2023-03-31_Friday

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00:01:00.000 | Today on Radical Personal Finance is a live Q&A.

00:01:02.000 | Welcome to the show. My name is Joshua Sheets.

00:01:04.000 | This is 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,

00:01:11.000 | while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

00:01:14.000 | Today is Friday, March 31, 2023.

00:01:17.000 | And this Friday, as I do any Friday in which I can arrange the appropriate technology, we do a live call-in show.

00:01:23.000 | Call in and talk about anything that you want.

00:01:25.000 | Open lines where you can talk about any question, make any comments, bring up any topic that you'd like to discuss with me.

00:01:30.000 | If you would like to gain access to one of these Friday Q&A shows, you can do that by going to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.

00:01:36.000 | Sign up to support the show on Patreon and that will gain you access to one of these call-in shows.

00:01:41.000 | We begin with Peter in Las Vegas.

00:01:43.000 | Peter, welcome to the show. How can I serve you today?

00:01:47.000 | Yeah, hi, Joshua. I was hoping you could help me strategize a couple of things related to a couple who are friends of mine who are retirees, some money management items.

00:02:01.000 | Specifically, I'm hoping to go to a meeting with them and their financial advisor and try to sort out their cash flow.

00:02:09.000 | They've had a couple of interesting things happen, and I think there's a couple of things they can do with their money.

00:02:15.000 | I just wanted to be best prepared for that meeting.

00:02:20.000 | Sure. Why are you involved at all?

00:02:22.000 | They're actually relatives, but I think I called them friends, but they're relatives. That's why I'm involved.

00:02:30.000 | Did they ask you to be involved?

00:02:31.000 | Sort of. Sort of is the answer, and now I am.

00:02:40.000 | Okay. It's always a red flag when you say, "Okay, I'm involved in someone else's finances," unless they have clearly asked you to be involved.

00:02:48.000 | Or if you are being compensated for being involved, it doesn't always go very well.

00:02:53.000 | I hope in your case it does go very well because it's what a valuable thing to have somebody else who's looking out for you, but a lot of times it just doesn't go very well.

00:03:02.000 | Tell me more about that situation and we'll see what comes out of it.

00:03:08.000 | Yeah. The basic deal is they have three or four buckets of money that they're drawing on.

00:03:17.000 | They've got Social Security. They have, with the same custodian, there's an IRA, and they have a brokerage account at the same custodian.

00:03:31.000 | Then they have a whole life insurance policy.

00:03:35.000 | Those are the four sources of cash that they have.

00:03:39.000 | Everything seemed to be going okay, and then what's precipitated all of this is their rent in their apartment might be going up.

00:03:48.000 | And so that may stress their current budget.

00:03:52.000 | However, about six months ago, and this is what I was trying to get some clarity by actually talking with them and the advisor,

00:03:59.000 | they didn't continue to take money out of their brokerage account and instead took money out of their whole life policy.

00:04:07.000 | And it created a budget crunch by no longer taking distributions from that brokerage account.

00:04:14.000 | And I didn't quite understand exactly at what rate they were taking the money out to begin with, and I frankly don't think they did either.

00:04:23.000 | And the other flip side of this is I'm curious if they can take that whole life policy and convert it to an annuity to help them with some of their cash flow needs as well.

00:04:33.000 | So that's the basic contour is I think they ended up inadvertent cash crunch because they stopped drawing down on their investment accounts for some reason.

00:04:42.000 | How old are these people?

00:04:44.000 | The husband is 80 and the wife is 70.

00:04:50.000 | And do you know anything about how much their net worth is?

00:04:53.000 | Just big picture numbers?

00:04:57.000 | Yeah, probably $750,000.

00:05:01.000 | And do you have any idea what their living expenses are?

00:05:07.000 | Yeah, their monthly expenses are probably around $7,500.

00:05:15.000 | Okay. Well, and so the question you have is kind of just generally how do I think about these buckets of money?

00:05:22.000 | Is that more or less the question?

00:05:24.000 | I think one specific question was actually about the insurance product, you know, specifically what to do with that.

00:05:32.000 | But then, you know, secondarily, a little bit on the expenditures out of the brokerage account.

00:05:39.000 | Okay. Well, in this process, let me kind of give you a big picture overview of how I would handle it if I were talking with this couple.

00:05:48.000 | So at the age of 80 and 70, there's a good chance that their living expenses are fairly fixed.

00:05:55.000 | Is this a super active couple that wants to travel all around the world or do kind of big expensive things?

00:06:00.000 | Or does it seem like a couple that's just more stable at this point in time?

00:06:04.000 | It's they're pretty fixed. They do some travel, but it's to see relatives.

00:06:10.000 | But that that's basically set. That doesn't vary.

00:06:13.000 | Okay. So the first thing we want to get an idea of is the specific numbers of their budget.

00:06:19.000 | And what we're trying to look at is how consistent these numbers are likely to be over the next couple of decades.

00:06:26.000 | Now, this is obviously difficult to predict with a high degree of certainty.

00:06:31.000 | But we want to get a clear idea of what actually makes up that $7,500 per month.

00:06:37.000 | So you said that their rent is increasing. So as an example, if their rent is $1,500 a month and the balance of their $6,000 a month of spending is highly variable and adjustable.

00:06:47.000 | And it just involves them doing things that they really love to do and spending money.

00:06:51.000 | That's a very different situation than if their rent is $4,200 a month and it's going to go up from $4,200 to $4,900 a month.

00:06:58.000 | And they actually have no wiggle room.

00:06:59.000 | So you want to begin by taking a careful look at the $7,500 a month and understand what is involved in that.

00:07:07.000 | How much of that is necessary spending? How much of it is discretionary spending?

00:07:12.000 | And what's likely to happen with that spending over the next coming years?

00:07:16.000 | At the age of 80, you want to assess the health of the husband.

00:07:20.000 | And is this the kind of guy who's a super active 80-year-old who's likely to continue to be active for another 20 years?

00:07:26.000 | Or is this a guy who, all right, well, he's here at 80 but unlikely to be active for a very long time.

00:07:32.000 | You also need to assess as best you're able the health of the wife.

00:07:35.000 | Because statistically, there's a good chance that a 70-year-old woman could very easily live to 95 or 100 years old.

00:07:42.000 | And so you may still have a 30-year obligation here to provide for her income for the next 30 years.

00:07:50.000 | And so we want to be very thoughtful about what her needs are.

00:07:53.000 | We want to look at the Social Security, how much of it is coming in from his earning records versus her earning records.

00:07:58.000 | What would be her widow benefit if he dies because he's older than she is?

00:08:02.000 | And is likely, statistically, because he's male, he's likely to pre-decease her.

00:08:06.000 | And especially because he's 10 years older.

00:08:08.000 | And what would be her situation after that point in time?

00:08:11.000 | Go back to the living expenses and get an idea of what would happen with the living expenses if he dies.

00:08:16.000 | Would they continue to live in the same place?

00:08:18.000 | Would she be spending $7,000 a month?

00:08:20.000 | Or would she be spending $3,000 a month?

00:08:23.000 | And get a good, clear idea of what is going on in those numbers.

00:08:26.000 | You also then need to take a good look at health care expenses.

00:08:30.000 | And in retirement planning, you have kind of a dual-fold trend.

00:08:36.000 | So on the one hand, consumption item expenses are often the highest in the beginning of retirement.

00:08:43.000 | And then they kind of go down little by little over time.

00:08:46.000 | So you've got the go-go years, the slow-go years, and the no-go years.

00:08:50.000 | As an old friend of mine, a financial planner, used to talk about it.

00:08:53.000 | That first decade from, say, 70 to 80 has maybe a very different lifestyle profile than that decade from 90 to 100.

00:09:02.000 | And so you want to account for that in terms of the overall consumption expenses.

00:09:07.000 | On the flip side, the biggest factor in many older people's budgets often turns out to be medical care.

00:09:14.000 | And that medical care can creep up on you.

00:09:16.000 | And all of a sudden, you don't have a lot of discretionary expenses from 90 to 100 in terms of necessarily jet-setting around the world

00:09:23.000 | and consuming expensive golf clubs and things like that.

00:09:27.000 | But yet you may have higher medical expenses.

00:09:30.000 | So take a look at medical insurance.

00:09:32.000 | Take a look at their Medicare coverages.

00:09:34.000 | Take a look at any private insurance that they do or don't have.

00:09:37.000 | Take a look at any long-term care insurance coverage that they do or don't have

00:09:40.000 | to get an idea of how much money is necessary to be set aside for medical coverages.

00:09:47.000 | Then from there, after you get a good idea of their expenses,

00:09:51.000 | then you need to go over to their sources of income and to their assets

00:09:56.000 | and take a careful look at what their income levels are.

00:10:00.000 | Now, do you know what his Social Security income is?

00:10:03.000 | I know their total, but I don't know the breakdown between the two of them.

00:10:08.000 | What's the total?

00:10:10.000 | The total is about $65,000 a year.

00:10:13.000 | Okay.

00:10:14.000 | So $65,000 a year between the two of them is a wonderful and very healthy Social Security payment.

00:10:20.000 | That should be, you know, that's $5,400 a month.

00:10:23.000 | And so they should be able to live and cover their fixed expenses,

00:10:28.000 | most likely on their Social Security payment.

00:10:31.000 | And I would like it very much if they could be certain about that,

00:10:35.000 | that they could definitely cover their fixed expenses with Social Security payments.

00:10:39.000 | You need to take a look at what would happen if he dies or if she dies

00:10:43.000 | and take a look at the widow or widower benefit that they're entitled to

00:10:46.000 | to understand what those numbers would be because this is your biggest risk.

00:10:50.000 | The biggest risk as a planner, if I'm approaching this couple,

00:10:55.000 | my highest priority is often to take care of this 70-year-old woman

00:11:00.000 | because the 80-year-old man has a much shorter life expectancy

00:11:04.000 | and because he's older, he's likely to be gone within 5 to 15 years.

00:11:08.000 | Now, he could live longer, of course, but 5 to 15 years, he's gone.

00:11:11.000 | But the 70-year-old woman, I've got a 30-year time perspective to probably plan for

00:11:17.000 | unless there's some clear contraindications of that.

00:11:20.000 | So I need to be very conservative for her benefit.

00:11:22.000 | And so my biggest focus is making sure that she's not left destitute when he dies.

00:11:27.000 | And especially if he was a high earner

00:11:30.000 | and if there's not a healthy Social Security benefit for her,

00:11:34.000 | then you'll need to be much more conservative with the investments for her benefit

00:11:40.000 | to keep her through the next 30 years than you would be with the income from him.

00:11:45.000 | Now, with this high Social Security benefit, it opens up more options for you.

00:11:51.000 | So if there's $65,000 a year of income from Social Security,

00:11:55.000 | they should be able to match their fixed living expenses to their Social Security benefit.

00:12:00.000 | And their single most important asset is not the $750,000 of net worth

00:12:04.000 | but rather the Social Security benefit

00:12:06.000 | because that's a benefit that's guaranteed to come in until the end of life

00:12:10.000 | and it's guaranteed to adjust with inflation based upon the changes in the Consumer Price Index.

00:12:16.000 | And so that should provide them with a good, solid, foundational level of stability to their life.

00:12:23.000 | Now, if we pivot then to the assets,

00:12:26.000 | we want to try to get an idea of the way that we would like to use assets.

00:12:31.000 | And there are a few different categories that we need to think about.

00:12:35.000 | Number one is spending the assets.

00:12:37.000 | I think it makes a lot of sense for people to spend their money.

00:12:40.000 | And so are we going to just spend assets down?

00:12:43.000 | Spending assets down is perfectly acceptable.

00:12:45.000 | So if they've got $750,000 of assets sitting there, let's just spend these things down.

00:12:50.000 | Unless, number two, we need to set aside money for end-of-life care or for contingencies.

00:12:57.000 | We want to make sure that we don't spend down all the money.

00:13:00.000 | We want to make sure that there's always some money available to care, you know,

00:13:04.000 | if somebody needs some kind of long-term care or pay for a private nurse, etc.

00:13:10.000 | So what would be the amount of money that needs to be set aside for that?

00:13:14.000 | And that will be balanced with do they have any insurance coverage?

00:13:17.000 | Do they have long-term care insurance coverage?

00:13:19.000 | Do they have family that's able to help?

00:13:21.000 | What would be an appropriate amount of money that's necessary to be set aside

00:13:26.000 | in order to provide for end-of-life care?

00:13:28.000 | And that's a hard number to come up with,

00:13:30.000 | but it's basically going to be a number that has to be considered.

00:13:33.000 | But it is a hard number to come up with.

00:13:35.000 | And then the third thing comes down to the role of inheritance.

00:13:38.000 | Do they have children that they want to leave money to?

00:13:41.000 | Do they have a charity that they want to leave money to?

00:13:43.000 | And if so, how much money do they want to leave to those people?

00:13:47.000 | And how important is it to them?

00:13:49.000 | So we want to get a good idea of what their spending goals are

00:13:52.000 | in terms of consumption, what their savings goals are for themselves,

00:13:55.000 | and what their legacy goals are for their children or charities

00:13:59.000 | or other things that they wish to support.

00:14:01.000 | Now, with that information, you'll have a good sense of, like,

00:14:05.000 | do these numbers work?

00:14:07.000 | Because a lot of times they don't work.

00:14:09.000 | And you say, "Listen, guys, you've got to cut your expenses,

00:14:11.000 | cut your lifestyle. We need to move. We need to change something."

00:14:15.000 | Because what you're describing with a $65,000 income,

00:14:18.000 | which again, $5,400 a month, and your knowledge of a $7,500 a month spending,

00:14:22.000 | they should very comfortably be able to meet that $7,500 a month

00:14:26.000 | for quite some time with their assets level.

00:14:31.000 | And so there's not necessarily a need to work this out too much.

00:14:36.000 | But take a look at kind of how do these numbers work.

00:14:39.000 | Is there some sense here in which this works?

00:14:41.000 | Back to the go-go years, right?

00:14:43.000 | Is $7,500 the go-go number or the no-go number?

00:14:46.000 | Is this because you can spend an extra $3,000 a month off of savings

00:14:50.000 | very easily for three years, but is it doable for 30 years

00:14:54.000 | and also for us to meet these other objectives?

00:14:58.000 | Then when you look at the account balances,

00:15:00.000 | do you know how much money is in the custodial accounts

00:15:03.000 | with the IRA and the brokerage accounts,

00:15:04.000 | and how much is in the whole life policy?

00:15:08.000 | Yes, I do. IRA is about $145,000, and the RMD on that is about $7,500.

00:15:18.000 | Brokerage is $475,000, and both of those are about 50/50 stock bond.

00:15:29.000 | And the insurance, the death benefit is about $145,000

00:15:34.000 | with a cash value of around $115,000 and an annual dividend of $1,500.

00:15:41.000 | Okay, great. So if you look at those numbers,

00:15:45.000 | do you know anything about their goals of leaving money behind,

00:15:48.000 | children's inheritances, things like that?

00:15:51.000 | Yeah, I mean, this is interesting.

00:15:54.000 | They're interested in leaving it to their kids,

00:15:56.000 | but none of their kids want it or need it.

00:16:01.000 | Do you know what their numbers or what their goals are

00:16:04.000 | in terms of how much money they'd like to leave?

00:16:06.000 | No, it's just sort of a nebulous, you know,

00:16:10.000 | we'd like to give something to them.

00:16:12.000 | And it's creating the short-term cash crunch as a result.

00:16:17.000 | Understood. And they don't have, they don't, they're renting,

00:16:22.000 | they don't own any real estate. Is that correct?

00:16:25.000 | They don't own any real estate in the United States

00:16:30.000 | and the foreign real estate they can't sell.

00:16:33.000 | Okay. So, first of all, I think if we look at these assets,

00:16:40.000 | they all have certain characteristics that are worth paying attention to.

00:16:45.000 | So in terms of the IRA, we know that the IRA has required minimum distributions.

00:16:51.000 | So the IRA is really great for its tax deferral.

00:16:54.000 | It's very efficient.

00:16:56.000 | It's a good asset to leave behind as an inheritance to our children

00:17:02.000 | because of the ability for them to also stretch out the inheritance a little bit.

00:17:07.000 | The IRA is a really good asset because of the creditor protection,

00:17:11.000 | depending on the laws of their state,

00:17:13.000 | but it also does have these required minimum distributions.

00:17:16.000 | So the IRA has those basic features.

00:17:19.000 | The brokerage account has different features.

00:17:23.000 | It doesn't have any tax protections.

00:17:25.000 | So it can be very tax efficient if it's in like an index fund or something like that.

00:17:30.000 | You mentioned that it's 50/50.

00:17:32.000 | So if it's 50% bonds, we're paying high levels of income tax on the bond income in that account.

00:17:38.000 | And that account, when it's passed along,

00:17:41.000 | we want to take a quick look at the tax basis in the account

00:17:44.000 | and understand what would be the tax savings of it,

00:17:50.000 | of selling it now versus keeping it in terms of the capital gains asset.

00:17:54.000 | Because the stocks or mutual funds in there that are capital gains assets,

00:17:58.000 | those could be very efficient to leave behind.

00:18:01.000 | So the reason I'm pointing this out is let's say this $475,000 brokerage account

00:18:06.000 | was primarily composed of a single company that this couple bought 30 years ago,

00:18:13.000 | and they have a $475 tax basis.

00:18:16.000 | Well, then this would be an account that is going to have substantial tax ramifications

00:18:21.000 | that we need to keep in mind and think about in terms of spending it efficiently.

00:18:26.000 | Now, that can go both ways.

00:18:28.000 | That doesn't necessarily say sell it or don't sell it.

00:18:30.000 | You can sell it, pay long-term capital gains taxes,

00:18:32.000 | which would be lower than ordinary income taxes,

00:18:35.000 | or you can say, "I'm going to keep it as an inheritance,"

00:18:37.000 | and then potentially the children could inherit it tax-free.

00:18:40.000 | But I'm saying we need to look at what's in it.

00:18:42.000 | On the other hand, if it just has, say, a bond index fund and a stock index fund

00:18:46.000 | that they bought two years ago, well, tax indications don't really matter,

00:18:49.000 | and now we're paying more attention to the flexibility of the account,

00:18:52.000 | the lack of creditor protections, et cetera, of that brokerage account.

00:18:57.000 | Then the whole life insurance, if we look at that,

00:19:00.000 | we want to take a good look at the policy, make sure the policy is healthy.

00:19:04.000 | So, for example, I don't think it does, but if the policy had $400,000 of policy loans on it

00:19:10.000 | and had a net death benefit of $145,000 and $115,000 cash value,

00:19:15.000 | that's going to be very different than if it's just got a straight-up death benefit of $145,000

00:19:19.000 | and a cash value of $115,000.

00:19:21.000 | You need to take a look at the total amount of premiums that have been paid into the policy.

00:19:26.000 | You already mentioned the dividend number, but you want to do an analysis of the policy

00:19:30.000 | because there are several different ways that you could take income off of it.

00:19:34.000 | In general, I think life insurance is best left as life insurance.

00:19:39.000 | And so the thing that I don't understand is why they would be taking money

00:19:42.000 | from a life insurance policy and not from a brokerage account,

00:19:45.000 | under what you're saying here.

00:19:47.000 | I'm not denying that it could make sense, it's just not immediately obvious to me.

00:19:51.000 | Generally speaking, I would prefer to keep life insurance as life insurance

00:19:56.000 | because, number one, on the date of death, it creates immediate cash.

00:20:01.000 | And that cash can be very, very helpful as an inheritance asset

00:20:05.000 | because it just gets passed along to the beneficiaries.

00:20:09.000 | It's also a known number.

00:20:12.000 | And so let's say, for example, that I'm looking at this situation

00:20:17.000 | and let's say that the couple says, "We want to spend quite a lot more money."

00:20:21.000 | Well, if the $145,000 life insurance policy is on the life of the husband

00:20:25.000 | and he's going to die first and the Social Security income is going to go down,

00:20:30.000 | it's nice to know that I have a guaranteed $145,000 of death benefit

00:20:35.000 | that's there for the wife at that point in time.

00:20:38.000 | And it wouldn't make a lot of sense to me to start taking loans from that contract

00:20:42.000 | when it's better for this just to sit there and for me to take death benefit.

00:20:46.000 | And that death benefit may be the money that I then put into an annuity at his death,

00:20:51.000 | assuming that he predeceases her,

00:20:53.000 | then that $145,000, the plan might be to model and say,

00:20:57.000 | let's say that he dies 10 years from now.

00:20:59.000 | Let's say that the death benefit is $170,000 by then.

00:21:03.000 | And now we take that $170,000, we're going to buy an annuity,

00:21:06.000 | and that annuity payment is going to be paying out for her,

00:21:09.000 | and that's going to replace the lowered Social Security income

00:21:13.000 | to provide for her financial security for the rest of her life.

00:21:16.000 | I like the certainty of having the life insurance

00:21:21.000 | and that makes it easy to plan for an option like that.

00:21:24.000 | Now, flipping back to the brokerage account,

00:21:26.000 | the brokerage account I think gives you quite a lot of options.

00:21:30.000 | So if we do the stock numbers here,

00:21:32.000 | let's just say we've got $475,000 plus $145,000.

00:21:37.000 | So all told we have $620,000.

00:21:42.000 | We should easily be able to take $3,000 a month from that account

00:21:48.000 | and have it be able to--

00:21:50.000 | So 4% would be $25,000 a year.

00:21:53.000 | And at their numbers, I would be very content with a 4% withdrawal rate.

00:21:58.000 | That would give $2,000 a month, which $5,500 a month plus--

00:22:03.000 | $5,500 a month from Social Security plus $2,000 a month from brokerage accounts.

00:22:07.000 | That would give me a great deal of confidence

00:22:09.000 | of them being able to have their budget of $7,500 a month with room to spare.

00:22:14.000 | At the age of 80 and 70, I think we could increase the withdrawal rate above 4%

00:22:19.000 | with good certainty,

00:22:21.000 | especially if we have the life insurance and Social Security as a backstop.

00:22:25.000 | And we can play with that a little bit based upon market timing.

00:22:29.000 | I'll come back to--

00:22:30.000 | I'll make a note so I don't forget this--

00:22:32.000 | market timing of distributions in a moment.

00:22:35.000 | But I guess this is--

00:22:38.000 | I think you've got good numbers here.

00:22:41.000 | And if we get good markets, those account balances could continue to grow

00:22:45.000 | even with pulling off $2,000 a month or $24,000 a year

00:22:48.000 | to supplement Social Security to meet your budget that you're looking at.

00:22:51.000 | Those accounts could continue to grow

00:22:53.000 | and still be there for financial security,

00:22:55.000 | still be there for long-term care,

00:22:57.000 | and still be there for inheritance.

00:22:59.000 | So I don't see any reason in what you have said

00:23:04.000 | why I would be taking money from the life insurance policy.

00:23:07.000 | I would keep that aside, I think,

00:23:09.000 | as just a guaranteed certainty of having death benefit that's there,

00:23:14.000 | either as inheritance or for her.

00:23:16.000 | And then I think with the stock values that you said,

00:23:19.000 | you should be able to hit this budget without too much of a problem.

00:23:22.000 | And I think that--

00:23:24.000 | So it's my opinion that couples who are in this situation--

00:23:29.000 | again, back to what is the nature of this $7,500 a month spending--

00:23:33.000 | I think the people who are withdrawing from retirement accounts

00:23:37.000 | should be timing the market.

00:23:40.000 | And this is something that I think is under-discussed

00:23:43.000 | in the world of financial planning.

00:23:45.000 | We spend a lifetime as financial planners,

00:23:47.000 | we spend a lifetime teaching people,

00:23:49.000 | "Don't time the market, don't time the market, don't time the market,"

00:23:51.000 | trying to teach them not to time the market going in.

00:23:54.000 | But I think that advice changes when it comes to selling.

00:23:59.000 | Now this is hard because timing the market is harder.

00:24:04.000 | But the point is that if somebody has a variability in their expenses,

00:24:09.000 | they can choose when to sell stocks.

00:24:11.000 | And if markets are obviously down,

00:24:14.000 | then they can just wait and lower their spending for a period of time.

00:24:19.000 | And then when markets come up, they go ahead--

00:24:21.000 | and it's obvious that their account values have increased--

00:24:24.000 | then they go ahead and sell off the top.

00:24:26.000 | So when you're accumulating money in an investment account

00:24:29.000 | when you're 30 years old,

00:24:31.000 | it's hard to know what you should buy with your $3,000 a month payment,

00:24:35.000 | which is why we just dollar-cost average in.

00:24:37.000 | But when you've got a $750,000 stock portfolio

00:24:40.000 | and you open up your account and you discover that your $750,000

00:24:44.000 | has decreased in value to $500,000,

00:24:47.000 | then you just stop spending money for a few months

00:24:50.000 | and you wait for the values to start edging back up to that previous number.

00:24:54.000 | And then on the other hand, if you open your account balances

00:24:57.000 | and you realize that your $750,000 portfolio has increased

00:25:00.000 | and now it's worth $900,000 because we've had some good markets,

00:25:03.000 | then you go ahead and sell off $50,000 or $100,000 worth of stocks.

00:25:07.000 | And then over the next few years, you spend more liberally.

00:25:10.000 | You do the things that you wanted to do with the money

00:25:13.000 | because it's pretty easy to recognize,

00:25:15.000 | "Hey, markets are good right now. I can spend more."

00:25:18.000 | So I'll stop there, but from what you're saying,

00:25:22.000 | I think these numbers should work fine for them to take the $2,000 a month.

00:25:26.000 | And I don't see any reason why they should be drawing

00:25:28.000 | from the whole life insurance at this point in time.

00:25:30.000 | I don't see the point of that.

00:25:32.000 | Draw from the brokerage account and from the IRA

00:25:35.000 | and then keep the life insurance available as a backup fund

00:25:38.000 | that's very stable and keep it available as a fund

00:25:42.000 | that can replenish for the wife certainty in her income if he dies

00:25:48.000 | and they have overdrawn their stock accounts a little bit too much.

00:25:51.000 | That seems obvious to me.

00:25:55.000 | That sounds great.

00:25:57.000 | I hadn't given much consideration to potentially the whole life policy

00:26:01.000 | being the source of the inheritance.

00:26:04.000 | Potentially, that might be a good way to satisfy everybody.

00:26:11.000 | This is what whole life insurance does really well.

00:26:13.000 | At its core, the thing that whole life insurance does better than anything else

00:26:18.000 | is it provides a large lump sum death benefit at death.

00:26:23.000 | And for a financial planner, knowing that we have a guaranteed amount of money

00:26:27.000 | that comes in immediately at death gives you a huge degree of flexibility.

00:26:33.000 | We know that that number doesn't go down.

00:26:35.000 | We know that it increases significantly over time.

00:26:39.000 | This is very useful in estate planning.

00:26:42.000 | We often use it as a way of equalizing an estate.

00:26:46.000 | Let's say that you have a couple that has a house and a brokerage account,

00:26:50.000 | a brokerage account, IRA, a home, and a life insurance policy,

00:26:54.000 | and they have multiple children.

00:26:56.000 | One child might be interested in the home,

00:26:58.000 | but they want to actually have the house itself.

00:27:01.000 | We need inheritance for the other children.

00:27:04.000 | So having the life insurance available as a death benefit

00:27:08.000 | that we assign over directly to one child

00:27:11.000 | and then leaving the house in a will to a different child

00:27:15.000 | might allow us to equalize the estate with a high degree of certainty

00:27:18.000 | that we know that this is there.

00:27:20.000 | Then, because of the intense flexibility of whole life insurance,

00:27:24.000 | we always have the ability to change it at any time.

00:27:27.000 | We want to change the beneficiary distributions.

00:27:29.000 | We can do that.

00:27:30.000 | Also, we have the ability to do the loans if needed.

00:27:34.000 | Fast forward.

00:27:36.000 | Let's say that they screw this whole thing up royally.

00:27:39.000 | The market falls out, the brokerage account disappears, etc.,

00:27:46.000 | and all they're left with is life insurance policy.

00:27:49.000 | Now, the ability to take policy loans from the contract

00:27:52.000 | to pay extra amounts for long-term care, etc.,

00:27:56.000 | and knowing that we have the money guaranteed to be there,

00:27:59.000 | it's just an incredible flexible tool,

00:28:01.000 | but it's a tool that is better used in a conservative traditional sense

00:28:06.000 | than as a primary way to take money out.

00:28:09.000 | It's also something that, in a sophisticated person's hands,

00:28:13.000 | this can be a way of accessing money tax-efficiently when markets are bad.

00:28:18.000 | I don't think this should be a strategy for this couple,

00:28:22.000 | but I'm pointing it out to you as something that could be useful.

00:28:24.000 | You've got $115,000 of cash value.

00:28:26.000 | You get into a couple-year period where the stock market is down.

00:28:30.000 | The stock market is not down because the world is collapsing.

00:28:33.000 | The stock market is just down because the stock market is down.

00:28:35.000 | You need two years of this $2,000 a month shortfall.

00:28:38.000 | We'll take out a $25,000 loan against the policy.

00:28:42.000 | Then just sit for a year.

00:28:44.000 | If after a year the stock market hasn't recovered,

00:28:47.000 | then you take out another $25,000 loan from the policy.

00:28:50.000 | You've covered the shortfall in the budget.

00:28:52.000 | You've done it very safely.

00:28:53.000 | A $50,000 loan is perfectly fine.

00:28:55.000 | The dividends will pay the interest and take care of the loan.

00:28:57.000 | Then after two years, the market comes back.

00:29:00.000 | Two years does wonders in the stock market.

00:29:02.000 | The market comes back.

00:29:04.000 | You go ahead and your account values have recovered.

00:29:06.000 | We'll sell off $50,000 worth of stocks,

00:29:08.000 | take those gains, and pay down the policy loan,

00:29:11.000 | restore the policy contract,

00:29:13.000 | and restore the full cash values in the life insurance contract,

00:29:17.000 | and then go ahead and pull more money off the stock account

00:29:20.000 | to cover lifestyle going forward.

00:29:24.000 | The fact that the life insurance values are very stable

00:29:28.000 | gives you a useful tool to look at the overall situation.

00:29:32.000 | But I don't see any point of going and taking distributions

00:29:36.000 | of returns of premium or distributions or even dividends

00:29:41.000 | on the contract at this point.

00:29:42.000 | The stocks are the obvious solution unless the markets are down.

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00:30:20.000 | - That sounds great.

00:30:21.000 | Thanks so much for your expertise.

00:30:24.000 | - My pleasure.

00:30:25.000 | I hope it goes well and I hope that you are able to provide them

00:30:28.000 | with good and useful service.

00:30:29.000 | We go to Tim in Maryland.

00:30:31.000 | Tim, welcome to the show.

00:30:32.000 | How can I serve you today?

00:30:33.000 | - Hi Joshua, thanks for taking my call.

00:30:36.000 | - My pleasure.

00:30:37.000 | - So by the confluence of my leaving the military

00:30:41.000 | and having a new baby on the way any day now,

00:30:46.000 | along with the next job I've got lined up,

00:30:49.000 | I've got about a three to four month gap between jobs,

00:30:53.000 | paid for the first two months and with basically a PTO buyback

00:30:57.000 | that's ample to cover expenses,

00:30:59.000 | not even talking about what savings looks like.

00:31:02.000 | And hopefully I don't sound ungrateful for that huge amount of time off,

00:31:09.000 | but I don't know that I've generally in the past made good use

00:31:12.000 | of large gaps in my work and study schedule.

00:31:15.000 | And I know that I could come out the other end of this sort of three

00:31:19.000 | to four months wondering what I did with the time.

00:31:22.000 | So aside from obviously the caring for my wife and the new baby

00:31:28.000 | when they get in, I'm looking for ideas as to, I guess,

00:31:34.000 | projects I could work on, especially developmental,

00:31:38.000 | sort of anything with my two-year-old son,

00:31:41.000 | or your thoughts for thinking through that question.

00:31:46.000 | - Yeah, good questions. Do you have a college degree?

00:31:51.000 | - Yes, I've got an engineering undergrad and master's degree.

00:31:57.000 | - Okay. I guess there would be four or five things

00:32:01.000 | that immediately occurred to me.

00:32:02.000 | Number one would simply be do not underestimate the importance

00:32:06.000 | and the value of just taking care of your wife in that period of time.

00:32:11.000 | I've had a pretty challenging three or four month period

00:32:14.000 | in terms of waiting for most recent baby.

00:32:18.000 | And this baby has been overall fine, just has baby issues and whatnot.

00:32:22.000 | And it's been really challenging.

00:32:23.000 | And so I haven't gotten nearly as much work done as I've wanted to do.

00:32:27.000 | And yet I consider this to be an important thing.

00:32:30.000 | Having the time and the luxury and the ability to care for your wife

00:32:34.000 | and to lighten her load, to care for your new baby

00:32:37.000 | and care for things like that, it's just really nice.

00:32:41.000 | It's a wonderful privilege to be able to do that.

00:32:44.000 | And I think it's something that can cement a couple together.

00:32:48.000 | You can know confidently that we're on the same team,

00:32:52.000 | and it may be something that can be very, very useful.

00:32:54.000 | I've gone to a whole lot more doctor's appointments than I anticipated,

00:32:58.000 | and yet I'm glad to have been able to do that.

00:33:00.000 | And so if you wind up with a sick baby or something like that,

00:33:04.000 | that's really--it's fine.

00:33:06.000 | It's fine to take use of that.

00:33:08.000 | And it's a privilege to allow--to give your wife the freedom

00:33:12.000 | to just be relaxed and to be well cared for, to be pampered, et cetera.

00:33:16.000 | And so don't underestimate the value of having the time off.

00:33:21.000 | Number two, in your own thinking,

00:33:26.000 | as you obviously are asking the question,

00:33:29.000 | when you have these breaks,

00:33:31.000 | you don't always have to use a break to be productive.

00:33:35.000 | I'm such a fan of sabbaticals,

00:33:37.000 | and I think that people who take sabbaticals

00:33:39.000 | wind up having much better long-term work lives

00:33:45.000 | than those who are so intensely focused on work

00:33:48.000 | that they lose out on the appreciation of the value of work.

00:33:54.000 | Many times in the modern life, it becomes difficult

00:33:58.000 | because of the way that we set up our finances,

00:34:01.000 | where we have a monthly outflow that just never ends,

00:34:04.000 | and we don't ever want to go backwards,

00:34:06.000 | we don't want to spend savings, et cetera.

00:34:08.000 | It just becomes--it's unusual in the life of a modern American man

00:34:12.000 | for him to have, unless he's intentional about it,

00:34:15.000 | months off at a time.

00:34:17.000 | Yes, you have a few weeks off in the American system usually,

00:34:20.000 | anywhere from two to five weeks is pretty much the max

00:34:23.000 | that you'll ever get off intentionally for most jobs.

00:34:26.000 | And we wind up so busy all the time

00:34:29.000 | that we wind up with this unhealthy focus on retirement.

00:34:33.000 | And I think that if we incorporated more sabbaticals,

00:34:35.000 | or to use other words, mini-retirements,

00:34:38.000 | into our lifestyles, then we would come to appreciate work

00:34:42.000 | in a way that we don't otherwise appreciate it.

00:34:45.000 | And so three months, when I think of a three-month vacation,

00:34:48.000 | I think that it's long enough to really get the benefit of a vacation,

00:34:53.000 | but it's not so long that it disrupts everything.

00:34:56.000 | Three months, you get on an airplane, you go to another country,

00:34:59.000 | rent a little villa somewhere, or go to a cabin in the woods,

00:35:02.000 | and it's long enough to where you're ready to get back to work at the end of it.

00:35:05.000 | Which, that doesn't happen on a two-week vacation or a three-week vacation.

00:35:08.000 | Two- or three-week vacation, you're still ready to be on vacation.

00:35:11.000 | Two or three months, you're ready to get back to work.

00:35:14.000 | And interspersing those regularly every five to ten years,

00:35:17.000 | whenever it makes sense in your lifestyle,

00:35:19.000 | I think can keep you in the work world for decades longer

00:35:22.000 | than people who don't do that.

00:35:24.000 | They just work, work, work, work, work, work, work,

00:35:26.000 | and they get burned out at 65, "I've got to get out of here,"

00:35:28.000 | and then they're just facing this 30-year retirement

00:35:31.000 | where they never had any creative way to accomplish it.

00:35:35.000 | And so don't underestimate the value of just having an actual three- to four-month break.

00:35:41.000 | Traveling with a new baby probably isn't an awesome idea,

00:35:44.000 | but if the baby's healthy and mom is recovering well

00:35:47.000 | and the baby's six weeks old and it sounds fun,

00:35:50.000 | hop on an airplane and go somewhere for a month.

00:35:53.000 | Probably won't want to do that, but it is something that is possible.

00:35:57.000 | The next thing is, in terms of academics,

00:35:59.000 | the reason I asked about the college degree is because you can,

00:36:02.000 | especially at the undergraduate and graduate level,

00:36:04.000 | someone who's really focused and who doesn't have a college degree,

00:36:08.000 | can wipe out a college degree in three or four months.

00:36:11.000 | Definitely you can do it in six months if you're good at academics,

00:36:14.000 | but there are a lot of schools that you can use,

00:36:18.000 | especially if you're going--

00:36:20.000 | you can either bring in some sort of testing out option

00:36:23.000 | to line up a bunch of tests and basically clip your way out of a bunch of tests

00:36:28.000 | over an intense few weeks,

00:36:29.000 | or you can line up one of the schools that does competency-based education

00:36:33.000 | and just go crazy on wiping out a college degree.

00:36:37.000 | And for a guy who doesn't have a college degree already

00:36:39.000 | or doesn't have a master's degree,

00:36:41.000 | to put in three, four, five months and get a college degree

00:36:44.000 | that for the rest of his life he can check the box and have that done,

00:36:47.000 | that's a useful thing.

00:36:49.000 | For you, not going to apply,

00:36:51.000 | but I'm pointing it out as an option for other people

00:36:53.000 | because if you didn't have a bachelor's degree, master's degree,

00:36:57.000 | getting those where you can check the box would be a really useful scenario.

00:37:03.000 | I think that the next thing is if you look at your career,

00:37:08.000 | there may be some projects that you haven't developed that you know you could.

00:37:11.000 | So, for example, building a personal career-oriented website

00:37:15.000 | and starting to write on it.

00:37:18.000 | You don't need four months for it, but that can be a really useful scenario.

00:37:21.000 | Taking the time to build a website, put a portfolio up on that website,

00:37:25.000 | start to write some articles related to your business,

00:37:28.000 | start to build a networking strategy of how you're going to use your website

00:37:31.000 | to organize your thinking around a certain area.

00:37:35.000 | That's a powerful move as well.

00:37:38.000 | And then in terms of a career,

00:37:42.000 | if you wanted to do some of that stuff,

00:37:44.000 | you wanted to start a podcast, you wanted to start interviewing people,

00:37:47.000 | you wanted to start doing book reviews,

00:37:49.000 | then if you have several months where you can line up a bunch of content

00:37:53.000 | and then have it ready to drip out over the next year or two,

00:37:57.000 | it can give you a tremendous head start on something

00:38:00.000 | that can be very professionally valuable for you.

00:38:03.000 | I think that's one of the key strategies that's massively underutilized in our day and age.

00:38:08.000 | And then I think that three or four months is a perfect time

00:38:11.000 | to be focused on some kind of personal interest

00:38:14.000 | that will enhance the other areas of your life.

00:38:17.000 | You're not going to lose 20 pounds and transform your body in two weeks,

00:38:22.000 | but three to four months, you could dramatically change

00:38:25.000 | your physical state in a great way.

00:38:29.000 | You're probably in good shape, military requirements and all that,

00:38:32.000 | but this is a good option to say, "For the next four months,

00:38:35.000 | I'm going to build a new me in some physical way."

00:38:38.000 | In terms of mental energy, maybe you haven't done...

00:38:41.000 | I've been doing more math recently, so maybe you...

00:38:44.000 | "Yeah, I did a bunch of math, but I haven't really been working my brain out."

00:38:47.000 | Well, grab an advanced linear algebra book

00:38:50.000 | or some kind of advanced calculus or something that you haven't done

00:38:54.000 | and dedicate yourself to an hour a day of math study

00:38:58.000 | and just have that be the thing that you do to get your brain up.

00:39:01.000 | Three to four months is enough time to make a good,

00:39:04.000 | really great headway on learning another language

00:39:07.000 | you're interested in or there's some other personal product,

00:39:10.000 | develop a skill, learning pottery or doing blacksmithing in your backyard.

00:39:15.000 | Having three or four months is enough time to establish something.

00:39:20.000 | So whether it's career-oriented or just personal enjoyment,

00:39:23.000 | either one of these is fine.

00:39:25.000 | And I don't think that if you're going from a career

00:39:28.000 | and you have another job or career lined up that is keeping you on a good track,

00:39:32.000 | then my tendency would be to say,

00:39:34.000 | "Look at the benefits of rest and relaxation and recreation

00:39:38.000 | to read ten novels that you've been really wanting to read

00:39:42.000 | but haven't had the time to do

00:39:44.000 | and take your two-year-old to the park every day

00:39:47.000 | and run with him or whatever it is."

00:39:49.000 | I would be more tempted to find a mixture of personal

00:39:54.000 | and professional projects to try to use the time

00:39:57.000 | because of what I said, that we do better,

00:40:00.000 | you will enjoy your next job more

00:40:03.000 | if you go into it kind of tired of sitting around

00:40:06.000 | and ready to get into the office and start making progress

00:40:08.000 | than if you've just been working, working, working,

00:40:10.000 | and boom, from the craziness of the military

00:40:13.000 | into the craziness of a new baby and right into the craziness of a new job.

00:40:16.000 | It's worth it to take those sabbaticals.

00:40:19.000 | Great, thank you.

00:40:30.000 | That's, yeah, there's some great stuff in there

00:40:32.000 | that's sort of consistent with things I thought about.

00:40:35.000 | Nice to hear another perspective on how to use the time.

00:40:39.000 | On the question of the math,

00:40:42.000 | because I do in fact have a linear algebra textbook sitting on my shelf

00:40:45.000 | waiting to be attended to.

00:40:48.000 | I'm wondering if you have looked at all into the website Math Academy.

00:40:54.000 | And if you have, I'll explain it.

00:40:56.000 | I have not. No, I have not.

00:40:59.000 | So it's, and I'm worried I'm going to get details that matter messed up here,

00:41:05.000 | but it looks like sort of a pedagogical effort, I would say,

00:41:12.000 | on the part of a student out in sort of Southern California

00:41:17.000 | that has a lot of tech money and was looking, you know,

00:41:19.000 | math inclined, looking for a project to do.

00:41:22.000 | And they started this massive undertaking of making a,

00:41:27.000 | obviously computer-based tool to sort of interweave math subjects altogether

00:41:34.000 | to try and, you know,

00:41:37.000 | hit some sort of synergy to make the math learning more efficient.

00:41:41.000 | Obviously I'm telling you all this because I'm sort of hoping that you'll

00:41:45.000 | look into it and in your very expansive homeschool researching,

00:41:51.000 | give me more feedback than I've established myself so far.

00:41:55.000 | It looks super interesting.

00:41:57.000 | I just pulled it up while you were talking about in terms of their goals

00:42:01.000 | and what they say on their website.

00:42:03.000 | Just let me go back and I'll just read a blurb here so that everyone can be

00:42:07.000 | together with us.

00:42:09.000 | It says,

00:42:14.000 | let me go back to the better,

00:42:15.000 | "Preparing students for the top university math and science programs in the

00:42:18.000 | world,

00:42:19.000 | Math Academy is a Pasadena Unified School District program aimed at radically

00:42:23.000 | accelerating the learning curve of its mathematically gifted students by

00:42:27.000 | providing a curriculum that matches their abilities.

00:42:31.000 | The goal of Math Academy is to prepare these students to excel in the honors

00:42:34.000 | math and science programs at the most elite universities in the world."

00:42:38.000 | And it says,

00:42:39.000 | "Structure in the sixth grade,

00:42:40.000 | Math Academy students begin learning algebra,

00:42:43.000 | geometry and trigonometry and complete everything up through AP calculus by

00:42:47.000 | the end of eighth grade.

00:42:49.000 | The standard high school topics are supplemented by competition level

00:42:51.000 | problem solving and rigorous proofwriting techniques.

00:42:54.000 | The high school program will consist of undergraduate level pure and applied

00:42:58.000 | mathematics with a particular focus on individual research projects.

00:43:03.000 | Math Academy classes are University of California approved sequenced courses

00:43:07.000 | that students take on site and during normal school hours in place of their

00:43:11.000 | grade level math classes."

00:43:13.000 | So it sounds really interesting and I'll look into it more carefully and try to

00:43:17.000 | understand what they're doing and how it works.

00:43:23.000 | Great. Well, I think that's all for my question.

00:43:26.000 | And yeah, thanks for taking the time to discuss that.

00:43:29.000 | I will, let me add just one comment on this Math Academy thing.

00:43:33.000 | I'll look at what they're doing because I'm really interested in what they had

00:43:37.000 | to say.

00:43:38.000 | I think that they are, that we can,

00:43:42.000 | I think that children have vastly more potential than we often recognize.

00:43:48.000 | There is a homeschooler, a homeschooling father that I find,

00:43:52.000 | I've really enjoyed and found very inspirational.

00:43:55.000 | His, he has a blog, a very simple blog.

00:43:59.000 | His name is Asim and he blogs at wonderyearsschool.com.

00:44:05.000 | And what's interesting about him, he lives in Malaysia and he's from,

00:44:10.000 | from the UK and is a physics student at university, has three children.

00:44:15.000 | And he and his wife homeschooled their three children,

00:44:18.000 | but they took a different tack than a lot of people take.

00:44:22.000 | And basically it's, as I would describe it,

00:44:26.000 | they laid out a very simple course of study that involved teaching their

00:44:31.000 | children math and physics at a very high level,

00:44:35.000 | very intensely at a young age mixed with a kind of a casual and consistent

00:44:41.000 | approach to language learning.

00:44:43.000 | And then what I would label unschooling for everything else.

00:44:47.000 | And he basically skipped most,

00:44:50.000 | didn't worry too much about doing lots and lots of history instruction and

00:44:55.000 | science curriculum, et cetera.

00:44:57.000 | But he basically said,

00:44:58.000 | what we need to do is we need to teach to the test of helping people to,

00:45:02.000 | to helping children to do their,

00:45:06.000 | to learn to the test.

00:45:08.000 | They use the, in the British system,

00:45:10.000 | the GCSEs and the A level exams in mathematics.

00:45:14.000 | And what ended up happening is that his children all took their A level

00:45:20.000 | maths. Let's see his Sabine got an A star on her maths,

00:45:25.000 | international A level at the age of 12.

00:45:27.000 | And so, and he says, she's not particularly good at math,

00:45:31.000 | but this was their, their, what,

00:45:34.000 | what they learned.

00:45:35.000 | And then all of his children basically had a similar thing.

00:45:37.000 | His one of his daughters passed the A level physics exam,

00:45:40.000 | I think at the age of 10 and the A levels in the British system are serious

00:45:45.000 | exams, their maths and the physics, et cetera,

00:45:47.000 | they're serious exams.

00:45:48.000 | And what he did was basically bring a program of intensity to the study of

00:45:55.000 | mathematics.

00:45:56.000 | And so instead of trying to do you know, 30 minutes here,

00:46:02.000 | 40 minutes there, et cetera,

00:46:03.000 | he did about three hours a day on this study and the way that the children

00:46:08.000 | learned math and physics was to basically take copies of the A level exams and

00:46:15.000 | do problems and work problems and learn what they needed to do to learn the

00:46:20.000 | to, to, to learn the problems.

00:46:22.000 | And so that's a real world example that I have studied where here were his

00:46:27.000 | children who all of them passed their A level exams in math and physics in

00:46:33.000 | before they ever became teenagers.

00:46:35.000 | And it had to do with the intense focus.

00:46:38.000 | And his point was that if you focus on something intensively,

00:46:42.000 | you wind up requiring in total far less time than if you don't focus on it.

00:46:47.000 | So if we just do physics for three hours a day over the course of nine months,

00:46:51.000 | we'll get a lot farther ahead than if we did physics for 30 minutes a day over

00:46:55.000 | the course of however many of the equivalent number of years would be to nine

00:46:58.000 | months, you know,

00:46:59.000 | three years or four years or whatever it winds up being.

00:47:01.000 | And because of this focus that our brain is really engaged in it.

00:47:06.000 | And I thought a lot about his comments and considered, you know,

00:47:10.000 | the usefulness of that.

00:47:11.000 | And so I would bet that there's an element of what these people are doing that

00:47:15.000 | I think would work that if we did decide that this was the real focus,

00:47:20.000 | we can do far more.

00:47:22.000 | And then I myself have been working.

00:47:25.000 | So then the flip side of this is what is the right age in terms of brain

00:47:29.000 | development to introduce complex mathematics that are,

00:47:35.000 | that is, that is not tangible.

00:47:37.000 | My brain is failing on the word of, of, of immaterial, right?

00:47:40.000 | Abstract. There we go.

00:47:41.000 | Abstract mathematics.

00:47:43.000 | And I have read various math teachers who say that you,

00:47:47.000 | you should be focused on like that.

00:47:50.000 | Your brain needs to be at a certain level of development to be able to do

00:47:53.000 | abstract mathematics.

00:47:54.000 | And so this is the classic question is that, that I look at, am I trying to,

00:47:58.000 | why am I trying to accelerate the learning of my children?

00:48:03.000 | My children,

00:48:04.000 | am I trying to accelerate it because I think it's going to make me look cool

00:48:07.000 | that look at how advanced my children are,

00:48:09.000 | or am I trying to accelerate it because it's genuinely going to be better for

00:48:12.000 | them? Is it genuinely going to be more useful for them?

00:48:15.000 | So I'm open to whatever the answers wind up being. I just don't,

00:48:19.000 | I don't know that. I'm not sure that it's,

00:48:21.000 | I'm not sure that it's that much better for students to be accelerated at a,

00:48:25.000 | at a high level.

00:48:27.000 | So I'm kind of trying to split the difference where I'm accelerating some

00:48:31.000 | things and I'll check out this mathacademy.us and then any other listeners who

00:48:35.000 | are interested mathacademy.us is the, is the link. All right,

00:48:39.000 | we go on to, I forgot the name, Tacoma, Washington. Tell me your name,

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00:49:17.000 | Let's continue down that homeschool vein a little bit.

00:49:22.000 | I'm curious about how the co-op that you and your family are utilizing

00:49:27.000 | dovetails with your own personal homeschool curriculum.

00:49:32.000 | You know,

00:49:33.000 | you guys are already doing quite a lot of language learning and things like

00:49:36.000 | that. And I'm wondering what you're getting out of a co-op

00:49:40.000 | as I tried researching and figuring out what we're going to do.

00:49:44.000 | I don't count a co-op as part of our learning or curriculum for us.

00:49:50.000 | I just, I ignore it. Meaning it's not something that is relevant to,

00:49:56.000 | to what I'm trying to do academically. The benefits that I see now,

00:50:01.000 | I think that it can be a great source for many people. And I think,

00:50:05.000 | I think that the future of the, the, let me just say the present,

00:50:10.000 | the present of many successful homeschoolers is to incorporate some form of

00:50:15.000 | co-op model with, with, with home, with home study and home education.

00:50:22.000 | So where I think you can see this really strongly in the United States,

00:50:27.000 | probably the biggest,

00:50:28.000 | most well-known program would be classical conversations that basically brings

00:50:32.000 | together this hybrid approach between homeschooling and private schooling.

00:50:37.000 | And the way their system works is they have a standardized curriculum that is

00:50:42.000 | that, that all the students go through. It's age banded.

00:50:45.000 | You go through the levels and it's very, very structured.

00:50:48.000 | Here's a rigorous structured curriculum.

00:50:50.000 | The students gather one or two days per week. I forget. I think,

00:50:55.000 | I think it's always, I think it's always at least one day per week.

00:50:57.000 | And the students are gathered into classrooms and then they have local

00:51:01.000 | volunteers and employees who are employed on a local basis who come together

00:51:07.000 | and teach the classes.

00:51:08.000 | So they have a classroom experience and a classroom teaching model.

00:51:12.000 | And then,

00:51:13.000 | but the bulk of the actual study and the bulk of the learning is at is at home.

00:51:18.000 | It's with book learning, et cetera, preparation for those classes.

00:51:23.000 | There are other programs,

00:51:25.000 | there are other schools and co-ops and literal schools that use the same model.

00:51:29.000 | They gather the students two days a week. The school provides the curriculum.

00:51:33.000 | The school provides classroom instruction,

00:51:35.000 | but then there's extended amounts of homework and the parent ultimately is in

00:51:39.000 | charge of what classes is your child going to be enrolled in?

00:51:42.000 | I think these,

00:51:44.000 | these models bring together some of the great benefits of both situations.

00:51:50.000 | So if you just do homeschooling at home and you don't have a structured

00:51:55.000 | environment, you miss out on some of the things that are really enjoyable.

00:52:00.000 | The children miss out on some of the,

00:52:02.000 | the enjoyment of being in a classroom environment with other students.

00:52:06.000 | They miss out on feeling like there's some sense of camaraderie in learning.

00:52:10.000 | They miss out on the experience of, of learning under a physical teacher.

00:52:15.000 | Sometimes, you know,

00:52:16.000 | having a physical teacher works well for many personality types and if that

00:52:20.000 | teacher is very engaged and motivated, that can be really useful.

00:52:24.000 | When,

00:52:25.000 | if a student is all doing homeschooling under just mom and dad,

00:52:28.000 | that can be really tough because the relationship of mom and dad may not be the

00:52:32.000 | same relationship as under a teacher.

00:52:34.000 | And so,

00:52:36.000 | but the school itself can be very inefficient,

00:52:40.000 | very time consuming, et cetera.

00:52:42.000 | And so the model of sending your child to school five days a week,

00:52:46.000 | it may be good to allow the parents more flexibility and time,

00:52:50.000 | but it may not be the best for the student,

00:52:52.000 | especially if the student can effectively do a lot of learning at home.

00:52:56.000 | And so bringing them together,

00:52:58.000 | and especially if you outsource some of the curriculum,

00:53:01.000 | that takes a big load off the parents to have to guide and direct the

00:53:04.000 | curriculum.

00:53:05.000 | I think it's a powerful model and I think it's probably the best model for a

00:53:10.000 | plurality of people.

00:53:12.000 | Most,

00:53:13.000 | I don't know,

00:53:14.000 | but I think it's a really good model because it incorporates some of the

00:53:18.000 | benefits of both really,

00:53:20.000 | really well.

00:53:21.000 | And so I think,

00:53:23.000 | I mean I'm repeating myself,

00:53:24.000 | I think it's a great model.

00:53:26.000 | Now,

00:53:27.000 | in terms of the co-op that we're involved in,

00:53:29.000 | I don't look at the co-op for,

00:53:31.000 | our co-op is more casual than that.

00:53:34.000 | And what I like from the,

00:53:36.000 | what I,

00:53:37.000 | the reason we participate is number one,

00:53:38.000 | it helps to have a strong sense of community.

00:53:41.000 | And there is a misunderstanding that many people have of the idea that

00:53:48.000 | homeschool students are by definition socially isolated.

00:53:52.000 | I don't think that's true because most,

00:53:55.000 | I mean all the homeschoolers I know are very socially connected,

00:53:58.000 | but we often do socialize in a different way.

00:54:01.000 | But I think it is really valuable for students to have opportunities for

00:54:04.000 | socialization.

00:54:05.000 | And if that,

00:54:08.000 | if those opportunities for socialization can be done in a context of learning

00:54:12.000 | something in terms of hobbies and interests,

00:54:14.000 | that's really,

00:54:15.000 | really powerful.

00:54:16.000 | Another big reason I need the co-op is to teach my children some of the

00:54:20.000 | lessons that other people,

00:54:21.000 | other children know easily,

00:54:23.000 | such as learning from a teacher,

00:54:25.000 | understanding that there are relationships of authority and hierarchy that go

00:54:29.000 | beyond parents and children.

00:54:31.000 | It's been a challenge.

00:54:33.000 | I don't,

00:54:34.000 | I don't,

00:54:35.000 | my ambition is not to raise feral children,

00:54:37.000 | but sometimes I've been ashamed at how poorly my parent,

00:54:40.000 | my children respond to outside sources of authority.

00:54:43.000 | So I have tried very intentionally to bring in teachers,

00:54:46.000 | et cetera,

00:54:47.000 | so that my children learn the lesson that mom and dad are not the only ones

00:54:50.000 | that have authority over you.

00:54:51.000 | It's also in terms of socialization,

00:54:54.000 | while I view it as a negative that children have to go to a building that

00:55:02.000 | in some ways resembles a prison and sit in rows and be quiet all day.

00:55:06.000 | I don't want to do that five days a week,

00:55:08.000 | but I also want my children to know how to do that.

00:55:10.000 | And it's funny,

00:55:11.000 | you get a group of homeschoolers together and you always know it's a group of

00:55:13.000 | homeschoolers at a zoo or something,

00:55:15.000 | because they don't know how to make lines.

00:55:16.000 | Like our children,

00:55:17.000 | the concept of lining up is they never experienced it.

00:55:22.000 | And so like we,

00:55:23.000 | as homeschoolers or the concept of raising your hand,

00:55:27.000 | like they just in a class,

00:55:29.000 | et cetera.

00:55:30.000 | And so I don't want to,

00:55:31.000 | I don't want my children to,

00:55:33.000 | I'm not a radical unschooler,

00:55:34.000 | you know,

00:55:35.000 | I don't want,

00:55:36.000 | I want my children to understand how to fit in well in society.

00:55:38.000 | And so I use,

00:55:39.000 | I use co-op as a chance for them to be under another teacher where I can

00:55:45.000 | teach those authority lessons.

00:55:47.000 | I want them to learn group dynamics in a classroom setting,

00:55:50.000 | how to be quiet,

00:55:51.000 | how to raise your hands,

00:55:52.000 | how to stand in a line,

00:55:54.000 | all those things that like my children don't know because we don't live that

00:55:57.000 | way.

00:55:58.000 | I need them to also be aware of it.

00:55:59.000 | And then also the socialization aspect is really fun because homeschool co-op,

00:56:03.000 | we do classes and whatnot,

00:56:04.000 | but a lot of it is just hanging out.

00:56:06.000 | And then I think it's also useful for the parents that he gives you a really

00:56:09.000 | great opportunity for you to spend time with other like-minded people and,

00:56:14.000 | and encourage one another,

00:56:17.000 | share things as well.

00:56:18.000 | And so the,

00:56:19.000 | the,

00:56:20.000 | the problem with socialization being a primary goal in the school system is

00:56:26.000 | that as a parent,

00:56:27.000 | you don't get to choose the social influences that are involved in your

00:56:32.000 | children's lives,

00:56:33.000 | especially if it's a government school where they,

00:56:36.000 | they can't discriminate.

00:56:38.000 | You can get better social influences.

00:56:40.000 | If you go to some form of private school where the school administrators can

00:56:44.000 | discriminate against who's in the school and who's not,

00:56:47.000 | and they can filter the students and the families,

00:56:49.000 | et cetera.

00:56:50.000 | But where I think you have the ultimate expression of that is in some form of

00:56:55.000 | locally organized community-based co-op,

00:56:58.000 | because as a co-op,

00:57:00.000 | you get to choose the rules.

00:57:01.000 | These are the kinds of people that we're going to admit.

00:57:03.000 | These are the kinds of people that we're going to not.

00:57:05.000 | And so you can,

00:57:06.000 | you can choose whatever you do and those rules can be formalized or they can

00:57:10.000 | be very informal,

00:57:11.000 | but you have the choice of the kinds of people who,

00:57:15.000 | who are around.

00:57:17.000 | And so that's really powerful because it's powerful for you as a parent that

00:57:21.000 | you,

00:57:22.000 | if you go to a local co-op,

00:57:23.000 | the co-op has agreed that these are the kinds of people that are in our co-op

00:57:26.000 | and these are the kinds of people that are not.

00:57:28.000 | And now,

00:57:29.000 | you know,

00:57:29.000 | this is a group of people and it creates a social network that is your people.

00:57:33.000 | These are the kinds of people that you want to be with.

00:57:35.000 | And that's encouraging.

00:57:36.000 | You enjoy the relationship with them and it's also with your children.

00:57:39.000 | And if you,

00:57:41.000 | and if the co-op is intentional about controlling the environment,

00:57:46.000 | then it's a useful tool,

00:57:48.000 | right?

00:57:49.000 | One of my children was suspended from the co-op recently because he kicked his

00:57:54.000 | teacher.

00:57:55.000 | And so he got suspended.

00:57:56.000 | He wasn't allowed to come back.

00:57:57.000 | Now it wasn't a giant behavioral,

00:57:59.000 | like it wasn't,

00:58:00.000 | it wasn't a horrible thing.

00:58:01.000 | He's just a very young child and he was upset and whatever,

00:58:04.000 | but it,

00:58:05.000 | but it gave us a valuable lesson to say like,

00:58:07.000 | you don't go and kick your teacher just because you're upset with her.

00:58:10.000 | And yet it also maintained the integrity of the co-op that we don't allow this

00:58:15.000 | stuff.

00:58:16.000 | One happens one time,

00:58:17.000 | you get suspended for one class happens again,

00:58:19.000 | you're out.

00:58:20.000 | And so you can impose very high levels of discipline and that creates an

00:58:25.000 | environment where all the parents can feel confident in the socialization and

00:58:29.000 | it's just really fun and enjoyable.

00:58:31.000 | And so I view it as primarily social time,

00:58:33.000 | but it is last comment is it is useful from a learning perspective because it

00:58:37.000 | allows other people to bring in things that,

00:58:39.000 | that,

00:58:40.000 | that I'm not into.

00:58:41.000 | So for example,

00:58:42.000 | my children right now,

00:58:43.000 | one of the classes they're in a co-op is puppetry class.

00:58:46.000 | I Joshua sheets have zero interest in teaching puppetry,

00:58:51.000 | facilitating puppetry,

00:58:53.000 | et cetera.

00:58:54.000 | I'm not going to go to the store and get stuff and like that.

00:58:57.000 | I'm not going to do it.

00:58:58.000 | I have zero interest in it whatsoever.

00:59:00.000 | That's not my thing,

00:59:01.000 | but I recognize that I want my children to have a chance to like,

00:59:04.000 | this is fun.

00:59:05.000 | They love it.

00:59:06.000 | So co-op is a perfect chance for me to do it.

00:59:08.000 | Super casual.

00:59:09.000 | We're no grades.

00:59:10.000 | There's no,

00:59:11.000 | there's no cost,

00:59:12.000 | et cetera.

00:59:13.000 | But the teacher of that class is someone who really loves it.

00:59:15.000 | She says,

00:59:16.000 | I want to teach puppetry and she's totally into it.

00:59:18.000 | And so for me as a parent,

00:59:19.000 | it gives me a chance to say to my children,

00:59:21.000 | Hey,

00:59:22.000 | here's a puppetry class that,

00:59:23.000 | and they love it,

00:59:24.000 | but that's not my thing.

00:59:25.000 | I'm never going to teach it.

00:59:26.000 | And so those are the benefits that I see of,

00:59:28.000 | of homeschool co-ops.

00:59:29.000 | Yeah,

00:59:30.000 | that helps a lot.

00:59:31.000 | I,

00:59:32.000 | uh,

00:59:33.000 | I've struggled a lot with the amount of outside influence,

00:59:36.000 | the type of outside influence and things like that.

00:59:39.000 | I think,

00:59:40.000 | yeah,

00:59:42.000 | you kind of touched on everything that I've been concerned about.

00:59:45.000 | I don't know.

00:59:46.000 | You're selling it to me a little bit more than I have.

00:59:48.000 | Just know that there's,

00:59:49.000 | there's so much variety in this space.

00:59:51.000 | Yeah.

00:59:52.000 | There's so much variety.

00:59:53.000 | Again,

00:59:54.000 | I tried to lay out the,

00:59:55.000 | the lay of the land.

00:59:56.000 | There are,

00:59:57.000 | there are co-ops or organizations that could be called co-op that are

01:00:00.000 | very structured.

01:00:01.000 | They provide basically all the benefits of a private school in terms of

01:00:04.000 | other people laying out the curriculum.

01:00:06.000 | But not five days a week,

01:00:07.000 | private school.

01:00:08.000 | And so they allow you to be with your children more,

01:00:10.000 | but your children have other teachers.

01:00:12.000 | They have other people designing the curriculum,

01:00:14.000 | et cetera,

01:00:15.000 | all the way to the more Lucy goosey kind of co-op that,

01:00:18.000 | that we're involved in.

01:00:20.000 | And you can,

01:00:21.000 | you can use any or all of these as it fits your family's needs at any

01:00:25.000 | point in time.

01:00:26.000 | I'm not,

01:00:27.000 | I'm not,

01:00:28.000 | I myself am not super interested in the,

01:00:30.000 | in the co-op.

01:00:31.000 | I'm not,

01:00:32.000 | I'm not a big fan of the co-op.

01:00:34.000 | I'm not,

01:00:35.000 | I myself am not super interested in the,

01:00:37.000 | the super structured ones because I care deeply about pedagogy.

01:00:41.000 | I spend hours and hours and hours and hours thinking about and

01:00:44.000 | researching what's the best curriculum,

01:00:46.000 | right?

01:00:47.000 | The previous caller,

01:00:48.000 | I've already got a math curriculum planned out.

01:00:50.000 | I've got my,

01:00:51.000 | I've got it mapped out for the next,

01:00:53.000 | for all 15 years.

01:00:54.000 | Like I've got it because I care a lot about that,

01:00:57.000 | but I'm very unusual.

01:00:58.000 | Very few homeschooling parents have the level of interest that I have.

01:01:02.000 | And especially very few homeschooling dads have the level of interest that I

01:01:05.000 | have.

01:01:06.000 | So I acknowledge that I'm,

01:01:07.000 | I'm very,

01:01:08.000 | I'm not normal in that sense.

01:01:11.000 | And so for many people,

01:01:12.000 | having a co-op that,

01:01:15.000 | that reinforces that is great.

01:01:17.000 | I mean,

01:01:18.000 | classical conversations is fantastic and their competitors as well.

01:01:21.000 | I'm a billless and,

01:01:22.000 | and what's the,

01:01:24.000 | there are some other ones as well.

01:01:26.000 | Cause some people don't like the classical conversations movement.

01:01:28.000 | They still like it.

01:01:29.000 | There's lots of them,

01:01:30.000 | but those organizations are wonderful because they provide a very structured

01:01:34.000 | environment.

01:01:35.000 | And I guess the last comment I would make is these can also meet appropriate

01:01:40.000 | social pressures for students.

01:01:43.000 | So when you're parenting a student,

01:01:45.000 | especially in homeschooling,

01:01:47.000 | one of the challenges can be,

01:01:48.000 | how do I bring social peer pressure that in some cases can allow my child to

01:01:53.000 | shine?

01:01:54.000 | There are many students who are,

01:01:57.000 | you know,

01:01:58.000 | they act in a lazy way and they're just not reaching their potential.

01:02:01.000 | Moms and dads are pulling their hair out.

01:02:03.000 | How do I motivate this,

01:02:04.000 | this child?

01:02:05.000 | And so sometimes bringing in intentionally a peer group that is ahead of where

01:02:11.000 | your child is and showing your child that this is what's possible.

01:02:15.000 | And in fact,

01:02:16.000 | this is what's expected of you is a tool that a parent needs to have in his,

01:02:19.000 | in his tool belt to apply when necessary to,

01:02:22.000 | to motivate your child to greatness.

01:02:24.000 | And I think this is especially relevant in the teenage years.

01:02:27.000 | I've talked to a lot of experienced homeschooling parents and they've talked

01:02:30.000 | about this being a huge reason why many times they will enroll their children in

01:02:35.000 | school for a period of time.

01:02:37.000 | And even if it's not permanent,

01:02:39.000 | just to say like,

01:02:40.000 | listen,

01:02:41.000 | the only,

01:02:42.000 | the only,

01:02:43.000 | you can't measure yourself by yourself.

01:02:44.000 | You need to understand that you're capable of a lot more.

01:02:46.000 | So if you're underperforming,

01:02:48.000 | let's make sure that you're aware of the fact of these,

01:02:50.000 | your peers are capable of this.

01:02:52.000 | And that can be a useful tool for motivation of a child.

01:02:55.000 | Interesting.

01:02:57.000 | My last guy,

01:03:03.000 | can I do two?

01:03:04.000 | You're not the last guy,

01:03:05.000 | but you can do two.

01:03:06.000 | Go ahead.

01:03:07.000 | You've spoken about your brothers and sisters,

01:03:12.000 | I believe teaching Latin and Greek to their children.

01:03:15.000 | And you've also spoken about the opportunity costs that come with,

01:03:18.000 | you know,

01:03:19.000 | learning these types of languages later in life and how your child can benefit

01:03:23.000 | greatly from utilizing the opportunity they have now not having such an

01:03:27.000 | opportunity cost.

01:03:28.000 | And I'm curious,

01:03:29.000 | what benefit are you seeing learning the like obsolete,

01:03:36.000 | arguably obsolete languages,

01:03:38.000 | I guess,

01:03:39.000 | compared to something that's,

01:03:40.000 | you know,

01:03:42.000 | spoken in the world.

01:03:43.000 | Right.

01:03:44.000 | You know,

01:03:46.000 | and,

01:03:47.000 | and if after that,

01:03:48.000 | you know,

01:03:49.000 | how is curriculum instruction curriculum getting handled.

01:03:51.000 | Right.

01:03:53.000 | This is a good question.

01:03:54.000 | And first for the record.

01:03:57.000 | So I have one sibling.

01:03:59.000 | So in my family with my siblings who have children,

01:04:03.000 | we've all done some variation of home education mixed with also using

01:04:11.000 | private schools as well as appropriate.

01:04:14.000 | So there's a mixture,

01:04:15.000 | but,

01:04:16.000 | and I think that's how it should be because as a parent,

01:04:18.000 | our task and what we can do as parents,

01:04:22.000 | what we have the opportunity to do that no outside person can do is we can

01:04:27.000 | study this child that we have that we can study this situation in which we

01:04:33.000 | are,

01:04:34.000 | and we can identify what is the best tool for helping to facilitate this

01:04:39.000 | child's success.

01:04:41.000 | So homeschooling can be a wonderful tool,

01:04:45.000 | but there are many excellent schools that can also be a wonderful tool.

01:04:49.000 | And as a parent,

01:04:50.000 | I believe our responsibility before God is to be in charge of the education

01:04:57.000 | of our child,

01:04:59.000 | but that doesn't mean the teaching on a daily basis of our child.

01:05:02.000 | And so I think it's appropriate to use home education.

01:05:04.000 | I think it's appropriate to use private schools.

01:05:06.000 | I think it's appropriate in some cases to use a government school.

01:05:09.000 | Just that that's my least favorite option for all the reasons I've discussed

01:05:13.000 | elsewhere.

01:05:14.000 | That said,

01:05:15.000 | so there is quite a broad exposure within my sibling group of home education,

01:05:20.000 | but I have one sibling only who does Latin.

01:05:26.000 | And this sibling does Latin in the kind of the classical sense,

01:05:29.000 | and it's not a huge part.

01:05:31.000 | It's more of kind of the right now there's this strong movement of like

01:05:36.000 | classical Christian education.

01:05:38.000 | And I have a long string of complaints against this idea,

01:05:42.000 | but it is, there's no question.

01:05:44.000 | It is a huge and growing movement and very popular.

01:05:47.000 | And it's probably better than because of the rigor,

01:05:49.000 | it's probably better than most other solutions.

01:05:51.000 | So I don't identify myself as a classical Christian homeschooler,

01:05:55.000 | although in all,

01:05:57.000 | for all intents and purposes,

01:05:59.000 | that's exactly,

01:06:00.000 | I would fit the mold of that.

01:06:02.000 | But this one sibling who does Latin does it in the,

01:06:06.000 | what I'm going to call.

01:06:07.000 | So let me lay out a couple of terms.

01:06:10.000 | So there's an argument in the world of ancient language instruction,

01:06:15.000 | and this is very keen in the world of Latin instruction.

01:06:18.000 | And the argument basically comes down to studying Latin for its grammatical

01:06:26.000 | structure as compared to acquiring Latin as a language.

01:06:31.000 | Traditionally,

01:06:33.000 | Latin was used as a language of education.

01:06:37.000 | The reason we call,

01:06:40.000 | and the reason it was used as a language of education is quite simply,

01:06:43.000 | that's the language that all the books were written in.

01:06:45.000 | So if we went back to the middle ages,

01:06:47.000 | all of the books,

01:06:48.000 | if you were going to be a literate person,

01:06:51.000 | you had to speak Latin in order to read because the books were written in Latin.

01:06:56.000 | And because of that,

01:06:59.000 | that's where the concept of the grammar school came out.

01:07:03.000 | The reason we call it a grammar school is because in grammar school,

01:07:06.000 | children were taught to be able to read Latin.

01:07:10.000 | They were taught the grammar of Latin.

01:07:12.000 | And that word grammar doesn't mean what we currently consider it to mean.

01:07:16.000 | When we think of grammar in our modern context,

01:07:19.000 | we think of grammar as what is a direct object and what's a preposition and a

01:07:23.000 | subject and a verb, et cetera.

01:07:25.000 | In the traditional sense,

01:07:27.000 | grammar basically means the same thing as literature.

01:07:31.000 | It means learning to read,

01:07:32.000 | learning to understand the language.

01:07:33.000 | And so if we went way back to elite education and the classical tradition,

01:07:37.000 | the education was all done in Latin.

01:07:40.000 | Latin was the spoken language in the classrooms.

01:07:42.000 | Latin was the language of literature.

01:07:44.000 | And so in order to be educated,

01:07:47.000 | you had to learn Latin.

01:07:48.000 | And Greek came in around the edges.

01:07:51.000 | Now, fast forward.

01:07:52.000 | Over time,

01:07:54.000 | Latin became less important,

01:07:57.000 | especially at the popular level.

01:07:59.000 | And so we had a couple of kind of transformations that happened in education.

01:08:04.000 | First,

01:08:05.000 | education or the concept of education became democratized.

01:08:09.000 | The idea is that education,

01:08:11.000 | instead of being something formal,

01:08:13.000 | scholarly instruction,

01:08:14.000 | instead of being something that should be reserved for the elite,

01:08:18.000 | it's something that should be passed along to all people.

01:08:21.000 | And of course that's going to change because the common man can't sit around

01:08:25.000 | and spend five years learning Latin just to be able to dive into the classics.

01:08:28.000 | The common man just needs some basic stuff.

01:08:30.000 | And then when education became compulsory,

01:08:33.000 | this became,

01:08:34.000 | or schooling became compulsory,

01:08:35.000 | this became more and more important.

01:08:37.000 | And then more materials were developed in the common language instead of in

01:08:42.000 | Latin.

01:08:44.000 | And so what happened during this time was there was a massive loss of skill

01:08:51.000 | and ability in the Latin language.

01:08:53.000 | And Latin was studied as almost kind of a formal,

01:08:58.000 | interesting intellectual exercise rather than as a living language.

01:09:03.000 | And then after centuries of teaching Latin as a language,

01:09:08.000 | we wound up in what is commonly dubbed today as the grammar translation

01:09:13.000 | approach.

01:09:14.000 | And so for the last century,

01:09:15.000 | maybe more,

01:09:16.000 | my dates are not perfect in my mind,

01:09:18.000 | but for the last century,

01:09:20.000 | Latin has primarily been taught as a grammatical puzzle that needs to be

01:09:25.000 | unraveled.

01:09:27.000 | And so the way that it's taught in this sense is that you're taught how to,

01:09:32.000 | you're taught the declensions of Latin verbs,

01:09:35.000 | how to unravel and pull apart those declensions and basically pull apart the

01:09:42.000 | meaning of the sentence based upon what the word says in a dictionary and what

01:09:47.000 | the grammar of the word is,

01:09:49.000 | how it declines.

01:09:51.000 | And then you figure out what the sentence is.

01:09:53.000 | And so you can approach a Latin sentence or a Latin paragraph and you can

01:09:57.000 | translate it very slowly and laboriously using these tools.

01:10:01.000 | And this is the way that Latin has been largely taught,

01:10:04.000 | or at least very broadly taught for the last century.

01:10:07.000 | And this is the way that today Latin is still commonly taught in many of these

01:10:12.000 | places.

01:10:13.000 | And so we give a child a Latin instruction book.

01:10:15.000 | You start on day one with understanding the six structures of Latin verbs for,

01:10:22.000 | you know, a simple verb,

01:10:23.000 | and they're taught to pull it apart.

01:10:25.000 | But what this does not generally do is it does not generally allow a student to

01:10:33.000 | read Latin comfortably as a real language or to speak Latin.

01:10:39.000 | It allows a student to do a little bit of translation.

01:10:43.000 | Now, in this modern context,

01:10:46.000 | there are a basic set of arguments that people advance as to why Latin should be

01:10:51.000 | studied instead of learning a living language,

01:10:59.000 | which is the question that you're driving at.

01:11:01.000 | So these arguments are fairly common.

01:11:04.000 | The first one is they talk up usually, and I'm just off the top of my head,

01:11:07.000 | you go read the articles, but they say, well, if you learn Latin,

01:11:10.000 | then you'll be a better student of English because you'll have a bigger

01:11:14.000 | vocabulary.

01:11:15.000 | You'll understand more words because a lot of words from English come into

01:11:19.000 | Latin, come in from Latin.

01:11:21.000 | So you have a bigger English vocabulary.

01:11:24.000 | If you study Latin, you'll have a better understanding of grammar because in this

01:11:29.000 | manner, you can't, you become a very, if you study Latin grammar,

01:11:33.000 | you're going to understand grammar in order to do it.

01:11:36.000 | Because Latin, the way that it's structured is this incredibly beautiful,

01:11:40.000 | precise language where there's a very specific series of declensions among

01:11:44.000 | words that all the words match up to each other.

01:11:47.000 | So the noun, the verb, the adjectives, they all have a certain form and ending.

01:11:52.000 | And so it's a very mathematically precise language.

01:11:54.000 | It's a beautiful language from that, with that regard,

01:11:59.000 | but it doesn't have the kind of flexibility that English does or many other

01:12:03.000 | languages.

01:12:04.000 | People talk about Latin being good preparation for becoming a doctor because

01:12:07.000 | you'll understand the medical terms or Latin being a good preparation for

01:12:11.000 | becoming a lawyer, or they say, if you learn Latin,

01:12:14.000 | you'll be able to learn all the romance languages, other languages easier.

01:12:18.000 | I have studied all of those arguments and I personally find them all

01:12:22.000 | unconvincing.

01:12:24.000 | It's not that they're not true.

01:12:26.000 | I just don't think that they're necessary.

01:12:28.000 | So I don't,

01:12:29.000 | I'm not teaching my children Latin so that they will get a higher score on the

01:12:33.000 | SAT.

01:12:34.000 | I think they will get a higher score on the SAT and that Latin will help,

01:12:38.000 | but they would probably be better served with their time by just studying SAT

01:12:42.000 | prep.

01:12:43.000 | I'm not teaching my children Latin in order that they can learn more

01:12:47.000 | vocabulary.

01:12:48.000 | Just learn the word, you know, do a study with Latin root is,

01:12:51.000 | but learn the word.

01:12:52.000 | I'm not teaching my children Latin so that they can learn another romance

01:12:55.000 | language.

01:12:56.000 | Just learn the romance language because what I have learned is that my

01:12:59.000 | English grammar and my understanding of grammar,

01:13:02.000 | and I mean here grammar in the modern sense,

01:13:04.000 | became better once I learned another language.

01:13:07.000 | Before I studied Spanish, I had no clue what the subjunctive tense was.

01:13:10.000 | Now I hear it whenever I speak in English and I'm about to use the

01:13:14.000 | subjunctive form of a verb.

01:13:15.000 | I specifically know to use the subjunctive form,

01:13:18.000 | but that became that came because I had to learn the subjunctive form of

01:13:21.000 | Spanish.

01:13:22.000 | And so I think that most of those benefits that are often touted with

01:13:26.000 | learning Latin can be learned from any language.

01:13:30.000 | So why not just go ahead and learn a modern language or two or three instead

01:13:34.000 | of Latin?

01:13:35.000 | If you gave me the choice with the same amount of time and said, Joshua,

01:13:38.000 | go back and you can be at 18 years old again,

01:13:41.000 | would you rather be 18 years old and speak English, Spanish, French,

01:13:45.000 | and German or English and Latin?

01:13:47.000 | I would choose English, Spanish, French, and German,

01:13:49.000 | because I think they're genuinely useful and you can use them more.

01:13:53.000 | So then back to the point, like why study Latin?

01:13:56.000 | My answer to that, so before I give you that, to be clear,

01:14:00.000 | my sibling who does do Latin is doing it in that kind of traditional limited

01:14:05.000 | form. And I argue with her again and again, and I say, listen, you know,

01:14:09.000 | you should do it my way. And she's like, well, we'll do it this other way,

01:14:12.000 | et cetera. And so we're basically having a competition.

01:14:15.000 | So I'm skeptical of the use of Latin.

01:14:17.000 | I'm skeptical of teaching Latin generally speaking.

01:14:19.000 | I did it a different way. So first I started with a modern language.

01:14:23.000 | I started with three other modern languages before doing Latin.

01:14:26.000 | And I discovered that teaching modern languages doesn't have to be as

01:14:30.000 | difficult as I thought it was.

01:14:32.000 | And that if we have good technique and a good structure, et cetera,

01:14:35.000 | that children can fairly simply acquire languages.

01:14:39.000 | And it doesn't have to be all that difficult of a thing.

01:14:42.000 | Now, once you speak a modern language, especially a romance language,

01:14:46.000 | then acquiring Latin is a lot simpler and a lot easier.

01:14:50.000 | And so what I have done is I've used all the same techniques of modern

01:14:56.000 | language acquisition, and I've just simply applied them to Latin.

01:14:59.000 | And I have watched my, my eldest is the only one that I've done Latin.

01:15:04.000 | So he's nine. I have watched him and he's very comfortable reading and

01:15:08.000 | listening to Latin. I don't require any speaking from him,

01:15:10.000 | but he has no concept of Latin grammar.

01:15:12.000 | He just knows that this is a language.

01:15:14.000 | And so he can read and enjoy stories in that.

01:15:16.000 | And I've been able to find a broad swath of stories that he can enjoy.

01:15:21.000 | So he's probably read, I would say 2000 pages in Latin at this point in

01:15:27.000 | time,

01:15:28.000 | he's probably listened to a couple hundred hours of Latin audio books and he

01:15:32.000 | just enjoys it as a language. And now at this point in time,

01:15:36.000 | I have started to introduce grammar after learning the language and my

01:15:41.000 | argument that I've made for years to my sister,

01:15:44.000 | when we argue about this stuff is that why should we teach grammar first

01:15:48.000 | until we've taught the language? We don't do that with English.

01:15:50.000 | Imagine trying to learn English by being instructed on day one,

01:15:54.000 | what a subject is. We don't do that. That would be stupid.

01:15:56.000 | We teach our children, learn English. They enjoy English for many years.

01:16:00.000 | And then we go ahead and we teach them how to diagram sentences.

01:16:04.000 | We teach them what a direct object is and an indirect object,

01:16:06.000 | because it helps them to understand the mechanics of the language.

01:16:09.000 | So why wouldn't we do the same thing with Latin? The reason, by the way,

01:16:13.000 | just comes down to the amount of time.

01:16:14.000 | Well, if it takes you 1500 hours to teach Latin and your goal in teaching

01:16:19.000 | Latin is just to get to grammatical understanding, well, why?

01:16:21.000 | So my reason for teaching Latin is quite simply to be able to read Latin.

01:16:24.000 | And if you already speak a couple of Romance languages,

01:16:27.000 | instead of it being a 1500 hour language,

01:16:30.000 | I think it's probably more of a few hundred hour language to enjoy it at a

01:16:33.000 | basic level with of course it being a thousand or 2000 hour language at,

01:16:37.000 | at a more advanced level.

01:16:38.000 | But my goal in teaching Latin is to enable my children to read Latin very

01:16:43.000 | comfortably. And the way that I've backed into it has worked.

01:16:47.000 | And now what I'm doing is I'm having, I'm teaching a formal grammar course,

01:16:51.000 | but I'm doing it in a very kind of simple way over the course of several

01:16:56.000 | years after actually teaching the language.

01:17:00.000 | So I'm not super passionate about Latin specifically.

01:17:04.000 | I'm passionate about the idea that, Hey,

01:17:07.000 | if you can add on this language, which is,

01:17:09.000 | which does have these benefits and is this classic scholarly work.

01:17:12.000 | And there are still today thousands of books that who knows may be

01:17:16.000 | interesting and important to read in that language.

01:17:18.000 | And by the way, if we're going to read some of the classics,

01:17:20.000 | it's always better to read in the original than in translation.

01:17:23.000 | My goal is just simply to, to have my children comfortably read Latin.

01:17:28.000 | And I don't care too much about the grammar.

01:17:30.000 | I just care about them being able to comfortably read Latin.

01:17:33.000 | Now that said let's talk about Greek.

01:17:36.000 | My reasons for Greek is different.

01:17:38.000 | And once again, I'm not hardcore about this.

01:17:41.000 | I'm we'll wait and see, right.

01:17:42.000 | Ask me in two years and I'll tell you what my, what my results have been.

01:17:45.000 | But I started with a bunch of modern languages first,

01:17:48.000 | and I discovered that teaching languages doesn't have to be difficult or as

01:17:51.000 | time consuming as is often said, it can be just an enjoyable,

01:17:54.000 | simple, natural process.

01:17:56.000 | So now my question has been,

01:17:57.000 | does this apply to the classic languages as well?

01:18:00.000 | And what I have discovered through many hours of research is that there was

01:18:04.000 | always a,

01:18:06.000 | this was always at the core that all of the great Latin instructors and Greek

01:18:10.000 | instructors of the past taught these languages in this,

01:18:13.000 | in the way that I've stumbled into of teaching modern languages.

01:18:17.000 | In fact, just this last week,

01:18:19.000 | I was reading about the basic technique that I backed into accidentally four

01:18:22.000 | years ago was doing bilingual translation,

01:18:25.000 | bilingual reading to my children.

01:18:26.000 | That's it.

01:18:27.000 | It's not earth shattering.

01:18:28.000 | That was the technique.

01:18:30.000 | Well,

01:18:31.000 | I discovered recently I was reading all about a guy named Hamilton and he

01:18:34.000 | created this whole Hamiltonian language system.

01:18:36.000 | And the whole point of what he did was to take books and put in interlinear

01:18:42.000 | translations of the books to help students to simply read the language with

01:18:46.000 | the translation right there.

01:18:48.000 | And one of the errors that we make in modern language instruction is we make

01:18:51.000 | language study hard.

01:18:53.000 | We teach the children,

01:18:54.000 | Oh no,

01:18:55.000 | you need to go and look in the dictionary or you're not supposed to look

01:18:57.000 | up.

01:18:58.000 | Make it easy.

01:18:59.000 | Put the words right there.

01:19:00.000 | You know,

01:19:01.000 | put the word literally underneath it so they can see it.

01:19:03.000 | So if you're not sure what that word means,

01:19:05.000 | you just see the definition right there because the way you learn a language is

01:19:08.000 | just by seeing the word over and over.

01:19:10.000 | And once you see the word 15,

01:19:11.000 | 20 times,

01:19:12.000 | you're going to understand it.

01:19:13.000 | So make it fast and easy that the student can absorb a lot of language.

01:19:16.000 | Well,

01:19:17.000 | I'm not new in it.

01:19:18.000 | I just accidentally discovered the same thing that all the great masters of

01:19:20.000 | the past knew.

01:19:21.000 | So back to Greek,

01:19:22.000 | my argument for Greek is very different because I have a connection with the

01:19:26.000 | origin of Christianity in which the scriptures are written in Hebrew and

01:19:31.000 | Greek with,

01:19:32.000 | of course,

01:19:33.000 | a little bit of Aramaic thrown in.

01:19:34.000 | And so I want to,

01:19:35.000 | I have always wanted to be able to read the new Testament in the original

01:19:39.000 | Greek because when you can read it in the original Greek,

01:19:42.000 | it gives you a different sense,

01:19:44.000 | a different flavor of the language.

01:19:46.000 | And I don't think this is necessary to be,

01:19:48.000 | to have a good theological understanding,

01:19:51.000 | but I do think it is important.

01:19:53.000 | So if you could give me a chance at 18,

01:19:56.000 | you could say,

01:19:57.000 | Joshua,

01:19:58.000 | you can enjoy the new Testament in Koine Greek for the rest of your life,

01:20:01.000 | very comfortably.

01:20:02.000 | And not the way that most seminary students come out of it with,

01:20:05.000 | okay,

01:20:06.000 | I can pull up a piece of software and I can do this laborious grammar

01:20:09.000 | translation thing.

01:20:10.000 | No nonsense.

01:20:11.000 | I want to just be able to sit and enjoy the Greek.

01:20:13.000 | And then it is also interesting that as a student of civilization,

01:20:17.000 | myself in Western civilization,

01:20:19.000 | I would like to be able to absorb some of the classic Greek text because

01:20:25.000 | while I am not a Hellenist,

01:20:27.000 | I do appreciate many of the benefits of the civilizations that birthed the

01:20:32.000 | modern Western world.

01:20:34.000 | And so a lot of it has come down to the fact that I think I have found ways

01:20:39.000 | to make it easier and simpler and less painful.

01:20:43.000 | And if I can apply those at an early age when the opportunity costs are low,

01:20:47.000 | that seems worth it.

01:20:49.000 | And so the Greek and then Hebrew, right,

01:20:53.000 | for me have a religious significance because I do think that they're

01:20:58.000 | valuable.

01:20:59.000 | So if I could only teach one ancient language,

01:21:01.000 | I would teach Greek or I would learn Greek.

01:21:03.000 | I wouldn't learn Latin.

01:21:04.000 | I would learn Greek.

01:21:05.000 | But because of this strong base that we have in Romance languages,

01:21:08.000 | then Latin is pretty easy.

01:21:10.000 | And I'll give you just one metric that I have measured.

01:21:13.000 | When learning Latin,

01:21:16.000 | the first resource that I got was of course a copy of Familia Romana,

01:21:21.000 | which is a text that is well known as being a useful text in Latin

01:21:26.000 | instruction.

01:21:27.000 | But more importantly was I got a copy of the Cambridge Latin course.

01:21:31.000 | And I started going through that with my nine year old and who again has had

01:21:37.000 | these other modern languages.

01:21:38.000 | The Cambridge Latin course,

01:21:39.000 | there were four textbooks in the American system.

01:21:41.000 | There's five in Britain.

01:21:43.000 | And the idea is that these are basically, I guess,

01:21:45.000 | I think they're one year courses, but at least a semester course.

01:21:49.000 | But this textbook, we went through this textbook in a week.

01:21:52.000 | So textbook one took us a week to go through.

01:21:55.000 | And basically what we did is we just skipped all the exercises and read all

01:21:58.000 | the stories.

01:21:59.000 | We skipped all of the laborious grammar translation and all that stuff.

01:22:02.000 | We just read the stories and enjoyed the stories.

01:22:04.000 | And so I think we got 80% of the value out of the textbook,

01:22:07.000 | probably more value from doing the exercises.

01:22:10.000 | But when you're dealing with elementary school students,

01:22:12.000 | you want to be very careful of when you put in lots of hard work and labor.

01:22:15.000 | And so we can go through a one semester or a one year course book in

01:22:21.000 | basically a week because of the background in modern languages.

01:22:24.000 | And so that's the metric that I made with Latin.

01:22:27.000 | And then also the reason I chose Latin is I found great resources.

01:22:30.000 | So for Latin instruction,

01:22:32.000 | there is a wonderful app called LegentiVous that is available on iOS and

01:22:38.000 | Android, and it's from a website called Latinitium.

01:22:45.000 | Anyway, the app is called LegentiVous.

01:22:47.000 | This app, as far as I'm concerned,

01:22:49.000 | is how all languages should be taught because you open up the app and they

01:22:54.000 | have a bunch of beginner stories that are written as interlinear translations

01:22:58.000 | with audio and text.

01:22:59.000 | And so you open it up, here's a short story,

01:23:02.000 | here's the Latin text written.

01:23:04.000 | Right below it are all the English words and a direct interlinear translation.

01:23:08.000 | And then here is an audio book that you press play and the author reads it to

01:23:12.000 | you.

01:23:13.000 | So I just handed the app to my student and said, "Here, read this story.

01:23:16.000 | Read the story. Six minutes later, you're done. Okay, that's enough for today.

01:23:20.000 | Come back the next day, read the story."

01:23:21.000 | And so having this great app that is literary and then having a background in

01:23:26.000 | other Romance languages, my experience has made Latin a pretty simple thing.

01:23:31.000 | With Greek, it's harder because the exercises and the resources for Greek are

01:23:36.000 | not as accessible.

01:23:37.000 | I'm hoping that the LegentiVous guys will come out with a Greek edition.

01:23:42.000 | They said they're coming out with an ancient Greek edition.

01:23:44.000 | And I'm working with some of the resources that I have found.

01:23:47.000 | There's a really great app for students of biblical languages.

01:23:50.000 | There's a wonderful app called Biblingo that will teach you ancient Greek and

01:23:54.000 | ancient Hebrew.

01:23:55.000 | But I understand why people don't want to take these languages when they're

01:23:59.000 | taught the other way.

01:24:00.000 | I understand why it's a waste of time.

01:24:02.000 | A few years ago, I signed up for a class on learning biblical Greek because I

01:24:06.000 | thought it was interesting.

01:24:07.000 | I signed up for the class and on day one, we start going through grammar.

01:24:11.000 | I don't have a clue what any of these words mean in my own language.

01:24:13.000 | I don't know what -- I can't even tell -- participle.

01:24:17.000 | I don't know what a participle is and we're talking about Greek participles.

01:24:21.000 | I dropped the class three weeks later and here I am an adult, I'm motivated,

01:24:24.000 | et cetera.

01:24:25.000 | And it drives me crazy that they teach languages this way.

01:24:28.000 | On the other hand, the Biblingo app is great.

01:24:31.000 | I skip all the grammar instructions because I don't understand any of them.

01:24:34.000 | I just learn the words and I read and I listen.

01:24:37.000 | And I figure -- well, I've had experience that if you do that long enough,

01:24:41.000 | you'll absorb the languages over time.

01:24:44.000 | And so there are increasingly good Greek resources.

01:24:47.000 | I'm working with those with the children and I'm optimistic that I can -- that

01:24:51.000 | will make it.

01:24:53.000 | But I wouldn't -- that's my story.

01:24:55.000 | So that's what I have done.

01:24:57.000 | That's why I care about it.

01:24:59.000 | And I look at it, as I said,

01:25:01.000 | that I think there's probably great value in understanding the biblical

01:25:05.000 | languages.

01:25:06.000 | I read the extensive portions of it, Climbing Parnassus,

01:25:10.000 | and it's like, oh, there's this wonderful thing that's available.

01:25:14.000 | But I wouldn't have done it if I didn't already speak a few modern languages

01:25:18.000 | and I wouldn't have done it if it were done in a grammar translation way.

01:25:22.000 | It's just too painful and not worth the effort.

01:25:24.000 | - Gotcha.

01:25:29.000 | Illuminating as ever.

01:25:30.000 | Appreciate your time, Joshua.

01:25:32.000 | It's always fun hearing you talk in 1X speed, man.

01:25:35.000 | - My pleasure.

01:25:37.000 | My pleasure.

01:25:38.000 | - Have a good weekend.

01:25:39.000 | - Yeah, my pleasure.

01:25:41.000 | I probably should -- you know, I've bashed on this like classical idea.

01:25:45.000 | I probably should owe it a standalone podcast.

01:25:48.000 | It's just hard for me to justify that in radical personal finance.

01:25:51.000 | If I change the podcast name to something more generic,

01:25:55.000 | I would probably do more of that.

01:25:57.000 | But I already pushed the bounds of my personal finance title when I talk

01:26:00.000 | about this stuff in detail.

01:26:02.000 | So thank you for giving me a chance to opine on it on a Q&A show.

01:26:06.000 | We go to Ben.

01:26:07.000 | Ben, welcome to the show.

01:26:08.000 | How can I serve you today?

01:26:10.000 | - Hi, Joshua.

01:26:11.000 | I bought your career and income planning course back in 2020 and have been

01:26:15.000 | listening to your podcast since I was in college back in close to 2015.

01:26:19.000 | So I just wanted to thank you for all the great information,

01:26:22.000 | road view, and advice that you put out there.

01:26:24.000 | - My pleasure.

01:26:25.000 | - I attribute a lot of where -- yeah,

01:26:27.000 | I attribute a lot of where I am today in my career,

01:26:29.000 | physical and spiritual life to your influence.

01:26:31.000 | - Thank you.

01:26:32.000 | That's very encouraging.

01:26:33.000 | - Currently I'm a software engineer.

01:26:35.000 | Currently I'm a software engineer and I've been struggling through like the

01:26:38.000 | journaling exercises that you have recommended in your course and your

01:26:42.000 | podcast to figure out how I want to make an impact through my career.

01:26:46.000 | Before going through like the theology of work section on your course,

01:26:50.000 | I think I'd been too focused on reaching financial independence and that really

01:26:54.000 | challenged me to do a bit of soul searching.

01:26:56.000 | So I'm also getting married soon,

01:26:58.000 | so I'm not sure if I should be making any big moves soon,

01:27:01.000 | but I think one of my problems currently is that I'm too conservative with

01:27:05.000 | taking significant risks in my career and investing.

01:27:08.000 | Since starting your course in 2020,

01:27:11.000 | I've increased my gross income by 62%,

01:27:13.000 | through a combination of luck and hard work,

01:27:16.000 | but I'm not sure there's like that opportunity to increase it by that much

01:27:19.000 | again if I continue with the status quo.

01:27:21.000 | On the other hand,

01:27:22.000 | like I currently don't have a great work-life balance on my current job often

01:27:26.000 | and I'm worried that will continue even after I'm married.

01:27:29.000 | So this is too vague.

01:27:31.000 | I can refine my question and call it again in the future,

01:27:33.000 | but I was wondering what you would recommend focusing on figuring out over

01:27:37.000 | the next year as a newlywed.

01:27:39.000 | I think I could continue to build my skills and lean in on my current job,

01:27:44.000 | but I'm just worried that this will limit the effect of compounding my impact

01:27:48.000 | through my career if I'm not working in the right industry or on the right

01:27:52.000 | problems.

01:27:53.000 | - Right.

01:27:54.000 | Wonderful.

01:27:55.000 | I love it.

01:27:56.000 | Let's just chat about it a little bit now and then you can refine your question

01:27:58.000 | and call in next week.

01:27:59.000 | There's no reason that we can't cover it.

01:28:01.000 | So a couple of questions to clarify here.

01:28:04.000 | First of all,

01:28:05.000 | congratulations on your engagement.

01:28:07.000 | How old are you and how old is your fiance?

01:28:11.000 | - 27 and she's 29.

01:28:13.000 | - 27 and 29.

01:28:14.000 | Congratulations.

01:28:15.000 | - Thank you.

01:28:16.000 | - And you have been working in your career now for a while.

01:28:21.000 | How long has it been since you got out of school again?

01:28:24.000 | - Six years.

01:28:25.000 | - Six years.

01:28:27.000 | So let's start with a couple of just big picture frameworks.

01:28:31.000 | And one more question, actually.

01:28:33.000 | When is your wedding scheduled to be?

01:28:37.000 | - In a month.

01:28:38.000 | - Month.

01:28:39.000 | Wonderful.

01:28:40.000 | Okay.

01:28:41.000 | So at this point in life,

01:28:42.000 | I think you should move your career discussions or thoughts back a little bit

01:28:49.000 | in your thinking because this is going to happen once.

01:28:53.000 | You've got a wedding coming up in a month,

01:28:55.000 | and this is a really wonderful and exciting time of your life,

01:29:01.000 | and it deserves your attention fully rather than you spending all your time

01:29:06.000 | working and, you know, you handle it.

01:29:09.000 | By the way,

01:29:10.000 | just one of the little life coaching things that I care about,

01:29:14.000 | and this is -- I mean,

01:29:15.000 | I may have mentioned this,

01:29:16.000 | but I'll be explicit in this conversation.

01:29:19.000 | But I think one of the worst things that -- I guess it's widespread.

01:29:26.000 | I see it in the movies.

01:29:27.000 | I hear it a little bit in people that I interact with,

01:29:30.000 | but I think it's widespread.

01:29:31.000 | But one of the dumbest things of modern life that I hear is the idea that the

01:29:36.000 | wedding is all about your bride and that it's her job,

01:29:40.000 | it's her responsibility to do.

01:29:42.000 | I think it's crazy for you as a husband to start your married life by putting

01:29:48.000 | that pressure and that stress on her and, more importantly,

01:29:52.000 | of you abdicating your responsibility of leadership.

01:29:56.000 | And to be clear, I'm not saying anything about you specifically, Ben.

01:29:59.000 | I'm speaking about husbands-to-be in general.

01:30:04.000 | I think that at the beginning of your relationship,

01:30:07.000 | you should establish yourself as the clear leader at every stage.

01:30:13.000 | And so you should be the one who seeks out the woman that you're interested in.

01:30:18.000 | You should be the one who draws her, if she's willing, into a relationship.

01:30:22.000 | You should be the one who is clear and intentional about your ambition to be

01:30:26.000 | married.

01:30:27.000 | And if that's appropriate and you've become engaged,

01:30:29.000 | you should provide leadership through that process.

01:30:31.000 | And that leadership process will continue into marriage,

01:30:34.000 | but the path into marriage is your wedding.

01:30:36.000 | And so you should provide leadership through the course of planning the

01:30:41.000 | wedding, et cetera.

01:30:42.000 | And this is, I think,

01:30:44.000 | one of the best things that you can do to establish your marriage on the right

01:30:47.000 | foot.

01:30:48.000 | Now, in that process, I think we see the proper way for you to love your wife,

01:30:53.000 | which is to listen, to understand,

01:30:57.000 | and then to help and facilitate areas where she's going to shine and where she's

01:31:02.000 | going to really enjoy it.

01:31:04.000 | So my point is don't abdicate involvement in the wedding.

01:31:10.000 | Be at the front of it.

01:31:11.000 | And also, if there are complications with in-laws,

01:31:14.000 | this is the point at which you need to start to be involved in helping her to

01:31:19.000 | navigate and negotiate that.

01:31:21.000 | So in a movie, right,

01:31:23.000 | they'll put it in and say,

01:31:24.000 | "Here goes the bride-to-be with her mother and her father is paying for the

01:31:29.000 | wedding and her mother is guiding everything and picking out all the stuff,

01:31:36.000 | and you're just supposed to show up."

01:31:37.000 | And of course, there's a whole lot of other ridiculous,

01:31:40.000 | horrific stuff about this that you're supposed to show up.

01:31:43.000 | And ideally, if you show up on time and there's no fresh alcohol on your

01:31:47.000 | breath, you're winning as a husband.

01:31:49.000 | This is a recipe for catastrophe in a marriage.

01:31:51.000 | You be involved.

01:31:52.000 | You support her.

01:31:53.000 | You love her.

01:31:54.000 | You encourage her.

01:31:55.000 | You support her.

01:31:56.000 | You sustain her.

01:31:57.000 | Keep her strong so that when she comes into her wedding day,

01:32:00.000 | she feels really great.

01:32:02.000 | She feels really confident.

01:32:03.000 | And you didn't just abandon her to the meat grinder of her parents.

01:32:07.000 | You didn't abandon her to the meat grinder of all these huge decisions.

01:32:10.000 | Support her in that.

01:32:12.000 | So pardon the slight direction,

01:32:16.000 | but the point is the next month of your life is really important.

01:32:19.000 | Not in your career.

01:32:20.000 | The next month of your life is really important in terms of establishing the

01:32:24.000 | foundation for your marriage to make sure that your wife feels confident,

01:32:29.000 | that she feels loved, that she feels protected,

01:32:32.000 | and that you're there to push her when appropriate,

01:32:36.000 | and you're there to protect her when appropriate.

01:32:39.000 | And finding that balance is something that's going to take time, right?

01:32:42.000 | Because you're going to take time to get to know each other and to learn that.

01:32:44.000 | But make sure you're starting your relationship on the right foot.

01:32:49.000 | Now, after your wedding day,

01:32:52.000 | that is when you really get the chance to know each other on a deep level.

01:32:57.000 | That's when you get the chance to start to figure out who we are.

01:33:01.000 | And there's a principle that I think that this is your primary focus in life.

01:33:07.000 | There's a principle from the Old Testament scriptures.

01:33:10.000 | I forget the reference at this point.

01:33:12.000 | You can go and look it up.

01:33:13.000 | But in the Mosaic Law,

01:33:14.000 | the rule was that when a man is newly married,

01:33:17.000 | he's not allowed to be sent off to war,

01:33:20.000 | but he has to be allowed to stay home for a year.

01:33:24.000 | And I think one of the English translations says something like,

01:33:27.000 | "Learn how to please his wife."

01:33:29.000 | Now, I think the point here is clearly sexual.

01:33:31.000 | Clearly, there's an element of sexuality in that.

01:33:36.000 | But I think it's just a good principle that in the first year of marriage,

01:33:40.000 | you have an opportunity to enjoy being newlyweds.

01:33:45.000 | And it's a wonderful and precious time because you've been apart for all this time.

01:33:50.000 | You've lived your lives separately.

01:33:52.000 | You've each had your own ambitions.

01:33:54.000 | You've had your own careers.

01:33:55.000 | You've had your own relationships.

01:33:56.000 | And you come together, and you've got to form a new family.

01:34:00.000 | And there's a classic phrase in Christian circles.

01:34:04.000 | They call it "leaving and cleaving."

01:34:06.000 | And leaving means to separate yourself from your parents,

01:34:10.000 | to separate her from her parents, and for you to be bound together.

01:34:14.000 | So what you express and profess at your wedding day is real immediately in your actions.

01:34:23.000 | But it takes time for that to be expressed in reality.

01:34:27.000 | And so both aspects of that are really important.

01:34:30.000 | The leaving part is really important.

01:34:32.000 | And then, to use that weird word, "cleaving" in this sense, the being joined together.

01:34:37.000 | The being joined together with your wife is also really important.

01:34:41.000 | And so there should be a great intentionality about this.

01:34:45.000 | And so this is your focus for the next year.

01:34:48.000 | And, of course, ongoing.

01:34:50.000 | But you're establishing the foundation.

01:34:52.000 | So at this point in time, once you're married, you don't call your mom every week

01:34:58.000 | if that was your habit beforehand.

01:35:00.000 | You're leaving your parents.

01:35:01.000 | If you were living in your parents' house, you're out.

01:35:03.000 | You move in with her.

01:35:04.000 | You separate yourself.

01:35:06.000 | And she separates from her family.

01:35:08.000 | She's not on the phone with her mom every day.

01:35:10.000 | She's not going to her dad's house every day.

01:35:12.000 | She's separating, and she's becoming your wife, and you are her husband.

01:35:16.000 | And you're establishing your new household together.

01:35:19.000 | And this brings you together and bonds you together at a very deep level.

01:35:23.000 | And there's a true psychological expression.

01:35:26.000 | It's true in ontological terms and at your wedding, but then it needs to happen physically.

01:35:34.000 | It needs to happen physically, obviously, in a sexual sense,

01:35:37.000 | but it needs to happen physically in an emotional sense

01:35:41.000 | that you build this deep connection to one another.

01:35:43.000 | And this is your attention.

01:35:45.000 | This is not a time in your life in which you say, "Okay, I'm going to work 80 hours a week,

01:35:49.000 | and I'm going to work 80 hours a week so we can get ahead, honey,

01:35:53.000 | and I'll see you for a few hours here and there."

01:35:55.000 | Nonsense.

01:35:56.000 | This is a time in which your time is spent together.

01:35:59.000 | And what I would suggest is that your time is spent together just enjoying those couple-y things

01:36:04.000 | that you probably haven't been able to do for the past years.

01:36:08.000 | And so if this is sleeping in on Saturday morning, it's wonderful.

01:36:12.000 | Taking the day off and going to the beach all day.

01:36:16.000 | Not going out with your friends, just going out with each other, traveling together, etc.

01:36:20.000 | Now this has been muddied very much in the world of the modern sexual marketplace

01:36:26.000 | in which sexuality is something that couples enjoy freely without regard to marriage.

01:36:30.000 | And so by the time someone has arrived at marriage, there's not really anything new to look forward to.

01:36:35.000 | But at least in my experience, and I would hope in yours,

01:36:38.000 | when I married my wife, it was new and exciting.

01:36:40.000 | We hadn't been together.

01:36:41.000 | We hadn't slept together.

01:36:42.000 | We hadn't lived together.

01:36:43.000 | We hadn't traveled together.

01:36:45.000 | And so there's this whole new, exciting world.

01:36:48.000 | And so instead of arriving at marriage's door knowing that it's okay, honey, I've sowed my wild oats

01:36:54.000 | and here I am finally being dragged into the prison of marriage,

01:36:57.000 | I was excited to be able to marry my wife.

01:36:59.000 | And she was excited to be able to be with me and to enjoy all of those things at the fullest level.

01:37:04.000 | And so we, again, we didn't work.

01:37:07.000 | I was working.

01:37:08.000 | She was working.

01:37:09.000 | We both had jobs and businesses.

01:37:11.000 | But I wasn't working extra.

01:37:12.000 | I was home every night, right at 5 o'clock.

01:37:15.000 | We cooked together.

01:37:17.000 | We hung out together.

01:37:18.000 | We went out together.

01:37:21.000 | On the weekends, we always did us stuff, right?

01:37:24.000 | We'd go to the beach.

01:37:25.000 | We traveled a lot.

01:37:26.000 | We took all kinds of trips together.

01:37:27.000 | We enjoyed being together.

01:37:30.000 | And we did what was necessary from a business and financial perspective to maintain.

01:37:35.000 | But I wasn't focused on just maximizing all of my goals.

01:37:40.000 | I was focused on her.

01:37:41.000 | Now, if your life presents differently to you, if I look back,

01:37:46.000 | sometimes I wish I did more.

01:37:48.000 | So we went on a couple-week honeymoon, and then we did well together.

01:37:51.000 | But I've always admired couples who've gone on six-month honeymoons and one-year honeymoons.

01:37:55.000 | And with you and your fiancé being older, you guys may have the financial ability to do that.

01:38:00.000 | You maybe have the time to take some time off, do some of those things.

01:38:04.000 | Because there's that really special time when you are a newlywed couple before you have children that you can just enjoy being together.

01:38:13.000 | And that should be your focus.

01:38:15.000 | Now, what's the right number, the right number of hours of work?

01:38:20.000 | I have no idea.

01:38:21.000 | And I wouldn't break it down into a rule.

01:38:23.000 | I wouldn't say that you have to just be together for a year and no work, and then you go back and work like crazy.

01:38:30.000 | My point is that there's an expression in which you're learning how to love your wife, and she's learning how to love you,

01:38:36.000 | and you're learning how to work together.

01:38:38.000 | And if that is your focus, it can be a really beautiful time of bonding that lays the foundation for the rest of your life together.

01:38:47.000 | And this is not a time to be doing 90-hour work weeks or building a brand-new business, et cetera.

01:38:52.000 | Along the way, you will start to gain more insight into what's ahead.

01:38:57.000 | Because the difference between being boyfriend/girlfriend or being engaged versus being married is now you have to chart your path together.

01:39:07.000 | So previously, you were thinking about your career.

01:39:10.000 | Previously, she's thinking about her career.

01:39:13.000 | And to the extent that you talked about it, everyone's being a little bit cagey, right?

01:39:17.000 | "Well, you're going to move across the country, and should I follow you across the country to show you that I'm interested in you,

01:39:22.000 | or should I not follow you across the country because I don't want you to think I'm desperate," et cetera.

01:39:26.000 | Well, once you're married, then all that stuff is gone.

01:39:30.000 | There is no longer you and me.

01:39:32.000 | There is us.

01:39:33.000 | There is our.

01:39:34.000 | And so we're trying to understand how we work together in the future.

01:39:38.000 | And so in that year, you'll talk about our plans.

01:39:43.000 | She will share her heart, her desires.

01:39:46.000 | You'll share your heart, your desires.

01:39:48.000 | And we'll start to build a family plan.

01:39:50.000 | And that family plan is going to be all-encompassing.

01:39:53.000 | So what is your career ambition?

01:39:56.000 | What are her career ambitions?

01:39:58.000 | What are your plans with regard to having children, not having children?

01:40:03.000 | How do you anticipate working these things out?

01:40:07.000 | If she has a degree that she's trying to finish, and, like, this is really important to her, or she has a business she's launching,

01:40:14.000 | or you have something that you're trying to build, then you're going to be working to facilitate these things.

01:40:20.000 | And there's going to be kind of a natural and obvious plan.

01:40:23.000 | So you might just be keeping your job right now steady, not trying to go do something risky while she's finishing up her degree.

01:40:30.000 | And maybe you want to have children in, you know, three years from now.

01:40:33.000 | On the other hand, maybe you want to have children right away.

01:40:35.000 | And you say, "We're 29. We want to have three children, so let's go ahead and start having babies."

01:40:41.000 | Okay, then that's going to adjust things for you.

01:40:44.000 | And then you use that lens of her life, your life, and your together life to try to chart out what would be appropriate for you as a couple.

01:40:54.000 | And then with those conversations -- and by the way, all those exercises and whatnot, those are things you have to do together and talk about --

01:40:59.000 | and she'll be a source of insight for you that -- excuse me -- she will be a resource that you didn't have three years ago.

01:41:08.000 | Today, she'll be one of your greatest counselors.

01:41:11.000 | She'll be a source of wisdom.

01:41:13.000 | She knows you and your strengths.

01:41:16.000 | She knows your weaknesses.

01:41:18.000 | She'll have a sense of confidence in you.

01:41:21.000 | I think one of the great benefits that many men have from a good woman, assuming she's a good woman, is their self-confidence goes through the roof.

01:41:30.000 | And knowing that you have a wife who believes in you no matter what, and she knows who you are, she knows you better than anyone else,

01:41:41.000 | then your confidence, the impact that makes on your confidence can be outstanding, can be just incredibly transformative.

01:41:50.000 | And so as you look forward, a year from now you'll be a different man, and you're going to go through some changes in your life as a husband,

01:41:58.000 | and if you have children, as a father, that will transform you into a different person.

01:42:04.000 | And those things, you will then incorporate your sense of confidence and your ambitions into your overall career plans.

01:42:12.000 | There is clear, documented, objective evidence that men who are married and who have children earn more money and have more wealth than those who are not.

01:42:29.000 | What is not clear or necessarily documented is why that is.

01:42:35.000 | And there's great arguments, right? There are many successful, high-income single men and women who say, "Well, I'm not going to go to get married.

01:42:42.000 | My expenses are cheaper for me, and I have more money, and I don't have the risk of a woman taking 50% of it."

01:42:51.000 | I grant a lot of those arguments.

01:42:53.000 | And I've wondered about this. Why is this so obvious that married couples are higher?

01:43:00.000 | And by the way, this is actually, it's not even like the cohabitation.

01:43:05.000 | There was a Wall Street Journal article last year. I'm citing it from memory. I think I'm accurate.

01:43:11.000 | But I'm at least directionally accurate, if not accurate with the exact percentages.

01:43:16.000 | But there was a study that was released by one of the Federal Reserve Banks, and they studied married couples, basically around your age, around in their late 20s and early 30s,

01:43:25.000 | as compared to cohabitating couples in late 20s and early 30s.

01:43:29.000 | And they discovered that the married couples had a massively higher net worth.

01:43:35.000 | I think it was as high as like four times higher, but it was at least like three to four times, a lot higher, a very clear distinction.

01:43:42.000 | Now, they didn't have million-dollar net worths, but it was net worth of $130,000 versus $30,000.

01:43:48.000 | And the question was, why is this? The obvious question.

01:43:51.000 | If the cohabitating couple who is not married is receiving the savings in terms of their lifestyle of shared expenses, et cetera, why is the married couple so much better?

01:44:02.000 | And I think, from my experience, there are a few reasons.

01:44:05.000 | Number one, when you're married, you're committed to it.

01:44:07.000 | And especially in our modern world, in which the rates of marriage are so much lower and the societal pressure for marriage is non-existent,

01:44:14.000 | if you're going into marriage, you and your fiancé both know we're getting married.

01:44:18.000 | This is something that we want. We're intentional about it. To make it happen requires intentionality.

01:44:23.000 | And so that gives you a sense of security.

01:44:26.000 | It gives her security and you security in planning your life together.

01:44:30.000 | The other expression of it is, I think it does change you.

01:44:34.000 | And so I remember as a father, I had a couple of children, young children, and I have my best friend since my whole life.

01:44:42.000 | He's my age. We've known each other since we were very young. We're very good friends.

01:44:47.000 | He's unmarried. And so he's followed one path. I've followed a different path.

01:44:53.000 | And I've used that oftentimes as a foil and I've watched his life and the things that he struggles with versus the things that I struggle with.

01:45:01.000 | And I observed that having children and knowing that if it's to be, it's up to me in a true and genuine sense.

01:45:08.000 | I can't call on anyone else. It's me. I'm in charge. I'm in charge. I have the responsibility. It's all on me.

01:45:15.000 | And so the fact that I watched my life path differ significantly in terms of my level of confidence, my who I am, it just, it changed me.

01:45:26.000 | And so I think there's actually a causal relationship, although I can't prove it.

01:45:30.000 | My experience shows me there's a causal relationship that after a year of being married, after a few years of being married, after you have children,

01:45:38.000 | you have through that you experience the pressure and the responsibility of having children.

01:45:44.000 | It turns you into a different man. And that in and of itself will start to alter your career trajectory.

01:45:51.000 | So those would be some of my general encouragements is no, this is not a time for going and searching for new jobs.

01:45:57.000 | Necessarily, it's not a time for working 90 hours a week. It's not a time for for going crazy, trying to get ahead.

01:46:02.000 | This is a time for enjoying the relationship with your wife. And if you'll do that, then you can proceed and you can really take advantage of it.

01:46:09.000 | Then you can proceed quickly or as quickly as you guys want into the next stage of having children.

01:46:14.000 | And you can do it with no regrets. So spend the money, travel. My wife and I did a whole list of trips.

01:46:20.000 | We spent all kinds of money and just enjoyed being together in a relaxing way.

01:46:24.000 | And I don't regret that one bit. And having that meant that then when we had our first child, we were ready.

01:46:30.000 | We were excited. And I don't feel like I missed out on anything because I had a baby.

01:46:36.000 | But if I had just spent all my time working and we hadn't been together, I think I would have had some of those regrets.

01:46:42.000 | So those would be my general thoughts. And if you have a more specific question, I'd be happy to answer any more specific questions as well.

01:46:48.000 | Thank you, Joshua. That's really encouraging. And just blessed to have men like you just to give me advice and benefit from that.

01:46:59.000 | I guess just one tangential question. Just out of curiosity, at what point were you or how many years after you got married and had kids, did you start Radical Personal Finance?

01:47:13.000 | Good question. I started Radical Personal Finance the first time, 18 months after I was married. And the reason I say first time is that it started as just kind of a sideline hobby.

01:47:31.000 | And I recorded the first 10 episodes, published them over the course of about three weeks. And so I'd been married for about 18 months at that point in time.

01:47:40.000 | And then I, of course, I went to my company and I disclosed it as an outside business activity. And they said, "Shut it down or you're done here." Because I was in the financial industry.

01:47:51.000 | And so I pulled the podcast from the internet and kind of sat around thinking of what to do. And the reason that was important was because the first time around, why didn't I walk away from my job?

01:48:03.000 | Because my wife was pregnant with our first child. And so then it took me six months to decide that this was something that I wanted to do. And then it took me another six months to figure out how to do it.

01:48:13.000 | Because I had no business plan. I had no idea how to produce it. I had money saved, but I didn't have enough money to save to be like, "Ah, it doesn't matter." And I had a new baby.

01:48:22.000 | And so then a year later, at which point in time we had been married two and a half years, that was when I shut down my business and I went full-time on the podcast.

01:48:35.000 | And along the way, I had gotten another job. And for those who, this is ancient history now, we're coming up on episode 1000 here in a couple of months. And so this goes way back.

01:48:47.000 | But basically, the solution that I found, because I did, I was married, my wife had a job. She never had a big job. She never made a ton of money, but she had a job for the first year of marriage.

01:49:00.000 | And then after a year, she quit her job. And she was a full-time wife at that point in time. We didn't have a baby. And then we conceived a baby. And the baby was born, obviously, less than two years after we were married.

01:49:14.000 | And so I was the sole income earner for a wife and a new baby. And so the way I figured out how to start the new business was I realized if I could just get a job that paid my bills and didn't require anything of me other than just for me to pay my bills,

01:49:33.000 | then I could keep all of my savings and I could be totally relaxed about starting a business knowing that the opportunity is there. And as long as I'm not burning through savings or as long as I'm not going into debt, then I should be okay.

01:49:45.000 | And so what I ultimately wound up doing was I got a job working as a back office financial planner doing financial plans for other financial planners and teaching financial planning.

01:49:55.000 | So I never talked about that publicly, but that was what I did. And so I would do planning for planners. And then I would teach them how to teach the planning to other people.

01:50:07.000 | But because that was a non-licensed position, I surrendered all my licenses and it was just an employee role working with planners. Then it allowed me to start the podcast.

01:50:19.000 | But I had a six month old baby when I launched it, that full-time thing. I had a six month old child.

01:50:25.000 | Okay. Yeah. Well, just thank you for launching your podcast. Just continue with your mission because it's made a huge impact on my life.

01:50:36.000 | My pleasure.

01:50:37.000 | I'm looking forward to getting married. Thanks a lot to all the blessings that you mentioned. And I think just you interjecting your real view here and there has been encouraging.

01:50:54.000 | And I feel like at the beginning of that, I remember you saying these things many podcasts ago, since the very beginning. So that's just been encouraging.

01:51:03.000 | Well, my pleasure. And I'm glad it has been. And by the way, congratulations on your tremendous success since getting out of college.

01:51:12.000 | And what I just point out to you is, as we talked about with, as I discussed in that career planning course, most advancements, so there are some linear advancements, but many advancements are not linear.

01:51:27.000 | Right. Okay. You get 5%, but the way you increase your income is not just 3% a year. That's not the key. The goal, the key is to set the goal so that your mind is looking for ways to do it.

01:51:40.000 | And also being comfortable with the fact that you may not have any idea of how to do it. And that's perfectly fine. So keep the goal that 10 years from now, I'm going to 10x my income.

01:51:53.000 | And the reason you set that goal is that it causes it, your brain to be looking for ways of how to accomplish it. Now, obviously you may not accomplish it. You may not 10x your income.

01:52:06.000 | You may only 7x your income. But if you didn't set the goal of 10xing your income, you would never have looked for the opportunities or been open to the opportunities that would wind up 7xing your income.

01:52:17.000 | And so that's why we set the goal. We set goals so that our brain will look for ways to bring our current situation into congruence with those goals and with those ambitions.

01:52:29.000 | And there are people, you mentioned, right, planning and luck. You said, okay, a combination of things.

01:52:36.000 | The thing that's funny about life is you can't predict how these circumstances come along. But there are a lot of people who, because they don't set a goal, they miss it when their chance comes along.

01:52:48.000 | Let me use a relationship example, right? You're getting married. Many people get married because of what seems like an external, we'll call it luck or call it serendipity or just a seemingly accidental external experience.

01:53:07.000 | Beautiful girl comes along, you meet her at a party, you realize you just, you fall head over heels in love with her, and three months later you're married.

01:53:15.000 | Interestingly, that doesn't happen so much today as it did when marriage was the norm.

01:53:21.000 | But what I would say is there are people today who that happens to and they kind of accidentally wind up married.

01:53:27.000 | But on the flip side, there are a whole lot of people who never set a goal of becoming married.

01:53:32.000 | And because they never set a goal of becoming married, they date this girl, they date that girl, they date this other girl, any of these girls would actually be a wonderful marriage candidate, but they never set a goal of becoming married so they never wind up married.

01:53:43.000 | And they look back on their life 30 years later and they see all of the opportunities they passed over because they never had a goal of getting married.

01:53:50.000 | If you set a goal of getting married, the actual establishment of that goal doesn't mean you can achieve it, right?

01:53:59.000 | You can't force a relationship to happen.

01:54:02.000 | All you can do is take actions that hopefully lead to a higher probability of it happening.

01:54:10.000 | You can put yourself into situations where you're likely to meet a high-quality girl.

01:54:15.000 | You can ask girls out.

01:54:17.000 | But you can't be sure that it's going to actually happen.

01:54:21.000 | But the setting of the goal of getting married causes you to start to order your life in a way that will make it happen.

01:54:28.000 | And if you as a man set a goal, let's say that you're 25 years old and you say, "I want to get married."

01:54:34.000 | And you just write it down on a piece of paper and you look at the goal and you set it.

01:54:38.000 | Then if you're not doing anything in that direction, your brain will automatically start to make you feel bad for it.

01:54:45.000 | You recognize, "I haven't asked a girl out in three months," right?

01:54:48.000 | "I haven't met a new woman anywhere in six months. I'm not going to achieve this goal."

01:54:53.000 | And you'll start to experience a dissatisfaction.

01:54:56.000 | And then finally, you know, six months later, you're feeling guilty that I set this goal.

01:55:00.000 | And you go on and you set up a profile on an online dating account and you go to a singles group somewhere.

01:55:07.000 | And you go to a party and you force yourself to walk across the room and talk to the pretty girl, etc.

01:55:13.000 | And the point is that you set the goal.

01:55:15.000 | You couldn't see how to accomplish it.

01:55:18.000 | But that goal will inexorably cause you to do things differently.

01:55:23.000 | And it will make it more likely that you could get married.

01:55:27.000 | And so think of income goals and career goals in the exact same way.

01:55:32.000 | I can't tell you how you can 10x your income.

01:55:36.000 | It may not be at all possible in your current career.

01:55:40.000 | But if you have that in the back of your mind, I've influenced you successfully that you have that in the back of your mind.

01:55:45.000 | And so all I know is that over the coming years, you'll be open to opportunities.

01:55:49.000 | You may say no to those opportunities.

01:55:52.000 | Somebody might offer you a job two years from now and you say, "No, no. I actually prefer my current one."

01:55:56.000 | Even though it makes more money, that's not what I'm looking for.

01:55:59.000 | But you're more likely to make advancement by setting goals.

01:56:03.000 | And then over time, your brain will start to push you in the direction of taking the actions that could lead to the accomplishment of that goal.

01:56:11.000 | And then over time, you're likely to be much further ahead than the guy who doesn't set those goals.

01:56:17.000 | You have achieved a 62% increase in your income partially due to what you invested in my course and in what I taught you in that course.

01:56:28.000 | Maybe it could be higher.

01:56:30.000 | There's probably people that you went to college with or went to school with that made 162% of their income because they found something else that worked.

01:56:37.000 | But there's a whole swath of people who have increased their income by 15%.

01:56:42.000 | And you're ahead of those people because you exposed yourself to a different set of ideas.

01:56:46.000 | You took different actions, etc.

01:56:49.000 | And so as you continue that, we can't predict that you'll get 162%.

01:56:54.000 | You may not.

01:56:55.000 | But we can predict that if you set those goals, your brain will force you in the fullness of time to pay attention to the opportunities that come your way.

01:57:04.000 | And when the opportunities come your way, you have a choice to say yes or no based upon what's right for you at the time.

01:57:11.000 | So that would be my closing remark.

01:57:13.000 | And keep in touch.

01:57:14.000 | Don't call in in the coming weeks.

01:57:16.000 | You're going to be busy with wedding plans.

01:57:18.000 | But call in in the coming months and we'll talk about it as time goes forward.

01:57:21.000 | Anything else, Ben?

01:57:23.000 | No, that's it.

01:57:25.000 | Thank you, Joshua.

01:57:26.000 | And I think my goal now is just to hopefully make as big of an impact as you have made in my life.

01:57:33.000 | I appreciate that.

01:57:34.000 | You've made my day with your kind comments.

01:57:37.000 | They're very encouraging.

01:57:38.000 | And I appreciate them very much.

01:57:41.000 | I have spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, here we are at the end of -- I'm coming up on episode 1000.

01:57:46.000 | So for me, I have fulfilled my -- I'm close to fulfilling my stated ambition to record a thousand episodes of the podcast.

01:57:54.000 | And so I've been going through a lot of analysis and thinking about my goals and what am I going to do.

01:57:59.000 | And so I really appreciate hearing from you.

01:58:01.000 | It makes a big difference.

01:58:03.000 | That concludes our Friday Q&A show.

01:58:05.000 | If you would like to join me on next week's Q&A show, go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance, patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.

01:58:13.000 | By the way, if you like what you've heard, remember that you'd like to talk to me about something specific, actual numbers, actual data.

01:58:19.000 | It's kind of an interesting show today.

01:58:21.000 | We started with financial planning, a little bit of semi-technical financial planning.

01:58:25.000 | We've talked about kind of lifestyle stuff, et cetera.

01:58:28.000 | If you'd like to talk to me personally and engage in personal consultation, those are open during the month of April.

01:58:33.000 | You can go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult to book a call with me.

01:58:37.000 | I think I've sold out about 30% of those calls at the moment, so there's still plenty of space.

01:58:42.000 | Go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult and sign up for a private consulting session on sale, 20% off here during the month of April.

01:58:51.000 | radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.

01:58:53.000 | Or if you can't afford my consulting rate or you just want to do this, remember, go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance, sign up, it's worth a show there.

01:58:59.000 | And you can talk with me on one of these Friday shows.

01:59:02.000 | I, of course, don't get too deep into the details here.

01:59:05.000 | It's probably a much cheaper way to speak with me personally.

01:59:09.000 | Or remember, there's almost a thousand episodes of the podcast in the archives.

01:59:13.000 | Thank you for listening.

01:59:14.000 | I will be back with you very soon.

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