SUV

02:04:54.000 | is available now.

02:04:56.000 | So see your Toyota dealer today.

02:04:59.000 | We make it easy.

02:05:01.000 | Toyota. Let's go places.

2023-03-24_Friday_QA