2023_YE_Intrinsic_Extrinsic_Motivation_with_music_-_123023_1.05_AM
00:00:00.000 | Hello, everybody. It's Sam and Sydney from the Financial Samurai podcast. Happy holidays.
00:00:14.400 | In this final episode of 2023, we just wanted to recap some of our favorite episodes, highlight
00:00:20.520 | what we've been doing, some wins and losses, as well as understanding extrinsic versus
00:00:28.880 | intrinsic motivators. So how are you feeling, Sydney, about the year?
00:00:33.600 | I'm feeling okay. Usually around this time of year, I feel a little bit better, but I
00:00:39.360 | feel that this year was kind of tough in the first half for myself at least, but it's picked
00:00:46.220 | up a lot in the end of third quarter and fourth quarter. So I'm feeling a lot better now definitely
00:00:52.520 | than I was in the first half of the year. Tired though with the holidays, it's a lot.
00:00:57.240 | How about you? How are you feeling?
00:00:58.680 | I am absolutely exhausted. I haven't felt this exhausted since my banking days. We recorded
00:01:06.520 | 65 episodes in 2023, so that is more than one a week, and that is 35 episodes more than
00:01:15.520 | our goal. And I think part of that was because I finally learned how to use this podcast
00:01:20.600 | software to interview other people. So the whole world opened up and it was really fun
00:01:24.460 | to interview other people. However, every single episode takes hours and hours to record,
00:01:31.400 | to edit, to produce, and that really kind of took a lot out of me. Also, I published
00:01:37.720 | 156 new posts on Financial Samurai, so that's three posts a week. And that's been going
00:01:43.920 | on for over 14 years now, and July 2024 will be the 15th anniversary of Financial Samurai.
00:01:52.180 | So I'm exhausted.
00:01:53.180 | Exhausted for sure. That's a lot that you've done, not just this year, but in the whole
00:02:00.180 | course of Financial Samurai.
00:02:02.980 | And it's just – actually, if I only wrote and recorded podcasts, I would be totally
00:02:09.560 | fine. But of course, as you know, we have two little ones and they take a lot of time,
00:02:16.160 | a lot of patience, a lot of love. And that really – it's one of those things where
00:02:22.200 | it's not so much the cost of kids, it's actually the time it takes to raise kids and
00:02:27.240 | the energy required because you have to be present. And one of the things that I found
00:02:31.480 | out most was one of my goals for this year was to teach our son to swim. And then he
00:02:38.120 | finally swam after we took off his floaties this summer. And if you want to learn how
00:02:42.960 | to be present, you should teach your children how to swim. It will teach you presence. It
00:02:48.120 | will teach you focus. It will teach you patience because you can't look away. You can't
00:02:53.280 | look away for more than two seconds, I would say. Otherwise, anything could happen and
00:02:59.880 | bad things could happen when it comes to swimming.
00:03:01.920 | Yeah. I totally feel you. I didn't do much time in the water with the kids this year,
00:03:08.880 | but I was in the water some and yeah, it's a lot. Just taking care of kids in general
00:03:15.080 | takes a lot of energy. It's rewarding, no doubt, but it also takes a lot of energy and
00:03:20.800 | focus.
00:03:21.800 | Yeah, absolutely. So out of the 65 episodes, Sydney, what were some of your favorites?
00:03:27.160 | First one that comes to mind was the Shawn Livingston episode that you did. I really
00:03:32.440 | enjoyed that dialogue. I also loved the Mike Katchmark episode. That was one of the crown
00:03:39.560 | jewels I think of the whole year. Amazing insights into such a huge lawsuit. I really
00:03:48.360 | am looking forward to seeing how the real estate industry is going to change for the
00:03:53.720 | better for consumers. I also really enjoyed the Charlie Albright episode. Between the
00:04:01.220 | ones that we did, I liked the full benefit episode that we did. Then the discussions
00:04:07.720 | that we had about deciding whether or not we should buy a home. I thought those were
00:04:12.000 | some great conversations that we had. How about your favorites?
00:04:16.520 | Yeah, I definitely loved talking to Shawn Livingston, four-time NBA champ. It's just
00:04:22.060 | amazing that someone was able to win not once, but four times, three as a player, one as
00:04:29.320 | an executive. I mean, talk about an amazing, amazing ride from knee injury during his initial
00:04:36.260 | years to lasting 15 years in the NBA. The average NBA career is only four and a half
00:04:40.560 | years and most people don't win championships. One of the key things that Shawn taught me
00:04:46.640 | to be great, to be successful, is to keep showing up and do the things you have to do
00:04:52.840 | even when you don't want to do them. That really resonated with me this year because
00:04:59.880 | I would have to admit many times on a Saturday night or a Saturday morning, I didn't want
00:05:04.800 | to write the newsletter for Sunday morning because I was tired. I was thinking, "Come
00:05:08.680 | on, it's Saturday. Why can't I just relax and spend time with the kids or just veg out
00:05:13.920 | a little bit?" But I kept showing up and I wrote. As I wrote, it's a muscle. You just
00:05:20.600 | keep on getting better. But to be honest, sometimes I just didn't want to do it. Thank
00:05:26.240 | you, Shawn, for coming on the Financial Samurai Podcast. I also like Mike Ketchmark, who is
00:05:30.720 | the trial attorney who found the real estate industry or the National Association of Realtors,
00:05:37.200 | Keller Williams and some other brokerage guilty of collusion. If you think about it, over
00:05:42.880 | the past 20 years, commission rates in almost every single industry has declined and is
00:05:48.400 | close to zero except for the real estate industry. Why is that? Well, there's this powerful lobbying
00:05:55.160 | group out there and this powerful system out there that keeps commissions high.
00:06:00.120 | I also liked Jamie Fiori Higgins. She was a managing director at Goldman Sachs. I think
00:06:05.600 | she started a year before me, same at One York Plaza, and she was able to get to MD.
00:06:12.320 | She described her journey and told amazing stories in a wonderful book called Bully Markets,
00:06:19.000 | which I highly recommend anybody read over the winter break, summer vacation, spring
00:06:23.560 | break. It's so entertaining. It's so fun. I really enjoyed that conversation.
00:06:28.560 | Those were my three favorites.
00:06:30.240 | Yes. Some amazing, amazing conversations you've had throughout the year and wonderful highlights.
00:06:38.760 | Looking back on the year, what were some of your top wins and losses?
00:06:45.480 | One of the wins, financially speaking, was that the stock market did better than expected.
00:06:52.320 | I was like 40% chance we'd be up 10%, which means 60% chance we'd be not up 10%. Maybe
00:06:59.840 | 23% chance we'd be down again. The S&P 500 closed up 24%, which is huge. Given we have
00:07:07.720 | about 30% of our net worth in the S&P 500 mostly, that was a positive.
00:07:14.840 | Now on the negative, real estate, I expected an 8% decline in real estate prices, median
00:07:20.280 | real estate prices. It looks like that's what happened according to the St. Louis Fed data.
00:07:25.880 | But if you look at other median home price data, like the Case-Shiller and other indices
00:07:31.280 | like the Freddie Mac Index, it shows prices were up 3% to 4%. It just depends on where
00:07:38.020 | you look. But here, at least in San Francisco, prices were down, probably mid-single digits,
00:07:44.000 | which was fine. Our real estate portfolio probably declined by about 5%, but we mostly
00:07:50.440 | own single-family homes with great ocean views, so they outperformed, I would say.
00:07:55.680 | So financially speaking, I thought we were going to see a 3.5%, maybe 4% decline in net
00:08:01.800 | worth, where we saw an 8.5% increase in net worth. So that was an upside surprise.
00:08:06.940 | Another win was being able to teach our son how to swim. That was just awesome to see,
00:08:13.480 | and now he's swimming down 10 feet and grabbing plastic octopuses and fishies and rockets.
00:08:20.400 | It's really cool to see. And so I was really, really gung-ho about that. So I said, "Hey,
00:08:25.640 | why not teach our daughter to swim?" And at 3.5%, she flung off her floaties and she started
00:08:31.400 | to swim as well. So it's been great. Those are kind of things that stick out most to
00:08:36.440 | me. How about you?
00:08:38.000 | First thing that pops into my mind was getting my passport replaced and getting my mom to
00:08:47.120 | Japan and home safely. I had a lot of work to do before that to prepare for this trip
00:08:53.160 | because I'm helping her with some family matters that we need to square away. So the trip was
00:08:58.520 | successful. That was a huge win.
00:09:00.960 | I also learned how to edit podcasts, which wasn't something that I had planned to do
00:09:07.520 | when I started the year, but it's actually been a really helpful skill. So for those
00:09:12.840 | of you who are listening, there's a good chance that I had to edit out a bunch of pauses or
00:09:18.120 | ums or sounds in the background. And it's been a really fun learning experience that
00:09:25.200 | I think has hopefully improved your listening experience.
00:09:30.320 | And another thing is we started to dive into your upcoming second book. We did a lot of
00:09:37.800 | brainstorming, putting together the ideas for each of the chapters, and I helped with
00:09:44.000 | getting a lot of research prepared. So I'm really excited about where that's going into
00:09:49.120 | 2024.
00:09:50.120 | That's right. We are writing another book. And that's actually one of the reasons why
00:09:55.200 | I felt more tired and stressed in 2023 because writing a book takes a lot of work. Some people
00:10:02.880 | write books full time for a living, especially with these type of contracts and this type
00:10:09.720 | of commitment to Portfolio Penguin, which is one of the top publishers, nonfiction publishers
00:10:14.280 | in the world.
00:10:15.520 | So taking on that challenge was tough. So it's not just one book deal. It's a two book
00:10:21.160 | deal after Buy This, Not That.
00:10:23.240 | And then speaking of Buy This, Not That, it's so funny because the book went on to be a
00:10:26.760 | Wall Street Journal bestseller. And I was contacted by a reporter from the Wall Street
00:10:31.040 | Journal who asked me about my interest in collecting books. And if you don't know this,
00:10:36.760 | I collect books. I collect rare Chinese art, coins, baseball cards. I collect anything
00:10:43.960 | there is in existence. I don't know. I've done that since I was a kid. I don't know
00:10:47.400 | if you remember like Cabbage Patch Kids and all that. I would have collected that too,
00:10:50.840 | but I didn't have money back then.
00:10:52.680 | But in terms of collecting books, it's interesting because he asked me, how do you identify books
00:10:58.040 | to collect? And I say, well, I look for up and coming or relatively unknown authors.
00:11:04.360 | And I look for first print editions. And if they're signed, great, because books that
00:11:11.400 | are signed during the pandemic, I think are more valuable because there was a throttling
00:11:15.320 | down a supply of signed books.
00:11:18.120 | And so I got to thinking about my book, our book, Buy This, Not That. And it's first edition,
00:11:24.440 | first print. And it's interesting, there's typos in it where the editor typed in the
00:11:29.960 | word debt, as in D-E-P-T instead of D-E-B-T. And he did that several times. I was like,
00:11:37.320 | oh, what did you guys do that for?
00:11:39.440 | But anyway, the funny thing is if there is an error or typo in the first print, it actually
00:11:44.400 | makes the books more valuable. So after the Wall Street Journal reporter contacted me
00:11:50.760 | and the story will probably come out over the next 30 days, I was like, well, maybe
00:11:54.600 | I should buy more of my books because they're trading so inexpensively on Amazon at a discount.
00:12:01.280 | I'll just sign my book and stockpile that supply and then sit on it for 20 years and
00:12:07.240 | watch it increase in value potentially, because I also know I'm going to write another book.
00:12:11.880 | And if these subsequent books grow in popularity and become just more famous and all that stuff,
00:12:18.760 | the value of that first edition, first print, Buy This, Not That will also go up. So for
00:12:23.680 | me, I'm like, oh, $18 to buy my own book? And actually, I can get a discount as an author.
00:12:30.680 | That might be a good investment for 2024. So sorry for that side note tangent, but I
00:12:35.320 | just thought it was interesting.
00:12:36.320 | So yes, book, that is a work in progress, but that also really gave me stress because
00:12:43.280 | I had to think about it. And this mental energy to create, it does take a lot of energy. It
00:12:48.920 | does take a lot out of me. It's just kind of like when you do a podcast or have a meeting
00:12:53.640 | after 30 minutes or an hour, I don't know, for me, sometimes I just want to go take a
00:12:57.080 | nap.
00:12:58.080 | Naps are critical.
00:13:00.840 | Also I forgot to share some of my fails. One of my goals in 2023 was to see my parents
00:13:05.480 | twice. That sounds sad, but they live in Honolulu and I only saw them once. I flew them out
00:13:11.160 | in June along with my sister and her boyfriend and it was a great time. Great to see the
00:13:16.200 | kids. I have this dream that our kids will get to know their grandparents. It seems like
00:13:21.480 | a basic dream, but it's surprisingly the hardest thing I've been trying to do for years now.
00:13:29.960 | And so I've only saw them once, which is not twice. So that's a fail.
00:13:33.760 | The other failure is I injured my back, lower back twice. The first time was sitting cross-legged
00:13:40.440 | on the ground. I was signing books for a Maui fundraiser. I was able to sign 280 books and
00:13:46.280 | send them individually to subscribers of the newsletter who donated $65 or more to the
00:13:52.280 | Maui Strong Fund or other similar funds to support the Maui victims. And after an hour
00:13:57.560 | of signing, my back just gave out. I felt this crumbling of my lower vertebrae and I
00:14:04.280 | couldn't get up. So I had to call you or I texted you to help me get up and sit on the
00:14:09.440 | sofa. You remember that?
00:14:10.440 | Yes, I remember that. It was terrifying.
00:14:13.560 | I couldn't believe it. I mean, I like to sit on the floor. It's just the way I am. But
00:14:18.960 | it just gave out. And I think there was like this sadness every single time I was writing
00:14:24.400 | a note and signing each book about why there was so much devastation. How could this have
00:14:32.920 | happened? And so I really believe in the mind-body connection. And one of my favorite books is
00:14:37.840 | Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain. If you have chronic pain, you got to read that book because
00:14:42.880 | the mind really can debilitate or uplift the body. I truly believe that.
00:14:49.760 | And then the second time I injured my lower back was 8.15 p.m. at night in Golden Gate
00:14:54.440 | Park. I guess I was only warming up for like five, six minutes playing against these 24
00:14:59.720 | to 28-year-olds in pickleball. And the very first point, there was a dink, which is called
00:15:06.400 | a short drop, and I went to lunge after it. And then I just jammed some nerves in my lower
00:15:11.920 | vertebrae. And then for 30 hours, I couldn't really move after that either. So it's pretty
00:15:19.480 | sad, folks. As you age, I think your mind ages slower than your body. Not everyone,
00:15:26.920 | but at least for me, I feel I'm much more with it than my body. It's starting to fade
00:15:31.800 | faster. And so if you don't align your mind and your body correctly, injuries could happen.
00:15:38.840 | Yeah, it's not fun getting old. Not at all.
00:15:42.960 | It's not at all. So I wanted to conclude by talking about intrinsic versus extrinsic
00:15:49.920 | motivation. This was a surprise epiphany to me because many people have asked me, how
00:15:57.960 | do you keep on writing for so long, so consistently? And I tell them I have this intrinsic motivation
00:16:05.400 | to write because I enjoy the process of writing. I also want to chronicle my life so I can
00:16:12.200 | provide some touch points for our children just in case I were to die young. I have this
00:16:17.520 | not constant, but I have this maybe quarterly reminder that life is short because when I
00:16:24.720 | was young, 13 years old, my friend who was 15 years old died in a car accident. And ever
00:16:30.040 | since that time, I've just thought to myself, wow, I could be gone any minute. So let's
00:16:36.880 | not waste it. And it's really one of the main reasons why I decided to retire early at 34
00:16:43.960 | because I wanted to hedge against an early death. I felt every year I lived after 15
00:16:48.720 | years old was a blessing because my friend didn't live past 15. And it's stuck with me
00:16:54.400 | all this time, ever since I was 13. And so I felt intrinsically motivated to do as much
00:17:01.000 | as possible in my work, in my creativity. And that was my answer. And then so one day,
00:17:07.080 | I remember this year, I recorded a podcast and I pressed publish. And I took the kids
00:17:12.880 | out for three to four hours. And I came back and I asked you, did you listen to the podcast?
00:17:17.840 | What do you think? And then you were like, oh, no, I haven't listened to it yet. So truthfully,
00:17:22.760 | I was a little bit disappointed. I was like, oh, okay, well, no worries. You're probably
00:17:26.240 | busy doing other things. You got a lot of things going on. And then so I thought nothing
00:17:31.160 | of it after that. But the next day, I published a new post. And I was out with the kids for
00:17:36.680 | two, three hours or whatever it was. And I said, what do you think about the post? And
00:17:41.760 | you're like, oh, I didn't read it yet. And then at that point, I was disappointed. Because
00:17:50.480 | the one person who I want to read my posts and listen to my podcast more than anybody
00:17:56.340 | else is you, because you're my partner in crime. You've been my partner in crime since
00:18:00.720 | we were in college, and you didn't listen or read. And again, you're a busy person,
00:18:06.120 | you have plenty of things to do. You always eventually read it and listen to the podcast.
00:18:12.360 | But I remember at that point thinking to myself, huh, well, if she's not reading or listening,
00:18:18.160 | well, why continue? Why bother? Why bother writing three times a week? That's a lot and
00:18:23.640 | I'm tired. I remember that really clearly. And then I had another realization. And that
00:18:30.600 | realization was that I had miscategorized what intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is
00:18:39.440 | regarding you. So extrinsic motivation generally is like accolades, awards, money, promotions,
00:18:46.240 | right? Those are extrinsic motivators. Intrinsic motivators are things like, you know, your
00:18:51.960 | own self desire, basically, something that drives you. And I had mistakenly categorized
00:18:59.440 | your affection or your acknowledgement of my work as an intrinsic motivator. But it's
00:19:07.040 | really an extrinsic motivator. I just want to feel appreciated by you for the work that
00:19:12.800 | I do, which helps keep our lifestyle going. And so as soon as I recognized that and moved
00:19:19.960 | you from intrinsic to extrinsic, I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I said, you know
00:19:25.400 | what? I have to do this because I want to do it. I want to do it because I enjoy creating.
00:19:29.960 | I enjoy helping others and helping people think about their financial problems and helping
00:19:34.600 | solve these financial problems, which I've gone through many a times since 2009. And
00:19:40.280 | there are always new problems to face with new suboptimal and optimal decisions. And
00:19:46.680 | so once I realized that, I was like, ah, okay. And then I kept on going and I didn't quit
00:19:52.080 | my cadence. What are your thoughts on extrinsic motivators and intrinsic motivators?
00:19:56.480 | I totally hear what you're saying. And when we have any type of misaligned expectations
00:20:03.200 | that can lead to disappointment, whereas if we're not expecting acknowledgement, then
00:20:08.360 | it doesn't really matter. We just are doing what we need to do or want to do for ourselves.
00:20:14.120 | No, that's absolutely right. For example, my mother doesn't read basically any of my
00:20:20.800 | posts. And back in 2009, maybe I would have been disappointed. But now I'm like, oh, that's
00:20:27.520 | okay. I'm not writing for her. If she wants to figure out what I'm up to, then she can
00:20:32.960 | always pop over to Financial Samurai. But I'm just writing for myself and for the readers
00:20:36.640 | and producing for the listeners. And that has made me pretty happy overall and pretty
00:20:42.960 | disciplined in terms of the creation side of things. But what I do realize is that some
00:20:51.240 | people need a greater kick in the pants than others. And I think everybody realizes that
00:20:58.640 | we don't fully appreciate what we have until it's gone. And I am just interested in knowing
00:21:05.320 | why some people need to be pushed more than others. What kind of self-discipline do you
00:21:11.680 | have to pursue your passions or the things that you want to do? What are the drivers
00:21:17.060 | that make you succeed in the things that you enjoy doing?
00:21:21.480 | I would say when I was a student and when I was working in a traditional job, I had
00:21:28.000 | a lot of high expectations for myself. So I really wanted to make sure that I was doing
00:21:34.960 | the best that I could, that I was meeting all of the expectations that were required
00:21:40.760 | of my job, but going above and beyond that as well. Because I like the feeling of being
00:21:47.120 | accomplished and doing things well. And I was very motivated to get promoted when I
00:21:53.480 | was working in a regular corporate environment. And outside of that, I think motivating factors
00:22:02.240 | would be doing something that's fun, something that can help other people and earn money
00:22:09.680 | in the process. I think all those things are good motivators to work hard and succeed.
00:22:15.240 | How about you?
00:22:16.240 | I've always had some internal drive to do the best that I can because I really feel
00:22:22.160 | icky, feel bad when I don't give it everything I've got and I fail. Because if you've
00:22:27.720 | given it everything you've got, everything, and you fail, it's okay. You did your best.
00:22:34.480 | What more can you do? But if you half-ass it, you give 70%, 80%, even just 90% and you
00:22:40.960 | fail, I personally will always regret not having tried my best. So I don't know where
00:22:47.920 | this intrinsic motivation comes from, whether it's playing tennis or pickleball or writing.
00:22:56.960 | It's like Miyagi-san, I don't know, in The Karate Kid, it's like karate do, you've got
00:23:02.120 | to do it, don't do it in the middle or otherwise you're going to get squished like a grape.
00:23:06.960 | Don't do it half-ass. You want to do it as best as you can. Do you have that type of
00:23:13.360 | guilt in terms of not doing the best that you can or do you feel more like, "Eh, it's
00:23:20.520 | okay. Good enough is good enough."
00:23:22.360 | I feel like this is a trick question.
00:23:26.360 | I don't know. I mean, let's just think about it for our children, right? Or the people
00:23:31.480 | that we love. How do we instill that self-motivation or is it genetic? It just can't be taught.
00:23:41.480 | You either got to want it yourself or that's it. You can't do it.
00:23:47.200 | That's a tough question when it comes to kids. I don't know. I do feel that, at least with
00:23:53.080 | our kids, they both have this sense of wanting to do things on their own where it's just
00:24:01.080 | this inner drive of, "Let me do it. I want to do it myself." Between the two of them,
00:24:08.160 | I definitely see it in her more, but I think both of them want to do well in the things
00:24:12.600 | that they like to do.
00:24:14.520 | Right now at age four and six, it's playing with toys or drawing, something like that.
00:24:21.840 | Something incredibly complicated. I do think they feel proud when they do well at something.
00:24:27.600 | That's interesting you bring that up because I relate to them. When they make a drawing
00:24:33.480 | or do something and they say, "Look, Mommy. Look, Daddy." That's the same thing how I
00:24:36.880 | feel when I write or I produce an episode. I'm like, "Hey, guys. Did you read it? Did
00:24:42.080 | you look at it?" I feel the exact same way. I think all of us crave kind of acknowledgement,
00:24:46.840 | especially creators who put themselves out there. They just want to be read, seen, heard,
00:24:51.400 | and acknowledged. That's all. We don't want lots of money. We just want to be heard.
00:24:57.200 | Maybe someone leaves a comment and says, "Hey, good job and here are my thoughts." It's actually
00:25:01.200 | a really simple dynamics. You put yourself out there, you create, you hope to be recognized.
00:25:08.640 | I think the answer to my own question is that self-determination is mostly genetic. 70%
00:25:15.680 | genetic. 30% can be taught. I think what we have to do is teach by example. This summer,
00:25:24.840 | I made our son and daughter do landscaping. We picked up rocks. We bagged weeds, did all
00:25:31.440 | that. I got down deep and dirty. I hope they saw and appreciate that and remember that
00:25:39.280 | so that it's not just me telling them what to do but I'm actually participating with
00:25:44.160 | my hands and knees as well. I think we can only show and do our best, but I think 70%
00:25:51.640 | is genetics. The more I see it, it's like no matter what we say or do, we just can't
00:25:58.360 | change them as much as we want, which is really liberating because then we can just let go
00:26:04.720 | and let nature take its course. What do you think about that?
00:26:08.520 | Yeah, I do think there's only so much that we can do. I definitely will continue to give
00:26:15.840 | it my all and do my best to turn them into good kids and good adults later on. At some
00:26:24.760 | point, we have to let go. There's only so much that we can do. They are their own individual
00:26:31.800 | people who are going to make their own decisions as adults. At that point, there's really not
00:26:38.280 | much that we can do. I definitely want to give it my all along the way.
00:26:44.040 | I think that's the other thing. Let's forget about kids. Let's talk about you and me, partners,
00:26:49.960 | friends. We can tell people to do something all day long, but at the end of the day, it's
00:26:57.280 | up to them to do it. It's up to you to do it, listeners. I can make suggestions on asset
00:27:02.920 | allocation or saving more money or finding side hustles, but at the end of the day, it's
00:27:08.760 | up to you to do it. If you want to do it bad enough, you're going to find a way to do it.
00:27:14.040 | If you don't want to do it bad enough, you're not going to do it. I think long term, everything
00:27:18.360 | is pretty rational. That is really a great way to let go of any kind of frustrations.
00:27:25.120 | That's a way that I've been able to cope with some of my frustrations when a reader says,
00:27:31.480 | "I just can't do it." I'm like, "Okay, well, it's probably because you prefer to do something
00:27:35.480 | else."
00:27:37.640 | That's our little life lesson and epiphanies for 2023. For 2024, I'm excited. I'm always
00:27:44.000 | excited in the new year. We plan to release at least a couple episodes a month. Hopefully,
00:27:49.160 | we'll have some continued good dialogue between you and me. Hopefully, I'll be able to find
00:27:53.680 | some other great guests to come on the podcast. Maybe we'll even get some sponsors. Who knows?
00:27:59.360 | Each podcast takes several hours to record, edit, and produce. We always appreciate your
00:28:05.840 | reviews, your shares. It's what keeps us motivated. We really want to thank you for your support
00:28:12.040 | in 2023 and in the new year. Thanks so much and happy holidays again.
00:28:17.120 | Happy new year, everybody.
00:28:18.120 | Bye-bye.
00:28:18.280 | Bye-bye.
00:28:19.880 | [music]
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