2023-12-08_Friday_QA

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

00:00:04.780 | old and new.

00:00:06.060 | You could do a classic herb roasted turkey, or spice it up and make turkey tacos.

00:00:10.860 | Serve up a go-to shrimp cocktail, or use Simple Truth wild-caught shrimp for your first Cajun

00:00:16.560 | risotto.

00:00:17.560 | Make creamy mac and cheese, or a spinach artichoke fondue from our selection of Murray's cheese.

00:00:22.620 | No matter how you shop, Ralph's has all the freshest ingredients to embrace all your

00:00:26.700 | holiday traditions, Ralph's, fresh for everyone.

00:00:30.420 | It's Friday, and that means live Q&A.

00:00:32.420 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,

00:00:51.880 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while

00:00:55.580 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

00:00:58.340 | My name is Joshua Sheets.

00:00:59.340 | I am your host.

00:01:00.340 | Today is Friday, December 8, 2023.

00:01:04.340 | Almost to the end of the year.

00:01:05.340 | I hope that you are on track for any last minute goal accomplishment here at the end

00:01:10.740 | of the year, and I hope that your 2024 planning is well underway.

00:01:15.580 | Here at Radical Personal Finance, each and every Friday in which I can arrange the appropriate

00:01:25.060 | recording technology, we record a live Q&A show.

00:01:27.540 | It works just like call-in talk radio.

00:01:29.140 | You call in, talk about anything you want, ask any questions, raise any topics, give

00:01:33.080 | me any feedback, argue with me.

00:01:34.700 | I love it.

00:01:35.700 | I wish some of you guys would call in and argue with me.

00:01:37.020 | I love a good argument.

00:01:38.020 | I don't get enough of it.

00:01:40.100 | You guys are very kind.

00:01:41.100 | If you would like to join me on one of these Friday Q&A shows, you can do that by becoming

00:01:44.080 | a patron of the show.

00:01:45.080 | You go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance, patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance, sign up

00:01:50.620 | to support the show on Patreon, and that will gain access for you to one of these Friday

00:01:55.740 | Q&A shows.

00:01:57.020 | So I welcome your presence next week.

00:01:59.420 | Today we begin with Annette in North Carolina.

00:02:01.860 | Annette, welcome to the show.

00:02:02.860 | How can I serve you today?

00:02:03.860 | Joshua, and I appreciate you taking my call.

00:02:08.100 | You have worked extensively with your children on foreign language.

00:02:12.900 | Can you recommend two to three Spanish resources for a 10th grader?

00:02:18.980 | At what level is the 10th grader currently?

00:02:21.340 | The first level.

00:02:23.260 | So total new beginner?

00:02:25.740 | New beginner.

00:02:26.740 | Yes.

00:02:27.740 | So I'll give you three.

00:02:29.300 | The first thing I would begin with is by going to the website refold.la.

00:02:42.940 | It's refold.la.

00:02:49.860 | That website is a project of a team of guys that basically have put together their most

00:02:58.220 | comprehensive start to how do you learn a language with major excellence.

00:03:07.380 | The only one that I remember the name of, it was started by Matt versus Japan who achieved

00:03:11.380 | a very high level of Japanese, doing all Japanese all the time, and he's been very popular in

00:03:15.980 | those circles.

00:03:16.980 | He had a previous company that he did.

00:03:18.420 | He moved to Refold.

00:03:19.420 | I think he's still involved, but I'm not sure, et cetera.

00:03:22.300 | There is a comprehensive guide at refold.la that is interesting to read.

00:03:27.180 | It's probably the best single source of how to learn a language completely all the way

00:03:33.400 | through starting from nothing.

00:03:35.780 | The guys that coordinate that are focused on developing a very high level of fluency.

00:03:42.260 | So they're not just trying to get through a high school class.

00:03:46.220 | So the guide is useful.

00:03:47.340 | However, the resource that I'm recommending to you is the vocabulary deck that they sell

00:03:54.180 | for Anki.

00:03:55.380 | They have a vocabulary deck that is called ES1K, Spanish 1,000, the Espanol 1,000.

00:04:05.060 | ES1K vocabulary deck.

00:04:06.940 | And what they have done is they have created a 1,000 word deck of flashcards for Spanish

00:04:16.340 | that takes away all of the cognates, so the obvious easy words that are the same in Spanish

00:04:23.220 | and English, but just pronounced similar, and they've used the highest frequency vocabulary.

00:04:30.140 | They've turned those into Anki flashcards for the free program Anki, and those flashcards

00:04:37.300 | feature the word in Spanish, the word in English, an audio reading of the word by a native speaker,

00:04:44.460 | as well as a sentence of the audio speaker, reader of the word, just simply reading that

00:04:53.980 | sentence.

00:04:54.980 | I think they charge, I don't know, 20 bucks, something like that for it, but it is an ideal

00:04:59.100 | first set of flashcards to learn for the Spanish language.

00:05:02.900 | They have it for about a half a dozen languages, Spanish is one of the ones that they include.

00:05:07.060 | Because really, until you get 1,000 words under your belt, one of the first things you

00:05:11.460 | want to just do is study and learn 1,000 words as quickly as possible.

00:05:15.060 | To be clear, you're only trying to recognize the word when you hear it in the foreign language.

00:05:22.140 | But doing flashcard word study is a really great way to get started with language acquisition,

00:05:28.180 | and that's the best resource that I know of.

00:05:30.580 | Ideally, this would go on your 10th grade student's phone or mobile device, and would

00:05:35.940 | allow basically micro study sessions.

00:05:38.900 | What I would try to see him or her do would be to spend 10 minutes in the morning, 10

00:05:44.580 | minutes at noon, 10 minutes in the evening just doing some flashcards on Anki.

00:05:48.460 | You want to be able to recognize those 1,000 words as quickly as possible.

00:05:52.380 | Now, concurrent with this, the second resource I would suggest is on YouTube.

00:05:59.100 | There is a YouTube channel, and it's also a Patreon page called Ayon Academy, A-Y-A-N,

00:06:05.980 | Ayon Academy.

00:06:07.900 | If you go to Ayon Academy and look for Spanish, you will find that they have a number of books

00:06:14.900 | available.

00:06:16.900 | They have Poco a Poco, they have Learn Spanish by the Natural Method, Poco a Poco, they have

00:06:24.620 | several other Spanish courses.

00:06:28.300 | If you sign up for their – the first ones are free on YouTube.

00:06:33.860 | It looks like they have about 40 – excuse me, it looks like they have about 20 or so

00:06:39.620 | of their videos for Poco a Poco for free on YouTube.

00:06:43.440 | But you'll sign up for their Patreon page, it's pretty inexpensive, and then you get

00:06:46.840 | audio reading of that.

00:06:48.460 | You can download the Poco a Poco book, and what this is is this is a natural method book.

00:06:54.860 | And a natural method means basically how can we create a story that is so simple and so

00:07:00.380 | straightforward that even somebody who has very little exposure to the language can understand

00:07:07.220 | it right from the very beginning.

00:07:09.580 | And I think this is a really good way to start because it allows you to get quick exposure

00:07:14.500 | to a lot of vocabulary in a very straightforward way.

00:07:17.580 | And so you can download for free the Poco a Poco book and their other Spanish courses.

00:07:21.420 | They have probably two or three of them available on their Patreon page, and then you can listen

00:07:26.860 | to the audio.

00:07:27.860 | So I would spend some time doing that as well.

00:07:31.140 | Then the third resource that I would use for a 10th grader is I would sign up for the website

00:07:38.820 | link, l-i-n-g-q.com, link.com, and I would start going through their link mini stories.

00:07:47.300 | And this you do on a computer or on a mobile device, and you read through the stories.

00:07:52.420 | And the way you do it is you start with a mini story, and then you read through it using

00:07:57.260 | a feature in that program that's called sentence mode.

00:08:00.660 | And you need to learn how to use the program and mark the words that you know and don't

00:08:03.740 | know.

00:08:04.740 | But go through their initial mini stories as a good starting point.

00:08:08.060 | And what you can do, the benefit of that, is that these stories are simple.

00:08:12.420 | The stories themselves are about two minutes per story.

00:08:15.600 | And what they do is they have a very simple story, and it takes about two minutes.

00:08:19.740 | The first time it's done in first person, so, excuse me, the first time it's done in

00:08:24.380 | the third person.

00:08:25.720 | So I think the first one is like Marcus wakes up in the morning, Marcus has a cup of coffee,

00:08:30.580 | then he drives to work in his car, et cetera, he's a cook in a restaurant.

00:08:34.540 | And so it does this little two-minute story in the third person.

00:08:37.620 | And it repeats the exact same story in the first person.

00:08:40.780 | So my name is Marcus, I wake up in the morning at six o'clock, I have a cup of coffee before

00:08:47.260 | I go to work, I drive my car to work, et cetera.

00:08:49.420 | So it does it in the first person.

00:08:51.020 | And then it takes about three minutes of questioning about the story.

00:08:54.940 | And the questions are basically another form of repetition.

00:08:57.860 | So is Marcus a cook in a restaurant?

00:09:00.820 | Yes, Marcus is a cook in a restaurant.

00:09:02.460 | Does Marcus wake up early?

00:09:03.620 | Yes, Marcus wakes up at six o'clock in the morning.

00:09:06.220 | Does Marcus drive to work in his car or does he take the bus?

00:09:09.020 | Marcus drives to work in his car.

00:09:10.460 | And they're super, super repetitive, but the story format is a really good way of understanding

00:09:16.700 | the language.

00:09:17.940 | And so if you start with those three resources, then in the course of a couple to four weeks,

00:09:25.140 | like basically less than a month, very quickly your learner should acquire a couple thousand

00:09:30.180 | words of Spanish vocabulary.

00:09:33.540 | And at that point in time, it's very simple to go directly to native language content,

00:09:41.620 | very directly to native language, sorry, native speaker content, hopefully that is leveled

00:09:46.900 | or that you can level in some way.

00:09:49.300 | And then it's just a matter of choosing resources that are a good fit for the student.

00:09:53.220 | So if the student, it's really good to spend a lot of time listening.

00:09:56.060 | So if the student is into TV shows, he or she likes to watch TV or soap operas or something

00:10:01.820 | like that, you look for things on Netflix and you listen to those, or you look for YouTube

00:10:05.740 | series.

00:10:06.740 | If the student is a reader and is willing to read, you do lots of reading.

00:10:10.740 | And as quickly as possible, you try to get to things that are interesting to the student

00:10:18.060 | based upon the subject matter.

00:10:23.820 | And so depending on the motivation of the student, I would say one to two, maybe three

00:10:29.940 | months maximum, you could consume all of those resources, the 60 mini stories, the Poco a

00:10:36.220 | Poco book, and learn the thousand flashcards, and you're fully ready for native language

00:10:41.700 | material.

00:10:42.740 | And then you'll just want to put in some crutches that will help the student to, excuse me,

00:10:47.700 | native speaker material, that you'll want to put in some crutches that will help the

00:10:50.780 | student to use that native speaker material effectively.

00:10:55.540 | So there are a couple of, for example, for TV or YouTube, you can either take the transcripts

00:11:01.420 | from that and you can read them with a dictionary using a program like LingQ, or you can use

00:11:06.260 | a couple of Chrome extensions to automatically show you the subtitles as well as the translation

00:11:12.820 | if you still need translation.

00:11:14.060 | As quickly as possible, you want to get just to native language subtitles underneath it.

00:11:18.140 | For reading, LingQ is the best resource.

00:11:20.340 | There are a couple of other software programs that are free and other people that have kind

00:11:23.540 | of built similar things.

00:11:25.520 | Or but basically, and then also there's lots and lots of leveled material available for

00:11:30.900 | listening and for reading.

00:11:32.580 | So there are graded readers, there is, you know, Spanish news in slow Spanish or simple

00:11:37.920 | Spanish podcasts, things like that.

00:11:40.140 | And so you basically use those tools to make it accessible.

00:11:44.300 | And then it's just a matter of ticking up the hours.

00:11:46.100 | And the goal is to get to, with Spanish, an initial goal should be about 650 hours.

00:11:50.620 | The goal is to get 650 hours as quickly as possible.

00:11:54.100 | And so if you can find content that will suck the student in, then you can get to the point

00:11:59.860 | of two to four hours a day would be really great.

00:12:02.980 | And we're not just doing it for, it's not study, you're doing some study, some word

00:12:06.780 | cards, flashcards, etc.

00:12:08.620 | But the study could be limited to about 20-30 minutes.

00:12:11.540 | But if you're getting two to three hours of content exposure using interesting books,

00:12:15.740 | interesting shows, interesting podcasts, interesting YouTube channels, etc., then in three hours

00:12:20.060 | a day, you're at, what, a couple hundred days to get to 650 hours, a few hundred hours to

00:12:25.020 | a few hundred days.

00:12:26.220 | So Spanish to an upper level, intermediate level, basically about a B2, my target would

00:12:31.940 | be getting there in about a year if the student is motivated.

00:12:35.720 | But that's how I would do it.

00:12:36.720 | And those are the three resources I would begin with.

00:12:39.740 | So how do you spell the Anki, is that O-N-K-I or what?

00:12:44.060 | It's A-N-K-I.

00:12:45.060 | Anki.

00:12:46.060 | A-N-K-I.

00:12:47.060 | I've seen it.

00:12:48.060 | Yeah.

00:12:49.060 | I've seen it.

00:12:50.060 | Okay.

00:12:51.060 | Okay.

00:12:52.060 | Thank you.

00:12:53.060 | And have a Merry Christmas.

00:12:54.060 | My pleasure.

00:12:55.060 | We go on to Adele in the state of Texas.

00:12:56.060 | Adele, welcome to the show.

00:12:57.060 | How can I serve you today?

00:12:58.060 | Hi.

00:12:59.060 | Thanks for taking my call.

00:13:00.060 | I have two questions, and I guess I just need to get a second opinion, force of action.

00:13:09.060 | One is, my first question is, my mother passed away and I have a small inheritance coming.

00:13:16.060 | I'm Canadian.

00:13:17.060 | I now live in Idaho.

00:13:19.060 | I have 200,000 Canadians coming my way that needs to be transferred from the executor's

00:13:26.060 | account to me in Idaho, and I'm looking for the cheapest way to transfer money from Canada

00:13:33.060 | to the U.S.

00:13:34.060 | I've done a little research.

00:13:36.060 | It seems like Y might be the best way to go, like an online money transfer service, because

00:13:43.060 | they offer international money transfers at lower rates and better exchange rates and

00:13:48.060 | actual real exchange rates without markup.

00:13:50.060 | But I just wanted to check with you and see your opinion on that.

00:13:55.340 | For that amount of money, I would just do a bank-to-bank transfer using an international

00:14:00.780 | transfer, or Y's is also fine.

00:14:03.300 | I don't see any clear reason why you would choose one or the other, so I would just do

00:14:09.540 | an ACH transfer.

00:14:12.540 | It's relatively simple and arrives in a few days, and generally the fees are pretty reasonable.

00:14:19.100 | And then the other comment would just be, consider just keeping the money in a Canadian

00:14:23.300 | bank account.

00:14:24.300 | Unless you need the money today, etc., then because it's so accessible, it could be worthwhile

00:14:31.420 | just keeping the money in a Canadian bank account, and possibly even in Canadian dollars,

00:14:34.500 | and then just use it when you need to using a debit card.

00:14:37.620 | That would be the other simple solution.

00:14:40.020 | Because the exchange rates are so poor right now for Canadians in the U.S.

00:14:46.340 | You yourself are Canadian.

00:14:47.900 | Do you go back to Canada and visit?

00:14:50.060 | I do, but it's going to become rarer and rarer as I have no more immediate.

00:14:59.940 | The direct answer to your question is, I would just do a wire transfer, an ACH transfer from

00:15:05.500 | bank account to bank account.

00:15:06.820 | That will solve it.

00:15:07.820 | It's done, squared away, just taken care of.

00:15:11.820 | You can use WISE if necessary.

00:15:13.900 | Lots of people love WISE.

00:15:15.380 | It's fine.

00:15:17.620 | So I don't know what the best rates would be with that.

00:15:20.340 | You would have to check that yourself.

00:15:22.420 | But my comment is simply that there are benefits to having different currencies in your portfolio,

00:15:30.980 | and there are benefits to having bank accounts in multiple countries.

00:15:34.580 | So because there are benefits to that, if somebody comes into a situation in which it's

00:15:40.980 | convenient to have a bank account in a friendly country like Canada or in another currency

00:15:46.240 | like the Canadian dollar, then my only comment is you might consider just keeping it there

00:15:51.260 | in Canada and keeping it in the Canadian dollar.

00:15:55.100 | Now if you have a prediction about the strength or weakness of the Canadian dollar, then of

00:16:01.100 | course you should follow your prediction.

00:16:03.580 | But a lot of times it's useful to have some money that is in another currency even though

00:16:08.420 | the exchange rates fluctuate.

00:16:10.940 | And since it's so easy to have a Canadian bank account, and many Canadians or many people

00:16:16.180 | in Idaho will go to Canada on occasion, then just keep some of it in Canadian dollars.

00:16:21.260 | And if or when you go to Canada, then spend from your Canadian bank account.

00:16:25.340 | And then if you want to spend in the United States, if you have an account that has a

00:16:29.940 | debit card attached to it, you just go to an ATM and you get money out or you just spend

00:16:34.100 | from your Canadian account when it's convenient to do it.

00:16:37.820 | So it all has to do with what is your use of the money.

00:16:42.500 | If you needed this money today to pay off some bills or do something urgent, then of

00:16:46.500 | course that wouldn't be applicable.

00:16:48.340 | But if you're just going to take the money and stick it into a savings account in the

00:16:51.420 | United States, then consider just keeping some of it in Canada for the diversification

00:16:57.140 | benefits.

00:16:58.140 | Gotcha.

00:16:59.140 | Okay.

00:17:00.140 | Thank you.

00:17:01.140 | I mean, that's a good point.

00:17:02.700 | And on that note, my second question is about how to use this money wisely.

00:17:08.620 | The holidays start here at Ralph's with a variety of options to celebrate traditions

00:17:12.860 | old and new.

00:17:14.140 | You could do a classic herb roasted turkey or spice it up and make turkey tacos, serve

00:17:18.940 | up a go-to shrimp cocktail, or use Simple Truth wild-caught shrimp for your first Cajun

00:17:24.620 | risotto.

00:17:25.620 | You could do a creamy mac and cheese or a spinach artichoke fondue from our selection

00:17:29.500 | of Murray's cheese.

00:17:30.700 | No matter how you shop, Ralph's has all the freshest ingredients to embrace all your holiday

00:17:35.620 | traditions.

00:17:36.620 | Ralph's.

00:17:37.620 | Fresh for everyone.

00:17:38.620 | The first thing I want to do is pay off some high-interest debts.

00:17:41.980 | And the second is probably just restock the war chest and have the emergency fund replenished.

00:17:50.220 | The next I'm thinking about doing is maybe investing in some crypto.

00:17:53.820 | I purchased your crypto course.

00:17:56.980 | And then investing in myself, I'm looking at starting a new online business.

00:18:01.940 | Would you have any other advice?

00:18:04.260 | It's not a lot of money, but I want to be smart with it.

00:18:07.860 | What you're describing is the smart way to do it.

00:18:10.940 | So in a perfect world with you and me behaving as perfectly rational persons rather than

00:18:17.060 | emotional humans, coming into a windfall of any kind, meaning an inheritance or an extra

00:18:25.700 | bonus at work or winning a lottery payment or a prize of some kind, ideally we would

00:18:31.100 | always have an itemized list of financial goals pre-established that we've been thinking

00:18:37.140 | about for six months or a year, et cetera, and then we just go down our list of goals.

00:18:42.300 | But of course, we don't do that, but that's the ideal thing.

00:18:48.620 | That would be the ideal thing.

00:18:49.820 | And the reason I pointed out is that I don't think that windfalls should be treated any

00:18:55.140 | differently than anything else.

00:18:57.300 | So what I'm trying to get people to not do by making my funny little joke is not to say,

00:19:02.260 | "Oh, there's a windfall.

00:19:03.260 | Let me go and spend it."

00:19:04.260 | Or, "Hey, here's a windfall.

00:19:05.540 | I have to save this in my mother's honor," or something like that.

00:19:11.060 | Those kinds of emotional things have their place, but ideally the money should just be

00:19:17.860 | a way to move us forward on the board game of life.

00:19:22.100 | Okay, skip forward 15 spaces.

00:19:24.500 | Great.

00:19:25.500 | So what you described, I think, is an ideal order.

00:19:27.260 | So if you have high interest rate debt at the moment, then that would negate everything

00:19:31.900 | I said about keep the money in Canada and stick it in a savings account.

00:19:35.220 | No, pay off the high interest rate debt.

00:19:37.500 | That's a great thing.

00:19:38.500 | If it comes to establishing and kind of beefing up your emergency fund, great.

00:19:41.900 | That's a smart move.

00:19:43.860 | And so definitely beef it up.

00:19:45.420 | You might put most of it into the bank and then keep $3,000 in Canada or something like

00:19:55.980 | that.

00:19:56.980 | By the way, back to the previous question before I continue, just note that your simplest

00:20:01.340 | thing might just simply be to open an account at a Canadian bank and then have a Canadian

00:20:07.620 | dollar account and a U.S. dollar account and then just write your checks out of the U.S.

00:20:11.060 | dollar account.

00:20:12.300 | So you can live in the United States, use a Canadian bank account and just pay off your

00:20:17.860 | debts directly from it, and that will probably give you the best conversion transfer because

00:20:26.660 | you're just converting at the bank itself, just moving it from your Canadian dollar account

00:20:31.100 | to your U.S. dollar account.

00:20:32.580 | So from what you're saying, since you have a bunch of expenses here, that might be the

00:20:35.700 | simplest way to do it as well.

00:20:37.500 | Then in terms of down the list, crypto or Bitcoin specifically or something else, that's

00:20:44.580 | okay if you value what it's for.

00:20:47.500 | But remember that for public record, my course is not about speculating on Bitcoin, etc.

00:20:53.540 | It's a matter of acquiring Bitcoin because you want it and want to use it for the long

00:20:57.700 | term.

00:20:58.700 | So if you have, I don't make predictions in that course or even in general about you're

00:21:05.300 | going to make a fortune with Bitcoin.

00:21:06.700 | So just be clear that if you have other investment opportunities, you should weigh those against

00:21:12.100 | purchasing Bitcoin or any other investment.

00:21:15.060 | And then your best investment is generally going to be into yourself.

00:21:18.700 | That's where you get your highest rate of return.

00:21:20.420 | So if you know of some way to invest into yourself, then you should generally prioritize

00:21:26.580 | that over and above everything that relies on an external market or player, such as Bitcoin

00:21:33.060 | or such as mutual funds, etc.

00:21:35.660 | So I like your list and I think that's a rational list.

00:21:38.540 | Okay.

00:21:39.540 | Thank you so much, Joshua.

00:21:41.140 | I appreciate it.

00:21:42.140 | My pleasure.

00:21:43.140 | We go on to Jordan in New York.

00:21:45.780 | Jordan, welcome to the show.

00:21:46.780 | How can I serve you today?

00:21:47.780 | Hey, thanks so much.

00:21:48.780 | I appreciate you taking the time.

00:21:50.820 | My pleasure.

00:21:51.820 | Okay.

00:21:52.820 | I don't have a super well-formed question, but it certainly goes to the area of real

00:21:57.900 | estate.

00:21:58.900 | I own three investment properties.

00:22:00.940 | I have my salary and my wife's salary combined.

00:22:07.100 | Active income is around $200,000 and I'm not understanding how I properly deduct expenses

00:22:14.300 | from my passive losses against my active income.

00:22:18.180 | And I think I can't do that because I make too much money, in which case I'd like to

00:22:22.540 | understand better where I can benefit from those passive losses down the line.

00:22:27.300 | Passive losses are only deductible to $3,000 per year against other active income.

00:22:37.780 | When you have passive gains and passive losses, you net your passive gains against your passive

00:22:42.580 | losses and you cannot take excess losses against your active income beyond $3,000 per year.

00:22:52.380 | You can bank the loss.

00:22:53.860 | So let's say you have a $50,000 passive loss this year.

00:22:57.060 | You can bank it and take it out $3,000 a year at a time, but you cannot net your passive

00:23:02.300 | losses against your active gains in any way other than the $3,000 limit.

00:23:08.140 | So if I'm experiencing larger passive losses, is there some planning I should do down the

00:23:12.860 | line to benefit from that?

00:23:14.280 | You can try to turn them into active losses.

00:23:16.860 | That's what you should try to do.

00:23:18.660 | And so in real estate, there are three designations that a real estate investor can have.

00:23:24.540 | That of a passive investor, that of an active investor, and that of a full-time professional.

00:23:29.660 | And so one of the things that some real estate professionals try to do is they try to convert

00:23:35.620 | themselves into that full-time professional status because in that situation, their losses

00:23:41.580 | now become active losses and they can be deductible against other forms of income.

00:23:48.260 | There's a clear test as to what is necessary for you to become a full-time professional.

00:23:53.500 | It is doable, but it's only doable if that's genuinely your actual full-time endeavor.

00:24:00.040 | And so what works for a lot of people is if you have a husband and a wife team, what many

00:24:06.020 | people will do is let's say the husband has a job or a business or something that's his

00:24:11.780 | primary activity, but the wife becomes a full-time active investor.

00:24:17.580 | And she gets a real estate license, she manages the properties, she racks up the hours, etc.

00:24:22.740 | And that allows them to claim that full-time status and deduct all of their losses against

00:24:28.880 | other forms of income.

00:24:30.420 | Got it.

00:24:31.900 | That actually is a great idea.

00:24:33.220 | My wife will be leaving her full-time job when we have a baby in February.

00:24:37.220 | So that is a possibility for next year for sure.

00:24:39.580 | It's a possibility.

00:24:40.580 | Just look up the rules.

00:24:41.580 | I don't have them on the top of my head, but a quick web search will find them for you.

00:24:45.700 | How do I become a full-time active real estate investor?

00:24:48.840 | She needs to be genuinely dedicating a significant amount of time to the real estate business.

00:24:53.500 | That needs to be documented.

00:24:55.040 | This is an area of abuse, and so it's not uncommon to be audited.

00:25:00.180 | So she just needs to document her time, document her training, document her activity, and that

00:25:04.060 | can work out well.

00:25:05.200 | And I think that that structure is in many cases the most efficient structure for a husband

00:25:11.040 | and wife to build their wealth.

00:25:12.640 | You have your job and/or business that is disconnected from the family's investments,

00:25:17.060 | and she spends her time curating and taking care of the family investments.

00:25:21.620 | And that allows you to deduct more of the expenses against your business income.

00:25:25.940 | It allows you to have a very efficient structure, and it allows her to be looking for the big

00:25:30.200 | wins while you create the income and the active income.

00:25:33.600 | So I like that structure of a husband and wife team very much if she's interested and

00:25:38.840 | willing to do it.

00:25:39.840 | Great.

00:25:40.840 | I appreciate that.

00:25:41.840 | Can I ask one more short question?

00:25:44.060 | Go ahead.

00:25:45.200 | I have, in the past, I've pretty much always prepared my own taxes, or I've had a sort

00:25:49.760 | of family friend prepare them, who's been fine, but I think I need something a little

00:25:53.640 | more sophisticated.

00:25:55.760 | Where would you suggest I start with that?

00:25:58.360 | I, in general, don't think that tax preparation is sophisticated.

00:26:05.320 | So you may want to solicit good tax advice, but there is a difference between tax preparation

00:26:12.720 | and tax advice.

00:26:15.120 | In general, tax preparation is absurdly easy if you have good records.

00:26:22.200 | And so if you have good detailed records, and you have carefully documented all of your

00:26:28.160 | transactions, you have your receipts ready, et cetera, then the tax preparer is basically

00:26:34.400 | a functionary.

00:26:36.040 | He's not really doing anything except putting numbers in the computer.

00:26:39.780 | And you yourself can put those numbers in the computer pretty well.

00:26:43.120 | So my first question for someone like you is, how good is your bookkeeping?

00:26:49.560 | Most of your big wins, from tax preparation perspective, come down to your skill with

00:26:56.400 | bookkeeping.

00:26:57.400 | Do you have receipts?

00:26:58.400 | Do you have receipts for the $23 that you spent at Home Depot to go and get a replacement

00:27:03.320 | part to fix something at the house, and now you can expense that properly, that $23?

00:27:11.760 | So if you have that stuff, and you can basically go to your bookkeeping software of choice

00:27:17.680 | and say, print out my end of year report, then you can pretty much go to just about

00:27:23.520 | any generic tax preparation software, and you can enter the numbers yourself.

00:27:29.620 | Because that's all your accountant is going to do.

00:27:32.240 | Even if you go to a local accounting office, generally speaking, your accountant is having

00:27:36.840 | his interns or his team in India or somebody do that.

00:27:42.160 | So that's tax preparation.

00:27:44.280 | If you don't have good bookkeeping, then you're going to wind up overpaying on tax preparation,

00:27:50.000 | because now your tax accountant is trying to figure out end of year bookkeeping.

00:27:53.440 | And so you should probably fix your bookkeeping issues.

00:27:56.800 | If you need to fix your bookkeeping issues, then fix them with a-- and you don't want

00:28:00.600 | to do it yourself-- fix them with a bookkeeper.

00:28:02.740 | Just hire a bookkeeper and work with that person separately.

00:28:08.240 | So now let's flip to tax advice.

00:28:10.160 | How do you get good tax advice?

00:28:12.120 | You may be able to find somebody who specializes in working with real estate investors who

00:28:16.880 | can give you excellent tax advice.

00:28:19.720 | I have found that most of the time, your best source of real estate tax advice, though,

00:28:25.880 | will come from another DIY real estate investor who's really into it, and/or just from good

00:28:32.720 | studying the tax books.

00:28:35.840 | Tax planning for real estate is fairly simple and fairly straightforward, but it's largely

00:28:41.160 | a matter of understanding the distinctions of how property is categorized, what expenses

00:28:49.840 | are deductible versus what expenses are depreciable.

00:28:53.480 | And it's pretty straightforward.

00:28:55.680 | It's pretty well documented in books at this point in time.

00:28:58.760 | And so if you just invest in a handful of good books, then you're going to know most

00:29:06.120 | of what there is to be known about this, especially if you're just doing single family rentals

00:29:09.880 | or just basic stuff.

00:29:11.480 | There's no secrets out there.

00:29:13.120 | It's just a matter of finding the right reference manuals.

00:29:15.520 | I would suggest to you John Reed's book, Aggressive Tax Avoidance for Real Estate Investors.

00:29:19.720 | This is probably your best starting point.

00:29:21.800 | Again, that's John Reed, Aggressive Tax Avoidance for Real Estate Investors.

00:29:25.760 | And if you go through that and you're careful about your bookkeeping, you'll have most of

00:29:30.320 | your planning ideas.

00:29:32.280 | And so at the level you're describing, I don't know, unless you find someone in your local

00:29:36.520 | investors club or someone locally who specializes in working with real estate investors, I'm

00:29:42.120 | not sure that you even need someone to do that.

00:29:46.380 | The people who really benefit from a very knowledgeable accountant are people who are

00:29:52.760 | using the accountant's bookkeeping services in their business and who find someone who

00:29:56.880 | can do a lot of proactive planning or the people who just need the services of simplifying

00:30:02.440 | their life.

00:30:03.440 | I'm not against hiring accountants, but what I have found is that people often have this

00:30:08.520 | expectation that somehow I'm going to magically hire this accountant and he's going to give

00:30:12.080 | me all kinds of advice.

00:30:13.600 | And then the accountant is a functionary who does a great job preparing the tax returns,

00:30:17.280 | et cetera.

00:30:18.280 | And like, well, where was all the advice?

00:30:19.280 | Well, you got to do it yourself.

00:30:22.040 | And most, the best, the people who pay the least taxes are those who take an interest

00:30:27.560 | in the subject and educate themselves very detailed in a very careful way about the tax

00:30:32.240 | code.

00:30:33.240 | And then once they have that education, they will know more than the accountant about their

00:30:37.400 | specific area.

00:30:39.440 | It's always this way because a professional has to have a broad range of experience and

00:30:43.480 | a broad range of expertise.

00:30:45.600 | You only have to have a very narrow range of experience.

00:30:47.840 | And so your knowledge can actually go much deeper than my knowledge can because you just

00:30:53.560 | have to worry about the specifics of your thing where I have to go and try to absorb

00:30:58.360 | a body of knowledge across a broad basis.

00:31:01.160 | So how to find a good accountant, barring everything I've just said, I would start by

00:31:06.880 | asking around.

00:31:07.880 | I would call if you're involved in real estate investment club, I would ask people if they

00:31:11.440 | know people who are specializing in real estate, and then I would call my wealthy friends and

00:31:15.840 | I would just simply get a referral and or use another professional.

00:31:19.380 | So professionals are good at referring people around.

00:31:22.040 | When I was an insurance agent, I would have referred you to six different accountants

00:31:25.560 | and done a good job with those referrals.

00:31:28.360 | And so call people that you know who are professionals, et cetera, and try to find somebody based

00:31:33.040 | upon that as well.

00:31:34.040 | That's a good way to go about it.

00:31:35.040 | Okay.

00:31:36.040 | Thank you.

00:31:37.040 | That's very helpful.

00:31:38.040 | I appreciate it.

00:31:39.040 | My pleasure.

00:31:40.040 | We go on to Jason in Washington, D.C.

00:31:42.800 | Jason, welcome to the show.

00:31:43.800 | Glad to serve you today.

00:31:45.800 | Hi, Joshua.

00:31:46.840 | Thank you for taking my call.

00:31:49.200 | So I wanted to get your input and perspective on our planning here.

00:31:54.660 | So about two years ago, we turned our townhome into a rental home after buying a primary

00:31:59.880 | home.

00:32:00.880 | So we've had this rental for two years.

00:32:03.540 | It's my understanding that we can sell our rental property without capital gains tax

00:32:08.840 | within the three or five-year rule.

00:32:12.640 | So I'm looking to get input and perspective from you if we should sell or keep the rental.

00:32:17.880 | A little bit of background, we have a property management company managing it for the last

00:32:23.080 | two years.

00:32:24.080 | It has been a very smooth process.

00:32:26.880 | Not a lot of expenses as far as things going wrong with the property.

00:32:31.760 | The property is currently income producing roughly about $900 per month after property

00:32:37.300 | management fees.

00:32:39.200 | We've had about $1,000 worth of fixes in the last, well, each year of things we've had

00:32:45.360 | to fix.

00:32:47.320 | And our income is roughly around $240.

00:32:50.280 | So we haven't really realized any tax benefits from that.

00:32:56.340 | So I'm just swirling around in my head on should we sell to avoid the capital gains

00:33:03.280 | and realize a large sum from selling the property?

00:33:08.000 | Is there any additional information I can give you to kind of maybe help?

00:33:11.760 | If you sold the property, what would you expect the total sales price to be that a buyer would

00:33:17.640 | buy it in today's market?

00:33:21.040 | It looks like roughly $468,000.

00:33:24.600 | What is your tax basis in the property?

00:33:26.680 | How much did you pay for it?

00:33:29.880 | $235,000.

00:33:32.880 | And do you have any guesses on what you would pay in terms of sales costs, real estate agents,

00:33:39.920 | et cetera, if you sold it out of the $468,000?

00:33:42.960 | From my understanding, it's 6%, so let's say 6 to 8%.

00:33:52.200 | So basically, you have an opportunity right now for two things.

00:33:59.760 | The first thing is – actually, there are three factors that you could consider.

00:34:04.800 | Let me go to three.

00:34:05.800 | Number one, the first thing you can consider is simply this particular property.

00:34:12.140 | Is this property a good rental that you would be excited to buy over again?

00:34:18.000 | Or is this a property that's okay, it's okay, but it's not great?

00:34:23.960 | If you have a property that you – there are properties that are great to live in.

00:34:28.320 | There are properties that are great as rentals.

00:34:30.440 | And so you just want to ask yourself, would I buy this particular property over again

00:34:34.760 | as a rental?

00:34:35.760 | If it were on the market today for $468,000, would I buy this specific property for $468,000

00:34:42.840 | today as a rental, or is there something that is more compelling?

00:34:48.120 | It may be that in your area, there is a property that you could buy for $468,000 that would

00:34:55.600 | be more compelling as a rental.

00:34:57.880 | And if so, you should always think about getting rid of bad rentals and buying better rentals.

00:35:02.840 | So most real estate investors who have a large portfolio of properties have a few that – this

00:35:10.200 | property just doesn't do that great.

00:35:12.520 | It doesn't rent very easily.

00:35:14.320 | It's a little awkward or something like that, and they trade those properties out when they

00:35:17.580 | have an opportunity and to sell them and go to somewhere else.

00:35:21.880 | And so that's the first question you should ask.

00:35:23.720 | The second question you should ask would involve some sense of market timing.

00:35:28.320 | You look at your local market and you ask yourself, is this a good time for me to be

00:35:32.320 | selling a piece of property, taking some profits?

00:35:35.000 | Is there something that might change in the local market?

00:35:39.680 | Or is this a good time where, no, I definitely want to keep it because things could change

00:35:43.120 | in the future?

00:35:44.120 | I'm not going to even open my mouth on that because you have a DC area code phone number,

00:35:49.120 | and it just seems like everything in DC just continues to go up.

00:35:53.280 | But you make your own assessment of that.

00:35:55.920 | Number three is then the tax consideration.

00:35:59.200 | So you have an opportunity to reset and to go from a $235,000 tax basis, and let's say

00:36:06.600 | you sell the property for $468,000, and let's say you clear $415,000 or $420,000, whatever

00:36:12.720 | it winds up being.

00:36:13.720 | So let's just call it for easy math.

00:36:14.840 | Let's say you clear $200,000 tax-free.

00:36:17.640 | Would you rather take advantage of this factor to take your $200,000 tax-free, or is there

00:36:25.000 | some compelling reason why you wouldn't want to take the $200,000 tax-free?

00:36:29.640 | Compelling reasons why you wouldn't would be things like, this house is fantastic.

00:36:34.120 | I know that everything on this house is fixed.

00:36:36.480 | I know that there's not a bit of cost that's going to come out of it.

00:36:40.200 | But I don't necessarily know that about some other place, or just things like that.

00:36:44.920 | Once this three years passes, yeah, you're going to lose the chance to access the money

00:36:48.080 | tax-free.

00:36:49.080 | And in the future, you would have to pay capital gains taxes.

00:36:52.200 | And so in general, the bias, especially when you've got $200,000-something of gain, general

00:36:58.480 | the bias would be take your tax-free gain.

00:37:02.160 | And even if you turn around and you sell this property, and you buy literally the property

00:37:07.060 | next door, at least you get a step-up in basis, and you restart with a $468,000 tax basis,

00:37:14.420 | and you've taken your tax-free gain from moving from the property.

00:37:18.260 | But those are the three factors, and then you would just have to decide how to weight

00:37:21.480 | them based upon the individual circumstances of this particular house, as compared to alternative

00:37:26.600 | houses, this particular market, as compared to the future, and then the value of that

00:37:33.000 | tax-free gain now, versus something inherent to the property itself.

00:37:38.080 | I see.

00:37:40.480 | And so let me ask, does this impact your advice as well?

00:37:46.000 | So I mean, we're not really investors at all.

00:37:48.760 | We just happen to buy a new home.

00:37:51.440 | Our agent said, "Hey, your mortgage is only $2,800, and you can rent for $2,800."

00:37:59.140 | And we're like, "Oh, okay, well, let's move forward with that."

00:38:02.340 | So we're not heavy investors and real estate enthusiasts in that sense.

00:38:09.720 | Given that information, does that impact any of the advice you've given?

00:38:15.240 | It's good to acquire and keep assets.

00:38:17.960 | The people who tend to be the wealthiest in the long-term are those who just buy assets

00:38:23.960 | and hold them forever.

00:38:26.380 | So if you wind up in a situation where you've bought this asset and you own it, your wealth

00:38:33.000 | will probably be the greatest in the long-term if you just keep it.

00:38:37.120 | For example, you probably have a very low mortgage interest rate because you bought

00:38:40.840 | this property when interest rates were low.

00:38:43.280 | And so you can just sit here with this property, and the tenant will pay it off for you, and

00:38:46.660 | you'll have that for the rest of your life.

00:38:48.320 | But if you sell it today, and you're not really real estate people, then there's a good chance

00:38:53.980 | that you're going to wind up spending the gain or putting it in something else that

00:38:59.400 | may not be – and you may not save it.

00:39:01.880 | So it's hard for me to answer because it's a personalized thing, as always.

00:39:06.860 | If you're going to take the money from the sale of the property, and you're going to

00:39:12.040 | consume it instead of investing it, then you would be better off just keeping this property

00:39:18.100 | so that the money is not consumed, even though in the future, you'll probably wind up paying

00:39:22.880 | a little bit more long-term capital gains tax.

00:39:26.000 | And so what you said, "We're not really real estate people," then in general, I would

00:39:30.480 | say you're probably going to be richer in the long run if you don't sell it, you just

00:39:33.920 | keep it, let the property management people manage it, and because you're just acquiring

00:39:40.600 | an asset and keeping it and not consuming it, then you'll probably be wealthier in

00:39:45.440 | the long run because of it.

00:39:47.280 | But that's the framework, is are you going to consume it or not?

00:39:51.560 | If you – this is a convenient way to do it.

00:39:54.440 | There's a lot of people out there who don't mind owning a few properties, who wouldn't

00:39:58.720 | go out and buy a rental property, but they don't mind accumulating a few.

00:40:02.880 | And since it's so easy, you occupied the property with traditional financing, you've

00:40:08.960 | already got a mortgage locked in, you don't need to do anything, then based upon what

00:40:13.760 | you said, my bias would be to say, "Just keep it, let the tenant pay off the mortgage

00:40:18.400 | for you, and in the future, when that's done, you'll have a very valuable asset,

00:40:23.400 | it'll continue to increase in value, as long as you don't get too much trouble from

00:40:26.880 | the tenants, it's reasonable, the property management company is doing a good job, you'll

00:40:31.240 | probably be happier to just keep it and let the asset continue to accumulate rather than

00:40:35.840 | selling it and having to face the risk of, "What do I spend the money on?

00:40:40.240 | Do I consume it?

00:40:41.240 | And also, what do I invest it in?"

00:40:43.160 | And you probably don't want to go out and find another house.

00:40:44.960 | So this is one of those behavioral finance things where there's a technical answer,

00:40:49.600 | which is kind of what I gave you, but there's also just the behavioral answer, which is

00:40:53.080 | to say, "It's always better to acquire assets and keep them for the long term than

00:40:55.960 | it is to be shuffling things around."

00:40:57.720 | Understood.

00:40:58.720 | Understood.

00:40:59.720 | Do I have time for another question?

00:41:02.200 | Sure.

00:41:03.200 | Go ahead.

00:41:04.200 | And so with that, in keeping it, I've been looking at LLC or land trust, and is there

00:41:11.320 | any benefit if we're going to keep it to start looking at those or one of those or something

00:41:15.840 | else to go for protection, I guess it would be?

00:41:19.760 | No.

00:41:20.760 | In my opinion, no.

00:41:21.760 | Okay.

00:41:22.760 | No.

00:41:23.760 | So the answer to an LLC is if you – so there are technical reasons such as ease of transfer

00:41:31.520 | or something like that that you want to transfer the LLC.

00:41:36.200 | People promote LLCs as a significant form of asset protection.

00:41:41.080 | I'm pretty ambivalent about whether it's actually effective or not, or even necessary.

00:41:49.120 | If you're talking about you own a house and a rental property, I don't think that's

00:41:54.320 | in any way necessary.

00:41:56.860 | And it seems to me that it's more of a benefit to the lawyer who's drawing up the LLC than

00:42:02.400 | it's likely to be for you.

00:42:04.120 | I mean, I'm just – I love the topics of asset protection and whatnot.

00:42:09.400 | I'm just so deeply skeptical of so much of it that chances are if you do – and you

00:42:15.000 | have to – by the way, you have to do things properly.

00:42:16.720 | And if you do things properly, the idea of you going out and setting up an LLC just – what's

00:42:21.680 | the point?

00:42:22.680 | What does doing it properly mean?

00:42:24.280 | Well, make sure the house is in good condition, that it's up to code, that everything's

00:42:28.560 | working in it.

00:42:29.560 | You're not going to have some electrical fire because you did something stupid and

00:42:33.160 | didn't follow the code.

00:42:34.160 | Make sure you've got proper management in place, and then make sure you have proper

00:42:38.160 | insurance in place.

00:42:39.320 | But you just generally don't need to ever do anything beyond good insurance in order

00:42:44.160 | to be protected.

00:42:45.160 | That's why you have insurance.

00:42:46.400 | And so when you go and start setting up LLCs and whatnot, it's expensive to set them

00:42:51.320 | up.

00:42:52.320 | It's expensive to maintain them, especially for someone like you who's not doing them

00:42:54.680 | and not in the business yourself, doesn't have already the relationships established.

00:43:00.440 | And the protection that they offer, I think, is quite modest.

00:43:03.560 | And if you have one, first thing that's going to happen if you get sued is the LLC

00:43:06.840 | is going to get sued and you're going to get sued.

00:43:09.360 | And then in terms of setting it up in a land trust, I think the biggest benefit of a land

00:43:14.520 | trust is regarding privacy.

00:43:17.360 | But at this point in time, you have no privacy because you already owned it.

00:43:21.000 | And so what's the point of transferring it from a house to a trust when you were clearly

00:43:28.000 | on the deed as the previous owner?

00:43:29.680 | So no, I wouldn't bother with any of that stuff from what you're describing to me so

00:43:32.800 | far.

00:43:33.800 | Truly appreciate it, Joshua.

00:43:37.360 | Thank you so much.

00:43:38.360 | My pleasure.

00:43:39.360 | We go to Nevada to Blair.

00:43:41.760 | Blair, welcome to the show.

00:43:42.760 | How can I serve you today?

00:43:43.760 | Hey, Josh.

00:43:44.760 | How are you doing today?

00:43:45.760 | Blair Wilson.

00:43:46.760 | How are you?

00:43:47.760 | Doing great.

00:43:48.760 | Thanks for taking my call.

00:43:49.760 | I had maybe two quick questions if you have the time for it.

00:43:54.640 | First one is around the idea of financial minimalism.

00:43:58.320 | I'm getting fatigued with modern society, how I've got multiple bank accounts now, different

00:44:05.520 | retirement vehicles, different custodians, different credit cards.

00:44:09.560 | And I think about the fact that if I were to pass today, I would hate for somebody to

00:44:14.600 | deal with all of this stuff.

00:44:16.720 | And I get nervous, obviously, about having everything consolidated under one roof for

00:44:23.200 | one vendor.

00:44:24.360 | But any approaches you've taken, I've heard you talk in the past that, you know, when

00:44:28.880 | I die, I'd love to have a twin bed in my child's house and, you know, go out easy.

00:44:35.280 | But any thoughts on how to approach this logically?

00:44:37.880 | Yeah.

00:44:38.880 | I can't, in good faith, suggest extreme minimalism on something so important as banking.

00:44:48.280 | I can't.

00:44:49.280 | Like, I have had so many bank accounts flagged just for stupid things and I can't access

00:44:56.440 | my money that the idea of having one bank account makes me just like wake up in shivers.

00:45:02.680 | Now, I don't think that's necessarily for everyone, but I do think that having multiple

00:45:07.880 | banks and multiple bank accounts is really important.

00:45:11.640 | Just for mundane things, you know, again, fraud, fraud alerts, travel alerts, they don't

00:45:17.160 | take this particular brand of card or there's an issue in the computer glitch and, you know,

00:45:22.400 | Bank of America can't process, what was the issue a couple of weeks ago, they can't process

00:45:26.880 | deposits, things like that.

00:45:29.600 | I'm probably really sensitive to this due to my internationally oriented lifestyle,

00:45:35.040 | but I still think it's a significant ongoing thing for most people and you got to be careful

00:45:39.460 | of it.

00:45:40.460 | If you had it, just imagine you had all your money in one checking account and you use

00:45:44.000 | a debit card somewhere and then somebody fraudulently charges your debit card and wipes out your

00:45:49.780 | main account and yes, of course, you'll eventually be able to get that money back because it

00:45:55.160 | was fraudulent and it's protected by the guarantees, but in the meantime, everything else in your

00:45:59.840 | structure falls apart.

00:46:01.580 | So I don't think that the goal should be to just have one bank account for most of us.

00:46:07.360 | And so how many is too many?

00:46:10.160 | Well, it would depend on circumstances.

00:46:13.120 | It's kind of silly, but my answer to that is the rule of three.

00:46:18.480 | So two is one, one is none, three is for me.

00:46:21.680 | That's what I say.

00:46:22.680 | Two is one, one is none, three is for me.

00:46:24.040 | I have a podcast on it.

00:46:25.560 | You can go back and find it.

00:46:28.280 | And then what I want to do is I want to say two is one, one is none, three is for me,

00:46:33.200 | and I want complementary redundancy.

00:46:35.960 | And so what I try to do in every area is I try to choose three things that are complementary

00:46:42.600 | and that are redundant, but have different features.

00:46:45.720 | So for banking, I would like to have one banking relationship with a large national bank, one

00:46:53.080 | of the big monster mega banks that has ATMs everywhere, etc.

00:46:56.600 | I would like to have one banking relationship with a small local credit union that can be

00:47:02.280 | near my house or can be on the other side of the country.

00:47:04.880 | And then the third one, we can fill it in with a couple of things.

00:47:08.240 | So if I have a banking relationship with a large monster mega bank and I have a small

00:47:15.120 | local credit union, then the third bank that I might fill in might be a small local or

00:47:19.600 | regional bank on the other side of the country.

00:47:21.840 | I would do that.

00:47:22.840 | So I have a little bit of privacy around that particular account if someone's doing an asset

00:47:26.060 | search on me or something like that.

00:47:28.480 | I might choose an account that has more features.

00:47:31.040 | So let's say we would choose an online bank account where I get a higher interest rate

00:47:35.440 | or easy to set up multiple accounts for my bookkeeping, things like that.

00:47:39.480 | I might choose a bank that gives me something like fee-free international ATM card distributions.

00:47:45.160 | So I might choose one of the banks that offers that and refunds all my fees.

00:47:49.840 | So I'm looking just for what's a feature that I don't have in my first two banks so that

00:47:56.900 | they're different.

00:47:57.900 | And I have a reason to have all three of them.

00:47:59.380 | It's not just to have to have three.

00:48:00.860 | I think it's stupid.

00:48:01.860 | No, it's too stupid.

00:48:02.860 | I shouldn't use that word.

00:48:03.860 | I think it's not like what's the point of having an account at Wells Fargo, Bank of

00:48:09.420 | America, and Chase unless they're all the same.

00:48:13.900 | It doesn't matter.

00:48:14.900 | Pick one and then supplement with something else.

00:48:17.100 | Again, supplement with the credit union.

00:48:19.140 | Supplement with the Charles Schwab checking account that gives you international fee-free

00:48:23.220 | transfers, things like that.

00:48:25.340 | And then so to me, that makes sense.

00:48:27.740 | You judge it for yourself, but to me, that makes sense.

00:48:29.860 | Now, you can have a simple lifestyle set up with that, but having three bank accounts

00:48:35.500 | is not a problem create for your executor.

00:48:38.580 | It's three bank accounts.

00:48:39.580 | Three accounts.

00:48:40.580 | Here's a notice of so-and-so's death or I've got to do this thing with his accounts.

00:48:45.700 | Here's my power of attorney, et cetera.

00:48:47.900 | You'll probably have one primary account that you use, and then you'll set up some structure

00:48:52.400 | where your income will flow into this account and it'll be dispersed in a simple way.

00:48:58.180 | Same thing with investment accounts.

00:48:59.540 | So investment accounts, you want them to be as simple as possible, but not so simple that

00:49:06.660 | you miss out on something that's important to you.

00:49:09.300 | Now, just like with banks, we're going to have FDIC insurance, with investment accounts,

00:49:13.060 | we're going to have CIFIC insurance.

00:49:14.780 | So I don't get too worried if somebody has one large investment account and everything's

00:49:22.740 | in one place, especially if it's with a good provider, et cetera.

00:49:26.840 | There is insurance, et cetera.

00:49:29.500 | But to have everything in one place, even though regulators and whatnot do a pretty

00:49:36.880 | good job of watching out for fraud and things like that, just imagine having your life savings

00:49:43.180 | in one institution, and that institution goes belly up, somebody commits fraud, et cetera.

00:49:50.820 | Even if you're legally protected in the long run, to sit back and wait for a court case

00:49:56.640 | and wait for a representative of the court, a trustee, to go through and release your

00:50:02.980 | funds and things like that from one institution, to me, that's just an unacceptable risk.

00:50:08.140 | And so we want to have at least two or three accounts.

00:50:11.500 | And so probably something like an 80/20 approach is right, that we'll have 80% of our money

00:50:17.900 | with our primary account.

00:50:20.460 | Our primary, it might be your 401(k) or it might be someplace you keep an IRA, but let's

00:50:25.780 | go ahead and just keep 20% in somewhere else.

00:50:28.100 | And so look for two is one, one is none, three is for me, and look for complementary redundancy.

00:50:33.220 | And so look for a platform if you're custodianing, if you're seeking a new custodian for investment

00:50:40.420 | accounts, look for a platform that offers you better trading services or lower fees

00:50:46.260 | or better transfers or a nice checking account attached, et cetera.

00:50:50.180 | And look for just some way to set it up that makes sense to you.

00:50:54.780 | That would be my thought.

00:50:55.780 | Where I think simplicity is really excellent, though, and where it really matters is not

00:51:00.500 | the number of accounts, but rather the daily structure.

00:51:04.880 | And so I'm an advocate for some people of things like tracking their money, budgeting,

00:51:10.020 | et cetera.

00:51:11.020 | But I often actually tell people to stop worrying so much about it.

00:51:14.880 | And so it's not uncommon for me in private consultations to talk with someone and to

00:51:21.200 | say, listen, let's set up some simple rules.

00:51:23.460 | Simple rule number one is you set up an automatic contribution into your employer-sponsored

00:51:31.260 | retirement plans, and you max them out every single year, no matter what.

00:51:35.100 | So the beauty of that is simply that if you do that, you're going to be rich, done.

00:51:43.700 | Simple rule number two is that you put 80% of your remaining check into a checking account,

00:51:52.340 | 20% goes to a savings account at a different bank.

00:51:55.280 | Simple rule number three is you never borrow money.

00:51:58.580 | And if you do that, you probably don't have that many expenses.

00:52:02.300 | And so someone who's in a situation like that I don't think needs to engage in complicated

00:52:08.020 | financial tracking, et cetera.

00:52:09.740 | Just pull up in your checking account and see if you have money.

00:52:12.420 | And if you have money, spend it.

00:52:13.620 | If you don't have money, then don't spend it.

00:52:16.140 | And if you mess something up and there's a bill or something that's going to bounce,

00:52:18.980 | then have that savings account there where it just automatically pulls from that and

00:52:22.460 | then recognize, hey, I need to stop spending money because I just had to have an overdraft

00:52:25.980 | protection from the savings account to pay my electricity bill or something like that.

00:52:31.060 | I think that works fine if you set it up in advance and if you know I'm investing, I don't

00:52:35.900 | borrow money, and have some simple rules.

00:52:38.020 | And to me, that's what a lot of us really want with regard to simplicity.

00:52:40.580 | It's not that it's burdensome to have too many accounts.

00:52:44.620 | It's rather that it's burdensome to spend hours a week trying to track every $0.37 transaction.

00:52:50.580 | And so let's set up some kind of simple financial system that allows you to systematically just

00:52:56.560 | spend money on the things that you want to spend money and know that you're totally fine

00:53:00.020 | to do that because you've taken care of the important things first.

00:53:03.180 | No, that's great.

00:53:05.220 | I appreciate the philosophy on that and really great insight.

00:53:09.380 | I appreciate that.

00:53:10.380 | Good.

00:53:11.380 | You had a second question?

00:53:12.380 | Yeah, just real quick.

00:53:13.380 | I know you've hit on this in the past and I couldn't find when, but I consume way too

00:53:19.700 | much content.

00:53:20.700 | And I remember you saying, making a comment about if you're pressed for time or if you're

00:53:25.540 | prioritizing things, it's better to, your approach would be to listen to books versus

00:53:31.060 | listen to podcasts.

00:53:32.060 | And I wondered if you could just unpack that again real quick.

00:53:36.820 | Yeah, absolutely.

00:53:38.180 | When I create a podcast, I generally am talking mostly extemporaneously off of something that

00:53:47.460 | has been on my mind for a while.

00:53:50.020 | It's not fair to say that I sit down and just hit record.

00:53:54.780 | That's not true at all.

00:53:55.860 | I spend hours and hours and hours and hours thinking about a podcast topic when I do a

00:54:01.460 | podcast, but generally speaking, my preparation to record a podcast is somewhere between zero

00:54:11.420 | to 20 minutes of kind of jotting some notes down, something like that.

00:54:17.860 | I'm a skilled speaker.

00:54:19.580 | Most of the time I can stay on track.

00:54:21.660 | Most of the time I can deliver what I want to deliver.

00:54:25.980 | A lot of times, I'll hit record, I'll get five minutes in and I'll say, "Nah, I'm going

00:54:30.780 | to stop.

00:54:31.780 | I'm going to pivot and start again," and do something like that.

00:54:34.580 | But at the end of the day, I think most podcasters, let's say you listen to an hour podcast, the

00:54:40.380 | podcaster is drawing on his life experience, his just thinking about subjects generally

00:54:46.980 | speaking, and about an hour of preparation for an hour of content.

00:54:52.900 | That's a pretty low ratio of pithiness for a podcast.

00:55:02.700 | I might be underselling it because the pithiness comes from all the other stuff.

00:55:07.780 | For example, I just gave you a speech extemporaneously with zero preparation, but that speech about

00:55:15.500 | your question about financial minimalism, I've been thinking about that for years and

00:55:20.380 | years and years.

00:55:22.980 | It's unfair to say that there was no preparation for it.

00:55:25.840 | There was a lot of preparation for it, but in terms of my delivery of it, I didn't have

00:55:30.660 | the examples planned out.

00:55:32.540 | That's just all extemporaneous speaking of me trying to identify good or useful examples.

00:55:37.940 | The pithiness of a podcast is much lower than a book or a magazine article or a journal

00:55:44.260 | article in terms of preparation.

00:55:46.300 | When someone writes a book, then generally speaking, there are hundreds and hundreds

00:55:54.100 | and hundreds of hours spent writing the content.

00:55:58.180 | The process of writing naturally distills your thoughts to the essence of the content.

00:56:06.440 | You edit yourself when you're writing to make sure that you're being as clear as possible.

00:56:11.220 | Then normally, prior to writing, minimum, you're spending hundreds of hours of focus

00:56:17.480 | targeted research, and in many cases, thousands of hours of focus targeted research.

00:56:23.340 | That research is generally of a much more scholarly nature than a quick web search for

00:56:28.740 | an article to spark a podcaster's thinking.

00:56:32.540 | You're spending time understanding the books that have been written on this topic that

00:56:37.260 | you're writing a book on, and then those authors before you have done that process as well.

00:56:44.000 | The research that you do preparing for a book represents thousands and thousands and thousands

00:56:49.940 | of man hours for, in many cases, at least decades, and most of the time, centuries or

00:56:56.040 | perhaps even millennia.

00:56:58.600 | In many cases, many books, many subjects, we're reaching back 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 years,

00:57:07.020 | and we're tracing that thinking process up to today in order to talk about what we're

00:57:13.380 | doing.

00:57:14.380 | That doesn't happen in podcasts generally.

00:57:17.280 | In terms of sheer bang for the buck of pithiness and insights and carefully considered thoughts

00:57:24.860 | and careful research, an audio book blows every podcast in the world out of the water.

00:57:31.660 | So what's the point of a podcast?

00:57:33.500 | Well, a podcast really shines with bringing thinking current and giving specific application.

00:57:45.540 | That's where podcasts are fantastic.

00:57:49.520 | When you write a book, because the creation and editing process is so involved that it's

00:57:55.060 | always necessarily out of date.

00:57:58.480 | Even if the author is doing everything he can to get it done, a professionally published

00:58:02.300 | and recorded book is six months, 12 months out of date at the fastest it could possibly

00:58:08.220 | be done.

00:58:09.500 | And so when you have a podcast episode with an author, for example, what you give up in

00:58:15.640 | terms of clarity or pithiness of content, you gain back in terms of current cutting

00:58:21.700 | edge insight into a current situation.

00:58:24.940 | You also gain it in terms of topic application.

00:58:28.060 | And so the ability to take something that doesn't fit the carefully edited nature of

00:58:32.500 | a book and talk about it on an ad hoc basis, that's where a podcast really shines.

00:58:37.620 | Because due to the intense editing process of the book, that in and of itself makes it

00:58:44.420 | so pithy, it automatically culls out the number of topics that an author will write about

00:58:51.980 | to just what fits the thesis of the book and just what he can support in terms of evidence

00:58:58.700 | and research and good arguments, etc.

00:59:01.780 | But a podcast is not that way.

00:59:02.900 | If a guy pulls out a microphone or pulls out his phone and just shoots something, he may

00:59:06.840 | just have seven minutes of content, but it's seven minutes of interesting content.

00:59:11.100 | And because he feels good about the ephemeral nature of the podcast or the YouTube or whatever

00:59:17.540 | the current thing is, it's ephemeral content.

00:59:22.100 | And so he doesn't have to go and prove this out with 15 cited resources.

00:59:28.620 | And if all he has to say is seven minutes, that's all he has to say.

00:59:32.180 | So as I see it, there's a great balance here that should be achieved.

00:59:36.380 | And it's not that you should only choose one or the other, but that you should be thoughtful

00:59:41.380 | about why you're consuming the content and then making sure that you're consuming content

00:59:47.020 | that's feeding you.

00:59:48.620 | I don't think 80% of our listening should be YouTube or podcasts.

00:59:55.440 | I think maybe it's not 80% books, but I think at least 50% should be books.

01:00:01.700 | Because the medium creates the message and the kind of person who consumes books is going

01:00:12.260 | to be forced, like it or not, to be a deeper, more thoughtful person.

01:00:18.100 | Someone who thinks more critically, who thinks on a deeper level, and who has a wider degree

01:00:22.820 | of exposure than someone who listens to podcasts or YouTube.

01:00:26.660 | But if the person only consumes books, they may be missing out on the group conversation

01:00:33.340 | and also on the current application of it.

01:00:37.260 | I guess that would be the other thing I should have pointed out with regards to a podcast.

01:00:42.100 | Writing is hard.

01:00:43.340 | Writing is really hard.

01:00:44.500 | And good writing is really hard.

01:00:46.900 | Publishing is really hard.

01:00:49.100 | Shooting a YouTube video, not so hard.

01:00:50.980 | And so I think there are a lot of people who would never be writers who can create other

01:00:58.060 | forms of content.

01:01:00.140 | And because they're creating something useful in that format, but because they're good thinkers,

01:01:08.020 | then we should go and pursue them for their thinking ability and other kinds of people

01:01:11.220 | who don't write the books.

01:01:12.600 | So I think a balance is warranted, but it shouldn't just be all podcasts.

01:01:18.440 | And if we really want to master a domain, there is no better path, no faster path, and

01:01:27.940 | truly no other possible path than mastering the books that form the core canon of that

01:01:37.060 | domain.

01:01:38.140 | And then once those books are mastered, we can put on the beautiful frosting of current

01:01:42.580 | exposure with all of the other stuff.

01:01:45.040 | But without the books, it's very hard to be a deep and skilled thinker in a topic just

01:01:51.220 | from listening to YouTube or podcasts.

01:01:53.620 | Awesome.

01:01:54.620 | That's exactly what I wanted you to articulate, so thank you for adding that value.

01:02:00.520 | And Merry Christmas to you and your family, Josh.

01:02:02.940 | Appreciate all you do.

01:02:03.940 | And to you and yours.

01:02:05.280 | We go to the great state of Kansas.

01:02:07.620 | Welcome to the show.

01:02:08.620 | How can I serve you today?

01:02:09.620 | How to crush your performance review with Postmates.

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01:02:23.160 | What's that?

01:02:24.540 | Imposter syndrome?

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01:02:29.620 | do make an impact that your boss does recognize.

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01:02:38.920 | Terms apply.

01:02:39.920 | Hey, Joshua.

01:02:40.920 | Thank you for taking the call.

01:02:43.440 | Got a question about paper.

01:02:47.640 | I know you've been traveling a lot and have been for a while, and you're out of the U.S.

01:02:52.280 | and all that good stuff.

01:02:53.280 | I was wondering what your approach is to paper documents, important documents.

01:03:00.680 | Do you just make everything digital?

01:03:03.240 | Do you have a system?

01:03:04.240 | Have you ever given any thought to that?

01:03:05.960 | I'm trying to reduce a lot of clutter and stuff in the house and just want to know what

01:03:10.880 | your thoughts are on that.

01:03:11.880 | Yes.

01:03:12.880 | I've given it a lot of thought, and I have done a lot of different things.

01:03:20.120 | Be more specific with the clutter or the paper that is annoying you.

01:03:23.680 | What do you want to reduce and get rid of?

01:03:27.160 | Well, we try to go paperless with a lot of the bills and just normal stuff that comes

01:03:33.800 | in the mail.

01:03:34.800 | So we've reduced a lot of that, but I don't really know what to do with some things like

01:03:44.000 | auto records or even some artwork from the kid's school.

01:03:52.720 | The random things that you just think, "I might need this someday."

01:03:57.280 | I don't know if I just inherited this from my parents or something, but I don't really

01:04:01.800 | have a good way to think about what to keep and how to keep it, and if digitizing it is

01:04:07.640 | really any better than storing it in a file cabinet.

01:04:12.640 | Right.

01:04:13.640 | It's a complex subject that could go different ways, but I'll give you some of my experiences

01:04:20.820 | and hopefully those will inform you.

01:04:23.080 | First, I don't think that stuff, including paper, is generally bothersome in and of itself.

01:04:33.560 | It's disorganized stuff that is generally bothersome.

01:04:38.520 | So I would ask, can you begin by simply organizing your things a little bit better and set up

01:04:46.840 | an organizational system that will work for you?

01:04:50.120 | I don't think pursuing a 100% paperless system is smart or advisable, even though in many

01:04:57.700 | cases it's technically possible.

01:05:00.400 | And so we all need some kind of organization system that works.

01:05:06.140 | For paper, the key is some kind of file drawer or file box or file cabinet or file bag, a

01:05:15.040 | set of manila folders, and a labeler.

01:05:17.940 | Do you own a labeler?

01:05:20.280 | Yes, we do, actually.

01:05:23.080 | Perfect.

01:05:24.080 | Labeler is life-changing.

01:05:25.080 | And so you should give yourself full freedom to label things quickly and freely and just

01:05:31.200 | do it.

01:05:32.760 | And having your paper organized is going to be the first step.

01:05:37.240 | So even if you were to digitize it, you first need to organize it.

01:05:41.000 | So the organization system is file folders and a file cabinet or file box, etc.

01:05:46.680 | And it's pretty easy to do that and worth doing.

01:05:51.880 | It's necessary to do that if you're going to digitize.

01:05:53.560 | The only reason you wouldn't want to just keep that system would be if there were some

01:06:00.700 | compelling reason why you needed to digitize.

01:06:03.640 | So when I was going traveling full time, I digitized everything.

01:06:07.560 | I digitized a 2,000 book library.

01:06:09.920 | I did destructive scanning.

01:06:11.920 | I chopped off the spines of all my books.

01:06:13.920 | I bought a fancy duplex scanner, and I scanned all my books, and I got rid of everything,

01:06:19.200 | every book.

01:06:20.200 | I digitized all my papers.

01:06:21.600 | I digitized all my old journals.

01:06:23.320 | I chopped up my yearbooks and digitized those, and I got rid of everything.

01:06:27.240 | I regret some of that stuff, specifically because digital files have their own issues.

01:06:32.840 | So I backed some of my journals, right?

01:06:34.680 | I had 10 years of personal journals.

01:06:36.400 | I digitized them all.

01:06:37.820 | I was worried a little bit about it from a privacy perspective.

01:06:40.200 | I was like, "I'll just go ahead and digitize these things."

01:06:42.040 | So I digitized them, and I shredded them.

01:06:44.640 | Well then I put them on a computer system, and because they were important to me, I encrypted

01:06:51.800 | them.

01:06:52.800 | I password protected them.

01:06:53.800 | I backed them up on an encrypted disk, and that encrypted disk, I can't get into it because

01:06:57.760 | I forgot my password.

01:06:59.520 | Now that's a stupid, stupid thing to do.

01:07:02.280 | Eventually I'll find a copy of them, and I probably have them a few backups, but it's

01:07:06.600 | an example.

01:07:07.600 | In theory, I should be smart, right?

01:07:09.200 | In theory, I should know what I'm doing.

01:07:11.240 | At the time, I used this password every day.

01:07:13.920 | I had it all squared away, and I said, "There's no chance of my forgetting this."

01:07:20.080 | But then I went on, did something else, and I came back some months later, and I couldn't

01:07:23.240 | reproduce the password.

01:07:25.080 | So that was frustrating, but again, it's not the end of the world, but it's frustrating.

01:07:30.840 | So here I am.

01:07:32.120 | I should know what I'm doing, and I make a stupid mistake like that.

01:07:36.400 | I've worked with clients.

01:07:37.400 | I have a client that lost a few million dollars' worth of Bitcoin on a drive that was backed

01:07:44.400 | up with a password and can't come up with a password.

01:07:46.320 | He's tried to crack it, et cetera.

01:07:48.360 | It's gone.

01:07:49.520 | So digital things have their own danger, and it's not the perfect solution.

01:07:55.600 | So start with organization.

01:07:56.880 | That's step one.

01:07:58.680 | Things that have a low cost can just be gotten rid of right there.

01:08:04.520 | So if you have bills, paper bills or something that comes in, most of that stuff doesn't

01:08:09.600 | need any kind of filing or organization.

01:08:12.240 | It needs to be shredded, and most of that stuff should be digitized.

01:08:16.560 | So I think the simplest way to do that, to digitize those kinds of things, is to set

01:08:22.200 | up obviously an account, and if you're going to have email, then I would just set up a

01:08:26.600 | separate email account that is exclusively for this.

01:08:29.320 | It should probably be an account like ProtonMail or other encrypted email service.

01:08:33.520 | Just have everything go there, and you only log into it when you need to go and check

01:08:36.320 | a statement or something.

01:08:37.880 | So there's no point in having paper coming in for that stuff.

01:08:41.320 | Paper is a significant identity theft risk problem.

01:08:46.160 | It is much better for you to have monthly statements and things like that delivered

01:08:50.080 | digitally due to the identity theft risks of having those documents sitting in your

01:08:55.800 | mailbox.

01:08:56.800 | So I think that makes a lot of sense.

01:08:58.360 | When it comes to records, educational records, things like that, it's not that burdensome

01:09:05.360 | to have a file folder for each child.

01:09:10.400 | I think they should be digitized in case they're lost, but they should also be kept as hard

01:09:16.660 | copy in case the digital file gets corrupted.

01:09:20.880 | There's not any reason why you shouldn't have a couple of boxes of important papers in your

01:09:27.440 | life, even if they're stored off-site or something like that.

01:09:31.320 | We can do that.

01:09:32.320 | And there are good reasons to need and want those things that you may not perceive now.

01:09:37.080 | I'll give two examples from my own life.

01:09:40.360 | This is unique to me with my internationalization and stuff, but first of all, I have children

01:09:44.880 | who have been born outside of the United States.

01:09:48.280 | And if those children ever want to pass along citizenship, U.S. citizenship to their children,

01:09:54.720 | and if they were married to – I won't go into all the details – but they need

01:09:59.440 | to demonstrate that they have lived in the United States prior to a certain age.

01:10:06.400 | And so if they don't have physical copies of that to be able to demonstrate at a certain

01:10:11.200 | time, then something extremely valuable like a citizenship could be lost.

01:10:16.300 | This happened a number of years ago when I was interacting with something for one of

01:10:19.320 | my wife's things, and we needed to come up with documentation of her maiden name.

01:10:25.800 | And if we didn't have copies of her passports, copies of her old driver's license and things

01:10:30.720 | like that of her maiden name, then it would have been troublesome.

01:10:36.360 | Things like old driver's licenses that have your address on them, a lot of times you need

01:10:40.160 | to verify for a credit check system now.

01:10:43.400 | Who did you reside at 123 Maple Street?

01:10:46.760 | And you get four addresses deep, and it's hard to remember what was my address at that

01:10:52.120 | point in time.

01:10:53.120 | But you've got to fill out 10 years of address history or something like that.

01:10:55.840 | And so having hard copy records of that stuff is really important.

01:10:59.320 | Things like Social Security cards, identity documents, obviously last wills and testaments,

01:11:06.040 | statements of deeds, etc.

01:11:08.240 | That stuff all needs to be kept, and it needs to be kept for the long term.

01:11:11.920 | It should be digitized as a backup in case your house burns down, but it shouldn't be

01:11:16.160 | gotten rid of.

01:11:17.160 | It should be maintained.

01:11:18.440 | So I would say organization solves a lot of the frustration that people have with stuff.

01:11:25.140 | And organization will help you to diminish stuff in general.

01:11:29.040 | And I think the best solution for most organizing stuff is a system of files and boxes.

01:11:34.240 | And so for paper, files and boxes is good.

01:11:37.300 | For other stuff too, I myself, I use Ziploc bags, gallon bags, or I use a lot of clear

01:11:43.280 | transparent bags.

01:11:46.520 | Like for example, if you buy a set of sheets or pillowcases, things like that, it comes

01:11:50.520 | in these little just clears, I save all those things.

01:11:53.520 | And I use them to organize things that are like.

01:11:56.260 | And so I label everything.

01:11:58.860 | And if you just have a bag or a folder and it's labeled, and you put something in it,

01:12:04.000 | even if it's one simple thing, then you now know this thing belongs and I have it.

01:12:08.720 | I'll give you an example.

01:12:09.720 | I have a trampoline for my children.

01:12:12.340 | And if you've ever set up one of these trampolines, you know that you need a trampoline spring

01:12:17.440 | tool in order to put those springs on and off.

01:12:20.280 | And if you don't have this tool, it's a nightmare to put these springs on and off.

01:12:23.240 | But if you have the tool, it's easy.

01:12:24.900 | So when I bought the trampoline, I had this trampoline spring tool.

01:12:28.320 | I don't want to lose this.

01:12:29.320 | I take the trampoline spring tool, I put it into a gallon size Ziploc bag.

01:12:34.240 | It's clear.

01:12:35.240 | I know what's in it.

01:12:36.240 | I fold it closed.

01:12:37.240 | I take my label maker and I put on it trampoline spring tool and I put a label on the bag and

01:12:41.760 | I put it in my stack of my shelves or in some cases I've used bins, boxes, et cetera, and

01:12:48.160 | I just toss it in there.

01:12:49.520 | And so sometimes when I'm looking for something, I go in and I just pull everything out.

01:12:53.740 | Because everything's bagged, it's all filed in a sense, it's labeled, et cetera, then

01:12:57.240 | I know like these are things that I've intentionally kept and it's a lot more like I don't have

01:13:03.160 | any angst about it like I would if it were just sitting on a random shelf in a workshop

01:13:08.240 | or something like that.

01:13:09.760 | And so same thing with paper.

01:13:11.320 | You do need the paper and it would be only certain people who would ever want to get

01:13:17.120 | rid of that stuff.

01:13:18.480 | And one final comment.

01:13:20.760 | I think I have most of the paperless solutions.

01:13:24.220 | I have several scanners.

01:13:26.120 | I have a duplex scanner.

01:13:27.480 | I also have an overhead book scanner now.

01:13:29.820 | It doesn't work well, but I have it.

01:13:32.080 | I have all the devices.

01:13:34.200 | I have all the files swapping around.

01:13:37.960 | I have it pretty well synchronized, et cetera.

01:13:42.200 | I think we overestimate the value and the pleasure of using those things.

01:13:47.680 | And so simple things like books.

01:13:50.560 | I regret digitizing my entire library.

01:13:52.920 | I did a podcast episode on it.

01:13:55.040 | I regret digitizing my entire library.

01:13:57.080 | I wish I had taken about a third of those books and just put them in storage because

01:14:01.680 | I've had to go back and buy some of them again because I want the hard copy.

01:14:05.680 | With my children and their education, I buy all of their books even though a lot of times

01:14:11.000 | they're totally free on Kindle and I can just put them on their e-reader on their Kindle

01:14:14.720 | device.

01:14:15.720 | But our brains work better with placement.

01:14:19.240 | And for things that are actually important, especially learning things, the sense of location,

01:14:24.960 | our brains are designed to locate objects.

01:14:28.360 | And so having a location on a page or a location in a book, a physical tangible book, is a

01:14:34.760 | really important and powerful learning tool when compared to having everything digital.

01:14:45.680 | You cannot remember things as effectively when they're presented to you digitally as

01:14:50.120 | when they are physical.

01:14:51.800 | And then even the best systems have trouble.

01:14:55.080 | I have been trying for three years to find a book in my library, in my electronic library.

01:15:00.480 | Years ago I bought this book and it was full of – it had these just wonderful financial

01:15:06.280 | stories and parables.

01:15:08.400 | It was – I read it aloud to my wife at the breakfast table and it was fantastic.

01:15:13.960 | I loved the book.

01:15:15.560 | I digitized it along with all of my other books.

01:15:18.040 | I know it's in my library.

01:15:19.200 | I have a Caliber library, it has 5,000 books on it.

01:15:21.920 | I know it's there.

01:15:23.480 | But search as I might, I cannot remember the author, I can't remember the name, I cannot

01:15:28.660 | find this book in my library.

01:15:30.480 | At some point I have to go through and just sit there and go through every single one

01:15:35.280 | of my 5,000 books and find them.

01:15:37.680 | But it's very frustrating to me because there have been many times where I've wanted to

01:15:40.200 | create a podcast episode and I can't find it.

01:15:44.920 | And I want to go to that book and read one of the stories and use it as inspiration to

01:15:48.200 | create a podcast episode but I don't have it and I can't lay my hands on it.

01:15:51.960 | And so there's real value in having physical objects, physical books, et cetera.

01:15:57.480 | There's also real value in having digital stuff.

01:15:59.800 | A lot of times when I'm creating a podcast, the fact that I can go to my computer and

01:16:03.400 | I can pull up any paper, any book, et cetera, and I remember where most of the stuff is,

01:16:07.560 | is in and of itself very valuable.

01:16:09.280 | So I'm going to stop there and I'm just going to say that going digital is useful

01:16:16.240 | but don't go too digital.

01:16:18.760 | If you go digital, keep the important hard copy stuff and create a filing system that

01:16:24.320 | makes that work because there's a decent chance that 50 years from now some of that stuff

01:16:30.200 | will be needed.

01:16:31.520 | And physical objects are much more permanent for your child to demonstrate his American

01:16:38.000 | ancestry or something like that when he's off living in France so that his kid can get

01:16:43.120 | U.S. citizenship.

01:16:45.440 | That stuff, those important physical things are much more important than, "Oh, we've

01:16:50.320 | got all that sitting on this device over here."

01:16:53.960 | There are also very compelling benefits to having digital stuff but you need to be super

01:16:59.160 | careful and don't go there too quickly because I think my story of forgetting my password

01:17:05.800 | for all the scans of all of my journals and things like that, my story is more common

01:17:10.280 | than uncommon.

01:17:13.160 | And we have to learn how to do a better job with our digital management especially when

01:17:18.120 | everything's upgrading.

01:17:19.200 | So is that helpful at all?

01:17:21.720 | Yes.

01:17:22.720 | Yes.

01:17:23.720 | I actually have had a similar, well actually I had a drive fail before I got a chance to

01:17:30.560 | back it up and so I've lost a few digital things in my day as well.

01:17:36.800 | But your framework about organization, I guess step one is to just kind of put things in

01:17:44.440 | perspective because I think that'll help out a lot.

01:17:48.000 | One quick question, like a follow-up question if I may, on some of the important things.

01:17:54.080 | Do you have any recommendation, especially if you're traveling, what documents or what

01:18:01.120 | you would carry them in or take them in just to kind of keep those things secure like Social

01:18:05.680 | Security cards or birth certificates and stuff like that?

01:18:08.840 | In general I try not to travel with things like that.

01:18:14.360 | So something like Social Security cards specifically, there's zero reason why you would ever need

01:18:19.440 | a Social Security card abroad.

01:18:21.580 | Now birth certificates on the other hand, I do often travel with them, especially if

01:18:25.600 | I'm going somewhere to do an immigration program or something like that, I do often travel

01:18:29.080 | with those.

01:18:30.080 | I use, specifically I use a bag that's made by Eagle Creek, is the manufacturer.

01:18:38.800 | Eagle Creek makes a lot of bags and travel products.

01:18:41.360 | They have a, is it Eagle Creek Packet, I'll give you the specific.

01:18:48.360 | I think it's called Eagle Creek Packet Folder and they have three sizes and the nice thing

01:18:56.820 | about them is, I used to know this brand name off the top of my head, the nice thing about

01:19:10.800 | them is they are, I'll come up with it in a moment, it's Eagle Creek bag and they have

01:19:19.760 | three different sets.

01:19:21.760 | It's from their Packet Cube line, but they're not packing cubes, they are, here we go, Eagle

01:19:26.180 | Creek Packet, okay, so evidently it was the brand name, Eagle Creek Packet Organizer Bags.

01:19:33.120 | So Eagle Creek Packet, P-A-C-K-I-T Organizer Bags.

01:19:38.280 | They have small, medium, large and what's nice about them is they are made of a mesh

01:19:45.380 | material and then inside of the mesh they have a plastic, like a P-U-L liner, a plastic

01:19:54.300 | liner inside.

01:19:55.300 | Now that liner does eventually break down, but that protects it from water damage and

01:20:00.340 | the large size is perfect for documents.

01:20:02.980 | You can fit into it all your documents, slide it in your bag, it's perfect for documents

01:20:06.580 | and so I use it for documents and they come in red, blue and black and I have all the

01:20:15.900 | different colors and I use those usually.

01:20:18.500 | I also just use a gallon size Ziploc bag.

01:20:21.980 | If you use a gallon size Ziploc bag, you can fit into that an eight and a half by eleven

01:20:25.700 | sheet of paper, you have to just kind of put it down just a tiny bit to zip the bag and

01:20:29.660 | then it'll stretch itself out.

01:20:31.620 | So the way that I organize stuff, being mobile actually, I don't have a filing cabinet.

01:20:36.940 | What I do is I have all of my family documents organized in Ziploc bags.

01:20:44.660 | So I have one for me, I have one for my wife and for each of my children and any document

01:20:50.860 | that pertains to the person goes into the Ziploc bag.

01:20:54.820 | Everything's labeled and then I put all of those Ziploc bags inside one of these Eagle

01:20:59.300 | Creek packet bags, the large size and it's bright red and it's in with my safe and so

01:21:05.900 | if I need to leave the house, that's what I'm grabbing.

01:21:09.980 | It's red, it's ready to go and if there's a fire or I have to evacuate or something

01:21:13.700 | like that, that's the bag that I take and it has everything ready to go and it's all

01:21:18.660 | organized, it has my dog's vaccine records, it has all the social security cards for the

01:21:24.340 | children, it has anything that is document related so that if I had to go and leave in

01:21:30.180 | the middle of the night, I have the bag of records and I grab that and go.

01:21:34.140 | And so that's what I do is I use those Eagle Creek bags and Ziploc bags as the primary

01:21:38.420 | organization method.

01:21:39.940 | And I really like that because file cabinets have their place but the scenario that I'm

01:21:47.420 | describing is in some cases more likely than needing it in another case and so I want to

01:21:52.620 | be able to grab a bag and in that bag and I'm a prepper and I'm also like this international

01:21:59.900 | prepper.

01:22:00.900 | So I have basically like seven copies of each of my family's birth certificates, three of

01:22:06.620 | them are apostilled, four of them are not.

01:22:08.740 | I've got notarized copies of my marriage records, I've got everything there ready to go because

01:22:15.860 | of my international experience where I was found wanting and I've got fingerprint cards

01:22:21.620 | done from my wife and me ready to go and then I also keep a whole backup set of that stuff

01:22:26.140 | in another country.

01:22:27.400 | And so if my house did burn down then I would call someone else.

01:22:31.980 | So back to your traveling question, so that's what I use to carry the stuff but in general

01:22:37.020 | you don't want to carry too much of the stuff because paper is simultaneously a benefit

01:22:41.820 | and also a downside and so what I have is I have a password system.

01:22:46.900 | All of my documents, all my credit cards, my driver's licenses, my passports, everything

01:22:51.660 | like that, all of that stuff I have digitized and then backed up in an encrypted system

01:22:58.420 | with a password so that even if everything is stolen from me, like if my phone is stolen,

01:23:06.020 | my bag is stolen, my passport is stolen, etc. all I need is access to a computer, it can

01:23:12.540 | be anyone's computer, it can be anyone's computer, it can be an internet cafe, etc., public computer,

01:23:21.180 | all I need is access to a computer and I can go gain access to my documents and I can print

01:23:27.020 | whatever I need to demonstrate my identity.

01:23:28.900 | So years ago I had my passport stolen, I had to go to the US embassy and I had to get a

01:23:32.740 | new passport and I learned at that moment that if you can't prove your identity it takes

01:23:38.220 | a really long time to get this handled.

01:23:40.660 | If you can demonstrate your identity though, you can get it done pretty quickly and so

01:23:44.500 | this is of course accessible on all my digital devices so if I have my phone and my passport

01:23:49.520 | gets stolen I can just pull out my phone and look here's a copy of the passport so that

01:23:54.260 | the consulate will give me an emergency passport to get me home but then I also have it set

01:23:58.920 | up so that I can access it from any computer regardless of whether it's my phone or not

01:24:03.300 | and that's what I would recommend is that the most important thing with traveling is

01:24:06.820 | to have basically one backup with you.

01:24:09.360 | We used to, all the travel gurus used to recommend having a paper copy, I think that still makes

01:24:14.540 | sense and again depending on the trip.

01:24:17.680 | So when I do an overland trip across borders internationally I do a couple things.

01:24:23.340 | Number one is you always need a stack of copies with you and this is where, forgive the long

01:24:28.860 | answer, hopefully it's at least a little interesting.

01:24:31.020 | If you're going to Europe for two weeks and you're flying from New York to Paris, you

01:24:37.740 | don't need much of this stuff because it's super simple, you just need a passport and

01:24:40.980 | if you have a picture of it on your phone or if you have one paper copy of it that's

01:24:45.980 | all you're going to need.

01:24:47.340 | On the other hand if you're traveling with a vehicle across borders at every single border,

01:24:51.740 | well depending on where you are, not everyone, but a lot of times you need to have multiple

01:24:55.900 | copies of your vehicle ownership documents, your passport, your driver's license, your

01:25:03.100 | insurance information and you've got to have all of them and a lot of times you'll go across

01:25:08.420 | a border and they'll keep one of your documents at both sides and so now you've got eight

01:25:12.820 | pieces of paper that slides away at every document.

01:25:16.380 | And sometimes it can be very hectic depending on the border and so what I do in those cases

01:25:21.020 | is I make color copies of the originals and then I never give them the original unless

01:25:26.900 | they figure out that it's the color copy.

01:25:29.820 | And so that's a useful strategy and in countries where you're required to have your passport

01:25:34.780 | on you, then and it's quite literally the law, but you don't want to take the risk of

01:25:40.060 | carrying the passport, then you go ahead and make a high quality color copy, laminate it

01:25:45.940 | and then basically just plead ignorance about the actual law.

01:25:50.200 | So that way you're probably close enough to being legal without actually having your passport

01:25:54.260 | in your pocket the whole time.

01:25:56.140 | And I've never had any trouble with that.

01:25:58.300 | So you can say, look, here's a copy of my passport and make it a nice color copy that

01:26:02.780 | clearly it's the passport and if we go back to my hotel, back at the hotel safe, there's

01:26:07.000 | my original version.

01:26:08.060 | So that's how I do it.

01:26:09.660 | I use the Eagle Creek packet organizer bags, the large size is perfect for papers.

01:26:14.700 | I use a Ziploc bags to keep things organized inside of that.

01:26:20.560 | And then based upon the country that you're traveling to, you and the mode of transportation,

01:26:27.000 | that's where you may need more of those copies and things like that, or you may just it's

01:26:32.760 | not necessary at all.

01:26:33.760 | There's my answer.

01:26:34.760 | Perfect.

01:26:35.760 | Thank you.

01:26:36.760 | You're the perfect guy to answer that question, so that's what I wanted to call it.

01:26:42.200 | Thank you, Joshua.

01:26:43.200 | My pleasure.

01:26:44.200 | You know, you do enough international stuff, all the, like I recommend to people, I teach

01:26:49.400 | this in my international skate plan course, like get your multiple, get your birth certificates,

01:26:53.660 | get your school records.

01:26:54.660 | I have, and I've just learned like all that stuff is important.

01:26:58.400 | So you can add that to your prepping.

01:27:00.400 | I have a sealed version, a sealed copy of college transcripts, high school transcripts,

01:27:05.720 | like everything is done away because I have needed it and not had it.

01:27:09.040 | And so I resolved, I better make sure that I have this next time.

01:27:12.120 | Kyle in Washington.

01:27:13.120 | Welcome to the show.

01:27:14.120 | Have a great day.

01:27:15.120 | Hi there.

01:27:16.120 | Gabriel Custodio's first episode of his podcast is also a good starting point when you're

01:27:24.000 | trying to figure out what to throw away and what to keep, although he is a fairly minimal

01:27:27.800 | type of guy, not to discount the last 20 minutes of you talking.

01:27:33.200 | So that's just for the uninitiated.

01:27:35.160 | It's called Watchman Privacy and you can find it.

01:27:38.040 | He has it on YouTube and all the podcast feeds.

01:27:40.600 | So find the Watchman Privacy Podcast, great podcast anyway, and go back and find episode

01:27:45.120 | one and hear his take on that.

01:27:46.680 | Yeah.

01:27:47.680 | In 15 minutes, he'll give you hours and hours of stuff to do.

01:27:51.360 | That's always how it is.

01:27:54.360 | Yeah.

01:27:55.360 | I have a radical Christian father's question.

01:28:00.320 | So one thing I'm noticing at my church and other churches in this area in which I live

01:28:08.840 | where there are a lot of small church communities is they, I find myself connecting, connecting

01:28:20.360 | is the wrong word.

01:28:21.360 | I find myself relating to and having more in common with the women at the church because

01:28:29.000 | they are the ones leading their families and it's frustrating me to find the type of fellowship

01:28:38.240 | that I'm looking for in these groups of men because they seem to be following their wives

01:28:44.440 | and not the other way around.

01:28:47.120 | And I'm just curious, I'm assuming you run into that.

01:28:53.120 | You push that an awful lot when you did that podcast and I'm curious if you have any kind

01:28:59.640 | of, you know, me going and preaching to all these guys and saying, you guys are doing

01:29:04.440 | it wrong.

01:29:05.440 | I'm not going to make any friends that way and I'm not sure how to go about working around

01:29:10.080 | this difficulty I'm experiencing.

01:29:13.520 | Is there a particular denominational tradition that you yourself are involved in where you're

01:29:18.520 | finding this more than in another place?

01:29:22.480 | No, I go to a Catholic church and I went to, when I started back going, I went to pretty

01:29:33.320 | much every church that was within a half an hour of me.

01:29:37.720 | And I didn't stay long enough to say that this is definitive, but I see the women run

01:29:47.200 | a lot of the church operations.

01:29:49.280 | There are a few men that volunteer, typically older, retired gentlemen, but the guys with

01:29:54.400 | kids that are my age just aren't.

01:29:58.080 | And I felt as though I saw it as a general rule, don't get me wrong, there are exceptions

01:30:05.920 | just like I'm the exception in my mind, but I'm not seeing it any different if I go to,

01:30:13.720 | you know, a non-denominational church or however you want it to be called versus the one that

01:30:18.600 | I'm currently a member in.

01:30:20.200 | Right, well, it is, I can certainly easily understand what you're saying.

01:30:27.480 | It is a continual problem.

01:30:29.800 | It's not a problem everywhere though, but the reasoning strikes right at the heart of

01:30:35.800 | where we are as a culture and it's basically largely due to the cultural revolution in

01:30:43.880 | the United States and in many places of the various waves of feminism and it goes all

01:30:50.520 | the way back to the first part of the 20th century.

01:30:54.040 | But the responses to this change and vary depending on where you go and what you're

01:31:02.640 | exposed to, etc.

01:31:03.640 | And so there are, if you want to see more stronger men who are patriarchs of their family,

01:31:09.480 | there's a lot of us out there and in the future there will be a lot more, but there has been

01:31:14.180 | an enormous sifting happening.

01:31:17.720 | So I'll just tell my story briefly.

01:31:20.640 | Today I clearly and wholeheartedly identify with patriarchy, but it was not always that

01:31:29.440 | way.

01:31:30.440 | I grew up in a fairly conservative Christian world where male leadership was emphasized,

01:31:38.480 | but because of the cultural play, the cultural pressure in the wake of the feminist revolution,

01:31:45.920 | egalitarianism, etc., I was never super comfortable with that strong male approach.

01:31:55.440 | Specifically I remember one time when I was in college, and I wasn't a hardcore lefty

01:32:01.480 | or anything, but this pressure was really strong, including in Christian circles.

01:32:07.840 | And I remember I was in college one time and I went to my dad and I specifically rebuked

01:32:12.080 | my dad for some of his language, because instead of using gender-inclusive language, he had

01:32:19.920 | this thing that he said, and I'll skip the details, but he had this thing that he said

01:32:23.120 | that was specifically very exclusive.

01:32:25.960 | It was not gender-inclusive.

01:32:26.960 | And I said, "Dad, why do you have to say it that way?

01:32:30.560 | Why can't you say it in the more inclusive way?"

01:32:34.280 | And he wasn't offended, I don't even remember what he said, but anyway, years later I went

01:32:38.940 | back to him and I said, "Dad, you know what?

01:32:40.520 | You were completely right."

01:32:42.080 | And I was a fool for thinking of it, but it took me a decade to get there.

01:32:46.320 | It took me a decade of watching, it took me a decade of experience, it took me a decade.

01:32:51.020 | So specifically let's briefly touch on Christian doctrine.

01:32:54.320 | There are three basic views that we can categorize, that we can lump in together Christian views

01:33:02.320 | on male and female dynamics, and I think this would be a proper categorization that would

01:33:12.680 | include the vast majority.

01:33:14.560 | And you'll find many Christians in each of these three categories.

01:33:18.120 | So the first category is egalitarianism, and egalitarianism would say that there is no

01:33:26.240 | real difference between men and women, and therefore men and women can do all of the

01:33:32.720 | same things, men and women have all the same functions, there's no difference.

01:33:37.980 | After all, the Bible says there is now no more male and female, no more Jew and Greek,

01:33:41.800 | so therefore we're all the same, and that would be the egalitarian position.

01:33:45.960 | This would be very common in many specific Christian traditions, and I'll get to the

01:33:54.440 | causal factors of this in a moment, but most of the mainline Protestant denominations would

01:33:59.080 | have this position.

01:34:01.400 | Roman Catholicism is unique because you have from the top level, you do not have this at

01:34:07.160 | all, but there are strong elements within Roman Catholicism to see this change.

01:34:12.120 | The Anglican Church is now basically totally egalitarian, and so you go many places and

01:34:18.220 | you find women pastors and women everything, this, that, and the others.

01:34:21.800 | That's the egalitarian position.

01:34:24.660 | Then you have the complementarian position.

01:34:27.880 | The complementarian position, as best I can come out, as best I can figure it out, came

01:34:34.640 | out really in about the – that term started to be used – and by the way, to be clear,

01:34:39.560 | I'm no historical theologian, so if I'm wrong on this, this is just my best understanding

01:34:43.120 | at the moment – but that really came out in about the 1980s and 1990s, when you had

01:34:48.800 | a strong liberalizing influence from the mainline Christian denominations against broader evangelical

01:34:54.920 | Christianity.

01:34:55.920 | And again, remember the cultural context of this.

01:34:58.880 | We go all the way back to women's suffrage with the 13th Amendment in the United States,

01:35:03.080 | all of the first wave feminism, second wave feminism, all the way through, the strong

01:35:07.160 | feminist cultural movement invaded the Christian Church to a strong degree.

01:35:13.560 | And so that was where you started to have a lot of the Protestant denominations would

01:35:18.840 | say, "Yes, okay, we'll go ahead and we'll bow our knees to feminism, and we'll accept

01:35:24.000 | this movement."

01:35:25.480 | And then in response to that, you had basically the complementarian position start to be developed.

01:35:31.480 | And what complementarians want to do is they generally want to thread the needle, and they

01:35:36.040 | want to say this.

01:35:37.260 | They want to say that men and women are ontologically equal, meaning that in their being, in their

01:35:43.000 | personhood, they are equal in the eyes of God.

01:35:46.640 | But God has ordained functional differences between them, and that basically men and women

01:35:53.040 | are called differently.

01:35:54.240 | And so this would be the most, I think, widely represented position amongst a lot of evangelical

01:36:01.240 | Christianity.

01:36:03.520 | And I'm not as current on Roman Catholicism, but this would be widely represented there

01:36:08.360 | as well.

01:36:10.540 | So complementarism is, for a long time, I thought that was the conservative position.

01:36:16.960 | And about 10 years ago, I started thinking about patriarchy and all of the various issues,

01:36:24.960 | primarily because I was continually accused of patriarchy, right, down with the patriarchy

01:36:29.480 | and all the cultural movements.

01:36:31.440 | And in the beginning, I myself dismissed patriarchy.

01:36:34.840 | I was like, "I'm fine with complementarianism."

01:36:39.480 | But I started to think about it, and I started to read a little bit more, and I came to the

01:36:44.820 | conviction over time that, wait a second, complementarianism doesn't work because it

01:36:50.600 | doesn't—I wish I could articulate this further.

01:36:55.000 | It's the kind of thing that, in order to be proper, it needs thought to express properly.

01:37:00.540 | But I came to the conclusion that complementarianism was silly.

01:37:04.420 | Not silly because a lot of people believe in it, but I came to the conclusion that the

01:37:07.920 | Bible itself is patriarchal, and that a patriarchal society is the best-functioning society.

01:37:16.360 | And it's hard to express that in an appropriate way, given our current context, but it just

01:37:22.440 | simply works better.

01:37:24.580 | There are those who defend it as differently, but you look at the complete falling apart,

01:37:29.280 | you say, in many churches, in many parts of society, and to me, it's obvious evidence.

01:37:34.840 | So back to churches, the New Testament is crystal clear that all leadership in the church

01:37:41.640 | is to be male, but that's only defined to certain things.

01:37:45.800 | And so, for example, you'll say, well, some conservative denominations, right, the Southern

01:37:50.160 | Baptists will say, well, only preachers have to be men, but then they'll have women praying

01:37:54.600 | on stage, they'll have women leading worship, they'll have women doing all these things.

01:37:59.200 | And I kind of have this conclusion, I think I believe it, I'm pretty sure it's true, but

01:38:05.920 | basically, that men are just lazy.

01:38:08.840 | And the reason that God has instituted patriarchy in a scriptural context is to get men to do

01:38:15.880 | things.

01:38:16.880 | Because as a man, if I can sit back and just let my wife do something, that's the easiest

01:38:21.480 | thing in the world.

01:38:23.040 | But that leads to complete and total destruction of my family if I do that on an ongoing basis.

01:38:29.080 | And so if I weren't specifically commanded by God to lead, and that all of the responsibility

01:38:35.520 | is on my shoulders to do it, then I would probably be happy to sit back and not do so

01:38:41.240 | much.

01:38:42.240 | And what's remarkable to me is that it was about a decade ago that I came to that grudging

01:38:46.760 | realization that if it's to be, it's up to me, and I got to do this.

01:38:50.280 | And I've got to express, it's my responsibility.

01:38:53.760 | And I don't put anything on my wife, it's my responsibility.

01:38:57.040 | And that started to work good.

01:38:59.120 | What's been fascinating to me is I have watched very closely male and female dynamics over

01:39:03.920 | the last decade, and we see a complete collapse of dating culture, a complete collapse of

01:39:09.400 | relationship formation, a complete collapse of family formation.

01:39:12.760 | I'm talking broadly, not even just in Christianity, just across the culture.

01:39:17.160 | And I'm always amazed at the things that men and women thought they wanted that the feminist

01:39:24.600 | revolution didn't deliver.

01:39:26.880 | And I think we see a lot of response in people going kind of the direction that I've gone.

01:39:32.480 | And so there's a tendency often to try to soften that.

01:39:36.480 | There's a tendency to change and say, "Well, I'm a patriarch, but I don't say, 'Woman,

01:39:43.640 | get me a beer.'"

01:39:44.640 | I've tried to even stop qualifying, because I used to do all that stuff, and I realized

01:39:49.240 | that, "No, Joshua, just put the responsibility on yourself, be clear, and move forward."

01:39:54.120 | And so there are, I think, a lot of people, and I watch some of the Christian conversations,

01:39:58.400 | there are a lot of Christian conversations and people that come to that position.

01:40:02.420 | But there are a couple of problems.

01:40:03.600 | Number one, it's very uncomfortable, because it puts you out of the cultural norm.

01:40:07.920 | And so while I'm happy to respond honestly to a sincere question from you, it's not particularly

01:40:14.760 | comfortable for me to talk about this stuff in public.

01:40:20.120 | So a lot of guys aren't going to do it.

01:40:21.600 | Number two, it takes people a time to come to it, and also it takes a while for us to

01:40:26.360 | recognize what has happened.

01:40:28.800 | And so across Christendom, this is happening.

01:40:31.540 | But as women have become dominant in churches, it creates a major problem.

01:40:40.660 | They feminize the church experience.

01:40:43.840 | The pastors start preaching to women, which is repulsive to men.

01:40:47.880 | Then there are fewer men in the churches, and fewer men who are willing to actually

01:40:51.680 | step in and lead, so it becomes more feminine.

01:40:54.120 | And so then the whole experience of church becomes more feminine, and it just goes on

01:40:57.440 | and on and on.

01:40:58.440 | And I basically can't stand visiting or going to a lot of churches because of how effeminate

01:41:03.660 | they are.

01:41:04.840 | And the preachers themselves are often effeminate.

01:41:08.600 | They don't express any kind of admirable masculinity.

01:41:11.820 | They don't express any kind of – they're not men that you want to follow in the first

01:41:15.680 | place.

01:41:16.680 | They're so dominated by their wives and by the women in the church that they can't even

01:41:20.480 | stand up and preach.

01:41:22.120 | And I'll tell you – forgive me if I'm on a roll, but I'm trying to answer it forthrightly

01:41:25.020 | – here's where the clearest expression of this is.

01:41:28.680 | For me, it comes down to Father's Day.

01:41:30.760 | I've said this before, and I don't want to put poison, but it's really true, is that

01:41:35.280 | I think the worst day for men to ever go to church is on Father's Day.

01:41:40.360 | Basically men should never go to church on Father's Day.

01:41:42.980 | If you compare in most churches – and again, I'm not super involved in Roman Catholicism,

01:41:46.980 | I don't know what they preach about there – but in evangelical churches, if you go

01:41:50.100 | to church on Mother's Day, you will hear the most uplifting sermon about how wonderful

01:41:57.380 | our mothers are, and our mothers are wonderful, and we honor them, and they sacrifice for

01:42:02.060 | us, etc.

01:42:03.060 | And they're just so wonderful, and we appreciate them, and God has told us to honor our mothers.

01:42:07.300 | And the preacher goes on and on and on and on about how great women are, etc.

01:42:12.620 | You go to church on Father's Day, preacher stands up and says, "Men, we got to do better.

01:42:17.900 | After all, God has called you to be a man, and you're called to serve God, and so you

01:42:21.620 | have to love your family, and you have to serve your family, and whatnot."

01:42:24.620 | And he goes on for 60 minutes haranguing the men for not being good enough.

01:42:29.840 | Not a single bit of just respect and admiration for simply their maleness, their sexual identity

01:42:35.960 | of simply being men.

01:42:37.800 | And it's disgusting.

01:42:38.860 | And what happens is that that goes into these men, and it kind of creates the same thing

01:42:44.460 | that you're talking about, that you see, and it creates men who go through the world thinking

01:42:48.540 | that I don't measure up, I'm not worthy of respect because I got all this stuff wrong

01:42:51.860 | with me.

01:42:53.020 | And it's the same thing with our boys, it's the same thing with men, it's a complete catastrophe.

01:42:57.620 | So there are places where that, I think, is finally coming out, and where it's talked

01:43:01.180 | about, etc.

01:43:02.660 | But in order to find them, you've got to find a very conservative, you've got to find a

01:43:06.780 | conservative church, or a conservative denomination, and you've got to have a conservative denomination

01:43:12.500 | that is willing to stand on a couple things.

01:43:15.180 | Perhaps in your tradition, it would be the tradition of the church, but in general it

01:43:19.160 | has to do with believing in the authority and the inerrancy of Scripture.

01:43:24.140 | Because the New Testament, and the Old Testament, all the way through the Bible is absolutely

01:43:28.660 | patriarchal.

01:43:29.660 | I used to think it wasn't.

01:43:31.100 | I used to want to say, like, to the people who said, "Overthrow the patriarchy," I used

01:43:34.740 | to want to say, "Oh, well, you know, come on, the Bible raises up women."

01:43:37.740 | And all that stuff is true.

01:43:38.980 | Like, Jesus treated women much better, women are incredibly highly praised, Christianity

01:43:44.220 | revolutionized the world of women.

01:43:46.460 | It completely transformed the role of women in society on a complete basis.

01:43:52.580 | And so all that's interesting and true and completely irrelevant to where we are today.

01:43:56.900 | Today we've got to flip back to the other and recognize what the Scripture says.

01:44:00.380 | And so there are denominations where it's very clear.

01:44:04.500 | In Roman Catholicism, I would say you probably need to go to a Latin Mass.

01:44:10.380 | And if you find a Latin Mass, that's where you're going to find a lot of the men who

01:44:14.100 | are willing to stand up and lead.

01:44:15.980 | Because there's a flow of tradition that leads to the Latin Mass and all of that stuff that

01:44:26.100 | leads to men just saying, "Okay, I got to do it.

01:44:28.340 | I got to lead.

01:44:29.340 | I got to be strong.

01:44:30.340 | I got to take responsibility."

01:44:31.700 | In evangelical circles, there's a strong movement of that.

01:44:35.020 | In Reform circles, you can find it in a lot of fundamentalist gatherings.

01:44:41.220 | And so depending on kind of where you're going, basically you've got to find people who have

01:44:45.020 | a high view of Scripture and who are willing to submit themselves to what Scripture says.

01:44:50.460 | And I think that this is, in many ways, it's probably one of the biggest changes that is

01:44:55.860 | happening and will happen.

01:44:57.860 | Because in an appropriate relationship where men lead, to me it's obvious that women are

01:45:05.780 | happy.

01:45:06.780 | And when they're cared for and loved and lifted up, etc., and they're married to strong men,

01:45:12.780 | it leads to peace in the home and it passes on through the generations.

01:45:16.460 | I have almost no marriage problems, primarily because my entire life I grew up watching

01:45:22.460 | a happy, healthy marriage where my father was a strong man, my mother was a strong woman,

01:45:27.820 | they had a very clear hierarchy in the home, and watching the piece of that shows me how

01:45:34.980 | to do it.

01:45:35.980 | And so I try to—I'll finish with this—but what's frustrating a lot of times is that

01:45:42.300 | we often tend to be reactionary to the events of the day.

01:45:47.300 | And I especially am guilty of this—oh, sorry, I'm not guilty of this—so if somebody sees

01:45:53.500 | that, you know what, you're painting a building and the building is white and you're trying

01:45:58.620 | to get the building green.

01:46:02.060 | And one guy comes out and covers the building with red paint.

01:46:05.660 | Well, another guy comes out and starts using blue paint because he's trying to go the exact

01:46:09.980 | opposite direction.

01:46:10.980 | Now, at the end of the day, it winds up being green.

01:46:13.700 | But what happens in the meantime is that people get so latched on to a certain subject that

01:46:18.580 | they preach their message to an extreme degree.

01:46:22.900 | And a lot of times I think what we need to do is we need to understand why people are

01:46:27.660 | super hardcore about extremism, but just shoot straight up the middle.

01:46:31.420 | So to this subject, what you see right now is I see just some crazy stuff.

01:46:36.900 | Like you look—I follow the Manosphere and the Red Pill movement and whatnot, and I look

01:46:42.060 | at some of the guys, the things that these guys are doing, and the people who are popular,

01:46:46.860 | and I want nothing to do with them because they're a bunch of toxic—I'd like to use

01:46:51.380 | profane language—they're just toxic.

01:46:53.100 | I don't even know the smear that I could use that would express the feeling of my heart.

01:46:59.260 | And a lot of these guys, they're just—they're terrible human beings.

01:47:04.540 | And they put on this coat of masculinity, and it turns into slave drivers or just like

01:47:12.900 | a totally corrupt expression of this that I want nothing to do with.

01:47:17.940 | But then on the flip side, they think that it's only that, or roll over and wear your

01:47:22.460 | male feminist shirt.

01:47:24.460 | And it's just nonsense.

01:47:25.640 | You can do both.

01:47:26.980 | You can be a strong leader who is full of love.

01:47:30.000 | My favorite version of it is Aubrey Anderlin's Man of Steel and Velvet, and that's what I

01:47:34.100 | aspire to do.

01:47:35.100 | I want to be a man of absolute steel, and I want to be a man of velvet, because that's

01:47:39.820 | who Jesus was.

01:47:41.460 | And that is, to me, the aspiration that we have.

01:47:44.380 | And it may be that we have to, at this stage in time, we have to have a little bit more

01:47:49.380 | steel than we necessarily used to have, but it can change.

01:47:54.900 | And what is amazing is—what I think will happen in the future is every—sorry, I'm

01:48:00.580 | too long, but here's my final comment—all female-dominated churches eventually wither

01:48:07.340 | up and blow away.

01:48:08.900 | And there are a few basic reasons for that.

01:48:11.020 | Number one, men can attract men into church.

01:48:18.480 | Male-dominated churches can attract women, but female-dominated churches do not attract

01:48:24.500 | men.

01:48:25.500 | They repulse men.

01:48:26.500 | And so I have found that a lot of the strongest men don't even bother to go to church.

01:48:31.180 | They go other places.

01:48:32.460 | They still have their beliefs, but they're forming other communities, because the churches

01:48:35.140 | themselves are just repulsive.

01:48:37.180 | And it's everything.

01:48:38.180 | And it's people they don't even realize.

01:48:39.620 | It's effeminate music, it's effeminate pastors, it's pastors unwilling to tackle hard subjects,

01:48:45.020 | etc.

01:48:46.020 | Also, female-dominated churches often tend to collapse because they don't execute church

01:48:51.100 | discipline.

01:48:52.380 | Women do not want to execute church discipline.

01:48:55.900 | They don't want to excommunicate people.

01:48:57.580 | They don't want to bring discipline on their members.

01:48:59.700 | And then because of that, people—everything gets accepted.

01:49:03.380 | And when everything gets accepted, we stand for nothing, and the whole thing collapses.

01:49:08.180 | And so basically in the fullness of—and then what happens, it gets worse, is you attract

01:49:13.780 | more women, it becomes more and more feminized, it becomes more and more feminized, you have

01:49:17.820 | fewer men, and basically the pastor is preaching to a congregation of 70% women, women who

01:49:24.180 | come without their husbands, single women, etc.

01:49:27.360 | There's 30% men, but the 30% men themselves are not very masculine and strong, and eventually

01:49:31.660 | the thing falls apart.

01:49:32.660 | The problem is it takes decades and centuries for that to happen, but you've seen that happen

01:49:36.780 | clearly in evangelical Christianity in the United States with the absolute collapse of

01:49:41.380 | mainline Protestant denominations.

01:49:43.540 | So it can go the other way, though, is that when men get clear and they start to express

01:49:49.740 | themselves in a masculine way, and they start to talk about masculine things, it changes

01:49:55.380 | everything, and it's attractive to men.

01:49:58.380 | And when it's attractive to men, it's attractive to women, and those churches grow.

01:50:01.620 | And I could point to various denominations, I could point to various churches where you

01:50:05.300 | see that happening across the United States, and it's actually influencing a lot of the

01:50:10.340 | public debates, etc.

01:50:13.540 | And it leads to even things, I mean, again, have you ever been, I'll stop with it, but

01:50:18.660 | have you gone to a Latin Mass in the Roman Catholic tradition?

01:50:21.460 | No, not for a long time.

01:50:24.900 | You should go to a Latin Mass and compare it to the vernacular Mass that you may attend,

01:50:31.260 | and what I would bet you, here's a cold drink on my tab the next time we see you.

01:50:36.660 | You go to the Latin Mass, you'll see families that are about three times more common and

01:50:41.380 | much bigger, you'll see a lot more men, you'll see a lot more people who are serious about

01:50:46.820 | their faith, etc.

01:50:48.580 | It's just obvious from just watching them walk in, and what you will see is, you'll

01:50:55.980 | see what you're looking for if you go to there.

01:50:58.020 | And again, there are evangelical denominations, the same thing.

01:51:02.100 | But you're right that it is a significant thing that's happening across the culture,

01:51:06.820 | and it is affecting Christianity in a strong way.

01:51:10.580 | But there are out there, there are plenty of guys out there who are recognizing their

01:51:14.220 | responsibility, who are stepping up, and who are changing things.

01:51:19.380 | It's affecting the women too.

01:51:20.500 | The women feel the same way, a woman I was speaking with last time, she was poo-pooing

01:51:26.700 | the softness of Vatican II and all the speech, you know, all the easiness that got implemented

01:51:37.460 | when that came through the church, and how she wanted it to be, you know, where's the

01:51:41.420 | fasting, where's the penance, where's this all going, and where's the softness coming

01:51:47.980 | from?

01:51:48.980 | And we were talking about attending, it's a good suggestion, an Eastern Church service

01:51:54.300 | for that same reason, you know, where you're standing the whole time, and yeah, anyhow,

01:52:01.260 | I knew I'd get you going, I appreciate it, and it gives me a good place to start.

01:52:07.180 | And I intend to have these difficult conversations with the men around here, and I'm not the

01:52:11.980 | only guy that wants to have that conversation, and that wants to put that group together.

01:52:17.500 | And so I think, like you say, keep looking.

01:52:21.660 | One more, just like little data point.

01:52:27.420 | When I was growing up, I had zero exposure to Eastern Orthodoxy, zero.

01:52:34.480 | If somebody had asked me what it was, I didn't have a clue.

01:52:37.860 | I knew what evangelicals or Protestants were, I knew Roman Catholics, I had friends who

01:52:43.060 | were both.

01:52:44.060 | I didn't know anybody who was Eastern Orthodox.

01:52:46.980 | Over the last five years, I see nothing but Eastern Orthodox stuff, and I think this is

01:52:53.580 | a big reason, because finding liberal traditions within Orthodoxy is very much harder to find

01:52:59.700 | than it is in Roman Catholicism or in Protestantism.

01:53:03.620 | And the people that I watch who are attracted to Eastern Orthodoxy are generally strong

01:53:11.220 | masculine guys who just recognize how toxic so much of the rest of it is.

01:53:16.220 | And so, to your point, it's that there's something interesting.

01:53:19.820 | I ran into an Orthodox priest in an airport recently, and I was talking to him, and there's

01:53:25.180 | something about it where their tradition is attracting people for this specific reason.

01:53:31.460 | And I think what people are finding is that their doctrinal convictions in many cases

01:53:35.340 | are quite fluid, and they're more visceral than they are intellectual.

01:53:39.700 | And so it's interesting for theologians to sit around and argue about our distinctions

01:53:44.940 | and our doctrinal understandings among branches of Christianity and all of our denominations.

01:53:49.260 | But at the end of the day, most people don't have the patience for that, and they go where

01:53:54.900 | they feel something, and I mean that on a visceral level.

01:53:57.820 | Does this outfit have a future, as Gary North used to say?

01:54:00.780 | Are we going somewhere?

01:54:02.340 | And it's pretty obvious that some places are going somewhere and some places aren't, and

01:54:06.060 | that's what you can feel without even digging into the doctrine at all.

01:54:11.340 | Yeah.

01:54:12.340 | All right.

01:54:13.340 | Well, thank you very much.

01:54:15.060 | Yes.

01:54:16.060 | Thank you.

01:54:17.060 | All right.

01:54:18.060 | My pleasure.

01:54:19.060 | Fun questions.

01:54:20.060 | Like we said, Open Line Friday.

01:54:21.060 | Had two other callers that jumped off.

01:54:22.060 | That's fine.

01:54:23.060 | A two-hour show is plenty.

01:54:24.060 | I hope you enjoyed today's Friday Q&A show.

01:54:26.660 | Remember, these shows are open to you.

01:54:27.860 | I'll do my best.

01:54:28.860 | I'll always answer honestly, even when it's difficult, or even if you want to talk about

01:54:31.940 | the patriarchy, down with the patriarchy, smash the patriarchy, or promote the patriarchy.

01:54:37.500 | We'll try to answer honestly.

01:54:39.620 | So if you'd like to join me on next week's show, just go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.

01:54:45.700 | Remember last few days, sign up for the event in Panama, expatmoney.com/radical.

01:54:50.300 | Sign up for the event that I'm hosting in Panama, expatmoney.com/radical.

01:54:55.100 | Answered several questions today on infrastructure, and ironically, I didn't plant the questions,

01:55:04.060 | but I've been thinking about that because I think I'm going to release a little mini

01:55:08.020 | course here.

01:55:09.420 | Part of it basically just like resetting your financial infrastructure.

01:55:12.540 | So today's show motivates me to get that done here more quickly, and I think if this was

01:55:18.120 | useful for you, any of these infrastructure questions, keep your ears open for that course

01:55:26.020 | that hopefully will come out soon.

01:55:27.860 | And those of you who have been waiting on the retirement course to be finished, I'm

01:55:30.740 | still working on it.

01:55:31.740 | Just want to make a good version B, the non-beta version coming out, non-beta, the alpha version.

01:55:39.220 | Thank you for listening.

01:55:40.220 | Have a great weekend.

01:55:41.220 | Talk with you very soon.

01:56:09.940 | Bye.

2023-12-08_Friday_QA_show