2023-10-09_Prepare_When_Times_Are_Good_and_Invest_When_Times_are_Bad
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00:00:59.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,
00:01:01.000 | a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:01:03.000 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need
00:01:05.000 | to live a rich and meaningful life now
00:01:07.000 | while building a plan for financial freedom
00:01:09.000 | in 10 years or less.
00:01:10.000 | My name is Joshua Sheets, I'm your host.
00:01:12.000 | Today I want to talk to you
00:01:14.000 | about the importance of farsightedness
00:01:18.000 | and about the importance of your not following
00:01:22.000 | any kind of crowd when it comes to a special focus,
00:01:27.000 | meaning today on preparation,
00:01:29.000 | preparation for bad things and catastrophes to happen,
00:01:32.000 | and also with a focus on long-term wins,
00:01:36.000 | especially in the world of investing.
00:01:38.000 | I believe that the mindset that leads someone to be
00:01:41.000 | perhaps the world's most successful investor
00:01:44.000 | is the same mindset that leads someone
00:01:46.000 | to be very well-prepared.
00:01:48.000 | And these things should go together,
00:01:51.000 | although unfortunately they often don't go together.
00:01:54.000 | I find that people often veer in one direction or another.
00:01:59.000 | Some people are very preparation-oriented.
00:02:02.000 | They go through the world believing that
00:02:04.000 | everything is falling apart,
00:02:06.000 | the whole world is filled with catastrophe and chaos,
00:02:09.000 | everything is going to hell,
00:02:10.000 | and there ain't no getting out of this,
00:02:12.000 | you know, there ain't no voting your way out of this one,
00:02:14.000 | there ain't no getting out of this one alive.
00:02:16.000 | And so because they see the world in that way,
00:02:19.000 | they often don't take any action to invest
00:02:24.000 | into something that could grow and could become better.
00:02:26.000 | They'll stockpile a bunker full of beans, bullets, and band-aids
00:02:30.000 | and not invest in a mutual fund.
00:02:33.000 | And thus they arrive at the end of their lives,
00:02:35.000 | in many cases, or the middle of their lives,
00:02:37.000 | and they got a bunker full of moldy beans
00:02:40.000 | and out-of-date band-aids and some bullets
00:02:43.000 | that still work fine,
00:02:45.000 | and that's usually the best investment they made
00:02:47.000 | because it holds its value and holds its usefulness
00:02:50.000 | if properly stored,
00:02:51.000 | but they wind up with no money.
00:02:53.000 | On the other hand, there are many people
00:02:54.000 | who are filled with optimism,
00:02:56.000 | looking around the world and saying,
00:02:58.000 | "Hey, things can go great,
00:02:59.000 | everything's going to be perfect,
00:03:01.000 | everything is going to be wonderful."
00:03:02.000 | And they are prone to investing into something
00:03:05.000 | and they're believers in the future,
00:03:07.000 | and they say, "Look, this town could be fantastic,
00:03:10.000 | or this company could really grow,
00:03:11.000 | and this technology could be wonderful."
00:03:13.000 | And they spend all their time thinking about
00:03:15.000 | what could go well and what could go right,
00:03:17.000 | that they never stop to think about
00:03:18.000 | what could go wrong.
00:03:19.000 | And then catastrophe strikes,
00:03:21.000 | and maybe they have money or maybe they don't,
00:03:25.000 | but for lack of ability to run a couple blocks away,
00:03:30.000 | they fall prey to a mugging or a knifing on the street.
00:03:33.000 | For lack of a tourniquet,
00:03:35.000 | a wound that could be fixed,
00:03:40.000 | unfortunately causes someone to bleed out.
00:03:43.000 | For lack of some food and water,
00:03:46.000 | their family gets sick or goes hungry
00:03:48.000 | in a time of shortage.
00:03:49.000 | Or for lack of a second passport,
00:03:51.000 | they get stuck in a country
00:03:52.000 | where they get conscripted into military service
00:03:55.000 | and die in some worthless war,
00:03:57.000 | something like that.
00:03:58.000 | So I've noticed this a lot over the years,
00:04:01.000 | and I've noticed it as I've had to tackle
00:04:04.000 | my own tendencies.
00:04:06.000 | When I was younger,
00:04:07.000 | I was much more on the pessimistic side.
00:04:11.000 | I don't know why.
00:04:12.000 | It wasn't my parents weren't pessimistic
00:04:13.000 | or anything like that.
00:04:14.000 | I guess just the books I ran into,
00:04:16.000 | and I always was struck by people
00:04:17.000 | who said the dollar is going to collapse
00:04:18.000 | and all this bad stuff is going to happen,
00:04:20.000 | and that made a lot of sense to me.
00:04:21.000 | And so I was prone to pessimism
00:04:24.000 | and to preparedness, et cetera.
00:04:26.000 | I wasn't prone to extreme optimism.
00:04:29.000 | Over the years,
00:04:30.000 | I've recognized that, wait a second,
00:04:32.000 | optimism is probably the best overall strategy.
00:04:35.000 | It needs to be carefully filtered.
00:04:37.000 | It doesn't need to be naive optimism,
00:04:39.000 | but on the whole,
00:04:40.000 | human beings have a certain way that they work,
00:04:43.000 | and things can get better, broadly speaking.
00:04:46.000 | I believe they will get better,
00:04:47.000 | broadly speaking, in many areas.
00:04:49.000 | But that just hardcore, unthrottled optimism
00:04:52.000 | is also not a good thing.
00:04:57.000 | And so how do you handle this?
00:05:00.000 | One of the things that I'm sharing with you
00:05:02.000 | in today's show
00:05:03.000 | is how I have learned to handle it.
00:05:05.000 | I have realized that the skills
00:05:08.000 | of great preparedness
00:05:10.000 | and the skills of great investing
00:05:13.000 | should draw from the same fount.
00:05:16.000 | They should not be seen as fundamentally
00:05:21.000 | at odds with each other.
00:05:22.000 | And I think that more than that,
00:05:27.000 | that in fact, they buttress each other.
00:05:29.000 | They make one stronger.
00:05:31.000 | Somebody who is well-prepared
00:05:33.000 | can and should be,
00:05:35.000 | is prepared to be a better investor.
00:05:39.000 | And somebody who is a better investor
00:05:42.000 | is somebody who should be prepared
00:05:45.000 | to be better prepared,
00:05:46.000 | because we know that we don't win a lot of times.
00:05:50.000 | A lot of times, investments don't work out.
00:05:52.000 | A lot of times, bad things don't happen.
00:05:54.000 | But we still want to focus on the investments
00:05:56.000 | that can and should work out,
00:05:57.000 | and we want to focus on the bad things
00:05:59.000 | that can and should happen.
00:06:01.000 | As I see it, the psychology
00:06:03.000 | that you and I should adapt,
00:06:05.000 | the rational, thoughtful approach
00:06:08.000 | is exactly the same.
00:06:09.000 | And here it is.
00:06:11.000 | We need to recognize that there are times
00:06:14.000 | in which certain actions and behaviors are easier.
00:06:18.000 | So let's start with preparedness.
00:06:21.000 | The best and easiest time to prepare
00:06:24.000 | for a catastrophe
00:06:27.000 | is when there is no catastrophe,
00:06:29.000 | nay, not even a sign of catastrophe.
00:06:34.000 | That is the best time to prepare.
00:06:36.000 | The best time to prepare
00:06:37.000 | is when things are rosy and wonderful,
00:06:41.000 | because then preparation is easy.
00:06:45.000 | The very best time to buy life insurance
00:06:48.000 | is when you're about 15 days old,
00:06:52.000 | you've never been to a doctor,
00:06:54.000 | you've never had any kind of health condition,
00:06:56.000 | you're not overweight,
00:06:57.000 | you don't have diabetes,
00:06:58.000 | you're not maimed or mangled in any way.
00:07:00.000 | That's the best time to buy life insurance,
00:07:05.000 | long before you ever need it.
00:07:07.000 | And if you buy life insurance
00:07:08.000 | long before you ever need it,
00:07:10.000 | everything goes great.
00:07:12.000 | The best time to buy car insurance
00:07:15.000 | is when you've never had an accident,
00:07:17.000 | don't think you're going to have an accident,
00:07:19.000 | everything is working great.
00:07:21.000 | That's the best time to buy car insurance.
00:07:24.000 | The best time to buy extra food
00:07:27.000 | is when you have plenty of money,
00:07:30.000 | food is widely available,
00:07:32.000 | there are no shortages,
00:07:33.000 | nor is there even any indication
00:07:35.000 | that shortages would ever happen in the future.
00:07:38.000 | It's so easy to buy extra food
00:07:41.000 | and stock up in that circumstance.
00:07:44.000 | The best time to buy water purification tablets
00:07:49.000 | is when you're in the middle of a city
00:07:51.000 | and there's no reason to buy water purification tablets,
00:07:54.000 | then they're everywhere and they're cheap.
00:07:57.000 | The best time to buy a gun,
00:07:59.000 | long before you ever need one.
00:08:03.000 | Any preparation topic you talk about,
00:08:06.000 | best time to build a house that is earthquake proof
00:08:08.000 | is 30 years before the earthquake comes.
00:08:12.000 | Best time to look at a map of flood plains
00:08:16.000 | and figure out whether it's safe to build a house
00:08:19.000 | in this particular place or not
00:08:22.000 | is long before the floods ever come.
00:08:25.000 | And that's probably a decent example for me to pause on
00:08:30.000 | because it's something that we can predict
00:08:33.000 | and yet something that is exceedingly rare.
00:08:36.000 | In Florida, where I grew up,
00:08:39.000 | probably a decade or so ago, maybe more,
00:08:41.000 | we had a series of hundred-year floods.
00:08:44.000 | And in this hundred-year floods,
00:08:46.000 | my house was okay, but I had a relative's house
00:08:51.000 | that was not okay.
00:08:53.000 | And there was flood water lapping at the door.
00:08:57.000 | Thankfully, it stopped right at the end
00:08:59.000 | because one of my relative's neighbors
00:09:03.000 | knew where the ditch was,
00:09:08.000 | or basically knew where the flood outlets were
00:09:10.000 | for the neighborhood,
00:09:11.000 | had a piece of heavy equipment and went and dug up the road
00:09:14.000 | and literally just dug an enormous channel across the road,
00:09:18.000 | putting in an impromptu ditch to drain the neighborhood,
00:09:22.000 | and that saved my relative's house
00:09:25.000 | right at the last instant
00:09:27.000 | when there was a couple of centimeters from the flood water
00:09:30.000 | coming in and wrecking the wooden floor.
00:09:32.000 | And I've always thought about that example
00:09:34.000 | because here, this was quite literally called a hundred-year flood.
00:09:39.000 | And what does a hundred-year flood mean?
00:09:41.000 | Well, it means two things.
00:09:42.000 | One, that generally this is a flood
00:09:44.000 | that we should only expect about once every hundred years or so,
00:09:48.000 | so it would be very unusual to have a flood of this height
00:09:53.000 | or magnitude one year,
00:09:54.000 | and then four years later have a flood of this height or magnitude.
00:09:58.000 | However, it also means the opposite.
00:10:00.000 | It means that we should expect one of these floods
00:10:03.000 | about every hundred years or so,
00:10:05.000 | which means that if we haven't had one in a while,
00:10:09.000 | we ought to expect one and we ought to plan for one.
00:10:11.000 | A hundred-year flood means that this area is known to flood
00:10:15.000 | probably about once every hundred years.
00:10:18.000 | But with the way statistics work,
00:10:20.000 | we have no idea if that means one year,
00:10:22.000 | and then the next year there's another flood,
00:10:24.000 | and then 20 years later there's another flood,
00:10:25.000 | and then there's 150 years of no flooding.
00:10:28.000 | We have no idea.
00:10:29.000 | We just know that this is an uncommon event,
00:10:31.000 | but we can't predict with any certainty when it will come.
00:10:34.000 | And so you can look at something like that,
00:10:36.000 | and you can say, well, this is an infrequent event,
00:10:40.000 | so therefore it's not worth preparing for,
00:10:43.000 | or you can look at it and say,
00:10:45.000 | this event is almost certainly guaranteed,
00:10:48.000 | so it's worth preparing for.
00:10:52.000 | And I think the rational perspective is to do the second of those options,
00:10:57.000 | to look at the event and say, okay,
00:10:59.000 | we have a hundred-year flood level in this area of this watermark, this height.
00:11:05.000 | So what could I do to be prepared in case of a hundred-year flood?
00:11:08.000 | Now, based upon the severity of the event,
00:11:11.000 | you and I might make different decisions.
00:11:13.000 | One man might say, this is a really great house,
00:11:16.000 | it's a lovely neighborhood.
00:11:17.000 | I'm worried a little bit about the hundred-year flood,
00:11:20.000 | but it's pretty infrequent,
00:11:21.000 | so what I'm just going to do is I'm just going to buy homeowners insurance,
00:11:25.000 | and I'm going to hope that nothing happens.
00:11:28.000 | Another, if homeowners insurance is available,
00:11:30.000 | or hey, if my house is destroyed, my house is destroyed.
00:11:33.000 | That's an acceptable risk for living in this particular neighborhood
00:11:37.000 | that I want to live in.
00:11:39.000 | Another person might look at it and say, you know what?
00:11:42.000 | I'm going to go ahead and make sure that I have a berm system,
00:11:46.000 | some kind of sandbags or, better yet,
00:11:49.000 | some kind of watertight barrier that I could erect around my house.
00:11:52.000 | I'm going to make sure -- or at least block off the doorways.
00:11:55.000 | I'm going to make sure that I have a pump,
00:11:57.000 | and I'm going to go ahead and raise my house up a little bit higher
00:12:00.000 | than is required by code because I know that a few extra inches on my pad
00:12:05.000 | or on my foundation could help to protect this house.
00:12:08.000 | And the sky's the limit in terms of preparations that could be made from there.
00:12:14.000 | But when we know that an area has a 100-year flood line in it,
00:12:18.000 | we know both of those facts with relative certainty.
00:12:21.000 | We know that floods are infrequent, but we know that floods are fairly certain.
00:12:30.000 | And the time to prepare for those floods is long before the rains start falling
00:12:35.000 | because floods come on you very, very quickly.
00:12:40.000 | And it's the same with all kinds of preparations.
00:12:43.000 | If you look at events -- and obviously I'm stimulated to do this show,
00:12:48.000 | different than my normal show that I had planned after watching the events in Israel this last weekend.
00:12:54.000 | One of the things that I myself try to do is to redeem a tragic event to some degree
00:13:01.000 | by learning from it at the very least.
00:13:04.000 | I often find myself frustrated when hearing bad news from around the world
00:13:08.000 | of my inability to do much, inability to really do anything to help.
00:13:12.000 | I stop, and my family and I, we pray for the people involved.
00:13:17.000 | I pray that God would render help and aid and wisdom, et cetera.
00:13:21.000 | And sometimes that feels like something, but a lot of times it just feels frustrating.
00:13:26.000 | It's like, "I can't do anything. I'd like to do something more than just pray."
00:13:29.000 | And yet there's nothing to do. I may not have any connection with somebody.
00:13:32.000 | I may not have anybody that I can help.
00:13:34.000 | I may not be able to jump in my car and go fix a situation.
00:13:37.000 | But one of the things that I have tried to do is to learn from a situation,
00:13:43.000 | and by putting myself into the shoes of those who are involved in the tragedy.
00:13:48.000 | So when something bad happens, I think, "Let me assume that that happens to me.
00:13:56.000 | Let me assume that that happened to me today.
00:13:59.000 | What would I need to do? What would I do in that situation?"
00:14:04.000 | And I'm not engaging in superhuman activities in some way.
00:14:09.000 | I'm not a superhero. In some cases, I'm just going to be lined up
00:14:12.000 | and get shot with everyone else. That's just life.
00:14:15.000 | You don't always get to be the kind of hero they write stories about.
00:14:18.000 | So then I say, "Okay, if I'm lined up to get shot with everyone else,
00:14:22.000 | did I do everything I could to get shot?"
00:14:24.000 | Meaning, did I do everything that that event would be the best possible?
00:14:29.000 | If my family and I are all shot together and murdered in our house,
00:14:32.000 | as some families were in the past couple of days,
00:14:36.000 | then I just ask myself, "Well, are we prepared for that?
00:14:41.000 | Are we prepared with our eternal preparations?
00:14:44.000 | Have I lived a life that I'll be proud of?
00:14:47.000 | Am I ready to meet my maker and give an account of my actions
00:14:50.000 | and the time that I've had here on earth?
00:14:52.000 | Am I ready to die with braveness and with valor and with a good testimony?"
00:14:58.000 | So that's a reasonable form of preparation.
00:15:01.000 | I also ask, "Is there something that I could do or could have done
00:15:05.000 | to avoid me and my entire family being killed in that circumstance?"
00:15:09.000 | And obviously, there are many things that can often be done.
00:15:12.000 | And I'll go through them.
00:15:14.000 | So for example, in times past, I have talked and thought about physical violence,
00:15:24.000 | meaning am I prepared to fight?
00:15:25.000 | Do I have the tools of warfare ready to defend my family, etc.?
00:15:30.000 | But as I was watching the events this last weekend, I just asked myself,
00:15:34.000 | "Could I have run?"
00:15:35.000 | Right now, I'm traveling.
00:15:36.000 | I have no access to--I have no firearms, no knives, none of that.
00:15:41.000 | I have some--I know how to create some improvised weapons.
00:15:45.000 | But quite frankly, I was just asking myself, "Am I ready to run?"
00:15:48.000 | Because in many such violent situations, you're best--
00:15:51.000 | absolutely the best thing you can do is just run.
00:15:55.000 | It's quite difficult to hit a running target when you're running.
00:15:59.000 | But am I a good enough runner?
00:16:01.000 | Is my wife a good enough runner?
00:16:02.000 | Are my children good enough runners that if I said run,
00:16:04.000 | that they wouldn't gas out after 20 yards?
00:16:07.000 | Am I a good enough runner?
00:16:08.000 | And unfortunately, that was my learning from this one.
00:16:10.000 | I said, "I need to be prepared to run more,
00:16:12.000 | and I'm going to engage in much more sprinting and get my stamina up
00:16:16.000 | because there may come a day in which I'm running for my life."
00:16:19.000 | I hope not, but that was just the one lesson I took away.
00:16:23.000 | I always try to take one lesson away that's practical,
00:16:27.000 | that I can do and respond to when there is a catastrophe.
00:16:31.000 | And I believe that that's one way that we can gain some good from bad
00:16:36.000 | is to ensure that that bad is not as severe the next time it happens with us.
00:16:45.000 | And so that's what--so I was thinking about those events.
00:16:50.000 | But more broadly, this is the theme that we must come back to,
00:16:54.000 | is to recognize that the time to prepare is when things are good,
00:16:58.000 | and that in order for you to do that, you have to rationally make that commitment.
00:17:04.000 | And you're probably going to get little support,
00:17:06.000 | which is why I wanted to talk about this in the context of investing.
00:17:10.000 | And I fear that--I think I said this at the beginning,
00:17:13.000 | but I don't like to talk about these things too much,
00:17:17.000 | but I feel--because this is not the radical preparedness show,
00:17:21.000 | but I think this is one of the themes that is simply underdiscussed
00:17:24.000 | in personal finance and yet is so effective, is the importance of this.
00:17:30.000 | And that's where I see the connections to the psychology of proper investing.
00:17:33.000 | If you're going to be a world-class investor,
00:17:36.000 | and you're going to be somebody who makes it big,
00:17:39.000 | then a couple of things are required.
00:17:42.000 | By the way, you can be a great investor just buying some good investments,
00:17:46.000 | dollar-cost averaging into them over time. That's fine.
00:17:49.000 | But if you're going to be someone who makes it big,
00:17:51.000 | you're going to have to see an opportunity that few others see,
00:17:58.000 | and then you're going to have to bet for that opportunity
00:18:03.000 | long before others are willing to make their bets.
00:18:07.000 | And then you're going to have to sit tight and wait and see
00:18:12.000 | if others catch up to you and see what you saw long before.
00:18:18.000 | That is something that is fundamentally opposed to mass human psychology.
00:18:23.000 | That's not what most of us do. That's not how most of us live.
00:18:27.000 | And yet that's how skilled investors have to live.
00:18:32.000 | The flip side of that is if you're going to be well-prepared,
00:18:35.000 | you're going to have to see dangers that other people don't see.
00:18:40.000 | You're going to have to take action to protect yourself against those dangers
00:18:44.000 | long before other people are ready to take action.
00:18:48.000 | And then you're going to have to sit and wait.
00:18:51.000 | Now, the good thing about preparation is I think that preparedness
00:18:56.000 | is something that many people will be happy not to need.
00:19:03.000 | Unlike an investment where you speculate on something,
00:19:07.000 | you purchase a speculation, you're hoping and hoping and hoping that it takes off,
00:19:11.000 | and eventually you finally just say, "Yeah, this ain't going anywhere.
00:19:14.000 | This company's a dud. This pharma drug that I was hoping would be a winner,
00:19:18.000 | yeah, it doesn't work. This cryptocurrency that I thought was going to be a winner,
00:19:23.000 | yeah, no future here, and that stinks.
00:19:26.000 | But at least, hey, I'm out the money that I'm out, but it's not going to sink me, hopefully."
00:19:30.000 | With preparedness, I myself look at it and I say, "Yeah, I'm glad that I didn't need that.
00:19:36.000 | Carried that gun around every day for 50 years.
00:19:40.000 | What a hassle that thing was. It was uncomfortable.
00:19:43.000 | I am glad I never once needed it."
00:19:46.000 | Or we had all that long-term storage food in the pantry,
00:19:49.000 | and after 20 years, had to just give it all away or feed it to the dogs.
00:19:54.000 | But I'm glad about that. So preparedness is nice because you're glad you didn't need it.
00:19:59.000 | You obviously question. You buy an insurance policy,
00:20:02.000 | but buy a term insurance policy and you get to the end of the 20-year term,
00:20:06.000 | usually you're pretty happy you had it, and you're not that upset about the lost premiums.
00:20:11.000 | And so that's the psychology is you're going to have to do it.
00:20:14.000 | And so here's what I want you to remember.
00:20:16.000 | Bad things happen, and they happen to people like you.
00:20:21.000 | And if something bad is going to happen, you will probably prefer to have been prepared for it
00:20:27.000 | than to not have been prepared for it.
00:20:29.000 | So let me talk briefly with some very broad outlines about some of the things that you can do
00:20:33.000 | to prepare for bad times and bad things.
00:20:37.000 | The most effective forms of preparedness simply involve foresightedness and making different decisions.
00:20:47.000 | So for example, I don't want to--let me not use the--
00:20:54.000 | let me--I don't--the wounds are too raw, and there's too many uncertainties and unknowns
00:21:01.000 | and the fog of war, and the situation between Israel and Hamas and all of that is too complex.
00:21:08.000 | So I'm going to avoid using any more discussion of that particular situation.
00:21:12.000 | I'm ignorant on most of the details, and so let me just use other examples that I know.
00:21:19.000 | Broadly speaking, I classify most preparedness into two categories.
00:21:26.000 | Category number one is being prepared to be still in a place and survive a bad thing,
00:21:36.000 | and category number two, getting out of a place where bad things happen.
00:21:41.000 | I like to start with category number two because in many cases it is more effective.
00:21:47.000 | After years of teaching preparedness and doing that purely from what I call a traditional prepper model,
00:21:54.000 | I've realized that the majority of bad things can just be avoided.
00:21:59.000 | If you're worried about food shortages, just go to a place where there's lots of food,
00:22:03.000 | and it's unlikely to be insured.
00:22:06.000 | And that's what humans have done throughout history.
00:22:08.000 | They leave places that are barren and without food, and they go to places that are lush
00:22:13.000 | and produce lots of food.
00:22:15.000 | And then their need to store lots and lots of food is diminished.
00:22:19.000 | If you're in a cold climate, then you became very accustomed to storing up for winter.
00:22:24.000 | But if you move to a warm weather climate, then the fruit grows on the trees year-round.
00:22:29.000 | And so that principle is something that I've applied very broadly.
00:22:35.000 | Similar things happen with crime, for example.
00:22:37.000 | All around the world right now I was reading this morning some stories about Stockholm, Sweden,
00:22:42.000 | and the crime rates in Stockholm, and look at the crime rates in so many big cities around the world,
00:22:47.000 | places that were once safe and amazing, and then you see the crime start to tick up
00:22:54.000 | and it's been more consistent.
00:22:56.000 | Well, when crime rates in an area where you are living start to increase,
00:23:01.000 | there's a good chance that you're going to be involved in that.
00:23:03.000 | Your car is going to be stolen.
00:23:05.000 | You're the one who's going to get mugged.
00:23:07.000 | It's your wife who's going to get knifed.
00:23:09.000 | This is the stuff that happens.
00:23:11.000 | And so you ask yourself, "How can I avoid this?"
00:23:14.000 | And in many cases, if you move out of the bad neighborhood and move into the good neighborhood,
00:23:18.000 | move out of the bad city, move into the safer city, move out of the unsafe country
00:23:23.000 | and move to the safer country, you can avoid a lot of the problems that exist.
00:23:28.000 | So anything involved with moving can often be good.
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00:24:00.000 | Offer in soon. See dealer for details.
00:24:03.000 | The problem is that there are many good reasons not to move.
00:24:07.000 | There are many good reasons not to leave, not to go somewhere.
00:24:11.000 | And so if you have some of those reasons,
00:24:13.000 | then you can't rely just on running away as the primary strategy.
00:24:19.000 | I believe it's a good strategy in many, many circumstances,
00:24:22.000 | but it can't be the primary strategy in all circumstances.
00:24:25.000 | And so that's where you go to being prepared to be in a place and weather the storm.
00:24:31.000 | And so everything associated with that, you look at the basic human needs,
00:24:35.000 | the needs for safety and security,
00:24:37.000 | you think about the protection of your home, theft, protection of your property.
00:24:44.000 | Unfortunately, I don't want to be too doom and gloom,
00:24:47.000 | but friends, we don't live in the world that we once enjoyed.
00:24:54.000 | You call the police because there was a theft.
00:24:56.000 | Well, great. You know, welcome to the line.
00:24:59.000 | Welcome to the queue, which is hundreds deep,
00:25:02.000 | and there's very little that's going to be done.
00:25:05.000 | Police officers do their best.
00:25:07.000 | People do their best, but there's just not enough resources.
00:25:12.000 | Many ways it kind of feels like we're living in a Charles Bronson movie in many circumstances.
00:25:16.000 | And so you've got to be prepared yourself.
00:25:19.000 | You've got to be the one to secure your home.
00:25:21.000 | You've got to be the one to secure your person.
00:25:23.000 | You've got to be the one to take responsibility for your neighborhood.
00:25:27.000 | You've got to be the one to prepare your home, et cetera.
00:25:31.000 | And so I like to think I'm not going to teach an entire preparedness class here.
00:25:34.000 | I'm going to keep this very focused on the psychology.
00:25:36.000 | But the idea is that you recognize the electricity may go out.
00:25:41.000 | So when the electricity goes out, what do I need?
00:25:44.000 | And you make sure you have battery backups for the things that are important.
00:25:47.000 | You might have a generator and some fuel stored.
00:25:49.000 | You need whatever it is that's going to work with electricity, have a preparation for that.
00:25:53.000 | Physical safety, recognize there are times in which physical safety can't be guaranteed.
00:25:57.000 | So how do I protect myself when that physical safety is in danger?
00:26:02.000 | Family safety, what plans do your friends and family have?
00:26:06.000 | Do you have communications plans, et cetera?
00:26:09.000 | There's so much that can be done.
00:26:11.000 | On the ability to fly and to flee, number one is things like transportation.
00:26:17.000 | Do I have an ability to transport myself out?
00:26:20.000 | I try to follow the practice of filling up my car whenever it's at half a tank of fuel.
00:26:24.000 | That's a simple thing you can do is just always fill up your car so at least you have a half a tank of fuel.
00:26:28.000 | That will give you in most vehicles about 200 miles of range.
00:26:32.000 | Car gas tanks are generally designed to be around 400 miles of range.
00:26:36.000 | So if you have a half a tank of fuel, that will give you 200 miles of range.
00:26:39.000 | I think most people should store excess fuel for their car so that if there's some kind of disaster coming, they can leave early.
00:26:46.000 | And so what I like to do when I'm able to is I want to have two full tanks worth of fuel stored for my vehicle.
00:26:56.000 | So let's say my vehicle has a 20-gallon tank.
00:26:58.000 | I want to keep 40 gallons of fuel.
00:27:01.000 | And my theory is, number one, let's assume that I messed up and I found myself with a completely empty tank.
00:27:07.000 | Well, I can put 20 gallons of fuel into my vehicle and that will buy me 400 miles of range.
00:27:13.000 | Then I can carry with me the other 20 gallons of fuel and that gives me another 400 miles of range.
00:27:19.000 | And so now I've got 800 miles of range.
00:27:21.000 | And 800 miles of range gets you out of most bad circumstances.
00:27:26.000 | That can solve a lot of problems.
00:27:28.000 | Paperwork is coming.
00:27:30.000 | And by the way, I'm coming with a story to show you how applicable this is.
00:27:33.000 | It's not Israel.
00:27:34.000 | So stick with me because you're going to want to hear this story.
00:27:37.000 | Paperwork is a huge deal.
00:27:39.000 | And so paperwork involves money, having money to get yourself out of a problem.
00:27:45.000 | It involves documents, IDs.
00:27:47.000 | We live in a world in which you can't move, you can't really do anything if you don't have ID.
00:27:50.000 | And so having a passport.
00:27:52.000 | Simplest point of preparation that you can make and that virtually everyone around you can and should make is you must have a current passport,
00:28:00.000 | a current valid passport for yourself and for every member of your family.
00:28:04.000 | Why don't people do it?
00:28:05.000 | Well, it's expensive.
00:28:07.000 | In the United States, passport is, I think, $160, $180, something like that.
00:28:11.000 | Trust me, I know.
00:28:12.000 | I buy seven of them at a time.
00:28:14.000 | I understand it's expensive.
00:28:16.000 | It's fundamental.
00:28:17.000 | You must have proper identification for every member of your family.
00:28:21.000 | The best identification is a passport, even if you don't leave your country.
00:28:24.000 | The ability to leave your country is really, really important.
00:28:27.000 | So you want to have a current valid passport for every member of your family.
00:28:33.000 | It's a hassle because they expire every five years.
00:28:36.000 | You still have to have them.
00:28:38.000 | It's so important.
00:28:40.000 | Most situations, in most situations, you will want to stay at home in your home country.
00:28:47.000 | I teach an entire course on planning, on international planning.
00:28:52.000 | In most situations, you will want to stay in your home.
00:28:56.000 | But in the situations in which you won't want to stay at home, you want to get out fast.
00:29:01.000 | And you cannot sit there and be waiting 13 weeks for your country's passport administration to send you a new passport.
00:29:08.000 | So you need to keep and maintain passports, valid passports.
00:29:12.000 | If your country offers you some form of identity card in addition to a passport booklet, you should get that.
00:29:20.000 | The way that my family and I do that is I have passports for me and for my entire family.
00:29:26.000 | And then I have a passport card from the United States government.
00:29:29.000 | And the way we do it is that when we're traveling, my wife keeps the passport cards and I keep the passports.
00:29:35.000 | When we're at home, I keep all the passports and the passport cards in separate locations.
00:29:39.000 | So that if one of them is damaged, one of them is destroyed, etc., then I can move on pretty quickly.
00:29:46.000 | And having been one who's had his passport stolen, if you have various forms of alternative identification,
00:29:52.000 | it makes it much simpler to pop into an embassy, walk out an hour and a half later with an emergency passport and be on your way.
00:29:59.000 | And so be prepared with multiple forms of identification if possible.
00:30:03.000 | There's other things you can do.
00:30:05.000 | You could have multiple passports from your country, multiple passports from your country and other countries.
00:30:11.000 | You could have multiple countries that you are involved in.
00:30:14.000 | Having money, documents and identification are the key thing because money can usually be accessed from wherever you want to be.
00:30:21.000 | And unless you're in a situation in which you literally need to bribe your way out of the country,
00:30:25.000 | then you generally can get your money digitally just like you normally do.
00:30:34.000 | But the documents are the things that are very hard to expedite.
00:30:37.000 | So that should be your primary solution.
00:30:43.000 | I'm just pausing to consider the scope.
00:30:45.000 | I'm going to pause there.
00:30:46.000 | I'm not going to go through every stage of preparedness.
00:30:50.000 | What I will say is I want to tell you the story of how this kind of thinking can be impacted.
00:30:57.000 | This is not my story, but it's a story I recently heard.
00:31:00.000 | I was recently traveling with my family in the country of Luxembourg in Europe near France and Germany.
00:31:08.000 | And small little country, beautiful, wonderful little country.
00:31:11.000 | And I was connected with a listener when I was there.
00:31:13.000 | And my listener shared this story with me.
00:31:16.000 | This listener has his wife.
00:31:19.000 | He's from Luxembourg and his wife is from Ukraine.
00:31:22.000 | And he shared with me the story of how preparedness quite literally saved his family members' lives in the course of the recent --
00:31:36.000 | not recent now, a couple of years ago now, but the invasion of Ukraine by the Russians.
00:31:41.000 | And I felt -- I believe the details of this are illustrative of very, very high-quality planning on every level.
00:31:49.000 | So the first thing is this.
00:31:51.000 | There were tensions related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
00:31:58.000 | As we all remember, there were indications that some people thought the Russians might invade.
00:32:03.000 | And everyone was saying officially, "No, they're not going to invade," "Might invade," "No, they're not going to invade," et cetera.
00:32:09.000 | Well, my friend, because of his family's connections to it, they were paying attention to those indications.
00:32:16.000 | And they were talking with family members and formulating a plan.
00:32:20.000 | They were formulating a plan of what to do if it did happen.
00:32:24.000 | And they were watching the situation.
00:32:27.000 | And so as I understand the story, his wife's -- there were three basic family members that were most important.
00:32:33.000 | His wife's parents and his wife's grandmother, who were still living in Ukraine.
00:32:37.000 | She was living in Luxembourg.
00:32:39.000 | But her family was there in Ukraine.
00:32:44.000 | And her father had a job, et cetera.
00:32:47.000 | So what do we do?
00:32:48.000 | Well, their indication was when Israel closed its embassy in Ukraine because of the risk concern, that was their indication.
00:32:59.000 | He was in contact with anybody he knew, military, anybody who might have contact information.
00:33:04.000 | And they said, "We need to take action."
00:33:07.000 | But they weren't ready to take complete and total action.
00:33:11.000 | For context, her family lived in the Russian-speaking part of Ukraine, very near the border with Russia.
00:33:19.000 | So they were basically on the front lines of where any particular invasion would happen.
00:33:25.000 | And so he convinced -- they rented a house.
00:33:30.000 | They didn't try to leave Ukraine completely.
00:33:32.000 | But what he did was they rented a house on the other side of the mountains.
00:33:37.000 | If memory is right, it was the Carpathian Mountains.
00:33:40.000 | And so he moved the family away from the border but kept them in Ukraine.
00:33:45.000 | That way, they would minimize the hassles of international travel.
00:33:48.000 | What if it's a false alert?
00:33:49.000 | What if Russia doesn't invade after all?
00:33:54.000 | We don't want to have too many issues.
00:33:56.000 | And so they did a one-month rental in a vacation town on the other side of Ukraine, near the border.
00:34:03.000 | Forget which border.
00:34:04.000 | Think Slovakia.
00:34:07.000 | Near the border with neighboring country.
00:34:10.000 | So that they could get out fairly quickly if they needed to.
00:34:14.000 | But they weren't completely gone right away.
00:34:18.000 | So then they went there and nothing happened.
00:34:24.000 | They were there for a couple of weeks, just enjoying a resort town, enjoying a tourist destination.
00:34:29.000 | And then Russia went ahead and invaded.
00:34:32.000 | And the day Russia invaded, obviously, everything changed.
00:34:37.000 | And they immediately said, "Time to take action."
00:34:40.000 | And so they saved their lives.
00:34:44.000 | But they didn't go with an all-the-way travel far away plan.
00:34:48.000 | Just travel across Ukraine and get away from the border area.
00:34:51.000 | And their town was impacted.
00:34:54.000 | The Russians invaded.
00:34:55.000 | Everything became difficult.
00:34:56.000 | And they would not have been able to get out of that area.
00:34:59.000 | Especially not with a 93-year-old grandmother with all the other refugees.
00:35:03.000 | Now, interestingly then, immediately my friend and his wife loaded up the car.
00:35:08.000 | They had been preparing for this.
00:35:10.000 | And they immediately started the very long drive from Luxembourg to go and get them.
00:35:16.000 | They drove day and night.
00:35:17.000 | And as he expressed it to me, it was very valuable to know, "All right. I've got food. I've got water. I've got a cook stove. I've got some sleeping bags. We can just go.
00:35:26.000 | And we can drive across Europe day and night until we get there to get them out."
00:35:31.000 | When they went to get out, the Ukrainian government would not let the father leave.
00:35:37.000 | Because they had immediately passed a law stating that all men of a certain age, basically a fighting age, were denied exit from the country.
00:35:46.000 | And so they wouldn't let him leave.
00:35:48.000 | But as it turns out, he was a few weeks away from the birthday in which he wouldn't have to serve anyway.
00:35:54.000 | Three weeks away or something like that.
00:35:56.000 | And so I can't remember if they came back the next day and they were able to get out and leave.
00:36:00.000 | And they got into the neighboring country where my friend and his wife picked them up, engaged in the long drive back across Europe with them back to Luxembourg, got them to safety.
00:36:10.000 | And they lived with their family for a significant period of time.
00:36:14.000 | Obviously, that was difficult.
00:36:16.000 | But by having money and being able to do it, they were able to save lives.
00:36:19.000 | Eventually worked out the residence permits, worked out a job.
00:36:23.000 | And the family was able to press on and gain some more independence and some more standing.
00:36:28.000 | But I thought, "What a perfect example of good emergency planning."
00:36:33.000 | The idea is having stages of if an event starts to threaten, if there's some kind of event that's coming, then I have plan A, stage A.
00:36:43.000 | And then if it gets worse, I move on to stage B.
00:36:46.000 | And if it gets worse, I go ahead and go all the way to stage C.
00:36:50.000 | That's something that I think is very under-discussed and under-appreciated in disaster planning.
00:36:55.000 | A lot of times, the reason people don't leave when they should leave is because the consequences of leaving are too big.
00:37:01.000 | You don't want to call up your job and say, "I'm not coming in today," and risk losing your job for a false alarm.
00:37:06.000 | And so you have to come up with some way of saying, "How do I make sure that I'm on the other side of the mountains,
00:37:11.000 | hundreds and hundreds of miles away, when bad things might happen, and I'm not right on the border region
00:37:17.000 | without necessarily destroying everything in my life and walking away from everything?"
00:37:23.000 | But if you're not on the other side of the mountains when the neighboring country invades, you've got a problem.
00:37:29.000 | And so think about stages in your disaster planning.
00:37:32.000 | If this, then that. If this, then that.
00:37:34.000 | And think about how I could put in place phases.
00:37:37.000 | That's why in my course, I've talked a lot about that, about having places that you know you can go,
00:37:44.000 | that you know that you want to go.
00:37:46.000 | So if it just turns out you took an impromptu few-week vacation, and then everything calmed down again,
00:37:50.000 | and you went back home, that was fine as well.
00:37:53.000 | So think about stages.
00:37:54.000 | And then also notice how important – there weren't shortages of food and water in that scenario,
00:38:01.000 | but notice how important transportation and documentation is.
00:38:06.000 | The ability to get your family members out relies on transportation and documentation to get them out legally.
00:38:13.000 | How do you do that? Where do you go?
00:38:15.000 | And then where are you going to go if something happens when you're dealing with a national conflict?
00:38:21.000 | So I'm going to cut off there and not teach an 18-hour preparedness course here,
00:38:27.000 | but I want you just to recognize that when you see bad things happening around the world,
00:38:31.000 | you can improve and redeem those bad things a little bit by thinking about what you would do
00:38:37.000 | and making a plan for it.
00:38:39.000 | And even just the process of thinking it through and listening to someone's stories will improve it.
00:38:44.000 | I would encourage you, do like I do.
00:38:46.000 | Pick one thing that you're going to change when you hear of a disaster situation
00:38:50.000 | that you can possibly apply to your life.
00:38:52.000 | Pick just one thing.
00:38:54.000 | In addition to that, make a resolution to be the kind of person that takes action
00:39:04.000 | because it's logically warranted, not because it's emotionally comfortable.
00:39:11.000 | Recognize preparation is logically warranted.
00:39:15.000 | Houses burn down, you should have insurance.
00:39:17.000 | People die of heart attacks, you should work on your health and you should have life insurance.
00:39:22.000 | Countries close their borders, you should have a passport from another country.
00:39:26.000 | War breaks out, neighborhoods become unsafe to live in.
00:39:30.000 | Pay attention to those things and take action.
00:39:34.000 | But in order to do so, you have to do it long in advance.
00:39:37.000 | And then recognize you don't have to be a gloomy, pessimistic person.
00:39:42.000 | Good things happen.
00:39:43.000 | Things improve.
00:39:44.000 | Situations turn around.
00:39:46.000 | So take bets on the places that are doing well and the things that are going well.
00:39:52.000 | Thank you so much for listening.
00:39:53.000 | Oh, I forgot.
00:39:55.000 | So let me promote two things to you and I hope you'll enjoy these.
00:40:01.000 | Number one, recognize I teach an entire course called International Escape Plan,
00:40:04.000 | internationalescapeplan.com.
00:40:06.000 | You can go there today, you can buy my course.
00:40:07.000 | It's a careful step-by-step course on how to be engaged in internationalization
00:40:12.000 | in a thoughtful and rational way.
00:40:14.000 | Probably the best money you'll spend in the international space.
00:40:17.000 | I'll teach you how to think through getting a passport, a SIM card,
00:40:21.000 | a credit card that will work overseas, all the way up to second residencies,
00:40:25.000 | houses abroad, et cetera, but in a really rational phased approach.
00:40:29.000 | The reason I love the story from my friend so much is it was a perfect
00:40:32.000 | encapsulation of the phased approach of preparedness planning that I talk a lot
00:40:37.000 | about in that show.
00:40:38.000 | So go to internationalescapeplan.com and buy my course.
00:40:41.000 | Number two is recognize that I'm doing an event in Panama in January.
00:40:45.000 | You can go to expatmoney.com/radical, expatmoney.com/radical,
00:40:50.000 | and you can sign up for that event.
00:40:52.000 | You should come just to hang out, stay at a nice hotel, enjoy a beautiful city,
00:40:56.000 | enjoy good company with me and with Mikkel Thorup and with Gabriel Custodia
00:41:01.000 | and with other listeners of Radical Personal Finance.
00:41:04.000 | We're going to have a great time.
00:41:06.000 | There's lots of time scheduled and I'll be fully and completely available to you
00:41:10.000 | during the entire course.
00:41:11.000 | So we'll get a lot of time together, talk about anything that you want,
00:41:14.000 | visit together, et cetera.
00:41:16.000 | But we'll also have a series of sessions planned.
00:41:19.000 | All the details are on that website.
00:41:20.000 | And we're doing basically an investment tour of Panama,
00:41:23.000 | looking at some of the options, opportunities, et cetera.
00:41:26.000 | Panama is not perfect, but it is one of the better options for several pieces
00:41:30.000 | of your flags in an international perspective.
00:41:35.000 | And so it's a really great option.
00:41:36.000 | We'll be talking about it extensively and getting a chance to see it firsthand
00:41:39.000 | in January.
00:41:40.000 | So sign up for that event.
00:41:41.000 | Go to expatmoney.com/radical.
00:41:44.000 | expatmoney.com/radical.
00:41:46.000 | We'd love to see you there.
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