2024-01-01_Friday

00:00:00.000 | Today on Radical Personal Finance, it's a live Q&A.

00:00:18.240 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,

00:00:21.120 | skills, insights, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while

00:00:25.040 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

00:00:27.380 | My name is Joshua Sheets.

00:00:28.380 | I am your host.

00:00:29.380 | It is Monday, January 1, 2024, the first live Q&A show of the new year.

00:00:35.800 | Kicking it off in style.

00:00:37.260 | Thank you for being here with me.

00:00:50.640 | Each and every Friday here at Radical Personal Finance, when I am able to arrange the technology,

00:00:54.640 | we normally do live Q&A.

00:00:56.200 | Those live Q&A shows are available generally to patrons of the show, but I decided to kick

00:01:00.060 | off the show with a special – kick off the new year with a special live Q&A show, something

00:01:04.860 | that I really enjoy doing.

00:01:06.080 | It makes it easy for me.

00:01:07.600 | You guys call me up.

00:01:08.600 | You talk to me about such interesting things, bring up all kinds of interesting topics and

00:01:12.100 | I love doing it.

00:01:13.100 | So if you'd like to join me for one of these future shows, please make sure to become a

00:01:15.420 | patron of the show.

00:01:16.500 | You can become a patron at patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance, patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.

00:01:21.420 | To begin with Hadi in Texas, Hadi, welcome to the show, or is it Hadi or Harry?

00:01:25.680 | >> Hari.

00:01:26.680 | >> Okay.

00:01:27.680 | It says H-A-R-I.

00:01:28.680 | So I figured it was probably a Hadi.

00:01:29.680 | Hadi, welcome.

00:01:30.680 | How can I serve you today?

00:01:31.680 | >> Thank you so much, Joshua.

00:01:33.600 | Everyone is happy to have someone in their life and I'm happy to have you in my life

00:01:38.500 | because you have pretty much influenced many things in my life.

00:01:45.240 | Thank you for referring to the math academy and we are using that.

00:01:50.320 | >> Wonderful.

00:01:51.320 | Thank you so much.

00:01:52.960 | >> My age is 49, my wife is 47, I have two kids, 17 and 14.

00:01:59.120 | Our income is about $300,000 per year.

00:02:02.160 | We have a net worth of $2.3 million, roughly split into a million in real estate, a million

00:02:07.960 | in 401k, 200k in 529 college savings, 100k in CDs and brokerage.

00:02:14.800 | I max out 401k and HSA.

00:02:18.200 | Our monthly expense is about $5,000.

00:02:21.120 | What should I do with my surplus income?

00:02:22.760 | We live in Texas.

00:02:23.760 | >> How much is the total surplus income right now if you continue to do all of those things?

00:02:28.680 | >> Yeah, probably $8,000 to $9,000 a month.

00:02:32.880 | >> What are your goals?

00:02:34.800 | What do you want to do?

00:02:35.800 | Like, why would you invest into anything?

00:02:37.520 | What are you trying to accomplish with your money?

00:02:41.080 | >> I'm not trying to accomplish anything.

00:02:42.920 | Everything I want is already there in my life, so there's nothing more I want.

00:02:47.480 | There's nothing more I need.

00:02:50.320 | And I'm not a big fan of charity, so I'm not passionate about it, I would say that.

00:02:58.560 | So the extra income is just going to be accumulating.

00:03:01.680 | >> Do you want to retire at some point?

00:03:04.880 | >> I mean, I can do whatever I would do in retirement today.

00:03:12.160 | My workload is very minimal.

00:03:15.440 | I could watch movies, sleep during the day.

00:03:17.760 | I could do whatever I want during the day.

00:03:20.320 | So it's not something -- there's no constraint in my life right now that I have to leave

00:03:30.280 | my job to go somewhere.

00:03:31.800 | Plus, my kids are still studying, so I have to be in a school district that they are used

00:03:36.520 | to.

00:03:40.160 | >> Your wife is not currently earning an income, is that correct?

00:03:43.640 | >> She's also working.

00:03:44.720 | So it's two of us working.

00:03:46.480 | >> And does she want to retire?

00:03:48.160 | >> Nope.

00:03:49.160 | >> She's also satisfied with her work life?

00:03:52.480 | >> Yeah, it's not any pressure.

00:03:56.440 | Life is good.

00:04:01.160 | >> What you choose to invest in is going to be determined by what you're trying to accomplish.

00:04:07.520 | And so you're already using all of the standard financial models, all the standard accounts,

00:04:13.200 | 401ks, 529s, et cetera, and you have everything squared away.

00:04:17.960 | To me, the biggest thing -- and if you continue on this pathway, you continue earning the

00:04:22.600 | way you're earning, you continue investing the way that you're investing, then you will

00:04:25.600 | continue to accumulate a significant amount of money in the fullness of time.

00:04:29.880 | The first thing to pay attention to is the ages of your children.

00:04:32.560 | They are currently 17 and 14.

00:04:35.600 | And there are two aspects to the age of children that I think are really important to pay attention

00:04:39.340 | to.

00:04:40.340 | Number one, very soon you will no longer have minor children, which means very soon the

00:04:46.040 | relationship with your children will change dramatically.

00:04:49.800 | And I really believe that one of your primary focuses should be to maximize the relationship

00:04:54.960 | with your children.

00:04:56.340 | And if you can spend money on that profitably, that's something that you should do.

00:05:01.200 | It may be that you were very frugal in the past and you didn't do a lot, you didn't spend

00:05:05.800 | a lot, et cetera, but now you have more resources, and so investing into your relationship with

00:05:10.760 | your children, to me, seems like a very smart way to invest money.

00:05:15.360 | If that means spending more money on, you know, fancy international travel, buying more

00:05:19.700 | toys that you can enjoy together, to me, that's some of the best money you're ever going to

00:05:23.520 | spend.

00:05:24.880 | You know, I like -- there's a YouTube channel that I enjoy called Wrangler Star.

00:05:30.280 | Wrangler Star is this guy.

00:05:31.280 | His name is Cody.

00:05:32.280 | He's out in Washington area, in Washington state.

00:05:36.840 | And what's interesting is that Cody started with nothing, and then over time he made it

00:05:41.360 | big on YouTube, now has lots of money from his YouTube business, et cetera.

00:05:45.840 | But I really admire how he's done a good job of spending money to cultivate his relationship

00:05:51.480 | with his son.

00:05:52.480 | And specifically what he's done is he cultivated things like motor sports.

00:05:57.280 | So for a time it was off-road motorcycles, then it became snow biking.

00:06:02.360 | And he has spent and spends enormous amounts of money to have these fancy motorcycles that

00:06:08.240 | he rides with his son, and these fancy snow bikes, and they go off and they enjoy it together.

00:06:13.320 | And I'm using that as a metaphor to say that if I've got a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old

00:06:17.760 | and I've got money, then I'm going to say how can -- first, before anything else, I'm

00:06:22.360 | going to say first and foremost, how can I spend money on activities that will make it

00:06:27.520 | really productive for me to hang out with my children and to invest into that relationship?

00:06:34.000 | Because four or five years from now, your 17-year-old will be 22, 23, probably be more

00:06:40.360 | engaged with career, probably be more engaged with his own goals, et cetera, and you'll

00:06:44.840 | want to have that time back.

00:06:47.200 | But with a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old, the actual activities that you do are something

00:06:52.560 | that you'll want to actually do something.

00:06:56.160 | It's not like when you're seven and, "Hey, let's just hang around the house."

00:06:59.040 | You want to actually spend money doing something.

00:07:01.620 | So that's the first thing I would focus on, because 10 years from now, you're not going

00:07:05.000 | to have those same opportunities.

00:07:07.540 | Related to that, I think it's really important to build a vision for your family and say,

00:07:12.880 | how can I spend money profitably on this long-term vision for my family?

00:07:17.440 | And so I released a podcast episode, can't remember if it was this year or last, but

00:07:21.960 | basically on why a vacation home may be a really great investment into your family.

00:07:26.440 | And I wholeheartedly believe that that is something that most people should consider.

00:07:30.480 | So being frugal and just having one home may not develop as much of the relationships and

00:07:37.960 | the environment that you want as if you go ahead and purchase a second home and make

00:07:42.920 | it a second home that's really nice, really convenient, et cetera.

00:07:46.840 | Now in terms of investing into your children, I think this is also something that you could

00:07:52.040 | spend money on to help them.

00:07:54.360 | And so one of my ambitions as a father is to make certain that I have the basic infrastructure

00:08:01.240 | in our home and in our lifestyle to help support my children's social lives.

00:08:07.240 | Because the friends that they have and the relationships that they build will be very,

00:08:11.120 | very useful to them.

00:08:13.280 | But if they don't feel like they have the basic infrastructure to support that, then

00:08:19.880 | they may not be as socially competent or as socially fulfilled as they otherwise could

00:08:24.080 | be.

00:08:25.080 | So a simple example is that when I was younger, one of my close friends, his family had a

00:08:29.160 | theater room.

00:08:30.160 | It wasn't as fancy as you might see in a Rob Report special that didn't have theater chairs,

00:08:34.960 | et cetera.

00:08:35.960 | It had a big couch, a set-aside room, a big couch, and basically a projector on a 20-to-25-foot

00:08:43.500 | screen onto the wall, and then a nice surround sound system.

00:08:48.260 | But because he had that basic infrastructure, then his house was the go-to place for us

00:08:56.720 | to go and watch movies.

00:08:58.120 | It was always the house because of this 25-foot screen and nice surround sound system.

00:09:03.000 | And for young people, having your house that's the destination is really, really helpful

00:09:10.360 | to support your social life.

00:09:12.240 | And then for you as a parent, it's really helpful for you as a parent because now you

00:09:15.960 | can get to know your children's friends very well.

00:09:18.960 | You're not isolated from them.

00:09:20.240 | You're very involved in what's going on, and I think that's a really great structure for

00:09:25.160 | life.

00:09:26.160 | The same friend also had a private water ski lake outside of the house, a ski boat, et

00:09:32.040 | cetera.

00:09:33.040 | And those things create really good, useful ways to build relationships.

00:09:37.440 | So if you don't currently have a water ski boat or a wakeboard boat, if you don't currently

00:09:42.280 | have a really great game room at home and a really awesome system for your children

00:09:48.200 | to play the kinds of games or watch movies or whatever the kinds of activities that they're

00:09:52.200 | into, then that would be the first thing that I would look at in terms of investing into

00:09:56.600 | your children.

00:09:57.600 | Now related to that, I think, so I guess, excuse me, first it was experiences with you

00:10:02.000 | together, second into their social life.

00:10:04.560 | Third would be that I think you should invest into them directly, but not strictly into

00:10:09.120 | the college environment.

00:10:10.400 | And so the big imbalance that I see all the time is that people have a 529 account, and

00:10:14.400 | they think that successfully graduating from college is going to be the thing that launches

00:10:19.120 | their children's success.

00:10:20.680 | But a lot of times spending more money on other things to support them, encourage them

00:10:24.800 | in their areas of interest, and to encourage them to go far and wide, to build independence

00:10:29.920 | at an early age, that's going to be a really great move.

00:10:34.120 | Now pivoting from that, there are two basic ideas, two different paths that you go down

00:10:40.720 | with long-term financial planning.

00:10:42.600 | The first path is the path of hedonistic consumption.

00:10:45.720 | And so you start to increase your personal consumption to a higher level that matches

00:10:51.080 | your current income.

00:10:52.880 | Based upon what you've said so far, I doubt that's going to be a good fit for you.

00:10:56.880 | However, the other path you also kind of discounted, you said the charitable path.

00:11:02.040 | But I would say that I don't like the word charity very much, because I think that undersells

00:11:06.120 | the basic concept.

00:11:09.040 | You may not like giving money away because you don't like some of the organizations that

00:11:14.800 | have so far requested your money.

00:11:17.120 | But I don't know that that absolves you from being interested in the thing that's probably

00:11:21.240 | the biggest long-term passion for you.

00:11:23.720 | If you can find a particular area of interest, a particular problem that you want to solve,

00:11:29.040 | then to me, that's where you should be investing your money.

00:11:32.280 | And I believe, I'm not going to take you through that process here in the context of this particular

00:11:36.880 | public call, but what I would say is that over the coming years, especially as your

00:11:41.880 | children start to be grown, et cetera, you and your wife should identify a list of things

00:11:47.240 | that you believe are wrong in the world, some things that you would like to change.

00:11:51.080 | And then you should start to involve yourselves in a process of engaging with those particular

00:11:56.080 | issues, finding out what other people who also want to change those things in the world

00:12:00.260 | are doing, and then start to get involved and put your money behind it and invest into

00:12:04.560 | changing some aspect of the world that we live in.

00:12:08.240 | Because that is going to bring you a tremendous amount of joy, a tremendous amount of fulfillment,

00:12:13.200 | and a tremendous amount of focus for your money.

00:12:16.520 | From what you've described, just accumulating more money so you can increase your consumption

00:12:20.440 | is not probably, for you personally, a pathway towards enjoyment and happiness, but everyone

00:12:27.040 | has something they would like to see change in the world.

00:12:30.320 | And putting money behind that will probably be your most fruitful long-term endeavor and

00:12:35.160 | a good way to use up some of the extra millions that you will undoubtedly acquire.

00:12:39.400 | So those would be the four basic things that I would suggest that you think about at this

00:12:42.420 | stage of life.

00:12:43.420 | Thank you, Joshua.

00:12:44.420 | My pleasure.

00:12:46.420 | Anything else real quick?

00:12:47.420 | That's all.

00:12:48.420 | Thank you.

00:12:49.420 | Good.

00:12:50.420 | Congratulations on all your success.

00:12:51.420 | Keep up the good work.

00:12:52.420 | We go to Jeff in Georgia.

00:12:53.420 | Jeff, welcome to the show.

00:12:54.420 | How can I serve you today?

00:12:55.420 | Hey, Joshua.

00:12:56.420 | Happy New Year.

00:12:57.420 | And to you?

00:12:58.420 | I'm a healthy 35-year-old, and I kind of see myself being single probably for kind of the

00:12:59.420 | majority of my life.

00:13:00.420 | And just due to the fact that a lot of the advice out there is kind of for families or

00:13:01.420 | for people who are going through a difficult time in their lives, I don't think I'm going

00:13:02.420 | to be single for the rest of my life.

00:13:03.420 | But I think I'm going to be single for the rest of my life.

00:13:04.420 | So I'm going to be single for the rest of my life.

00:13:05.420 | You didn't say the rest of your life.

00:13:26.420 | You said the majority of your life.

00:13:27.420 | Tell me what you mean by that.

00:13:28.420 | Well, you know, I think a lot of young men my age may claim that they will be single

00:13:29.420 | for the rest of their lives.

00:13:30.420 | But I don't want to be so closed-minded that it couldn't happen.

00:13:46.100 | Okay.

00:13:47.100 | And I know that I'm probing a little bit, but it's important that I understand why you

00:13:52.280 | are making this choice in order that I could guide the answer to your question.

00:13:58.280 | What is it about singleness that is particularly appealing to you?

00:14:03.540 | I enjoy the flexibility of it.

00:14:06.020 | I have a lot of friends who kind of live a single lifestyle and, you know, it's been

00:14:12.100 | fun to travel with them and, you know, just kind of see parts of the world.

00:14:17.740 | So I guess predominantly, again, sort of the fact that I found some folks with similar

00:14:22.940 | values and really sort of a desire to kind of do some long-term travel.

00:14:28.620 | Okay.

00:14:29.620 | You're 35 years old.

00:14:30.620 | How much do you earn?

00:14:31.620 | About $80,000.

00:14:33.920 | And ballpark, your current net worth is?

00:14:38.300 | I have quite a bit of debt, so I'm roughly, you know, negative $100,000.

00:14:44.580 | Okay.

00:14:45.660 | So the first thing, I'll answer your question, but I would be lying to you if I didn't start

00:14:51.820 | by just mentioning the singleness factor because I have known a small number of people who

00:15:01.180 | chose to be single, chose not to have children, and at the end of their life, that seems to

00:15:05.780 | have been the right decision for them.

00:15:08.220 | So I do not deny that there are people in the world in which—for whom that particular

00:15:15.980 | decision may not be the right decision.

00:15:19.340 | However, I don't think that most of the people who pursue that, who do it for the purposes

00:15:24.660 | of, say, hedonistic consumption, which is basically what you're describing, meaning

00:15:29.320 | I like my freedom, I like my flexibility, I want to be able to travel, I want to do

00:15:32.380 | long-term travel, etc., I don't think that really endures for very long.

00:15:38.280 | And I think the people who seem to me—and this is purely from my own personal experience,

00:15:44.380 | I couldn't cite any data, I don't know if any social scientists have dug into this question—but

00:15:49.660 | the people who seem to me to be the most satisfied with this particular decision are those who

00:15:55.460 | have made it because it freed them up to do something that was important to them.

00:16:01.500 | So the most obvious example is that I have known priests who took vows of celibacy, I've

00:16:07.780 | known Christian preachers who took the encouragement of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament who

00:16:14.260 | said that basically that if you are single, you're more free to serve God, you're more

00:16:20.740 | available to do that kind of work more effectively.

00:16:25.580 | And those people, because of that decision, have often seemed to be quite content.

00:16:31.140 | They made a specific choice, and they said, "I'm going to be single so that I can dedicate

00:16:39.900 | my life to the kingdom of God, I'm going to take a vow of singleness so that I can contribute

00:16:45.300 | my life's energy to this particular cause."

00:16:48.420 | I've interacted with a few people who didn't have children who seemed to really take pleasure

00:16:55.700 | in that decision from a personal consumption perspective, but they weren't generally single.

00:17:03.500 | And so they had a relationship that provided them with romantic companionship, it provided

00:17:08.180 | them with the basic comfort of having another person whom they loved in their life, but

00:17:13.380 | they didn't want the hassle of children.

00:17:15.500 | And so I think there's a higher percentage of people who are content with that decision

00:17:19.860 | than who are content with just singleness.

00:17:23.500 | And I'm assuming that also included in singleness, you don't wish to have children.

00:17:27.640 | That's not always the assumption.

00:17:28.780 | I have interacted, especially over the last couple years, with a lot of women who are

00:17:32.180 | single women who are choosing to have children, but not to have a relationship with a man,

00:17:38.160 | but they still want to have children.

00:17:40.120 | But I didn't hear that in what you said, so I'm assuming that you also, by single you

00:17:43.420 | also mean I don't want to have children.

00:17:45.940 | The narrowest one, however, is the guys who say, "Well, I just like being by myself and

00:17:50.980 | I don't ever want to have anyone involved in my life."

00:17:53.100 | And there seems to come a turning point when you become old where you look back and you

00:17:58.100 | say, "Was that really the right decision?"

00:18:00.260 | And again, I'm not denying that some people could find that to be the case, but in my

00:18:05.540 | own personal life, I have found that a lot of those guys start to want something different

00:18:11.300 | at the end of their life.

00:18:12.700 | The problem is that it's just infinitely more difficult to have something different at the

00:18:16.540 | end of their life than it is in the prime of your life.

00:18:20.900 | So think very carefully about that decision, and then also assess how much your actions

00:18:30.060 | would change based upon how committed you are to your philosophy versus how committed

00:18:36.460 | you are to what you've done just simply because you haven't met somebody who has been able

00:18:40.660 | to sway your philosophy.

00:18:42.860 | For example, one of my great friends for a long time, since I was a kid, I've mentioned

00:18:49.060 | him before on the show, but his motorcycle license plate is quite literally "Lone Wolf,"

00:18:56.860 | his vanity plate says "Lone Wolf."

00:18:59.420 | That's his identity, and it has been his identity his entire life.

00:19:03.340 | And so he's moved all around the country and all around the world living kind of just the

00:19:08.220 | "Lone Wolf" lifestyle, always had girlfriends here, girlfriends there, etc.

00:19:12.420 | And then I saw him kind of get to about his mid to late 50s, and first of all, his perspective

00:19:17.140 | on life changed a little bit because he looked around and realized, "I'd like to have something

00:19:21.380 | more than endures.

00:19:22.380 | I'd like to have family."

00:19:23.740 | And then he met someone who was super special.

00:19:26.420 | Now it turns out that it didn't work out for him, but unfortunately, she passed away.

00:19:31.900 | But his entire philosophy changed when he met the right person.

00:19:36.560 | So consider those things as just some thoughtful warnings that be really careful to know yourself

00:19:42.980 | deeply and don't settle for this philosophy that you are embracing unless there's a strong

00:19:49.620 | commitment that you have to a reason for this philosophy.

00:19:53.860 | And I think it will be most fruitful not for traveling or any of that kind of stuff, but

00:19:58.620 | rather because you want to make a sacrificial life of service in some case.

00:20:05.060 | Now with regard to traveling, I think I love traveling more than most people.

00:20:08.900 | But what I would encourage you to do is as quickly as possible, try on whatever it is

00:20:13.300 | that you perceive as the kind of lifestyle that you want to live as a single man.

00:20:17.020 | If you want to go and be a vagabond hobo traveling around the world, then figure out how to get

00:20:22.300 | yourself a job, start a business where you can do that, and go do it as quickly as possible.

00:20:28.080 | Because once you've experienced it, you will find your own perspective on it more solidified.

00:20:33.460 | You may find that, "Oh, indeed, I really love this and I'm super enthusiastic about this

00:20:37.900 | and I'm going to do this forever."

00:20:39.180 | Fair, right?

00:20:40.340 | I follow a couple of hobos on YouTube that I really enjoy their content and just these

00:20:45.380 | old single guys that have done this for 30 years and they bounce around the world living

00:20:49.860 | out of a backpack and I enjoy their perspective on life.

00:20:53.500 | I learn a lot from them.

00:20:56.860 | But a lot of people also find that, "You know what, this isn't quite all it was cracked

00:21:00.080 | up to be."

00:21:01.080 | And what you want to avoid the error is the error of committing your life to a certain

00:21:05.260 | set of decisions for a very long period of time without having tried it out a little

00:21:10.060 | bit.

00:21:11.060 | And so get as quickly as possible to your ideal lifestyle.

00:21:14.520 | And as a single guy, you have enormous flexibility to accomplish that right now.

00:21:18.580 | So if traveling is your thing, then this year, spend three to six months traveling.

00:21:24.620 | Quit your apartment, whatever you got to do to fix your finances, fix them, meaning quit

00:21:30.420 | your apartment, move into a box truck, convert a box truck into your home, go and live in

00:21:35.940 | beautiful places, stay in national parks, work online, get a job.

00:21:39.620 | If you want to go travel to another country, then get rid of all your stuff, get on an

00:21:42.780 | airplane and go.

00:21:44.020 | You can simultaneously fix your current financial troubles with having a negative net worth

00:21:48.540 | being deeply in debt, etc., while also testing these things out.

00:21:52.380 | And that process will inform you very significantly about what you actually like and what you

00:21:57.140 | don't like in an important way.

00:21:59.180 | Now pivoting to financial planning.

00:22:01.660 | Let's assume that after all of this, you say, "Joshua, you know, that's fine, but I definitely

00:22:06.020 | want to be completely independent.

00:22:08.860 | I'm not going to sacrifice my independence to another person.

00:22:12.300 | And you know, it sounds fine that some people want to go and dedicate their life to their

00:22:15.780 | religion or a cause or something, but that's not me, I'm dedicating my life to me."

00:22:19.980 | And then the second thing is, "I've tested this, for the last five years I've been testing

00:22:24.060 | this lifestyle, now I'm trying to fix it."

00:22:25.660 | So what are your basic financial steps?

00:22:29.900 | Step number one is to figure out how to generate an income that allows you to live the lifestyle

00:22:36.620 | you want to live with a minimal amount of waiting.

00:22:40.020 | So if you were married and/or had children, what the pressure that puts on your shoulders

00:22:45.940 | as a man is that you have to subjugate some of your personal desires to what's best for

00:22:52.060 | the family.

00:22:53.580 | And so, for example, if I were single, I probably would live in a box truck somewhere because

00:22:58.660 | I have that kind of vagabond personality, I enjoy a lot of aspects of that.

00:23:04.500 | I'd probably have an apartment somewhere, but I enjoy kind of that weird lifestyle of

00:23:11.420 | traveling around.

00:23:12.840 | But obviously, although I've tested it, I don't think that's an appropriate or useful

00:23:17.900 | lifestyle for my wife or my children to grow up in.

00:23:24.240 | And so I consciously make the decision to move away from how I would live and I focus

00:23:30.780 | on what's right for my family.

00:23:33.580 | You don't have that constraint.

00:23:35.660 | You can live however you want to live.

00:23:38.380 | And the only thing that's the impediment to your living however you want to live is you're

00:23:43.700 | having enough income to pay for it.

00:23:46.820 | And so that should be your primary focus.

00:23:48.980 | You have an $80,000 income.

00:23:50.780 | You should, number one, clear away this debt as quickly as possible, whatever it is, even

00:23:54.260 | if it's student loans, even if it's low interest, et cetera, because it's harming to some degree

00:23:59.020 | your independence, et cetera.

00:24:00.900 | But you should focus most of all on earning your income in a way that is personally agreeable

00:24:06.240 | to you, that provides you with the kind of lifestyle that you want to live, because that's

00:24:10.780 | the fastest way to even just getting and testing it.

00:24:13.700 | And if you can earn your income in a way that is agreeable to you personally, then you don't

00:24:19.060 | need to do that much else with money.

00:24:22.060 | In the fullness of time, you do need to pay careful attention to building a plan that

00:24:27.680 | protects yourself, knowing that you cannot depend on any other people.

00:24:32.960 | So if I get sick or if I get hurt and I can't work, I have a wife to fall back upon.

00:24:38.660 | I have children to fall back upon if I'm older and they're adults, et cetera.

00:24:43.420 | And so I have to maintain insurance when my children are younger, and of course I will

00:24:48.020 | maintain appropriate protection as my children are older, but I have a very strong and robust

00:24:54.780 | fallback plan, where if something happened to me, I got sick, I got hurt, I got paralyzed,

00:24:59.740 | et cetera, then I can fall back on other people.

00:25:03.140 | As a single man, you don't have that.

00:25:06.220 | You don't have the ability to rely on other people through love relationships, therefore

00:25:11.460 | you have to rely on other people through contractual financial relationships.

00:25:16.300 | And so you need to think very carefully about appropriate insurance coverages, and you need

00:25:20.500 | to think very carefully about making sure you have money to pay for yourself when you're

00:25:24.460 | old and crippled, unable to provide for yourself, et cetera.

00:25:27.860 | And so for you, it becomes much, much more important for you to accumulate wealth, to

00:25:33.380 | invest for the long term, to maintain high quality disability income insurance, high

00:25:37.540 | quality health insurance.

00:25:39.700 | You obviously don't need life insurance if there's nobody depending on your income, but

00:25:43.580 | you definitely need to care for health insurance, disability income insurance, and those insurance

00:25:48.560 | plans need to see you for the very long term.

00:25:51.820 | And so you need to accumulate quite a lot of money so that when you're 65 and you're

00:25:57.380 | worrying about Medicare falling apart, you have an additional backup plan, because you

00:26:01.740 | don't have the backup plan that I'll have of five children that can care for me if I

00:26:06.100 | need it, et cetera.

00:26:07.740 | And so also then now, you need to be very, very focused on building up your reserves

00:26:14.380 | and seeing to your health and seeing to try to avoid those negative outcomes.

00:26:19.700 | And that should be the guiding point.

00:26:21.420 | However, I would put all of that still secondary to saying, whatever lifestyle is that you

00:26:26.940 | think you're going to go, that you want to do, go and test it as vigorously as possible

00:26:31.100 | and then fit all that financial planning into that lifestyle as quickly as possible.

00:26:35.820 | So those are kind of my initial thoughts.

00:26:37.700 | What's the debt from, the $100,000?

00:26:38.700 | Is that student loans or did you spend a bunch of money?

00:26:40.660 | What's that from?

00:26:41.660 | Yeah, I just spent a bunch of money.

00:26:44.620 | But I've recently got that onto like a credit counseling thing.

00:26:49.020 | So I was paying like $2,500 a month, but now we got that under so I can actually take care

00:26:54.820 | of it within my income.

00:26:56.160 | So I feel a lot better about that.

00:26:58.020 | Good.

00:26:59.020 | Are you living a fairly conventional lifestyle, living in a house, living in an apartment,

00:27:01.740 | et cetera?

00:27:02.740 | Or are you already living an unconventional lifestyle?

00:27:04.340 | No, I'm in an apartment.

00:27:06.700 | And we've actually spoken previously about the merits of living in my Prius, which I

00:27:13.140 | thought very, very closely about, but that was like right before COVID and I'm glad I

00:27:17.500 | didn't do it.

00:27:20.040 | But yeah, I mean, I think I've bounced around the ideas of van life and that, but I think

00:27:25.020 | just a basic comfortable apartment is for me.

00:27:28.780 | Okay.

00:27:29.780 | So I would just say, get rid of the past decisions, meaning get rid of the debt, especially if

00:27:35.100 | the debt just came from previous overspending, get rid of the debt and then resolve to yourself

00:27:39.180 | that in the future, you're not going to spend more than you have because you don't want

00:27:41.980 | to put yourself into bankruptcy if it can at all be avoided and especially dumb to go

00:27:44.980 | into bankruptcy for a consumer debt.

00:27:47.600 | But get rid of the debt as quickly as possible and then just craft the income to fit your

00:27:52.500 | lifestyle.

00:27:53.600 | And so recognize that it's very accessible to you.

00:27:57.780 | So if you want to, and don't be scared of quick change.

00:28:01.380 | One of the things that I wish I had done more of when I was single was pursue some of the

00:28:06.580 | aggressive plans.

00:28:07.660 | I played it more conservative than I should have.

00:28:09.820 | But if you want to pick up and move to Southeast Asia, then pick up and move to Southeast Asia.

00:28:14.260 | You can pay off your debt and et cetera if you can keep your job while working from the

00:28:18.820 | place that you want to go.

00:28:20.220 | And I urge you as quickly as possible, do the testing of the lifestyle that you want

00:28:25.020 | to see if that's a great lifestyle.

00:28:26.780 | Because if you change, because you started the conversation by saying I'm probably going

00:28:32.060 | to be single the majority of your life.

00:28:34.340 | If you're ever going to change that, it's much better to change at 40 than at 60.

00:28:39.900 | Everything about marriage is easier when you're younger, especially if you ever have children.

00:28:44.100 | Everything about children is easier when you're younger.

00:28:45.820 | So you want to change as early as possible and that means you want to test as aggressively

00:28:50.100 | as possible.

00:28:51.100 | We go to Kulin in BY.

00:28:54.300 | I don't know that, is that one of the Canadian provinces?

00:28:56.980 | Welcome Kulin.

00:28:57.980 | Hi Joshua.

00:28:58.980 | Yes, it's actually in Germany.

00:28:59.980 | Okay.

00:29:00.980 | There we go.

00:29:01.980 | Yeah.

00:29:02.980 | And thanks for the opportunity talking to you again today.

00:29:09.300 | We talked a year ago and you helped me a lot with a big career decision.

00:29:13.340 | So I'm working as a strategic advisor, a self-employed, and I'm actually wondering how I do the marketing.

00:29:21.300 | I'm wondering about increasing my visibility through any dedicated channels like website,

00:29:26.660 | LinkedIn content, speaking and engagements whatsoever.

00:29:31.340 | As I see the potential to boost my earnings, but I also, I recognize that actually stepping

00:29:37.820 | out into the public is significant and cannot be reversed, let's say it's an irreversible

00:29:45.860 | decision and actually I'm worried about privacy, asset protection stuff and so on.

00:29:52.860 | Okay.

00:29:53.860 | So, let me just make sure I'm understanding.

00:29:55.980 | You are building right now a side hustle, kind of a new thing of working as a strategic

00:30:00.900 | advisor or this is your full-time job?

00:30:04.100 | It's my full-time job.

00:30:05.100 | Okay.

00:30:06.100 | So you're working as a full-time job and you want to build a business working as a strategic

00:30:10.020 | business advisor, but you're thinking about how do I bring in clients, how do I bring

00:30:15.420 | in business and in an effective way so that my business can be successful, but I'm also

00:30:21.340 | concerned about privacy.

00:30:22.460 | Is that correct?

00:30:23.460 | Correct.

00:30:24.460 | Okay.

00:30:25.460 | Do you rely for your current business, whatever current clients and customers that you have,

00:30:33.060 | are you currently relying on your reputation that's associated with your personal name

00:30:38.020 | from your previous career before this one?

00:30:41.180 | Yes, a bit, and also from my previous clients in my current role, yeah.

00:30:49.620 | So it's all about referrals right now and what I can observe from other strategic advisors

00:30:54.860 | is that they really have a great reputation and they are doing a lot of speaking engagements

00:31:00.100 | and so on.

00:31:01.100 | So, if you have a name in the world, then it's easier for you to get booked.

00:31:05.860 | Okay.

00:31:07.060 | And I may remember speaking to you in the past, it's my impression that while you're

00:31:12.140 | trying to build this business, you also are not relying entirely on this business for

00:31:17.300 | your financial needs.

00:31:19.020 | You have some other assets saved, is that correct?

00:31:21.500 | Correct.

00:31:22.500 | Okay.

00:31:23.500 | So if that's the case, if you have other resources that can provide you with long-term support,

00:31:30.580 | then it means that you can take a more strategic approach to building the kind of business

00:31:35.100 | that you'll definitely want to have 10 years from now.

00:31:38.620 | And that may be different than the business that you would build if you definitely needed

00:31:42.760 | money 10 weeks from now.

00:31:45.060 | And so that is an important consideration.

00:31:49.540 | One more question, then I'll give you my thoughts.

00:31:51.460 | Why would you be concerned about privacy?

00:31:53.980 | What benefits do you personally perceive in maintaining your privacy?

00:31:59.580 | Yeah, just to live a life which is absolutely independent from my profession, right?

00:32:06.940 | And so what I can see is you never know how successful you could become, right?

00:32:12.020 | And what I see is that very successful, very rich people, they made the decision very early

00:32:18.440 | to not go out into the public, right?

00:32:20.460 | So they are, especially in Germany, we have a lot of hidden champions.

00:32:24.020 | Nobody knows how rich they are.

00:32:26.220 | And you need to make that decision very early.

00:32:28.720 | So this is actually the thought process behind it.

00:32:33.460 | Okay.

00:32:35.800 | Privacy would have a number of different layers.

00:32:39.100 | And almost everything that you do for privacy will harm your business success, unless your

00:32:47.260 | business is something related to privacy itself, which is not what you're talking about.

00:32:51.540 | So by pursuing privacy, you are handicapping yourself.

00:32:57.700 | You're making it hard for yourself to succeed.

00:33:00.020 | It doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

00:33:02.240 | I personally believe that every private dollar that you earn is worth probably double to

00:33:07.060 | triple of every non-private dollar.

00:33:09.980 | And I'm not referring to tax evasion, I'm just simply saying that you receive less trouble,

00:33:15.300 | less difficulty, et cetera, if you can avoid public scrutiny.

00:33:18.700 | And so I affirm your desire, and I'm going to tell you my thoughts on how to accomplish

00:33:23.340 | it, but we must acknowledge that you're making it difficult for yourself when you do that.

00:33:29.900 | So there would be a number of different things that you could keep private, and you could

00:33:34.260 | decide how aggressively you want to pursue privacy.

00:33:38.820 | The first thing that you could do is you could operate under your current name, the name

00:33:42.460 | that you're known by, and you could just protect your face.

00:33:47.700 | You could even protect your voice.

00:33:49.820 | And to me, the face is actually your most valuable form of privacy.

00:33:57.000 | If you were a skilled business strategist, and you have the ability to write compelling

00:34:03.220 | articles that are useful, maybe creating a podcast where it's just your voice, but there's

00:34:08.540 | no face associated with it, then you avoid most of the frustrating aspects of notoriety,

00:34:14.900 | which is being recognized personally in public, et cetera, but you're able to be competitive

00:34:20.000 | and effective with your clients by simply using your ideas.

00:34:23.860 | And as a business strategist, that is probably something that performs a good or provides

00:34:28.900 | a good and effective form of marketing.

00:34:34.060 | And so can you write an effective blog, can you write effective papers, can you publish

00:34:38.020 | in trade journals of the industry that you're targeting, et cetera, and just keep your face

00:34:42.460 | out of it.

00:34:43.460 | That's going to maintain a lot of privacy for you.

00:34:45.940 | If you want to change and you want to change the name that you're associated with, the

00:34:51.820 | simplest thing to do that is simply to have a business name that you work under.

00:34:56.140 | And that's very, very normal and relatively easy to accomplish.

00:34:59.540 | So as an example, I have a friend of mine that I've worked with on various projects

00:35:03.660 | named Gabriel Custodiate.

00:35:05.380 | Gabriel, I'm quite certain, is not his legal name.

00:35:09.700 | I have no idea what his legal name is, and I don't care, because to me his name is Gabriel.

00:35:15.500 | It's just as good as anything else.

00:35:18.140 | And so I'll just interact with him under that name.

00:35:20.780 | And so legally speaking, and I'm not expert on all the EU laws, but I can speak from the

00:35:26.020 | American perspective, what you should do is simply operate your business under a business

00:35:33.540 | name in the same way that an author may publish under a pen name.

00:35:38.540 | And to do that avoids all of your legal risks, because you're not representing yourself to

00:35:43.420 | a government agent as somebody other than who you are, you're just simply representing

00:35:47.500 | yourself to the public under a certain name.

00:35:50.820 | And the classic example is any author.

00:35:53.020 | Again, Mark Twain is a well-known author, but his legal name is not Mark Twain, or who's

00:36:00.820 | the guy, Ibram Kendi, or Muhammad Ali, almost any of these guys, their name that they operate

00:36:10.900 | their business under is an assumed name that fits their personality, or it fits the image

00:36:16.540 | that they're trying to reflect, etc.

00:36:18.380 | It's not their legal name.

00:36:19.860 | And you can do that as well.

00:36:20.860 | So you just choose a name that you do business under, and then the name that you do business

00:36:25.100 | under is not your legal name.

00:36:26.860 | That eliminates all legal risk, because whenever you present an identification, you're using

00:36:30.900 | your formal, official government identification, but whenever you do business in public, or

00:36:37.700 | you give a speech, etc., you're known under this other name.

00:36:40.520 | Now a good way to do this, that I think is probably the best privacy advice that most

00:36:44.220 | people should do, is just simply have a nickname that you operate under.

00:36:49.180 | And so years ago I knew a man named Sonny, I'll skip saying his last name, but I thought

00:36:55.140 | for basically all of the time that I have known him, that his name was Sonny, like that

00:37:00.620 | was just his name, his name was Sonny.

00:37:03.420 | And because he, that was, had everyone called him, that was his name, it was on everything.

00:37:09.240 | It was only decades later that I realized that was not his legal name.

00:37:12.180 | His legal name was something else that I'm completely ignorant of.

00:37:15.220 | Or I have another friend who has a name that is often shortened into letters, and so in

00:37:24.260 | English we do this a lot with AJ and DJ and things like that.

00:37:29.380 | So this friend, he always did business under his, he was known by this abbreviation.

00:37:38.000 | And then one time he was arrested, but he was booked and arrested under his legal name.

00:37:43.260 | And so because he was always known under the initials AJ, for example, then everyone knew

00:37:49.320 | him as AJ, not Alex Jones.

00:37:52.620 | And so when Alex Jones is legally incarcerated, then he still maintains privacy because when

00:37:58.580 | people search for him, they search for AJ, not Alex Jones, and it provides him some protection.

00:38:04.020 | And so those are just kind of some simple things that you could do that probably are

00:38:07.860 | not too disruptive and work out fairly well.

00:38:11.280 | In terms of building the business, the most important thing, if you're going to build

00:38:14.700 | something private, is to focus on results.

00:38:17.660 | And so your best solution to building a private business is to be known as extremely effective

00:38:24.900 | and extremely discreet.

00:38:26.620 | So the guy who can come in and who can double revenue or double profit in three years will

00:38:31.540 | be talked about among other people in that industry, and they don't really care what

00:38:37.540 | he does business under, what name he does anything under.

00:38:41.300 | And so that is going to be your most effective marketing term.

00:38:44.780 | If you have to go to the public and try to market in public, then you're automatically

00:38:51.020 | going to bring in more scrutiny.

00:38:53.020 | So there's probably a lot more that could be said about effective marketing, but I would

00:38:56.820 | like to sidestep some of that discussion because that'll be so focused on this particular niche

00:39:01.740 | that you're in.

00:39:02.740 | My comment is simply that people who get results are the most important thing, and that if

00:39:09.420 | you are the guy who gets results, then your privacy bent, your proclivity to privacy,

00:39:17.700 | your inclination towards privacy can actually be a very appealing aspect of your business,

00:39:24.180 | especially if you are in the business of just making people money.

00:39:27.540 | So what I would say put simply is I would assume a nickname, and a nickname or a pen

00:39:32.180 | name under which you do business, have it be something related to what you're doing,

00:39:36.620 | if convenient, so that people who know you in the past, you just say, "Hey, I've changed

00:39:41.580 | that."

00:39:42.580 | Consider going to initials and not make too much of a big deal out of it, but just do

00:39:46.500 | business under this new name and keep your current identity the way that it is, and then

00:39:51.020 | focus on being someone who gets results and gets referred around the industry privately

00:39:55.100 | for the good results that you have, rather than trying to do a lot of public marketing.

00:39:59.100 | And that would avoid a lot of those problems that you're describing.

00:40:01.900 | Thank you very much.

00:40:05.180 | My pleasure.

00:40:06.180 | All right.

00:40:07.180 | We move on to Max in Virginia.

00:40:08.180 | Max, welcome to the show.

00:40:09.180 | How can I serve you today?

00:40:10.180 | Hey, Joshua.

00:40:11.180 | Can you hear me?

00:40:12.180 | Sounds good.

00:40:13.180 | Awesome.

00:40:14.180 | Happy New Year.

00:40:15.180 | Thanks for taking my call.

00:40:16.900 | I've got sort of a two-part question.

00:40:19.820 | They're different topics, but tied together, at least in my life.

00:40:23.740 | So for some context, we've got some major life changes coming up in the next year.

00:40:29.940 | My wife and I are expecting our first child in June, and then we're likely going to be

00:40:34.980 | moving after I complete a residency program.

00:40:39.020 | And that move will accompany me in a new job and a potential big increase in our income.

00:40:47.980 | My question pertains to entering a business contract agreement with someone who has been

00:40:54.420 | more or less a mentor/family friend for me.

00:40:59.300 | We have a relationship on great terms, someone that I trust and value, and kind of navigating

00:41:04.980 | the contract details and doing my due diligence, because I've never entered a business contract

00:41:13.740 | agreement with someone who's been a student most of my life.

00:41:16.740 | So at this point, we've essentially just had a verbal agreement to move forward with formalizing

00:41:24.540 | a contract.

00:41:25.540 | And a couple of the big points that at least I know we'll want to cover on this contract

00:41:32.580 | are how I'll be paid, whether it's 1099 or W-2, the potential for ownership in the future.

00:41:41.740 | And the way these contracts are normally done is there's like a one- or two-year associate

00:41:47.300 | trial period.

00:41:48.820 | And then if the doctor/owner wants to sell a portion of the practice, then you could

00:41:55.580 | potentially buy in if that works out.

00:41:58.380 | But usually, that's baked into the first contract.

00:42:01.480 | And then I guess the trickier thing is a lot of the time, these contracts have non-compete

00:42:09.060 | clauses.

00:42:10.060 | And we both want to protect ourselves, but kind of within reason.

00:42:14.220 | I'm trying to come up with what would be a fair compromise for that, just to preserve

00:42:20.720 | the relationship, but being cognizant of just the business side of things.

00:42:27.740 | So I was hoping for your insight just on things that I should prioritize in a business contract

00:42:33.140 | like this.

00:42:34.140 | And then if we have time at the end, I'll add on.

00:42:39.020 | In what way will your business partnership put both of you individually in a better situation

00:42:46.280 | because you're together than you could achieve on your own?

00:42:52.700 | I think in our profession, we probably would both agree that it's better to have two to

00:43:01.820 | three doctors in an existing practice, just in terms of sharing the workload, and also

00:43:10.340 | to be able to take time off more liberally and more flexibility with that.

00:43:16.260 | That's kind of my perspective.

00:43:18.540 | I'm pretty sure he has the same.

00:43:23.220 | And also, starting my own thing is not really something that I'm too keen on doing right

00:43:28.740 | now just because of the workload that would come along with that.

00:43:32.060 | I'd like to join an existing operation, so I don't have to go through all the startup

00:43:38.060 | work.

00:43:42.940 | In terms of what I hear you asking is a fairly general question of what advice would you

00:43:47.780 | have for entering into a business partnership as I come out of residency.

00:43:51.340 | Is that basically, in a nutshell, your question, or was there something more specific that

00:43:57.220 | I missed?

00:43:58.220 | Yeah.

00:43:59.220 | No, that's the question, and then I don't know if it's with someone that I already know

00:44:05.380 | and trust, I guess.

00:44:07.420 | I'm a little cautious moving into that.

00:44:12.580 | To me, the most useful advice that I can give you would be fairly general, but also extremely

00:44:17.900 | impactful.

00:44:21.240 | In any kind of partnership, be it a business partnership, be it a marriage, be it just

00:44:26.140 | a project that you're working on, etc., both partners need to be fully persuaded that they're

00:44:35.140 | better off together than each one individually is on his or her own.

00:44:40.900 | And if you can accomplish that, if you can be convinced that we're better off together,

00:44:45.620 | then in many ways it doesn't really matter what the paper says, it doesn't really matter

00:44:50.060 | the details of the contract, you've solved it.

00:44:53.380 | But if there's any question about whether or not we're better off together than we are

00:44:59.180 | apart, then the details of the paper don't necessarily fix anything, no matter how beautifully

00:45:04.780 | and professionally the details are committed to in a legally binding document.

00:45:09.620 | So to me, that's always where I want to spend 80% of my time, is simply saying, "In what

00:45:14.220 | way do we, each of us, contribute to one another in a way that we're just convinced makes our

00:45:21.080 | partnership synergistic?"

00:45:23.700 | Meaning one plus one is more than two, that's what synergy means.

00:45:27.940 | So you could have one plus one, but if it's not more than two when you come together,

00:45:33.180 | then you don't have a synergistic relationship.

00:45:35.600 | And so what is at the core of a synergistic relationship?

00:45:39.140 | Well, usually it will be partners providing skills and abilities to one another that each

00:45:46.140 | one individually lacks.

00:45:47.920 | And so the classic example that I repeatedly use is, if you have one person who loves management

00:45:53.340 | and another person who loves sales and hates management, or one person who loves sales

00:45:58.580 | and another person who loves design, then those people can come together and be a very

00:46:02.420 | effective partnership because each of them can focus on what he or she does well while

00:46:08.620 | leaving the things that they don't want to do to the other person.

00:46:11.780 | In your situation as doctors, especially as doctors who are basically performing the same

00:46:17.860 | basic function, you're going to need to find your synergistic value in size, in scale,

00:46:28.500 | in providing easy relief to one another, that there'll be more time off for each one, etc.

00:46:33.260 | But you need to clearly identify and clearly delineate, write out, communicate clearly

00:46:38.740 | how we're better off together and what makes us better off together.

00:46:43.340 | And that's something that I would do absent of any individual contract negotiations.

00:46:49.100 | I would simply do it and be very explicit about it and say, "Why do we get together?"

00:46:54.540 | So for example, you, the young physician, you're gaining a whole lot of benefit of coming

00:46:59.740 | into a practice, you don't have to work so much, there's an established patient base,

00:47:04.140 | etc., there's demand, and so you're getting a lot of benefit, but what is he getting?

00:47:09.020 | That would be the question.

00:47:10.020 | He needs to know what he's getting, otherwise the partnership will feel very one-sided and

00:47:14.300 | he'll feel like, "Well, the young guy, Max is getting all the benefit, but what am I

00:47:19.900 | getting for it?

00:47:20.900 | Max is just taking all my clients, etc."

00:47:23.340 | And so that should be where most of your focus is.

00:47:25.300 | And I believe that if we spend a good amount of time on this before any partnership going

00:47:29.620 | into a partnership, before going in any marriage, etc., is how do we complement one another?

00:47:34.540 | How do we have a synergistic relationship?

00:47:36.800 | And we know that, and we know that the other partner really values what I have to contribute,

00:47:42.460 | and I know that I really value what my partner has to contribute, then we build strong and

00:47:46.780 | enduring partnerships.

00:47:48.320 | And strong and enduring partnerships don't need a lot of legal protection.

00:47:52.300 | They don't need a lot of carefully negotiated clauses, because the benefit to the partnership

00:47:57.260 | is obvious, and it should be the kind of benefit that will endure throughout time and remain

00:48:02.420 | obvious over time.

00:48:04.940 | Any partnership that I have seen fall down and fall apart, become filled with rancor,

00:48:10.380 | fighting, etc., has basically fallen apart because the partners don't think that we're

00:48:15.180 | better off together than we are together, which leads me to part two.

00:48:19.660 | You should anticipate all of the reasons why the partnership would disintegrate and how

00:48:25.140 | we would each feel that we're better off apart.

00:48:28.600 | And so an example often in a business partnership would be this.

00:48:32.140 | You're coming out of residency, and you're choosing this path because you don't want

00:48:37.940 | to work very much, meaning you're ready to work, but you don't want to work the way that

00:48:42.220 | you would have to work if you were building your own practice.

00:48:44.860 | And so you're hoping that I can do 50 hours a week, not 90 hours a week.

00:48:48.860 | Meanwhile, your business partner is expecting you to do 90 hours a week, because after all,

00:48:53.860 | that's what I did.

00:48:54.860 | I did 90 hours a week after residency, and you could do that too.

00:48:57.780 | And so where would be the breakdown?

00:49:00.660 | The breakdown would be he's looking at you and thinking you're a lazy bum because you're

00:49:03.460 | not working like he worked.

00:49:04.820 | Meanwhile, you're saying, "This was the whole reason I got into this," and that leads to

00:49:07.740 | a breakdown of communication.

00:49:09.540 | This happens when business partners, one of them wants to maximize profit, one of them

00:49:13.940 | wants to maximize lifestyle.

00:49:15.800 | This happens in marriages when one person wants to maximize children, the other person

00:49:20.980 | wants to maximize global travel, anything.

00:49:24.540 | It's any time you have a breakdown of vision, then people start to question, "Why am I in

00:49:28.820 | this relationship in the first place?"

00:49:30.340 | And that's where things go bad.

00:49:32.020 | And so you should talk together and say, "Well, where would be our weak points?

00:49:36.980 | What would be the kinds of things that would cause you to feel like the synergy of our

00:49:40.180 | relationship has collapsed?

00:49:42.420 | And then am I willing to not do those things?

00:49:45.580 | Am I willing to avoid those actions that would lead to a collapse of synergy that would ultimately

00:49:51.900 | lead to a collapse of partnership?"

00:49:54.220 | Now when you and he have had those conversations and you have a good understanding, each of

00:49:59.800 | you individually, about how you're better off together than you are on your own, and

00:50:05.300 | both of you clearly see that you're better off together than on your own, then that's

00:50:08.940 | when you bring in the lawyer and you draw up the business agreement.

00:50:12.500 | And you can save yourself an enormous amount of money by simply clearly knowing how you're

00:50:17.860 | ready to go, and then you just bring in the lawyer to cover anything that you've missed.

00:50:22.540 | And the legal process is mostly a matter of putting in place what happens if something

00:50:28.260 | falls apart.

00:50:29.260 | And so what happens if we die?

00:50:30.700 | What happens if one of us is disabled?

00:50:32.140 | What happens if one of us is divorced, etc.?

00:50:34.820 | But all of that stuff can be handled fairly straightforward with specific contract clauses

00:50:39.660 | that are common in your industry, with insurance policies.

00:50:43.460 | You might have a buy-sell agreement, etc., funded with insurance, all kinds of things

00:50:48.460 | that you'll put in place.

00:50:50.260 | But it all rests on clearly understanding how we are compatible together.

00:50:56.100 | Then for the specific details, I have no idea what's a reasonable non-compete clause.

00:51:00.460 | What I would say is that those kinds of things are set by the marketplace.

00:51:04.980 | And so let's say that the standard amount of time for a non-compete in your industry

00:51:11.180 | is five years, that if this partnership were to dissolve, you can't compete with me in

00:51:16.580 | this market for a period of five years.

00:51:19.100 | Well in that situation, it would be generally unfair to your partner to say, "Well, I don't

00:51:22.980 | want it to be a five-year non-compete clause, I want it to be a one-year."

00:51:26.140 | But it would also be unfair for him to say, "I want it to be a ten-year."

00:51:28.260 | And so you'll rely on industry norms, because in essence, your partner is not in competition

00:51:38.700 | with you, he's in competition with all of the other senior physicians who would like

00:51:42.940 | to have you come into their practice.

00:51:44.980 | And you're not in competition with him, rather you're in competition with all the other

00:51:48.900 | residents that he would like to bring into practice.

00:51:51.460 | And then my final comment would be in terms of relationship, okay, what value is there

00:51:56.180 | to the relationship?

00:51:57.740 | Clearly, having a friend, having someone that you trust, etc., is incredibly rewarding and

00:52:04.740 | should give you a good solid foundation to go on.

00:52:07.620 | But it doesn't mean that you can avoid communicating about these difficult things.

00:52:11.940 | And at the end of the day, I don't think there's any relationship of friendship that can overcome

00:52:18.580 | a basic mismatch in expectation in the fullness of time.

00:52:22.640 | And so I would not rely on the fact that we're friends, etc., in any of this.

00:52:28.820 | I would rely on the fact that we've clearly communicated with one another and we understand

00:52:33.180 | how we have a synergistic relationship.

00:52:35.700 | And because we understand how we have a synergistic relationship, then we can negotiate the details.

00:52:40.500 | Those are my thoughts.

00:52:41.500 | Thanks, Joshua.

00:52:42.500 | That's really helpful.

00:52:43.500 | And I knew I could count on you for your perspective there.

00:52:49.260 | I think I was getting too lost in the details and you're right, I think just kind of focusing

00:52:54.580 | on the fact that if we're better together, then the details will kind of work themselves

00:52:59.500 | out, you know, after the scenes.

00:53:02.380 | And then I guess my other question was just, so we're having our first job in June, and

00:53:07.180 | then I'm going to go back and re-listen.

00:53:09.620 | I know you have a ton of content on raising kids, but just in terms of like being a father

00:53:16.180 | to a newborn, do you, what's your general resource, you have an episode about that.

00:53:24.020 | I'll go back and listen to it.

00:53:26.460 | And then my wife and I were considering talking with the doula, and I don't know if you have

00:53:32.100 | any experience with them, or I don't know a lot about it.

00:53:35.500 | Yeah, yeah, I do.

00:53:38.300 | I have talked about that publicly previously in detail, and when I get my new website launched

00:53:46.380 | here very soon, you'll be able to search all the past episodes and specifically zoom in

00:53:50.580 | on that.

00:53:51.580 | And so that'll be a good resource for you.

00:53:53.380 | I'm going to give you a fairly abbreviated rapid-fire answer here, just because I have

00:53:56.420 | a long list of callers afterwards.

00:53:58.660 | But I do want to make sure that I give you kind of some big points.

00:54:02.620 | So what I'll try to do is I'll give you the bullet points, but I won't try to defend them

00:54:06.460 | in detail.

00:54:08.140 | Number one, the first thing, as your wife is pregnant, the first thing that you have

00:54:13.660 | to think about is her health and the specifics of childbirth.

00:54:19.940 | And so you should take a very careful look at everything that you can do to support her

00:54:26.980 | and her health.

00:54:28.920 | What I would say is I think the best nutrition book out there is called Deep Nutrition.

00:54:33.620 | The baby has already been conceived.

00:54:35.740 | The physician author of the book Deep Nutrition has a protocol for women who are planning

00:54:41.600 | to conceive and who are hoping to conceive, because her preconception diet is really,

00:54:46.820 | really important.

00:54:47.940 | But I would say the most important thing is to get your wife the very best nutrition that

00:54:52.260 | she possibly has.

00:54:53.900 | Your genetic contribution to the baby is done.

00:54:57.740 | And so you want to make sure that for future children that you keep your health as good

00:55:02.380 | as possible.

00:55:03.380 | Once you have this baby, it's done.

00:55:04.380 | And so now you're totally focused on her and on her well-being.

00:55:08.660 | The most important things for a pregnant mother are nutrition, lots and lots of high-quality

00:55:14.460 | nutrition, lots of really great meat, really high-quality foods and no junk, and then also

00:55:20.260 | making sure that she gets abundant exercise, lots of walking, etc.

00:55:24.300 | The exercise should be modest but consistent, because you want her to be really, really

00:55:29.420 | strong.

00:55:30.420 | And a strong woman who goes into childbirth as a strong woman will have a better experience.

00:55:35.060 | Related to childbirth, it's really important to dig into your philosophy and create a philosophy

00:55:42.860 | of childbirth.

00:55:44.140 | I'm always acutely aware when I'm speaking to someone who knows much more about biology

00:55:48.420 | than I do and human biology.

00:55:50.060 | However, what I would say is that in Western medicine, my biggest complaint is that in

00:55:56.740 | many ways children and babies are treated as a disease from which a woman needs to be

00:56:01.820 | delivered instead of as something that is natural and normal and a natural and normal

00:56:06.560 | part of life.

00:56:08.340 | I believe that her body is uniquely designed to successfully and painlessly and easily

00:56:14.660 | deliver a baby.

00:56:16.220 | There are always individual exceptions to that.

00:56:20.180 | She may have poor bone structure, she may have some unique biological thing that makes

00:56:24.460 | it more difficult for her.

00:56:26.180 | But our standard approach should not be to identify babies as a disease from which a

00:56:31.980 | woman needs to be delivered, but rather as a normal and natural component of that.

00:56:36.680 | And so you'll want to dig into how to help her have a healthy, successful childbirth.

00:56:43.180 | I generally recommend as a starting point the old Ricki Lake documentary called The

00:56:47.540 | Business of Being Born.

00:56:49.840 | My wife and I, we watched that doc, it was recommended to us when we were having our

00:56:53.120 | first baby and I think it's really a great starting point to kind of get an idea of what

00:56:58.880 | are my decisions about this.

00:57:00.860 | In general, the most important thing that you as a husband need to do is make sure that

00:57:05.100 | your wife feels confident with whatever the choices are that you make regarding childbirth.

00:57:11.140 | And so you'll have three basic choices.

00:57:13.620 | Choice number one is do we plan to have the baby in the hospital?

00:57:17.560 | Choice number two, do we plan to have the baby in a birthing center?

00:57:21.100 | And choice number three, do we plan to have the baby at home?

00:57:24.820 | Now I would guess that your natural inclination as a physician would be to go to the hospital.

00:57:30.380 | And clearly, from a medical perspective, there may be good reasons to do that.

00:57:36.100 | However, the problem is that the hospital is generally a pretty uncomfortable place

00:57:39.860 | for mothers to be.

00:57:40.860 | There are enormous numbers of interventions, it's very uncomfortable for her, and your

00:57:46.540 | experience of having a baby in a hospital is generally not particularly enjoyable.

00:57:51.700 | And so what many mothers, especially mothers who are having pregnancies, where there's

00:57:57.820 | no contraindications, there's no indication that this is a high-risk pregnancy, etc.,

00:58:02.360 | then what many mothers will do is they will focus on choosing either a birthing center

00:58:06.820 | or an at-home birth.

00:58:08.660 | And if you go to a birthing center or an at-home birth, then the mother is in charge and she

00:58:13.340 | can have the kind of birthing experience that she herself wants to have.

00:58:17.680 | And I think that in many cases that itself can lead to more successful medical outcomes

00:58:22.900 | than being in the hospital.

00:58:24.700 | And so usually, however, for a first-time birth, unless she's very persuaded that that's

00:58:30.960 | something that she wants, then you'll probably wind up choosing a hospital just because of

00:58:37.980 | that being kind of the standard default.

00:58:40.100 | If you choose a hospital, then as a husband, that's when you have to go into doula mode,

00:58:45.400 | and that's when you have to go into advocate mode.

00:58:47.660 | Because in many cases in the hospital, you have to be the one who fights against the

00:58:52.100 | physician staff for your wife to have the kind of childbirth that she wants to have

00:58:56.780 | and is capable of having.

00:58:58.540 | Because the hospital is designed around risk minimization and around the convenience of

00:59:03.100 | the hospital staff, it's not designed for the pleasurable outcome of the mother.

00:59:07.920 | And so a doula is basically an advocate, somebody that you hire to be the mother's advocate.

00:59:13.500 | I consider this to be my primary job as a husband.

00:59:15.860 | I'm her advocate.

00:59:17.920 | And so what I want to make sure is I know exactly what she wants and that I intervene

00:59:22.740 | and all medical things have to come through me because I'm her advocate.

00:59:26.780 | And so that is something that you can do.

00:59:28.660 | But I think a doula, especially in a hospital, is basically a requirement.

00:59:32.780 | Because what can happen if you hire a great doula is that you're there for your wife,

00:59:37.900 | you're focusing on her.

00:59:39.180 | The doula is there intervening for you with the hospital staff to make sure that your

00:59:43.340 | wife's desires and wishes are being carried out.

00:59:46.540 | So that only the interventions that are actually necessary, that the medical team can actually

00:59:51.460 | say this is necessary, happen and the rest of it she can focus on herself.

00:59:58.380 | But you'll need to do some thoughts and research on that.

01:00:01.740 | If your wife doesn't have any counterindications during pregnancy, then I think most people

01:00:09.980 | should be strongly biased in favor of giving birth in something like a birth center that

01:00:15.260 | has a hospital as backup.

01:00:18.300 | Because the midwives, and here I'm talking about licensed midwives, not nurse midwives,

01:00:23.820 | but midwives, their training is very different than that of an obstetrician gynecologist.

01:00:29.700 | Because the midwife is trained to see to the mother's, to allow the mother to be in charge

01:00:36.960 | of her childbirth and to make sure that the medical indications that need to be followed

01:00:43.580 | are followed, rather than for the physician to be in charge.

01:00:47.380 | And I don't fault obstetricians for this, but basically they get accustomed to being

01:00:52.620 | in charge.

01:00:53.620 | Because when they're called in, there's usually an emergency happening and they've got to

01:00:59.100 | be in charge because they've got to save a life.

01:01:01.300 | But most childbirths are not emergencies, and that's where there's a big difference

01:01:05.920 | there that you want to think about.

01:01:07.780 | That was a longer explanation than I meant to, but I think it's important.

01:01:11.020 | Now related to that, I am persuaded that a standard of care should be that pregnant women

01:01:17.340 | should receive consistent chiropractic adjustments to make sure that their hips are properly

01:01:23.140 | aligned to create a maximal possibility of a safe, healthy, vaginal childbirth.

01:01:30.900 | And I think the most important thing that you want to do as a husband and work with

01:01:35.620 | your wife is you want to focus very deeply on eliminating any fear that is related to

01:01:41.220 | childbirth.

01:01:42.580 | American women broadly, Western women broadly, often are quite apprehensive about childbirth

01:01:49.540 | for various reasons, but largely related to the fact that they've only ever seen, like

01:01:54.940 | a lot of times for a new mother, the first childbirth she ever sees is her own baby.

01:02:00.700 | And she's never been in childbirth that's different than that.

01:02:03.300 | And so all of the childbirths that she's ever witnessed are on a TV show, and they show

01:02:09.080 | a woman screaming her head off underneath a bright fluorescent light, lying in a hospital

01:02:13.420 | bed surrounded by people who are screaming and shouting and shouting out for an emergency.

01:02:17.940 | And that's why I always like the Business of Being Born documentary, because you can

01:02:21.500 | see that childbirth doesn't have to be like that.

01:02:24.920 | And so thankfully, with five children and counting, my wife and I, our childbirth experiences

01:02:30.240 | have been night and day from that.

01:02:32.440 | Rather than them being medical emergencies that are loud or that are painful, etc., we've

01:02:36.560 | had smooth, easy births.

01:02:39.060 | The process of labor has always been something that is very intimate, where we're together,

01:02:45.860 | we're very close.

01:02:46.860 | I know how to support her, she knows how her body labors, she can listen to her body.

01:02:51.580 | And generally speaking, while I wouldn't say that it's not fair to say that childbirth

01:02:58.260 | is pain-free, there is certainly intense sensation related to childbirth, but it has never been

01:03:06.340 | for my wife a debilitating pain the way that it's pictured.

01:03:10.060 | And a significant portion of that is physical, but a significant portion of that is just

01:03:15.140 | mental, because a woman who is scared of childbirth will tense up, she experiences the sensations

01:03:21.140 | of labor very differently than a woman who is relaxed and confident.

01:03:24.940 | And if you study cultures around the world, there are cultures around the world where

01:03:27.540 | mothers have a completely different experience with childbirth than they do in the West.

01:03:32.940 | And I care about this because if your wife is – first of all, you want her to have

01:03:38.500 | kind of the best possible outcome, but I also care about this because the experience that

01:03:43.540 | she has with childbirth can make an enormous difference in the experience that – in your

01:03:51.140 | guys' willingness to have multiple babies.

01:03:53.140 | I had a close friend of mine who, when they got married, they said, "We're going to

01:03:57.620 | have a huge family."

01:03:59.300 | And right off the gate, the first baby childbirth experience was so terrible that they resolved

01:04:03.500 | we're never having children again.

01:04:05.460 | And those kinds of things can, in some cases, be avoided.

01:04:10.500 | Final thing is that hypnobirthing is quite popular.

01:04:13.520 | It's the best that I've found of the different methods, and we've used the hypnobirthing

01:04:16.780 | techniques very effectively, and I encourage that.

01:04:20.380 | But those are kind of your big decisions.

01:04:21.820 | Now, what you asked me about was kind of baby.

01:04:24.980 | First thing is that, if at all possible, schedule some time after the childbirth to take significant

01:04:30.780 | amounts of time to take care of your wife.

01:04:32.940 | What caught us unawares because we had spent so much time researching childbirth, et cetera,

01:04:38.060 | was how difficult the first few weeks of a baby's life are.

01:04:41.540 | Hypnobirthing, brutal, worse than childbirth.

01:04:43.840 | You know, all this other stuff has been much more difficult for us.

01:04:46.540 | And so that was a separate thing.

01:04:47.840 | That was what I was unprepared for first time around.

01:04:50.640 | So I would encourage you, engage with as much as possible, plan, learn about breastfeeding,

01:04:57.320 | make sure you have a lactation consultant that you can call if needed, et cetera.

01:05:03.960 | And then your most important job is just make sure that she is super comfortable and taken

01:05:07.480 | care of.

01:05:08.480 | There's almost nothing that you yourself can do for a new baby.

01:05:13.200 | For the first week, obviously, your wife's not going to lift the baby, so you'll change

01:05:16.000 | all the diapers.

01:05:17.000 | You'll take care of all that stuff because she can't lift the baby.

01:05:20.520 | And she needs to recover.

01:05:21.520 | But after that point in time, there's not really much that you can do with a newborn.

01:05:25.420 | And so it's fine.

01:05:26.520 | You go back to work.

01:05:27.600 | Everything's good.

01:05:28.600 | But what you got to do is you got to make sure that she's prepared for that and that

01:05:31.040 | she's supported through the process so that she can do her job in that period of time.

01:05:34.760 | And then after a few years, after a few months, frankly, it's a few months, but after a couple

01:05:39.480 | of years, then the baby's no longer a newborn and then they're actually fun and then you

01:05:42.320 | actually enjoy being with them.

01:05:44.800 | So your wife falls in love with a newborn, and I've never fallen in love with any of

01:05:48.160 | my newborns.

01:05:49.160 | It always takes a couple of years.

01:05:50.160 | Then I'm like, wow, this is an actual child that I can interact with, not a newborn baby.

01:05:53.200 | So that's my broad picture overview of kind of the points that I always try to hit that

01:05:56.920 | I think are really important.

01:05:57.920 | - Thanks, Joshua.

01:05:58.920 | Very, very helpful.

01:05:59.920 | - My pleasure.

01:06:00.920 | All right.

01:06:01.920 | We go on to, oh, people are jumping back on after I got rid of them.

01:06:06.920 | Gail.

01:06:07.920 | Gail in California.

01:06:08.920 | That's you.

01:06:09.920 | Welcome to the show.

01:06:10.920 | How can I serve you today?

01:06:11.920 | Gail in California.

01:06:12.920 | All right.

01:06:13.920 | We'll come back to Gail.

01:06:14.920 | We'll go to Mike.

01:06:15.920 | Mike, welcome to the show.

01:06:16.920 | How can I serve you today?

01:06:17.920 | Mike, that's you.

01:06:18.920 | Can you hear me?

01:06:19.920 | All right.

01:06:20.920 | Mike, mute yourself.

01:06:21.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:22.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:23.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:24.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:25.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:26.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:27.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:28.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:29.920 | Mike, can you hear me?

01:06:30.920 | All right.

01:06:31.920 | Mike muted himself.

01:06:32.920 | We'll go to Jonathan in Colorado.

01:06:33.920 | Jonathan, welcome to the show.

01:06:34.920 | How can I serve you today?

01:06:35.920 | Jonathan, that's me.

01:06:36.920 | That's you.

01:06:37.920 | Coincidentally, last name Medicaid.

01:06:38.920 | I wondered.

01:06:39.920 | I saw it on the screen.

01:06:40.920 | Is that actually your last name?

01:06:41.920 | No.

01:06:42.920 | Okay.

01:06:43.920 | I was going to say.

01:06:44.920 | That's funny.

01:06:45.920 | I'm a little into privacy kind of the way I know you are.

01:06:53.720 | My favorite about my audience is that when I sell a course or something, I get all these

01:06:57.280 | opaque, blurred email addresses and whatnot.

01:07:01.480 | It makes me happy to see you guys doing that.

01:07:03.160 | So I'm happy to have you here, Jonathan, Medicaid.

01:07:06.040 | Yeah.

01:07:07.040 | Awesome.

01:07:08.040 | I really appreciate the podcast.

01:07:09.040 | I've been a long-time listener, just all the way back.

01:07:13.400 | No, I didn't start all the way back, but I've definitely lurked very far back, so I'm just

01:07:17.800 | really grateful for this as a ministry.

01:07:20.840 | Thank you.

01:07:21.840 | I had a question.

01:07:22.840 | My relative, he's very close to end of life, and now he has a house that's worth roughly

01:07:33.720 | $300,000.

01:07:36.560 | That's the only assets that he has left, besides a car or something, and he's in long-term

01:07:41.480 | care.

01:07:43.380 | My parents are afraid that Medicaid, in order to qualify, he needs to get his assets or

01:07:50.280 | whatever down, but I think he can qualify for Medicaid if it's his own personal residence,

01:07:55.800 | but there'll be a loan.

01:07:57.560 | So whenever he dies, they put a Medicare lien on the estate and so they'll take it, or they'll

01:08:04.000 | go through all that closure.

01:08:05.000 | They're super afraid, and to my knowledge, they don't have any equity in the house.

01:08:10.480 | It's all the guy who's going to have Medicaid, and so I was wondering if you had any recommendations

01:08:16.480 | about how to navigate that, how could they maybe get the equity in their name or something,

01:08:22.400 | because they're kind of afraid whenever he dies that they're going to foreclose on the

01:08:26.560 | house, or not foreclose.

01:08:27.560 | They're just going to sell it to get the equity out.

01:08:31.080 | So the question is, how do they try to protect it from Medicaid forcing the sale of the house?

01:08:37.360 | Yeah, and if they could somehow protect equity, the whole look back thing, they can't go sell

01:08:45.200 | it now and give, or they can't sell it for like 10 bucks or whatever to his child because

01:08:51.360 | the look back period, they would say that it's worth $300,000, you've got that.

01:08:59.800 | You said he has children.

01:09:01.560 | Does this man have children?

01:09:03.040 | Yes.

01:09:04.040 | And does he have a wife?

01:09:06.680 | Is she deceased?

01:09:07.680 | Where is she in this?

01:09:08.680 | He had a wife deceased like 10 years ago, and then his child is living in the house,

01:09:16.720 | and he is in long-term care, has been in long-term care for a long time, and again, now I feel

01:09:21.920 | bad.

01:09:22.920 | I should have told him five years ago to set it up in a medical trust, like, "I'm so sorry,

01:09:27.000 | please forgive me."

01:09:28.000 | Right.

01:09:29.000 | And have you consulted with qualified local legal counsel, like a Medicaid lawyer or someone

01:09:34.920 | like that to find out the detailed rules of your state?

01:09:40.320 | It's in North Carolina.

01:09:41.320 | They've reached out, just I think like a preliminary conversation.

01:09:45.800 | I just found out about this like a week ago, and then it was the same day that you sent

01:09:49.640 | out the email saying, "This is for all the poor folks."

01:09:54.160 | So the first thing I would say is let's get our ideology straight here, and let's understand

01:09:59.440 | that the goal of his assets is not to keep the money away from the government.

01:10:05.400 | The goal is for him to use the money that he has to pay for his care.

01:10:10.480 | And this is his asset, and as such, it's something that should be used for his well-being.

01:10:18.240 | And that is the primary focus.

01:10:20.800 | And so whatever the right decision is that leads to the best outcome for him and his

01:10:25.480 | well-being, that's where our focus needs to be.

01:10:29.120 | And I know that we all agree on that, but a lot of times we get into this idea that,

01:10:33.400 | "Well, how can I skin the government program and get as much money as I can from the government

01:10:38.160 | program instead of using the money?"

01:10:41.360 | And that to me is a complete reversal of any intelligent planning, and often very, very

01:10:49.200 | harmful.

01:10:50.200 | Any time anyone else does that, and they say, "Well, I'm going to get as much as I can from

01:10:54.280 | this unemployment program and keep my unemployment checks coming in," or, "From this medical

01:10:58.520 | program," et cetera, there's never any good long-term outcome from that, because the people

01:11:03.320 | that do that wind up not living the life that they're capable of, and in some cases they

01:11:08.640 | wind up soiling their soul by committing fraud, either minor or major, et cetera, and they

01:11:14.720 | just don't get a good outcome.

01:11:16.340 | And you don't want somebody spending the last months of his life looking over his shoulder

01:11:20.440 | and thinking, "Well, what's going to happen with the Medicaid people," et cetera.

01:11:23.800 | You want him to have the best outcome.

01:11:26.640 | So if that were to mean, for example, that the house is sold so that the money of $300,000

01:11:33.600 | is freed up to pay for his care, if his family and you or whoever else is involved decides

01:11:38.800 | that that's the best thing to do, then that's the best thing to do, and that's what should

01:11:43.600 | be done.

01:11:44.600 | Now probably, because he's living in the house, receiving care, et cetera, then probably that's

01:11:48.440 | not the best thing that should be done, but all of your first conversations, all of your

01:11:53.480 | first advice, all of your first discussions should be related to what is the best outcome

01:11:59.600 | for him and how do we use his assets to provide for his best outcome.

01:12:04.740 | Only after you're clear on what the ideal outcome is do you then turn and say, "Is there

01:12:09.520 | a way that we can get this ideal outcome in a more efficient way?"

01:12:13.160 | And that's where you turn to Medicaid planning.

01:12:15.160 | Now in terms of Medicaid planning, the rules are very clear, and so you want to check the

01:12:19.520 | rules of your state, they're publicly available, you can read about them.

01:12:24.080 | I don't know what the rules of North Carolina are, but generally there is an exception for

01:12:29.360 | equity that's in a personal residence.

01:12:31.800 | And so if he owns this house outright and it's $300,000, generally those assets are

01:12:37.440 | accepted from Medicaid eligibility.

01:12:40.840 | If however, there's a cap on how much, and let's say it's $150,000, then just follow

01:12:45.400 | the rules and you say, "Okay, well when he dies the house is going to be sold, the $150,000

01:12:50.640 | is going to be paid back to Medicaid, and then we're going to have the rest and the

01:12:55.800 | rest is going to go on to his children," or whatever the next situation is.

01:12:59.740 | And this is why it's so important to focus on the fact that our goal is to provide him

01:13:03.640 | with the best quality care, whatever that is.

01:13:06.600 | And so make sure that this is there for him, that the care is there for him.

01:13:14.960 | Medicaid care may not be the best quality care, even if it is paid for.

01:13:20.160 | And so this will depend on your state.

01:13:22.720 | In some states, Medicaid nursing homes are not the greatest nursing homes.

01:13:27.120 | In some states, Medicaid in-home care, in theory, should be available, but in reality

01:13:31.560 | it's often not.

01:13:32.680 | And so I don't have any insight into that.

01:13:35.620 | You will know that by talking to your local Medicaid office, understanding what's available

01:13:39.760 | to you.

01:13:40.840 | At this point in time, there may be very few planning options that are available to you,

01:13:44.920 | but you would know your planning options by reading the Medicaid rules and then talking

01:13:49.000 | to a Medicaid lawyer in your area that specializes in this.

01:13:53.440 | And generally in one brief consultation, you'll get better advice, they'll tell you if anything

01:13:57.720 | could be done to protect the asset or not, and then you'll know and be able to move forward.

01:14:04.880 | Don't think that by saving $500 for a consultation with a lawyer, you're making any progress.

01:14:09.520 | Spend the $500, get the consultation with a lawyer, get a solid authoritative answer

01:14:12.860 | from somebody who knows, and then move on.

01:14:16.680 | If Medicaid is going to result in them taking, say, half the house, so he goes on Medicaid,

01:14:24.400 | understand carefully how the money would be actually used.

01:14:27.080 | Because it may be the case that what you would want him to do would be just to—it may be

01:14:31.840 | the case that just a personal loan from, say, a child who is set to inherit the house may

01:14:36.800 | be a better solution, or the child can just pay for the care.

01:14:40.680 | And so if he has a child who's living in the house, and the child is going to inherit

01:14:43.400 | the $300,000 house, and if the child needs to start making payments of $5,000 a month

01:14:48.120 | to provide for the in-home care, but we can do that independent of filing for Medicaid

01:14:53.720 | and putting a lien on the house, that might be something that is better as well.

01:14:58.280 | But I guess at its core, I don't have any other, like, brilliant ideas to add other

01:15:06.500 | than to solicit the proper advice of the Medicaid lawyer and to focus on his personal well-being,

01:15:17.000 | whatever that happens to be.

01:15:18.520 | If you want to recognize that if you don't—what's the point of the Medicaid, right?

01:15:24.300 | What value do you get for Medicaid?

01:15:26.160 | And I guess this would be just one more creative idea, is that maybe the child who is living

01:15:31.600 | in the house can just care for dad, and the care for dad is provided knowing that at the

01:15:36.120 | end of his life, he's going to have the $300,000 of inheritance that would pay him

01:15:41.520 | back for six months of care, something like that.

01:15:45.080 | And so don't jump to Medicaid unless you're sure that Medicaid is going to provide something

01:15:49.960 | that can't be provided otherwise.

01:15:52.880 | That would be how I would basically approach it.

01:15:55.960 | Okay.

01:15:56.960 | Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

01:15:59.920 | It's a little—he's been in long-term care for a long time.

01:16:04.720 | His daughter lives in the house, and so the daughter is afraid if he dies, there's this

01:16:10.720 | lien on the house, then it will get taken from her, right?

01:16:12.920 | So she doesn't want to—she's kind of afraid, but okay, yeah, no, I appreciate it.

01:16:17.000 | Yeah.

01:16:18.000 | I wish I had better answers, but remember, I'll be the harsh one here.

01:16:21.440 | It's not the daughter's house.

01:16:23.080 | The fact that she's living in her dad's house may be great, but it's his house.

01:16:27.080 | And so you can't let that stuff interfere.

01:16:30.640 | Find out what the rules are.

01:16:31.960 | There will be an exception for his personal residence, et cetera.

01:16:34.600 | But Medicaid is a government program that is designed to help people who are completely

01:16:40.440 | impoverished.

01:16:41.640 | That's all it is.

01:16:42.840 | And so in order to qualify for Medicaid, you have to be completely impoverished.

01:16:46.800 | Now you are correct that if the goal is that he be impoverished at the end of his life,

01:16:52.840 | he could have done all kinds of things five, ten years ago in order for him to be impoverished.

01:16:57.600 | I have yet, in any financial planning circumstance, ever recommended that to anybody because I

01:17:01.760 | don't think being impoverished is a great idea, and I don't think relying on government

01:17:04.960 | programs that are designed for people who are impoverished is a great idea.

01:17:08.960 | And so I bristle at people trying to game the system and try to use programs that are

01:17:15.880 | designed for people who are impoverished so that they can keep their $300,000 houses.

01:17:21.000 | It's not appropriate, and I'm not accusing them of – I'm speaking clearly in hopes

01:17:25.560 | that it will help them to think clearly.

01:17:27.960 | But you don't have the right to access a government program that is designed for people

01:17:32.760 | who are impoverished and then also keep a giant asset for yourself.

01:17:38.040 | There are rules that can protect the house, but all of the rest of the money should be

01:17:41.880 | spent on his care, and that is his right.

01:17:45.000 | It is his asset, and his asset should be spent on his care, not try to manipulate it so that

01:17:51.840 | he can qualify for a substandard government program.

01:17:57.360 | Sean or Shan in Tennessee, welcome to the show.

01:17:59.840 | How can I serve you today?

01:18:00.840 | Hi, Joshua.

01:18:01.840 | Can you hear me?

01:18:02.840 | Yes.

01:18:03.840 | Go ahead.

01:18:04.840 | Yeah.

01:18:05.840 | Hey, Joshua.

01:18:06.840 | First of all, thank you so much for all the podcasts over the years.

01:18:12.880 | I've been a pretty regular listener, so I appreciate this opportunity.

01:18:16.920 | Joshua, we're in a unique situation.

01:18:20.600 | My wife is a very high income earner, so am I, and we recently visited a few Latin American

01:18:28.640 | countries.

01:18:29.640 | And every time we go visit a country, we feel like we should move here, right?

01:18:34.160 | Because I'm learning Spanish, she's fluent in Spanish, and so forth.

01:18:37.920 | But the problem we face is if we move there, we give up this high income.

01:18:41.920 | For example, when I say high income, we made over 800,000 last year.

01:18:47.720 | So we feel like we should stay back in Tennessee then, right?

01:18:50.760 | So I just wonder, when you counsel or coach people, very high income earners like us,

01:18:56.800 | right, who are looking to possibly go somewhere else, how should we think about that?

01:19:02.800 | Generally, you should not give up an $800,000 income to move to a Latin American country.

01:19:07.860 | So I would counsel against that in almost every circumstance.

01:19:12.000 | When you have the ability to create a high income, that is far and away your most important

01:19:17.720 | asset, and it's something that deserves to be treated with tender loving care for a very

01:19:22.840 | long period of time, because it can fundamentally transform your lives and the lives of many

01:19:29.520 | people around you if leveraged appropriately.

01:19:32.660 | So we begin by saying, is the generation of this income unpleasant or undoable in some

01:19:39.400 | way?

01:19:40.400 | Is there a reason, other than the fact that you enjoy being in Latin America, do you not

01:19:46.200 | like your work?

01:19:47.200 | Do you not like your businesses, et cetera?

01:19:48.280 | Tell me about how satisfied you are with your jobs.

01:19:51.680 | Yeah, so it's one of those things where with her profession, it's all or nothing, meaning

01:20:00.800 | the contract is tacitly written such that you're going to make over 600,000 or zero.

01:20:06.720 | There is no in between.

01:20:08.560 | So it's like one of those things where if she could scale back, we could just stay back

01:20:12.000 | in the U.S.

01:20:13.240 | So every time we go visit these places, they're so cheap to live in, they're super safe.

01:20:18.520 | We feel culturally at home there.

01:20:23.280 | That's where it comes from.

01:20:24.800 | So it's one of those, if you will, a first world problem, but yeah, that's where it comes

01:20:30.520 | from, Josh.

01:20:31.520 | Basically, Joshua, basically it's zero or 600,000 in our case.

01:20:35.000 | What does she do?

01:20:38.320 | She does telemedicine.

01:20:39.320 | By license, she can't practice anywhere else, basically.

01:20:44.520 | Anywhere else in the United States or anywhere else outside the U.S.?

01:20:50.720 | Could she practice in a U.S. territory?

01:20:53.800 | We haven't explored that.

01:20:57.900 | You mean like Puerto Rico or Virgin Islands, perhaps?

01:21:00.400 | We haven't explored that, Joshua, that's a good point.

01:21:04.060 | So unless the job or business is deeply unpleasant, in which case, obviously, make changes, then

01:21:14.000 | don't give up a job or a business that's working.

01:21:18.260 | There's an old saying, right?

01:21:19.260 | Make hay while the sun shines, and financially, make hay while the sun shines.

01:21:23.320 | Almost any one of our jobs or businesses can be disrupted in no time at all.

01:21:28.260 | And so when you have a high income, you've gotten there by creating something really

01:21:33.220 | special, and having that high income can buy you freedom very quickly.

01:21:37.500 | What's your current net worth at the moment?

01:21:39.900 | Over $4 million, let's say $4.1 million-ish.

01:21:44.980 | And about how much do you spend normally in your lifestyle right now?

01:21:48.060 | That's a good thing about Tennessee, Joshua, right?

01:21:51.020 | We probably spend, let's say, $65,000 to $70,000 a year.

01:21:55.140 | Great.

01:21:56.140 | So right now, you could cover your lifestyle, basically, as current state with income from

01:22:03.700 | your current portfolio, and every year that goes forward, you could do that again.

01:22:08.100 | So obviously, financial independence is a very real possibility.

01:22:13.780 | Do you want to retire?

01:22:15.740 | Does she want to retire for some reason?

01:22:21.800 | She wants to scale back down, and she feels like the only way she scales back down is

01:22:26.580 | if she leaves the country where she cannot really work.

01:22:29.180 | So let's say, for example, we're in Mexico.

01:22:31.700 | She can't work.

01:22:32.700 | Why can't she work?

01:22:33.700 | It's one of those weird things.

01:22:34.700 | It's for insurance reasons, I guess, and an employer has some kind of VPN block, and

01:22:42.940 | she can't log in, let's say, Josh, one of those things.

01:22:45.740 | All right.

01:22:46.740 | So first of all, technologically, where there's a will, there's always a way.

01:22:50.660 | I probably would not take the risk of losing a $600,000-a-year job just so I can go to

01:22:55.540 | Mexico.

01:22:56.540 | However, just note that where there's a will, there is always a way, and technologically,

01:23:01.420 | this is easy to solve.

01:23:02.980 | So if she wants to be in Mexico, then obviously, she can put on her own VPN on her own system,

01:23:11.660 | but what I would do is I would set up my computer and all of my infrastructure in Tennessee,

01:23:18.240 | and then I would just use a remote log-me-in software and always log into my computer and

01:23:23.740 | work through Tennessee, and that's the simple and obvious solution to solving those geographic

01:23:29.380 | issues.

01:23:30.380 | I probably wouldn't take the risk of it for reasons I said.

01:23:32.780 | If they're that hard-nosed about it, then I'm not going to do that, but she could very

01:23:37.580 | easily just simply set up a computer through which she does all of her consultations and

01:23:43.020 | use a log-me-in program into that computer, and no one will ever know that she's elsewhere,

01:23:49.340 | and that's the safest way to accomplish that other than—it's much safer to do that than

01:23:55.820 | to use a VPN in her while she's—and then just set her location to the United States.

01:24:03.440 | So that I would do, and it's worth testing to see kind of does this work, because while

01:24:07.740 | you may not move full-time and spend 12 months a year in Latin America, knowing that you

01:24:12.580 | could go for a couple weeks whenever you wanted to without necessarily causing trouble would

01:24:16.260 | be worth pursuing.

01:24:17.980 | Number two is that very seriously consider Puerto Rico, because if you like the Latin

01:24:24.140 | culture and you want to live in Latin America, but you want to keep your job, but you have

01:24:28.560 | to live in the United States, Puerto Rico is part of the United States.

01:24:31.620 | And so while it may not be listed in every contract, Puerto Rico is genuinely part of

01:24:36.140 | the United States, and unless they say specifically that U.S. territories are excluded, then U.S.

01:24:42.180 | territories are included.

01:24:43.920 | And so check the paperwork, but that is the obvious solution.

01:24:47.180 | You have a lovely Latin environment, Spanish-speaking environment.

01:24:51.820 | You could find a great house in a great neighborhood that provides you with the beach lifestyle,

01:24:55.460 | the Latin culture, all the Latin things that you like.

01:24:58.620 | It's a domestic flight.

01:24:59.820 | You don't have to have a passport.

01:25:01.060 | You're back and forth pretty quickly.

01:25:02.220 | You've got great flight connections.

01:25:04.300 | You've got Amazon.

01:25:05.820 | Everything works just like in the United States, except for the things that don't.

01:25:10.020 | But the things that don't generally work better than in many other places.

01:25:13.760 | She's not going to save any.

01:25:16.020 | There may be some tax planning that's necessary.

01:25:18.220 | I don't think she would be able to use the advantageous Puerto Rican tax programs to

01:25:23.020 | save any money, and in fact, it may wind up costing more money than Tennessee, but I'd

01:25:29.940 | have to carefully think through those details.

01:25:33.500 | Because if she is a resident of Puerto Rico and she's earning this income as an employee,

01:25:37.300 | then she'll be subject to Puerto Rican tax rates, which will be higher than the federal

01:25:41.100 | tax rates that she's paying in Tennessee.

01:25:44.220 | And I don't think she would qualify for, again, any of the tax programs.

01:25:48.020 | But that is an option that allows you to keep $600,000, and if you can keep $600,000 working

01:25:52.720 | from a house on the beach, follow all the rules, not put your job in legal jeopardy,

01:25:56.700 | and pay another $20,000 of tax, then I'll take that all day long, versus living in a

01:26:01.460 | place that you don't want to live if the alternative is walking away from the $600,000 income.

01:26:07.060 | So I guess, put simply, unless you have a compelling reason to move to Latin America,

01:26:15.020 | you shouldn't.

01:26:16.620 | You shouldn't.

01:26:17.620 | And if you want to move, don't burn all the bridges.

01:26:20.420 | And so take an extended sabbatical, take three months off, and go for three months, and just

01:26:25.660 | don't work for three months.

01:26:27.140 | Take a year off, end her current contract, and don't renew.

01:26:30.660 | Go take a year, and then come back and renew.

01:26:32.980 | But don't burn any bridges, because my experience of interacting with people who've moved abroad,

01:26:37.020 | et cetera, is that the things that if you think you like a lifestyle, you should pursue

01:26:43.220 | it.

01:26:44.220 | But as with any choice, you quickly become accustomed to whatever the lifestyle is that

01:26:47.780 | you've ended up with.

01:26:49.260 | And so if you're thinking about buying a brand new car, and you're dreaming about it, buying

01:26:57.700 | that car just feels like something you've got to have.

01:27:00.900 | And so then you go and buy the car, and you love it for the first weeks, first months,

01:27:04.580 | et cetera.

01:27:05.580 | And then after a few months, the emotions taper off, and you realize, hey, I'm really

01:27:08.620 | glad I've got this car.

01:27:10.180 | Or you know what?

01:27:11.180 | I could have done without this car, but it works.

01:27:13.900 | It's fine.

01:27:14.900 | So in terms of moving to places, my choice A is keep the job, keep the great income,

01:27:20.840 | keep stacking money, because it's going to massively increase your footprint in the world.

01:27:25.540 | Number two is, if necessary, try to see, can we get something that will satisfice for the

01:27:30.780 | situation, Puerto Rico, et cetera.

01:27:33.200 | Number three is go for a year and build a vision, but don't burn any bridges.

01:27:37.320 | And then number four is, OK, we really want to do this.

01:27:40.360 | Let's walk away, because we're definitely going to start a vineyard in Chile, or whatever

01:27:44.800 | it is.

01:27:45.800 | In that case, that's why you became financially independent in the first place.

01:27:49.240 | And then probably then in that situation, the question is, how can you use your current

01:27:54.520 | job, your current connections, et cetera, and set up a new opportunity that pays you

01:27:58.560 | very well with a lifestyle that you like, but that just doesn't have the contractual

01:28:02.360 | limitations and they're totally fine with your living in Argentina.

01:28:05.880 | But those are some ideas that hopefully will get you started.

01:28:08.080 | Thank you, Joshua.

01:28:09.080 | Joshua, do you have time for another quick question?

01:28:13.120 | Very quickly.

01:28:14.120 | Yes.

01:28:15.120 | Yep.

01:28:16.120 | Joshua, so I'm in tech sector, one of the fan companies, if you will.

01:28:22.560 | And I'm finding that because a lot of people I work with are immigrants like myself, our

01:28:28.920 | English is, I mean, don't get me wrong, I have a master's in engineering and so forth.

01:28:33.720 | So reading English is fine, like comprehending English is fine.

01:28:37.200 | But I'm finding that a higher echelon, my speaking English, the way I communicate, needs

01:28:42.600 | to get better.

01:28:43.600 | I've heard of Toastmasters before, I've tried to join them.

01:28:46.760 | They're just not quick enough for me.

01:28:48.200 | What I mean is I'd rather just pay someone, like a personal coach, who would just coach

01:28:53.480 | me in expressing myself better.

01:28:55.800 | Could you give me some ideas around that?

01:28:57.940 | Is your concern your ability to formulate and clearly express ideas?

01:29:02.160 | Or is your concern the very light, non-standard accent that you have?

01:29:05.760 | Actually, I'm not worried about the accent, but I'm interested in, let's say, speaking

01:29:12.200 | off the cuff, right, which I struggle or I just mask it by just making silly jokes, right?

01:29:20.760 | Because I feel like in tech sector, we don't need to be as smooth as, let's say, a lawyer.

01:29:24.200 | My concern is just speaking articulately, like a lawyer, let's say.

01:29:30.280 | Well, first, with regard to accent, you don't have in any way an objectionable accent.

01:29:36.320 | And I think in general, having a native-sounding accent is not necessarily an important goal.

01:29:44.660 | And in some cases, it can be actually counterproductive.

01:29:48.480 | So I don't think you should worry too much about accent.

01:29:51.040 | Your accent is perfectly understandable.

01:29:53.620 | I can quickly detect that you're not a native U.S. American speaker of English, but I can't,

01:30:01.120 | it's not so thick that I can place it easily and obviously, and it doesn't hamper communication.

01:30:06.240 | That's the goal.

01:30:07.240 | You don't want an accent that's so thick that people have to work really hard to understand

01:30:10.560 | it.

01:30:11.680 | But a little bit of trace of an accent is no problem.

01:30:14.420 | On the topic of accent, though, if you want to moderate your accent, I think there are

01:30:19.160 | a couple of things that you can do.

01:30:21.240 | For one, I think a lot of accent seems to be related to your willingness to embrace

01:30:26.360 | the culture that you're trying to model.

01:30:29.600 | I haven't experienced this myself with regard to language acquisition, but I have found

01:30:36.480 | a number of people who confirm this, that in essence, people who are able to acquire

01:30:43.320 | a native-sounding accent are people who are happy to be associated with the host culture,

01:30:50.760 | the culture of the accent that they're trying to acquire.

01:30:55.480 | And I think this is one of the reasons that children, generally speaking, acquire a better

01:31:01.120 | accent or a more native-sounding accent than adults do, that children don't have preconceived

01:31:08.360 | ideas about not wanting to associate with this particular culture, and so therefore

01:31:14.960 | they just speak the way that locals speak.

01:31:17.240 | And I think that adults can do that as well.

01:31:19.080 | I've found many language learners who have developed a native or nearly native accent,

01:31:25.360 | even though they learned a language as adults, but what they have in common is that they

01:31:29.680 | embrace the culture of that language, and they want to be identified with those people.

01:31:35.000 | And if somebody doesn't have, if somebody has a very thick non-native accent, I think

01:31:39.800 | in many cases they don't really want to be identified with the culture, and they prefer

01:31:45.440 | to maintain, whether they know it or not, they prefer to maintain a little bit of their

01:31:49.240 | independence.

01:31:50.920 | Regarding accent, accent training can be done, it's something that can be done yourself intentionally,

01:31:57.320 | and it's something that can be done with a coach.

01:31:59.720 | You can find an accent coach.

01:32:01.640 | Usually they work in acting circles, et cetera, they're acting coaches.

01:32:06.320 | But I have a book that I've looked at for accent training, and it teaches you how to

01:32:09.840 | do all the different accents.

01:32:10.880 | I haven't done anything with it, but I've always wanted to be able to put on various

01:32:14.640 | accents when I wanted to, and it's a trainable skill, and it's a trainable skill for you

01:32:19.920 | as well.

01:32:20.960 | And it largely would involve finding a speaker, starting off without hiring a coach, what

01:32:26.560 | I would encourage you to do is find an English speaker that you respect, that you want to

01:32:33.520 | model, and then find a dialogue from that English speaker that you really like, break

01:32:38.520 | it up into parts, and then listen to it, and record yourself speaking the text or the words

01:32:45.640 | that the speaker that you admire, that speaks the way you want to speak, would speak them,

01:32:49.720 | and then listen to them, compare them, correct as appropriate.

01:32:56.800 | And I think that that exercise, if you put 50 or 100 hours into that, would adjust your

01:33:02.680 | – and then also a little bit of formalized study.

01:33:05.000 | You sound like you might be Indian, what are the vowels that Indian speakers, or the consonants

01:33:12.040 | that Indian speakers struggle with because of their native language?

01:33:16.080 | And then what are the new vowel sounds in the language that I'm trying to target?

01:33:20.440 | Why is this?

01:33:21.440 | Because the reason we have accents, and the reason that if I could do an Indian accent,

01:33:25.600 | or a German accent, or a British accent, you can immediately – excuse me, I meant a German

01:33:30.560 | accent or a French accent, all of the traces of accent have to do with the native language,

01:33:36.040 | and the native grammar.

01:33:37.760 | And so if I were trying to put on a German accent, I would change my word order, I would

01:33:41.200 | say – I would use since instead of – all the things that German speakers do, and then

01:33:47.840 | use all the vowel sounds that come from the native language.

01:33:49.960 | So once you identify those, then you can practice them, and instead of saying the soft R, you

01:33:55.320 | say the English-sounding R, and those kinds of things that can be done just with a little

01:34:00.040 | bit of focus.

01:34:01.040 | So 50 or 100 hours there would change it.

01:34:03.160 | With regard to being articulate, and especially in an extemporaneous circumstance, I think

01:34:09.360 | part of that is practice, and that's where opportunities like Toastmasters, et cetera,

01:34:14.480 | are useful.

01:34:16.040 | Where you have an opportunity to practice speaking in an extemporaneous way.

01:34:20.440 | But I think it's more important to go slow in order to go fast.

01:34:26.680 | And what I mean is when I am articulate, especially in an extemporaneous format like I'm speaking

01:34:34.720 | to you right now, it's not because I have some unique skill of being able to formulate

01:34:40.960 | my ideas, sentences, and words clearly just off the cuff.

01:34:45.240 | Rather, it's that I know a lot about what I'm talking about, and I've thought a lot

01:34:50.720 | about what I'm talking about.

01:34:52.880 | And if you're talking about something that you know a lot about, and have thought a lot

01:34:56.340 | about, then speaking about that subject is not difficult.

01:34:59.880 | The little monologue that I just gave you regarding accent coaching and accent formation

01:35:06.080 | did not come out in a hopefully coherent and smooth way because I have a unique skill of

01:35:12.960 | speaking extemporaneously.

01:35:14.120 | Rather, it came out because this is a subject that I know something about, it's a subject

01:35:19.160 | that I have an interest in, it's a subject that I've had questions on and I've dug into

01:35:23.280 | the details, I've dug into the research, and as a result, it's fairly straightforward

01:35:27.360 | and simple for me to say the three or four points that I want to say.

01:35:31.840 | And so I think there's real value in going slow to go fast.

01:35:36.860 | And so if I wanted to be more articulate, I would spend more time thinking and probably

01:35:42.320 | writing, because the skill of being able to articulate your thoughts verbally clearly

01:35:49.600 | is primarily a skill of having thoughts that are worth making verbal.

01:35:54.000 | And that means that you should dedicate time to practicing forming the language in an effective

01:36:00.000 | way.

01:36:03.120 | And if you can't do that quickly, then do it slowly.

01:36:07.720 | And as you do it slowly over time, you'll get better at doing it quickly.

01:36:11.680 | So I would start with a series of topics.

01:36:15.680 | Choose a time in which you recently found yourself at a loss for words and didn't know

01:36:21.980 | what to say.

01:36:23.360 | Think of what the subject was, and then write about that subject.

01:36:27.400 | And create a little paragraph saying, "Here's what I think."

01:36:31.100 | When I speak extemporaneously, in essence, I'm going through a catalog of ideas that

01:36:39.320 | I have developed.

01:36:41.000 | These are ideas that have come to me from thinking about questions, trying to understand

01:36:45.120 | what an answer to those questions is, formulating an answer to those questions, and cataloging

01:36:51.400 | it away in my brain.

01:36:53.420 | So earlier in this call, when a listener called me and asked me about, "I'm expecting a baby,"

01:36:59.460 | I gave the speech that anybody who's listened to previous speeches that I've given on this

01:37:04.620 | particular topic would recognize the basic points of that.

01:37:08.100 | Because in my mind, I basically have this catalog of 8 to 15 points, depending on how

01:37:12.320 | much time, and I have a depth of content behind them or a shortness of content that I can

01:37:18.440 | stretch or shorten up, depending on the context.

01:37:22.360 | And I've given this speech a dozen times.

01:37:24.640 | Most of those times being in personal interaction, etc.

01:37:28.920 | Some of those times publicly.

01:37:30.560 | And so while not everything is going to fit into that, I think that when you have a catalog

01:37:34.600 | of ideas, or we could call them stump speeches, then you can then be creative from those.

01:37:41.480 | And so let's use a metaphor or just another field that we could look at this.

01:37:45.840 | If you study something like jazz, jazz music, jazz music to an untrained observer seems

01:37:52.880 | like complete improvisation, like it's just being made up on the spot.

01:37:57.200 | But that's not actually true.

01:37:59.180 | Jazz is indeed improvisation, but the whole structure of improvisation is built upon the

01:38:04.080 | basic structure of that style of music.

01:38:07.480 | And so there are certain things that don't change, and then within those rules, then

01:38:11.480 | the jazz musician improvises while not necessarily breaking those rules.

01:38:16.040 | And when he breaks those rules, he's conscious of the fact that he's breaking a certain rule

01:38:20.520 | or a certain pattern, and he does that for effect.

01:38:23.640 | A politician will do this.

01:38:24.880 | If you watch a politician speak, if you ever travel around for a couple days with a politician,

01:38:28.800 | they have a stump speech.

01:38:30.080 | And they say the same basic five points at every speech, but they adjust it a little

01:38:34.460 | bit here and there, etc.

01:38:36.280 | And so I think before I would go and try to hire a coach, a speaking coach, I would first

01:38:43.040 | work on building skill with communicating my ideas.

01:38:47.760 | And when you build skill at communicating ideas, do that slowly using writing, and then

01:38:53.360 | practice those skills in verbal contexts when you have those.

01:38:59.780 | And I give you just one final piece of evidence for this.

01:39:03.420 | This is exactly the same skill that a dedicated language learner applies when building skill

01:39:10.000 | in a foreign language.

01:39:12.360 | A dedicated language learner who has skill and experience with language learning will

01:39:16.280 | choose a certain number of domains about which he wants to become skilled in speaking.

01:39:22.680 | And if he wants to—and the proper term here for what we're talking about is fluency.

01:39:28.400 | And I use the term fluency, especially in a foreign language context.

01:39:32.600 | What I refer to is the ability to communicate ideas in a fluid, flowing manner.

01:39:40.900 | That's fluency.

01:39:42.060 | Fluency doesn't mean that you know everything about a subject, doesn't imply a certain number

01:39:45.760 | of ideas or a certain amount of vocabulary that you require.

01:39:49.280 | It simply refers to your ability to fluidly convey your ideas.

01:39:54.300 | And so if you want to develop fluency in a foreign language, you begin by learning the

01:40:00.560 | vocabulary of a certain domain.

01:40:02.480 | And so, for example, a foreign language learner will start with very simple things like, "You're

01:40:07.480 | speaking Spanish.

01:40:08.480 | Well, why are you studying Spanish?"

01:40:11.200 | And that language learner will go to a translator, a Google translator, a chat GPT or something,

01:40:15.840 | and create a series of sentences.

01:40:17.680 | "Here's why I'm studying Spanish.

01:40:19.280 | I've been studying Spanish for this amount of time.

01:40:21.240 | Here's how I'm studying Spanish.

01:40:22.880 | How did you learn Spanish?" or whatever the version is.

01:40:25.640 | Or they'll develop kind of a set of lines about their job, "I'm from this place.

01:40:30.400 | I do this thing.

01:40:31.520 | I'm this number of years old.

01:40:32.880 | I have this number of children," et cetera.

01:40:35.200 | And they'll write out those sentences and they'll study just those sentences.

01:40:39.040 | Then when the occasion calls for it, they can articulate those sentences because they

01:40:43.480 | know those sentences very well.

01:40:45.560 | They're not fluent in every domain.

01:40:47.560 | They're not fluent enough to talk about quantum mechanics, but I'm fluent and able to talk

01:40:52.840 | about where I'm from and why I like traveling in Latin America.

01:40:56.680 | And so then over time, you expand your domains of knowledge and the different areas in which

01:41:01.440 | you can articulate those concepts, and that's how you build verbal fluency.

01:41:06.000 | But you do it by slowing down, writing things out, communicating, and then reflecting on

01:41:10.560 | that language that you're trying to create.

01:41:12.840 | Then when you're in the opportunity or when you're in the moment, then you can articulate

01:41:17.840 | those things.

01:41:18.840 | And finally, I would say that if there's something that's very high pressure, if there's a conversation

01:41:24.520 | or an event or an occasion that really is going to call for top performance, then you

01:41:30.960 | should have your commentary memorized.

01:41:34.840 | And so many of us in today's world have become quite lazy about learning to memorize.

01:41:40.020 | And so our memory muscles have atrophied significantly.

01:41:42.960 | But you can build those memory muscles up and memorize the texts, memorize the things

01:41:48.140 | that you want to say.

01:41:49.880 | And in essence, what I do here on Radical Personal Finance is that I've memorized my

01:41:54.400 | ideas about certain things, and I just deliver the same speech over and over again.

01:41:58.160 | When I was a financial advisor, actively selling financial products, et cetera, I was always

01:42:02.520 | working with memorized speeches.

01:42:04.520 | I would memorize my approach language.

01:42:06.200 | What do I say when I walk into someone's office and for the first time I'm going to just ask

01:42:09.920 | you about your money?

01:42:10.920 | I had those speeches memorized.

01:42:12.640 | I had an answer prepared for every single objection.

01:42:15.240 | "Well, Joshua, it's too expensive.

01:42:17.060 | What about term versus whole life?"

01:42:18.640 | Or, "I don't really need this," or "I'll just end my life.

01:42:22.920 | Why would I need long-term care when I got a revolver in the bedroom drawer?"

01:42:26.800 | And so every single thing I would ever say in those sales contexts was basically memorized.

01:42:32.040 | And in some cases, it was memorized proactively because I sat down and I thought about what

01:42:36.860 | I would say or how I would respond to that objection.

01:42:39.320 | In many cases, it was memorized reactively, meaning someone would give me an objection,

01:42:43.560 | I would stumble through it, and then I would take it home and think about how to say it

01:42:47.660 | better and create a better solution, and then try it out the next time around, next time

01:42:51.920 | I got that objection, and then just deliver that again and again.

01:42:55.040 | And so to me, I think this is going to be your most productive approach is understand

01:42:59.640 | what you believe, build practice slowly saying what you want to say, and then the verbal

01:43:05.640 | fluency that you desire to have will be there when you're ready for it to be there.

01:43:09.580 | All right, it actually looks like he dropped off.

01:43:11.580 | No problem.

01:43:12.580 | So usually people mute themselves and they come back.

01:43:14.580 | Let me go on to several of you had jumped off earlier when I came to you.

01:43:19.580 | I will try rapid-fire to get through the rest of the callers on the line.

01:43:22.580 | If you're here to just listen and you're calling back in and you've noticed I've hung up on

01:43:25.580 | you a couple times, then you'll go ahead and dump yourself off.

01:43:27.580 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:43:31.580 | back in and you've noticed I've hung up on you a couple times, then you'll go ahead and

01:43:34.580 | dump yourself off.

01:43:35.580 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:43:38.580 | back in and you've noticed I've hung up on you a couple times, then you'll go ahead and

01:43:41.580 | dump yourself off.

01:43:42.580 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:43:43.580 | back in.

01:43:44.580 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:43:45.580 | back in.

01:43:46.580 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:43:47.580 | back in.

01:43:48.580 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:43:49.580 | back in.

01:43:50.580 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

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01:43:52.580 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

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01:47:15.660 | back in.

01:47:16.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:47:37.660 | back in.

01:48:00.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:28.660 | back in.

01:48:29.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:30.660 | back in.

01:48:31.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:32.660 | back in.

01:48:33.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:34.660 | back in.

01:48:35.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:36.660 | back in.

01:48:37.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:38.660 | back in.

01:48:39.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:40.660 | back in.

01:48:41.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:42.660 | back in.

01:48:43.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:48:44.660 | back in.

01:48:45.660 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:10.660 | back in.

01:49:16.020 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:28.540 | back in.

01:49:29.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:30.540 | back in.

01:49:31.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:32.540 | back in.

01:49:33.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:34.540 | back in.

01:49:35.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:36.540 | back in.

01:49:37.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:38.540 | back in.

01:49:39.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:40.540 | back in.

01:49:41.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:42.540 | back in.

01:49:43.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:44.540 | back in.

01:49:45.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:46.540 | back in.

01:49:47.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:48.540 | back in.

01:49:49.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:50.540 | back in.

01:49:51.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:52.540 | back in.

01:49:53.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:54.540 | back in.

01:49:55.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:49:56.540 | back in.

01:49:57.540 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:50:20.540 | back in.

01:50:46.940 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:14.300 | back in.

01:51:43.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:44.960 | back in.

01:51:45.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:46.960 | back in.

01:51:47.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:48.960 | back in.

01:51:49.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:50.960 | back in.

01:51:51.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:52.960 | back in.

01:51:53.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:54.960 | back in.

01:51:55.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:56.960 | back in.

01:51:57.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:51:58.960 | back in.

01:51:59.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:00.960 | back in.

01:52:01.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:02.960 | back in.

01:52:03.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:04.960 | back in.

01:52:05.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:06.960 | back in.

01:52:07.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:08.960 | back in.

01:52:09.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:10.960 | back in.

01:52:11.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:12.960 | back in.

01:52:13.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:14.960 | back in.

01:52:15.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:16.960 | back in.

01:52:17.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:52:36.960 | , and you're calling back in.

01:52:59.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:24.960 | back in.

01:53:25.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:26.960 | back in.

01:53:27.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:28.960 | back in.

01:53:29.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:30.960 | back in.

01:53:31.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:32.960 | back in.

01:53:33.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:34.960 | back in.

01:53:35.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:36.960 | back in.

01:53:37.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:38.960 | back in.

01:53:39.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:53:40.960 | back in.

01:53:41.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:06.960 | back in.

01:54:07.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:08.960 | back in.

01:54:09.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:10.960 | back in.

01:54:11.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:12.960 | back in.

01:54:13.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:14.960 | back in.

01:54:15.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:16.960 | back in.

01:54:17.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:18.960 | back in.

01:54:19.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:20.960 | back in.

01:54:21.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:22.960 | back in.

01:54:23.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:24.960 | back in.

01:54:25.960 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:42.480 | back in.

01:54:43.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:44.480 | back in.

01:54:45.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:46.480 | back in.

01:54:47.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:48.480 | back in.

01:54:49.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:50.480 | back in.

01:54:51.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:52.480 | back in.

01:54:53.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:54.480 | back in.

01:54:55.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:56.480 | back in.

01:54:57.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:54:58.480 | back in.

01:54:59.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:55:00.480 | back in.

01:55:01.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:55:02.480 | back in.

01:55:03.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:55:04.480 | back in.

01:55:05.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:55:06.480 | back in.

01:55:07.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:55:08.480 | back in.

01:55:09.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:55:10.480 | back in.

01:55:11.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:55:35.480 | back in.

01:55:42.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:55:49.480 | back in.

01:55:50.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:01.480 | back in.

01:56:02.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:08.480 | back in.

01:56:09.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:12.480 | back in.

01:56:13.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:14.480 | back in.

01:56:15.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:16.480 | back in.

01:56:17.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:18.480 | back in.

01:56:19.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:20.480 | back in.

01:56:21.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:22.480 | back in.

01:56:23.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:24.480 | back in.

01:56:25.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:26.480 | back in.

01:56:27.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:48.480 | back in.

01:56:49.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:50.480 | back in.

01:56:51.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:52.480 | back in.

01:56:53.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:54.480 | back in.

01:56:55.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:56.480 | back in.

01:56:57.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:56:58.480 | back in.

01:56:59.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:00.480 | back in.

01:57:01.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:02.480 | back in.

01:57:03.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:04.480 | back in.

01:57:05.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:06.480 | back in.

01:57:07.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:08.480 | back in.

01:57:09.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:10.480 | back in.

01:57:11.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:12.480 | back in.

01:57:13.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:32.480 | back in.

01:57:33.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:34.480 | back in.

01:57:35.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:36.480 | back in.

01:57:37.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:38.480 | back in.

01:57:39.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:40.480 | back in.

01:57:41.480 | Otherwise, pay attention to those of you who are here to just listen and you're calling

01:57:42.480 | back in.

01:57:43.480 | Now, I don't think you should listen to the broader real estate market because I've been

01:57:46.960 | wrong too many times for me to have any confidence in my prognostication.

01:57:52.240 | I do think that you should listen to your local market and so the reason that I have

01:57:58.680 | been wrong about a lot of my personal bets and predictions is that I have been predicting

01:58:07.720 | across a country, an enormous country with 380 million people, all of whom are interacting

01:58:14.120 | with each other and so I've had almost no ability to get that right.

01:58:18.040 | But I think on a local basis, you do have more ability to get it right and the people

01:58:22.560 | who are on the ground and people who are facing things know something about the local market

01:58:29.160 | and local markets are somewhat predictable.

01:58:32.160 | And so my first response would be what do you think is going to happen in your local

01:58:36.980 | market based upon the trends that you see, based upon the volume of sales, the days on

01:58:44.400 | market, all of the basic numbers that you see, you should do a little bit of predicting

01:58:51.840 | and you should do it with a specific eye towards the data, not just what does your real estate

01:58:56.840 | agent say, that's a good source of feedback, but more a matter of the actual data of your

01:59:03.120 | area.

01:59:04.160 | So if you haven't cultivated a source of data for your county, your city, whatever the area

01:59:09.120 | that you're targeting is, cultivate a source of data and look for a group of some kind

01:59:15.080 | of people who are paying attention to this.

01:59:17.240 | Look for a real estate investors club, look for an online group, look for a sub-forum

01:59:22.200 | in a real estate group somewhere, look for just conversations on Facebook, start a conversation

01:59:27.080 | about what's happening in a local area and try to develop a little bit of a prediction

01:59:31.520 | for your own area.

01:59:33.600 | In doing that, you should arrive at an assessment of the long-term potential of this area.

01:59:41.040 | And I think that in many cases, if you're buying into an area that has a stable base

01:59:46.400 | underneath it, of attractive qualities underneath it, then overbuying a house because it's the

01:59:56.920 | right thing for your family and experiencing a temporary pinch in your finances turns out

02:00:04.080 | to be the right move in the fullness of time.

02:00:07.380 | If we go back and we calculate the times where it turned out to be a mistake to buy real

02:00:12.960 | estate as compared with the times that turned out to be a smart choice to buy real estate.

02:00:19.360 | Smart choice wins out a huge portion of the time.

02:00:22.680 | And in any case in which it was a mistake, it was really only a mistake in the short

02:00:27.920 | term.

02:00:28.920 | So, I started my financial advisor career in 2008 in the middle of one of the world's

02:00:36.080 | greatest collapses of real estate in South Florida.

02:00:40.280 | And it was insane how many people I knew who went bankrupt with real estate and how they

02:00:46.200 | were selling their houses at 50% below what they paid for them, just a complete and total

02:00:49.840 | collapse.

02:00:50.840 | But anybody who held on for, I mean, even only four or five years was able to get out.

02:00:57.660 | And then today, more than 10 years, but 15 years later, then everything is squared away.

02:01:06.680 | That's not a universal case though, right?

02:01:08.760 | If you bought into, say, a place where all the industry was leaving, somewhere in the

02:01:12.960 | rust belt, et cetera, and you bought this big home because you thought the things were

02:01:18.680 | going to be there, and it turns out there was no economic strength underneath the area,

02:01:22.880 | then yeah, the home values would never come back.

02:01:26.240 | But I guess the bias is that if you're buying a house because you need the space in order

02:01:30.520 | to raise a child, then there's a good chance that you're in it for a 10-year deal.

02:01:36.320 | And overbuying on your personal house does have a useful investment component to it.

02:01:42.020 | It's not all consumption, especially if you're buying a good neighborhood, a good area that

02:01:46.120 | has good structure and good demand for those houses.

02:01:53.320 | And if you wind up being a little bit house poor for three or four years, and then you're

02:01:58.800 | not so house poor, then that kind of works out pretty well with when all of a sudden

02:02:05.080 | your other expenses start to increase, and just due to the natural rates of inflation,

02:02:09.160 | et cetera.

02:02:10.160 | So I think our bias always has to be in favor of buying a property if we can find a way

02:02:14.640 | to swing it.

02:02:16.280 | And you should know your local market to see, is there something that could happen in 2024?

02:02:22.520 | But our bias should be in favor of buying.

02:02:25.240 | When you're buying for a reason like you're describing, I need a house to raise my children

02:02:28.720 | in, you're not dependent on short-term swings, short-term moves.

02:02:33.360 | What you are dependent on is figuring out how to get a house to work.

02:02:37.760 | And so yes, maybe you tried 15 times, but there are plenty of houses and your requirements

02:02:44.280 | are probably not so unique that there aren't plenty of other houses.

02:02:48.040 | And so I would focus on, with each loss of a house, I would focus on saying, "How could

02:02:53.580 | I make my contract more appealing in the future?"

02:02:59.080 | If possible, I would stop all other investing just to pile up more money so I could make

02:03:03.800 | a bigger down payment or whatever was needed to make the numbers work.

02:03:06.760 | I think those are your obvious solutions.

02:03:08.360 | Of course, if you can make more money, do that as a temporary thing.

02:03:12.880 | And then try to figure out, "How could I make my contract more appealing?"

02:03:17.480 | But I've worked with a lot of real estate investors who the idea of making 15 offers

02:03:21.840 | on a house and then not a single one be accepted is not really that big of a deal.

02:03:27.220 | So I think in summary, I'm trying to give you some pointers without being too specific,

02:03:32.640 | but my bias should be in favor of buying and do everything I can to free up money, live

02:03:38.000 | frugally so I can put more down, close faster, figure out what is working in the current

02:03:43.480 | market and then be ready for the 2024 season and then see what happens.

02:03:47.760 | But if it takes you a year to buy a house or two years to buy a house, but you get a

02:03:52.560 | house that works for you for the long term, then that to me is still a win.

02:03:57.840 | Was that too vague or is that something to go on?

02:04:00.440 | Yeah, so it's a little general.

02:04:02.000 | I was hoping for something a little bit more specific.

02:04:05.480 | I suppose, let me ask maybe a more specific question.

02:04:09.920 | Please.

02:04:10.920 | At what point does it become too much house, I guess, is maybe a good way of thinking about

02:04:17.360 | it, right?

02:04:18.360 | I mean, where do I have to draw the line and stand because, I mean, I'm going to throw

02:04:23.280 | out real, these are public numbers, but in some of these houses, people are bidding over

02:04:27.800 | half a million dollars over AFT and I'm not talking about McMansion here, right?

02:04:33.520 | And we're losing by miles.

02:04:36.480 | And I guess the question is, where do I draw that line and stand for me?

02:04:40.640 | Percentages would be great.

02:04:42.200 | If you need net worth, I can throw that out there, but where do I draw that sign of like,

02:04:47.440 | where do I get uncomfortable knowing that I've overextended in the house?

02:04:53.120 | I would draw the line of saying, number one, if it were me, I would only ever calculate

02:04:56.760 | on my income.

02:04:57.920 | So I wouldn't buy a house depending on my wife's income because I want her to be a mother

02:05:02.640 | and that probably means that I can afford less house than a lot of other people who

02:05:06.160 | have a dual income.

02:05:08.200 | Number two is I would take a very careful look at what my cash flow needs are.

02:05:16.680 | So a guy who has no debt and who makes a high income could put 50% of his income into a

02:05:24.000 | housing payment and be fine.

02:05:25.480 | A guy who's got a lot of other payments and even if he had the same income and a lower

02:05:30.120 | income, for him, 20% would be too much.

02:05:32.680 | So I'm fine with like, there's the useful ratios of 25, 30, 35% of income, that's pretty

02:05:38.400 | much the standard advice.

02:05:40.280 | That's fine, but that's not all-encompassing.

02:05:42.160 | I would look at my personal budget and, again, the guy who makes a lot of money and doesn't

02:05:46.720 | have any other payments and isn't going out looking for payments could afford to put a

02:05:50.720 | higher percentage of income towards a personal house than the other.

02:05:54.480 | But if you're uncomfortable with it, what I would say is that having a larger house

02:05:59.120 | doesn't solve anything with children, especially in the early years.

02:06:03.200 | And so I would wait because in the beginning, they don't actually take that much space.

02:06:12.120 | But I can't give you the specific answer you're asking me for because there are too many variables.

02:06:20.280 | So I apologize for being vague, but I'm not comfortable giving like a personal answer

02:06:24.720 | because we're all different.

02:06:28.020 | And so I can tell you what I would do, but if you're uncomfortable, don't do it.

02:06:32.960 | Just wait.

02:06:34.360 | Because if you're a well-employed professional, there's got to be a solution in the local

02:06:37.940 | market that works for you in the fullness of time.

02:06:42.200 | And if you're in a market where there's just nothing you can afford, then you should seriously

02:06:46.320 | consider quitting that market and going somewhere else.

02:06:48.620 | But markets don't stay irrational forever.

02:06:57.040 | At a point in time, they have to become rational.

02:07:00.140 | There is an adjustment factor because what happens is real estate prices and normal people

02:07:06.440 | being able to live in an area that they can sit, there can be normal people who are able

02:07:13.080 | to afford a house because they lived in the house for the last 20 years.

02:07:16.780 | And their house price, they would never be able to afford to get back into that market,

02:07:20.780 | but they can sit in that market because they've been there for 20 years, but somebody coming

02:07:23.560 | into that market can't get in because the prices are completely out of whack.

02:07:29.700 | So I don't like to fail you, but I can't give you more specifics.

02:07:37.880 | Thank you, Joshua.

02:07:38.880 | Thank you.

02:07:39.880 | I call it because these are tough questions, right?

02:07:42.280 | It is.

02:07:43.280 | And hence why, hey, right, these are not easy situations for any of us.

02:07:48.420 | And ultimately, you know, I'm not giving a ton of personal situation, you know, details

02:07:54.260 | of my situation.

02:07:55.260 | It's a question because some of the best advice I've ever given in my life has come from third

02:08:00.620 | party individuals, right, such as yourself, you know, over a phone call.

02:08:05.120 | And those individuals often don't know that they're giving good advice until years later.

02:08:10.080 | But I find sometimes I need a different perspective and that's what you're providing me.

02:08:15.160 | And quite frankly, even your comments here are giving me things to think about in a different

02:08:19.000 | way.

02:08:20.000 | And I appreciate you, you know, giving your opinion and advice on this.

02:08:25.140 | So I do.

02:08:26.140 | I'll call in again and later with different questions in the future.

02:08:29.340 | But thank you.

02:08:30.340 | I know you have other calls online.

02:08:31.340 | I won't be respectful, but thank you.

02:08:34.160 | And it's been a pleasure speaking to you after 10 years of listening.

02:08:36.740 | I appreciate your being here.

02:08:38.180 | I guess the point I would leave you on would be to say that affordability in a strong market

02:08:47.100 | with a strong foundation, with strong desirability, with a strong house, affordability is often

02:08:54.540 | a temporary phenomenon.

02:08:57.060 | And the variability, if you're being outbid on a house that's way out in the suburbs of

02:09:04.380 | a city that's kind of mediocre, well, I would be very concerned about overbidding on that.

02:09:08.660 | If you're bidding on a house that's right in the center of a city that has a long history,

02:09:12.740 | strong local economy, etc., and you're bidding at a level that's uncomfortable for you for

02:09:20.180 | a few years, to me, I'm still willing to push that comfort level, recognizing that after

02:09:27.340 | a few years things will probably change.

02:09:30.180 | And I wish I could make a prediction on the 2024 markets, I wish I could make a prediction

02:09:39.480 | on interest rates, I wish I could make comments on some of that stuff, but I'm uncomfortable

02:09:44.960 | doing so, and I think it's important to be careful and just focus primarily on the personal

02:09:51.020 | situation.

02:09:52.020 | All right.

02:09:53.020 | Move to Kilgore, Texas.

02:09:54.020 | Welcome to the show.

02:09:55.020 | How can I serve you today?

02:09:56.020 | Oops.

02:09:57.020 | Thank you for taking my call.

02:09:58.020 | Can you hear me?

02:09:59.020 | Yes.

02:10:00.020 | I'm sorry.

02:10:01.020 | I'd forgotten to unmute you.

02:10:02.020 | So tell me your name again, please.

02:10:03.020 | Oh, my name's Nicole.

02:10:04.020 | Nicole, welcome.

02:10:05.020 | How can I serve you today?

02:10:06.020 | So I had a question, Joshua, similar to the previous caller, it's about a housing situation.

02:10:11.940 | Can I just give you a quick rundown of our finances?

02:10:16.140 | Please.

02:10:17.140 | So we have about $90,000 saved, our annual income is about $70,000, so that is mostly

02:10:23.980 | my husband's income, and we're not looking to relocate because he works in-person and

02:10:28.980 | he enjoys the job.

02:10:29.980 | I don't know if I said we don't have any debt.

02:10:33.700 | Our current rent is about $700,000, and it's in a relatively safe area.

02:10:37.120 | The only difference is we have a child and are expecting more, and it's just a two-bed,

02:10:41.900 | one-bath.

02:10:42.900 | So we are looking to get a house in the future, but in our area, we've noticed prices have

02:10:48.740 | gone up, I think about $50,000 to $100,000 in just a few years.

02:10:55.180 | So our concern is that we would like to buy a house with as big of a down payment as possible,

02:11:01.620 | just to reduce the amount that we pay in interest, but our concern is if we keep waiting for

02:11:05.460 | years to save up $150,000, something like that, to get a house that we'd be happy with,

02:11:12.060 | we're worried that the market's going to keep outstripping us.

02:11:14.180 | Do you have any input on that calculation or in terms of what we should do as a first-time

02:11:18.340 | homebuyer?

02:11:20.860 | I don't believe that the future of the market should be a primary factor of analysis in

02:11:28.060 | a situation like you're describing.

02:11:30.060 | I don't deny that it's unimportant.

02:11:33.020 | If any of us could predict the market, then wouldn't that be wonderful, it'd be great.

02:11:37.660 | We'd all buy options contracts on all the houses in our market and make a bundle.

02:11:41.220 | But it's famously difficult to predict, especially in the world of real estate, because it reflects

02:11:46.900 | "the market" simply reflects the thousands and thousands and thousands of individual

02:11:53.860 | decisions made by this buyer, this seller, this buyer, this seller, and people buy and

02:11:58.620 | sell for any number of reasons.

02:12:01.780 | So what could we stand on?

02:12:04.340 | If we can't stand on the prediction of the market or prognostication, what could we stand

02:12:08.500 | on?

02:12:09.500 | Well, I think we could stand on personal financial planning.

02:12:11.780 | And how I would define that would be to say, "Do we need a house?"

02:12:16.020 | If we have a baby and we're having more, probably yes.

02:12:20.180 | Obviously people could raise their children in $700 a month apartments, but the quality

02:12:24.980 | of life that you're going to experience probably being proved significantly by being in a house

02:12:29.460 | that serves you.

02:12:31.300 | And so we want to look around and say, "Is buying a house good for us?"

02:12:35.820 | Now when buying a house, for this reason, it's a fairly stable thing.

02:12:41.420 | When people buy houses because they're having babies, they're probably going to be somewhere

02:12:45.740 | for a significant period of time.

02:12:47.580 | Ten years is kind of a minimum plan.

02:12:50.340 | You can understand that things might change when my child is a teenager, but if you're

02:12:54.320 | buying a house to have children in, you can probably plan for the long term.

02:12:58.340 | You're planning on a 10-year ownership.

02:13:01.020 | And even when you have 10 years, the whole idea of market changes go out the window.

02:13:06.260 | It's not that big of a deal.

02:13:08.020 | If you reflect back on what a house that you're considering cost 10 years ago as to now, you'll

02:13:12.940 | see that the long-term trend is what it is, and the short-term ups and downs of $50,000

02:13:17.740 | here, $50,000 there, is not that big of a deal.

02:13:20.820 | So to me, these are good reasons for you to buy a house.

02:13:24.660 | In addition, you're obviously prepared financially to buy a house.

02:13:28.660 | You have no debt, you have savings, and you have a stable income.

02:13:33.300 | And you want to buy a house for lifestyle reasons.

02:13:35.260 | So all of that would say that you should buy a house.

02:13:38.020 | Now in terms of what you can afford, you have to go and look in the market, run the numbers,

02:13:44.900 | talk to a mortgage broker, see what you can afford in terms of a mortgage, look at all

02:13:48.900 | the alternatives, right, could we do a $70,000, could we buy a $40,000 piece of land and get

02:13:55.260 | a shed from Home Depot for $20,000 and fix it up ourselves and live in that?

02:13:59.100 | Are you those kinds of people?

02:14:00.740 | Assuming that you're not kind of unusual radicals in some way.

02:14:04.900 | That actually is one of our interests, actually just what you said, we were trying to think

02:14:08.980 | of different ways.

02:14:09.980 | So I'm open to that, but that's usually going to be, if that's the kind of people you are,

02:14:14.060 | you're the kind of people who would buy a piece of land, live in an RV on it for a while,

02:14:18.220 | put up a tiny house, expand over time, that's awesome.

02:14:21.860 | And that's a very different set of decisions though than the normal path that I'm going

02:14:26.940 | down, which is to say, you're going to buy a conventional home in a suburb somewhere,

02:14:31.660 | etc.

02:14:32.660 | And if you are committed to being debt-free, then it's just a matter of, is there land

02:14:37.020 | that has zoning that I need?

02:14:38.820 | Could we build a tiny house or a barn dominium, or what are they called, you know, a metal

02:14:44.700 | shed?

02:14:45.700 | Exactly what you mean.

02:14:46.700 | Yeah.

02:14:47.700 | Like, is there some unique thing that we could do?

02:14:50.580 | And I would say, go for it.

02:14:51.980 | In that case, then yeah, you should just go with what you can pay cash for.

02:14:55.480 | You should go ahead and do that if you're those kinds of people.

02:14:58.660 | Not many people are those kinds of people, which is why I usually give the more conventional

02:15:01.700 | advice.

02:15:02.700 | But in your situation, if that's you, then I would say if there's any way to make it

02:15:05.860 | work, then go for it.

02:15:06.860 | Because not having a mortgage and if you're adventurous enough to do that kind of stuff,

02:15:11.820 | you guys can totally win doing that.

02:15:13.260 | It's just a matter of, can you find a piece of land that works, etc.

02:15:16.300 | That's good.

02:15:17.300 | Yeah.

02:15:18.300 | Definitely our priorities are staying debt-free and just, we really want land to enjoy the

02:15:22.100 | outdoors.

02:15:23.100 | We're not so big on the suburbs or anything like that.

02:15:25.900 | Okay.

02:15:26.900 | So here's, I think this relates then, this is what I was going to say, is that I believe

02:15:31.780 | that when you're buying a house, either your down payment should be as small as possible

02:15:38.140 | or you should pay cash.

02:15:40.340 | Either one.

02:15:41.340 | There's enormous value to both of them.

02:15:43.500 | But the idea of saying, "I'm going to save up from $90,000 to $150,000," so that I can

02:15:48.980 | – let's assume that you were less radical and more conventional.

02:15:52.140 | Let's assume that you were going to go and buy a $300,000 house.

02:15:56.140 | If you call me and say, "Joshua, we're going to buy a $300,000 house.

02:16:00.020 | Should we just go with our down payment of $90,000 that we have saved or should we sit

02:16:04.820 | for another two or three years and save $150,000 so we can make a $150,000 down payment?"

02:16:10.540 | My answer is no.

02:16:11.540 | Buy a house now because there's no – you're better off putting a small of a down payment

02:16:17.220 | down so that you have maximum flexibility and get as big of a mortgage as possible rather

02:16:23.220 | than saving for a few more years so you can make a $150,000 down payment on a $300,000

02:16:28.980 | house.

02:16:29.980 | Now, if you're committed to being debt-free, then I'm all in.

02:16:32.900 | Great.

02:16:33.900 | That's the other one that's really valuable because someone who's genuinely debt-free

02:16:36.940 | and who's committed to staying debt-free, you're going to have such an enormous benefit

02:16:41.140 | from life for that that you keep it up.

02:16:45.160 | Either you put a small of a down payment down as possible or you pay cash.

02:16:47.980 | If you're going to pay cash, then your budget is determined by what cash you have.

02:16:53.140 | That's a matter of is there some way that we can find to make this work.

02:16:58.260 | Then you look at is there a piece of land?

02:17:00.420 | What are the land prices?

02:17:01.420 | How much land?

02:17:02.420 | What are the costs, et cetera?

02:17:04.100 | Then is there a way that we can get onto the property in a somewhat uncomfortable way while

02:17:08.580 | we're building and saving for our dream house?

02:17:12.220 | Your rent is very, very modest so you can still save money, but if you can get onto

02:17:16.780 | the land and start improving the land and there's some path where you pay $50,000 for

02:17:21.140 | a piece of land, you buy a $15,000 or $20,000 trailer, you move onto it, you start putting

02:17:26.380 | in your gardens, you start putting in your trees, et cetera, and then you start building

02:17:30.500 | a house over time using recycled materials, doing it inexpensively, doing whatever kind

02:17:38.460 | of methodology.

02:17:39.460 | I'm all in favor.

02:17:40.460 | Then yes, if you're committed to going debt-free, I'm with you and you should just set your

02:17:44.100 | budget based upon how much money you have.

02:17:45.740 | If you don't have enough money to do something that makes sense, then yes, you should wait

02:17:49.180 | a few more years until you have money to make sense.

02:17:51.780 | Recognize that in your scenario, if you're going to operate on cash, your particular

02:17:57.380 | decisions will not flow with the rest of the market because you're operating based upon

02:18:02.460 | cash.

02:18:03.460 | So what's affordable for you is very different than what's affordable for other people.

02:18:08.380 | You don't have many competitors.

02:18:11.460 | You're just not in the same world as your neighbor who's going out and buying a house

02:18:16.100 | with a mortgage.

02:18:17.400 | You don't have to worry about interest rates.

02:18:19.220 | You don't have to worry about any of this stuff because you're paying cash.

02:18:22.300 | You're in a very different world that's much more a matter of is there a lifestyle or a

02:18:25.980 | certain type of house that we could build based upon the money we have, how could we

02:18:29.220 | get into it as quickly as possible, etc.

02:18:31.500 | Okay, thank you very much.

02:18:34.420 | Could I ask you a book recommendation as well?

02:18:37.180 | Sure, go ahead.

02:18:38.180 | Both my husband and I have only ever earned income from an employer and we're interested

02:18:41.740 | in learning more about how to gain income separate from the employer.

02:18:47.340 | Do you have any book recommendations or ideas of where to start in terms of learning how

02:18:52.740 | to use our skills?

02:18:53.740 | Or like as a third, not changing our income but like an additional income stream.

02:19:00.940 | Understood.

02:19:02.940 | I don't have a book recommendation off the bat because that's such a broad general topic.

02:19:07.900 | What I would say is look around your personal life.

02:19:11.260 | Find someone that you know and admire who does this and then spend the money you would

02:19:16.900 | spend on a book taking that person out to dinner and pumping him or her for ideas because

02:19:21.820 | there are tons of people who do this and a lot of people don't write books.

02:19:25.940 | I've known so many people over the years that have become financially independent in totally

02:19:30.600 | non – in ways that – so fast on ways that are not publishable.

02:19:37.820 | I know a couple that – my family that started off divorced totally basically out of money

02:19:44.980 | because the divorce had all their money, started off, got remarried, driving a truck, lived

02:19:52.300 | on nothing, saved like crazy, started buying houses and basically six years later financially

02:19:57.060 | independent on rents from houses, never borrowed a dime and it was all based upon putting in

02:20:01.420 | skills and learning skills, etc. and things like that.

02:20:04.300 | That stuff is not in a book and I don't have a general book to recommend.

02:20:08.100 | What I would say is the place for books is when there's something that you're trying

02:20:12.060 | to learn how to do, to do that.

02:20:15.020 | I'm sure there are good books out there.

02:20:16.620 | Go to the library, grab 20 or 30 of them, flip through them, see what sparks your interest

02:20:21.260 | and go with that.

02:20:22.820 | But probably more productive is start with somebody that you know who's done something

02:20:26.180 | you admire and see if that person could provide you with help.

02:20:31.140 | All right.

02:20:32.140 | We move on to Alberta.

02:20:33.140 | Welcome to the show.

02:20:34.140 | How can I serve you today?

02:20:35.140 | Alberta, go ahead.

02:20:36.140 | Hi, Jeff.

02:20:37.140 | Can you hear me?

02:20:38.140 | Sounds good.

02:20:39.140 | Go ahead, please.

02:20:40.140 | Hi there.

02:20:41.140 | My name is Kathleen and I've listened to you for a long time.

02:20:42.140 | So I want to say thank you for all the advice that you've given.

02:20:43.140 | My pleasure.

02:20:44.140 | And Happy New Year.

02:20:45.140 | And to you.

02:20:46.140 | So I was wondering, I know you've given some advice about how to set up one's life generally

02:21:00.900 | in the past and I was wondering if you could help with some of the specifics of my situation.

02:21:05.740 | Okay.

02:21:06.740 | So I live in a small mountain community with limited career opportunities, but I really

02:21:14.140 | want to progress my career and contribute.

02:21:17.980 | And so because it's so limited in my area, but I really want to be here for the community

02:21:23.560 | and the people, I was wondering how to do that with being so remote.

02:21:29.340 | Well, the obvious answer is a Starlink dish on your back porch and the Internet.

02:21:36.460 | But I assume you've thought of that, so we have to kind of go a little bit more detailed.

02:21:39.700 | But basically the price of living in the middle of nowhere in terms of your ability to connect

02:21:47.620 | to the world has basically become zero because Starlink has transformed everything.

02:21:52.900 | And so now it's more a matter of saying how do I express my skills, how do I develop skills,

02:21:59.140 | ability, et cetera, and then how do I use the Internet to service those skills.

02:22:04.820 | How are you earning your living right now?

02:22:06.860 | Currently, I work in local government and I think I have lots of transferable skills,

02:22:13.060 | but it's a bit hard to market them since I'm basically a municipal bureaucrat that isn't

02:22:22.040 | in the private sector.

02:22:24.420 | Do you know, let's say that you are committing yourself that two years from today, I'm not

02:22:29.140 | going to be working in local government, I'm no longer going to be a municipal bureaucrat,

02:22:32.580 | I'm going to be doing my own thing, and I'm going to be doing it through an Internet connection.

02:22:36.460 | Do you have any idea where you would start?

02:22:38.740 | Yeah, I've started by updating my resume and contacting consultants in my field to see

02:22:47.100 | if anyone needs help and if I can offer anything on a contract basis, but so far I haven't

02:22:53.540 | had any response.

02:22:56.700 | Have you applied, so you're responding to job ads, to help-wanted ads, is that right?

02:23:03.020 | Yes, that's right, or just anyone whose work is interested, I kind of cold email them and

02:23:09.060 | say, "Oh, I think your work's really interesting and here's how I think I could contribute."

02:23:13.700 | Have you read any books on career planning yet?

02:23:16.180 | No, I don't think so.

02:23:20.580 | So there would be two tools that I would encourage you to do, and this would be probably the

02:23:26.680 | best.

02:23:27.680 | I wish I had, I'd love to spend hours with you on this, but the problem is that what

02:23:33.740 | I hear you asking, and I'll give you a moment to disagree in a moment, but what I hear you

02:23:36.740 | asking is a very vague question.

02:23:40.340 | The question I hear you asking is, as modified by me, "How do I earn money on the Internet?"

02:23:46.780 | And that's just way too big of a question for anybody to answer, because we don't live

02:23:51.300 | in the world that we lived in in 1980, where there was five or six basic ideas, five or

02:23:57.300 | six businesses that you could do, you could stuff envelopes from your kitchen table while

02:24:00.780 | living in a rural area.

02:24:02.540 | Today, there's virtually no business, there's virtually no job that can't be done over an

02:24:09.100 | Internet connection, and there are plenty of just mainstream jobs, customer service

02:24:14.500 | representative, you know, insurance company employee, claims adjuster, there are plenty

02:24:20.460 | of just straightforward bureaucratic jobs that would probably be in line with what you're

02:24:25.340 | currently doing, that are all done over the Internet, and in some cases your employer

02:24:30.900 | will just ship you a computer and you're good to go.

02:24:33.780 | Now, so it's too general of a question in order to ask, to find solutions, and general

02:24:40.460 | questions are very hard to answer, whereas specific questions are much easier to answer

02:24:46.380 | and they're much easier for you to answer.

02:24:49.020 | And so your number one goal is to try to develop a specific question and understand a specific

02:24:55.860 | job, a specific career, a specific industry, something that you are interested in, something

02:25:03.200 | that might provide you with the kind of work life that you're interested in pursuing.

02:25:08.740 | And so that's the essence of good career planning, is to identify some area of personal interest

02:25:16.060 | mixed with some area of kind of an external industry fit that winds up being a good connection

02:25:22.340 | to you.

02:25:23.340 | And there's any number of ways.

02:25:24.620 | So these things can be jobs, right?

02:25:26.580 | You may be into outdoor sports.

02:25:28.100 | After all, I live in a beautiful remote community in Alberta, you're probably outdoor sports

02:25:32.700 | available to you, and so you might find some kind of outdoor sports company that you want

02:25:38.300 | to work with, and they may need a representative or may need an employee, et cetera, but you

02:25:41.940 | have to have somewhere to go looking.

02:25:43.940 | So what I would recommend is that you begin with reading a couple of career planning books

02:25:50.300 | and go to your library.

02:25:51.980 | Years ago, I used to teach for a brief time Dan Miller's 48 Days to the Work You Love

02:25:56.540 | course.

02:25:57.540 | I think that's really great.

02:25:58.540 | It's still a great book.

02:25:59.540 | So grab a copy of Dan Miller's book.

02:26:00.940 | I haven't checked in on him in five years at least, so as far as I know, he's probably

02:26:06.140 | still there, but I don't know if he's still even doing his podcast and his business.

02:26:10.460 | But I would take a pause on radical personal finance content and go and start looking for

02:26:14.980 | career podcasts.

02:26:16.540 | And so 48 Days to the Work You Love is probably great.

02:26:19.220 | There's probably a dozen other new ones that I haven't followed in the last number of years.

02:26:23.300 | I would go on Amazon and go to your library, if you have a local library, and go to their

02:26:28.260 | career section and check out every book they have on career planning and read through them.

02:26:32.140 | I would go to, if they don't have a great selection, I would go on Amazon and I would

02:26:36.620 | purchase five books on career planning.

02:26:38.820 | You don't need five, but you'll want to just poke through five until you find one that

02:26:41.700 | resonates for you.

02:26:43.180 | And then grab one of them and go through the exercises, and one of those books will give

02:26:46.820 | you a set of basic analyses to do.

02:26:51.060 | They might give you some profiles that you want to take to get to know yourself, some

02:26:55.260 | psychological profiles, etc.

02:26:57.460 | They might have you create various charts of industries you're interested in, people

02:27:02.020 | that have had jobs that you're interested in, etc.

02:27:04.980 | And go through those books until you have some kind of more meaningful target of a career

02:27:10.780 | opportunity that you want to target.

02:27:13.380 | Because if you know that I want to do financial sales, after all, the fact that you listen

02:27:17.620 | to my podcast tells me you're interested in money, and you say, "I want to be an insurance

02:27:20.940 | agent," or, "I want to do financial sales," you can do that from your little town.

02:27:24.420 | A lot of financial sales is done virtually now, and so you can do that from your little

02:27:29.380 | town.

02:27:30.380 | But that will put you on a very different pathway than if you say, "I want to continue

02:27:34.980 | as a customer service representative for an outdoors company."

02:27:39.540 | And so you need to narrow in your focus on something that you actually want.

02:27:44.400 | And then when you have an idea of what you actually want, you should develop a specific

02:27:48.380 | career plan or a job plan to go after what you want.

02:27:51.860 | And that probably doesn't mean answering a bunch of help wanted ads.

02:27:55.200 | Help wanted ads are primarily useful to you as a way of seeing what resonates with you

02:28:01.100 | versus what doesn't resonate with you.

02:28:02.780 | And I'm not saying don't do that.

02:28:04.220 | You probably should do that.

02:28:05.660 | But your best opportunities will generally come when you're going after a specific industry,

02:28:09.460 | a specific company, a specific position that you have come up with the idea that this is

02:28:14.660 | what you want.

02:28:15.780 | And since you already have a job, you can afford to take the time to do this right.

02:28:21.740 | So my goal would be that at the end of this year, you would have a job that you really

02:28:25.860 | want, not just a random job that you stumbled across.

02:28:29.980 | And so I would begin with some career planning books.

02:28:33.420 | I would begin by taking some tests and some psychological profiles to see what might be

02:28:38.660 | a good fit for you.

02:28:40.500 | And as I've talked about in other shows, also just do an introspective consideration of

02:28:44.700 | what are the kinds of jobs that I've said would be interesting to me, etc.

02:28:48.300 | You can either do it with external testing or internal expression.

02:28:51.840 | But that's where I would begin.

02:28:54.420 | And when you can ask a more specific question of yourself, then you'll be able to get a

02:28:58.300 | much better answer from me or from someone else than just asking a vague general question

02:29:03.380 | like how do I support myself?

02:29:05.020 | The obvious answer is through the internet, but today that's everything can be done through

02:29:08.860 | the internet.

02:29:09.860 | So you'll have to find an industry or a job or a vision that you're actually going to

02:29:14.700 | pursue.

02:29:15.700 | Okay, yeah, that's helpful.

02:29:20.720 | I think I know a career path that I'm interested in that I want to pursue and the job I'm in,

02:29:27.900 | there's kind of half oriented towards that and half very, you know, bureaucratic.

02:29:33.840 | So I guess what I'd like to do is get to a job that's all oriented towards what I want

02:29:40.920 | to do.

02:29:41.920 | Yeah, I've been kind of trying to negotiate that in my current role, but getting some

02:29:47.560 | resistance and wondering if it's better to pursue something online.

02:29:52.600 | Yeah, the only other thing and forgive me, I am trying to move just a little quickly

02:29:57.440 | because I've still got several calls jumped off, I still got four others that I want to

02:30:01.040 | try to get to.

02:30:02.040 | But one other comment I would make is that if you can't find something that's completely

02:30:06.840 | online today, but you know you want to stay in this town, then if it fits with your family

02:30:13.120 | and where you are, etc., you might be willing to relocate for a time, especially if it gets

02:30:20.000 | you into a company that seems like it'll be a better fit for you.

02:30:24.720 | So in certain industries, working online is totally expected and it's totally normal.

02:30:31.160 | But you may not want to be a computer programmer, so you may want to develop other skills.

02:30:35.460 | In some cases, another strategy for you to consider, and I'm sidestepping any discussion

02:30:40.280 | of a particular industry and just favor of these general discussions, in some cases your

02:30:45.360 | best bet is to go ahead, go somewhere for a time, move to a different place, work in

02:30:50.560 | a company for a couple of years and then get the inside track on a job that would allow

02:30:54.600 | you to be remote and then you could go ahead and move back to your little town.

02:30:58.180 | So consider that strategy as well.

02:31:00.160 | And then keep in touch, call me back in the future and let's see if we can come up with

02:31:03.140 | more ideas as you can be more specific.

02:31:05.640 | Samuel in England, welcome to the show, how can I serve you today?

02:31:12.780 | Samuel, going once.

02:31:15.780 | Samuel in Nottingham, going twice.

02:31:18.260 | All right, Samuel, you're out of here.

02:31:20.940 | Margaret in, maybe that's the same, Margaret, welcome to the show, how can I serve you today?

02:31:26.180 | All right, no Samuel, I see your chat, I cannot hear you, so check your microphone, I'll come

02:31:32.900 | back to you in just a moment, I see and I'll come back to you in a moment, see if you can

02:31:36.660 | get it fixed.

02:31:37.660 | Remember that you can call in on the phone if necessary.

02:31:39.820 | Josh in British Columbia, Josh, welcome to the show, how can I serve you today?

02:31:42.580 | Josh, can you hear me?

02:31:44.580 | Yes, go ahead.

02:31:45.580 | Great, so I've been listening to your show for about eight years and I really appreciate

02:31:54.900 | everything you've done.

02:31:56.740 | My issue right now is I currently just recently had a newborn, job-wise pretty stable, government

02:32:07.180 | again, my wife works in the health authority as well.

02:32:14.540 | I feel kind of stuck in life, I don't really know what I want to do, I know that I want

02:32:22.380 | to help people and a lot of people have actually told me that I'm pretty approachable, I tend

02:32:31.540 | to take initiative to do things for people that people would never ask, but a lot of

02:32:37.620 | them seem to see me as a good candidate for potentially sales or insurance, but I don't

02:32:46.140 | really see myself as the kind that would push people to buy stuff.

02:32:52.460 | I probably just need advice on, I guess, life and how we manage to really just bring up

02:33:00.980 | a family and create your own business while helping people without so much.

02:33:09.780 | I'll do my best, and by the way, I've muted you for a moment, if there's anything you

02:33:13.740 | can do to boost your audio by, for example, turning off of a hands-free or something,

02:33:18.140 | that's fine, I was barely able to hear you, but I was able to hear you, but I'll do my

02:33:21.620 | best to give you a useful answer, but I would point out to you that your question suffers

02:33:28.060 | from the same curse as the previous listener, is quite simply that it's too general to be

02:33:33.300 | answerable in the first place.

02:33:35.940 | And so if you're just saying general advice in life, there's all kinds of advice that

02:33:41.500 | could be given, but you're going to need to develop more specific questions.

02:33:47.140 | General questions, again, can't be answered really by anybody.

02:33:51.900 | Specific questions can be answered by you, yourself alone, without any external input.

02:33:57.420 | And so cultivate the skill of asking good questions.

02:34:01.780 | The man who can ask good questions is really the king of his life and the king of society,

02:34:09.300 | because when we ask questions, we divert function, we divert attention, we control the conversation.

02:34:17.220 | And so building the skill of asking good questions is important.

02:34:21.580 | Now that's convenient as a segue for me to talk about sales.

02:34:25.700 | I think, first of all, sales is something that's not a great fit for a lot of people.

02:34:31.940 | And if you think it might be a good fit for you, then the best thing you should do is

02:34:36.400 | just go and get involved as quickly as you can and get involved in sales and see what

02:34:39.900 | it's like.

02:34:41.280 | But sales is great because it's one of those things that can pretty quickly show you that

02:34:45.980 | it's for me or it's not for me.

02:34:48.780 | Basically three months and you'll probably have a good sense of whether it's for you

02:34:52.680 | or not.

02:34:53.940 | I got into sales because I always respected salespeople and I always loved sales.

02:34:58.740 | And that's not super common, but I understood that somebody who could sell is a powerful

02:35:05.580 | skill and it's a very highly compensated skill, and it's a skill that can be transferred

02:35:10.340 | from one thing to the next.

02:35:12.540 | And there's a sales trainer, I don't remember who to ascribe it to or attribute it to, excuse

02:35:17.580 | me, but a sales trainer used to say that selling is nothing other than a transference of emotion,

02:35:22.940 | transference of feeling.

02:35:24.820 | And if that's true, I believe it's true, then that answers the question as to how could

02:35:30.360 | I pressure somebody into buying from me.

02:35:34.980 | There's a large misconception that sales is a function of pressure.

02:35:38.540 | To be clear, there is plenty of pressure that's exerted in some sales circumstances.

02:35:43.980 | But a lot of that is just an artifact of a past generation.

02:35:49.620 | I don't enjoy, generally speaking, sales pressure.

02:35:52.660 | I don't like it.

02:35:54.140 | Most people don't like it, especially in our North American culture, most people don't

02:35:58.140 | like it.

02:35:59.140 | If we were in other parts of the world, it's more common, but most of us don't like it.

02:36:02.940 | And it's just not really a particularly effective sales technique, because somebody who feels

02:36:07.160 | pressured to do something that he doesn't want to do will ultimately find a way to undo

02:36:12.100 | the thing that he did that he didn't want to do.

02:36:14.420 | And so if you're selling an insurance policy and you pressure somebody into taking the

02:36:17.580 | insurance policy, it'll cancel right out from under you.

02:36:19.700 | If you're selling a car and you pressure someone to take a car, it'll show up back at your

02:36:23.620 | lot and the whole deal will be undone.

02:36:25.900 | We know how to undo things that we can do.

02:36:29.940 | Professional selling, modern selling, is much more a matter of identifying clearly a specific

02:36:35.380 | need that someone has and then articulating to that person how the product or service

02:36:41.160 | that you have to sell solves that need.

02:36:43.820 | And when there's a good fit between what somebody needs or wants and what you have to offer,

02:36:48.740 | then selling is easy.

02:36:50.460 | And most of sales is just a matter of finding people for whom it's a good fit.

02:36:55.100 | And a professional salesperson, someone who's skilled, generally doesn't care that much

02:37:00.500 | about the ones who aren't a good fit.

02:37:02.700 | He recognizes this isn't a good fit and you just go on.

02:37:05.880 | When I was doing insurance sales, my mantra that I repeated to myself was in or out, you

02:37:10.740 | know, now or later.

02:37:12.400 | And basically it was simply, is this the kind of person who's in and who I have an opportunity

02:37:18.820 | with?

02:37:19.820 | Or is this the kind of person who's out?

02:37:20.920 | If you're sitting on the wrong side of the tracks, late at night, selling life insurance

02:37:25.560 | to somebody whose car just got repossessed in the front yard, there's no amount of high

02:37:30.720 | pressure sales that you can use that's going to make that policy stick.

02:37:34.080 | This is not a person for whom life insurance is a good fit.

02:37:36.920 | And so this person's out.

02:37:38.460 | On the other hand, if you're sitting in front of a, you know, a thoughtful, future-oriented

02:37:44.040 | person who's got a job and who's working and who has a wife and a baby wants to protect,

02:37:48.520 | then life insurance probably is a good fit.

02:37:50.640 | And so when you're a salesperson, basically what you're doing is judging the people that

02:37:55.320 | you're listening to and just trying to categorize them, in or out, and then second step, now

02:37:59.720 | or later.

02:38:00.780 | So someone can be in, but not now, that's later.

02:38:04.980 | Someone can be in now or someone can be in later.

02:38:07.580 | And so in essence, if I'm a salesman, all I'm doing is trying to find prospect through

02:38:12.240 | people and I'm saying to myself, are you in or out?

02:38:14.800 | Is it now or later?

02:38:16.040 | And then I just respond appropriately.

02:38:18.080 | If you find someone who's in and you find someone who's potentially in now, then your

02:38:24.320 | job as a salesperson is to figure out how to uncover very clearly the specific needs

02:38:30.720 | that someone has and then articulate how your product fills those needs so that they can

02:38:35.420 | see it and understand it.

02:38:37.600 | And ideally you only want to be selling something that you personally, passionately believe

02:38:41.680 | in, that you are really enthusiastic about, because that makes the transference of emotion

02:38:46.960 | really, really useful.

02:38:48.880 | So I consider that I sell every day.

02:38:52.720 | But what I sell are things that I believe in and I don't sell anything that I don't

02:38:56.800 | believe in.

02:38:57.800 | And if I don't believe in something, then I just, I don't try to pressure somebody.

02:39:01.520 | And just give a simple example.

02:39:03.080 | I think you said you're having a baby or hoping to have a baby.

02:39:07.000 | And so it's one of the reasons why you're giving focus and attention to this.

02:39:11.320 | I firmly believe that all men should have babies.

02:39:15.200 | I think it makes them better men and I think it's one of the best things that we can do

02:39:18.280 | in society.

02:39:19.280 | We're facing an enormous birthrate collapse and we desperately need more babies in our

02:39:23.360 | societies.

02:39:24.360 | We need more babies in our lives, etc.

02:39:25.600 | I believe that passionately.

02:39:27.480 | But earlier in this call I received a question from someone who said, you know, I'm not really,

02:39:31.800 | I'm not really, I'm not, I don't want to have a baby.

02:39:35.200 | I don't want to, I want to be single for life.

02:39:37.580 | And I didn't try to come and beat on that guy and say you have to have a baby.

02:39:41.760 | I respected his decision, his perspective.

02:39:44.840 | He's going to make his own decisions on life.

02:39:47.160 | And it's perfectly fine for him to make his decisions on life that are different from

02:39:50.400 | mine just like it's perfectly fine for you to buy a Mac and me to buy a PC.

02:39:55.200 | And so I'm not going to spend any time trying to sell him hard on something he doesn't believe

02:40:00.720 | in.

02:40:01.720 | If I'm trying to sell the concept of, you know, having babies, then he's probably out.

02:40:08.000 | And if he's in ever, it's certainly later.

02:40:09.800 | So I'm not going to try to push on him.

02:40:11.320 | I'm going to answer in a different way.

02:40:13.360 | And that's what sales is.

02:40:14.480 | Good professional sales is that.

02:40:16.760 | And so some of the people who are the most successful at sales are those who are, like

02:40:22.640 | let's use insurance, a world that I know.

02:40:24.920 | Some of the most successful life insurance salesmen are the least pushy people you would

02:40:29.360 | ever find.

02:40:31.000 | Because I used to study under a guy who was a musician.

02:40:35.060 | He never wanted to be a pushy salesman, he was a musician.

02:40:38.160 | But he was a really good listener.

02:40:40.440 | And because of his skill of listening, he could accurately identify what somebody wanted

02:40:45.320 | and needed and then help to articulate in a very cool and smooth way, specifically how

02:40:50.880 | his products and services filled that.

02:40:53.280 | And he made millions of dollars a year because of that skill.

02:40:56.520 | And I think that's common among virtually all sales.

02:41:00.600 | I don't want to say all, because there are sales circumstances where pushiness, usually

02:41:05.120 | those are small transactions, you're selling a $20 painting or a $20 fake Rolex on the

02:41:09.400 | street or something like that.

02:41:10.960 | Somebody walks past you, they're not going to buy again.

02:41:12.880 | Those guys push, push, push, push because they're never going to have a second chance.

02:41:15.800 | But that's not professional sales, that's street sales and it's a very different market.

02:41:22.840 | In terms of general advice, I would say that your duty as a potential father or as a father

02:41:29.360 | is to build a large and comprehensive vision for your life in every dimension.

02:41:34.460 | And when you can see that vision, then you start putting in place the specific steps

02:41:38.480 | for it.

02:41:39.920 | And this is what is so great about having children is that it often forces you, in some

02:41:44.920 | cases for the first time, to think outside of yourself, to think outside of just the

02:41:49.520 | pleasure of today.

02:41:50.520 | And it forces you and over time causes you to become a long-term thinker.

02:41:55.240 | And so the skill of success is basically to envision what I want to achieve, then to put

02:42:03.320 | in place a list of actions or steps that could potentially help me to achieve what it is

02:42:09.760 | that I'm trying to achieve, and then start taking those actions step-by-step.

02:42:13.880 | And if you do that consistently, then you build the skill of goal accomplishment, goal

02:42:18.440 | achievement.

02:42:19.440 | And it really doesn't matter where you start.

02:42:21.120 | What matters is that you continue practicing that skill and then 10 years later you're

02:42:24.840 | basically unrecognizable.

02:42:26.720 | Yeah, my pleasure.

02:42:33.860 | The audio is still low, so I'm just going to move on to the next caller, and I'd love

02:42:36.960 | to hear from you more in the future.

02:42:38.300 | Keep me in the loop.

02:42:39.300 | We've got two left to go here.

02:42:41.960 | Samuel has come to you.

02:42:42.960 | I see you're trying to fix your microphone.

02:42:43.960 | Hold on.

02:42:44.960 | All right, there.

02:42:45.960 | You're unmuted.

02:42:46.960 | Go ahead, Samuel.

02:42:47.960 | How can I serve you today?

02:42:48.960 | Can you hear me now?

02:42:49.960 | Can you hear me now?

02:42:50.960 | Yes, perfect.

02:42:51.960 | You're up.

02:42:52.960 | Great.

02:42:53.960 | Lovely to speak to you, Joshua.

02:42:54.960 | I've listened to your program for a long while.

02:42:55.960 | It's been really helpful to me and my wife, and happy new year to you and your family.

02:42:59.140 | And to you.

02:43:01.620 | My question is sort of about debt, and the specific question is how would you approach

02:43:06.440 | reducing debt to clear it within two to three years?

02:43:09.520 | I'll give you a little bit of a background.

02:43:13.040 | So myself and my wife are professionals, probably have a joint income of about £170,000, and

02:43:19.760 | we have debts of about £65,000 due to sort of a period of unemployment, education, some

02:43:26.320 | maternity leave, and childcare costs.

02:43:29.800 | And right now we have an income of about £10,000 a month, but our margin is very, very low.

02:43:35.400 | So we have sort of expenses of sort of £9,500 thereabouts.

02:43:41.400 | And we're just looking to, we're expecting a third child, and just trying to look at

02:43:45.840 | the constraints, looking at the constraints, how would you approach things in the future?

02:43:51.160 | What is your career, and like basically what do you do for work, and does your wife earn

02:43:55.960 | an income?

02:43:56.960 | So yeah, so my wife, we're both in the healthcare profession, I'm a medical doctor, and she

02:44:05.920 | earns an income at the moment.

02:44:07.200 | Do you expect, is there some way that you can make some extra money picking up extra

02:44:11.440 | shifts, working overtime, doing locums work, or something like that?

02:44:15.600 | Yes, so I really do that as much as I can within the constraints of childcare and my

02:44:22.760 | contractual obligations.

02:44:25.640 | You mentioned $9,500 a month is committed.

02:44:28.600 | Why are your expenses so high, so structurally high?

02:44:33.360 | Because earlier on in our relationship, due to sort of education, period of unemployment,

02:44:39.160 | and some period of ill health, we had to take out some loans, and so those loan repayments

02:44:44.080 | and a car repayment eat up a lot of our disposable income.

02:44:51.960 | Whenever someone is trying to get out of debt, I look at it and I first, the first question

02:44:56.320 | I ask myself is, is this a debt that can be paid off by "standard means", or is this

02:45:02.560 | something that's going to require some unique circumstance?

02:45:06.200 | So there's one thing if a guy gets into debt because he's got some unemployment, winds

02:45:11.040 | up with some credit card debt, or whatever it happens to be, and it's just kind of standard

02:45:14.920 | amount.

02:45:16.360 | Or it's another thing if a guy winds up in debt because he's trying to start a business,

02:45:19.600 | or something like that.

02:45:20.600 | I've worked with clients that had hundreds of thousands of dollars of credit card debt,

02:45:25.280 | but the credit card debt was because they're trying to start a business, and if the business

02:45:30.520 | failed, they were certainly bankrupt, and if the business succeeded, they would be wealthy

02:45:34.200 | beyond their imagination.

02:45:36.160 | And my answer in questions like that is, don't worry about the debt, just focus on the business.

02:45:40.840 | If the business fails, you're going to be bankrupt, and if the business succeeds, then

02:45:45.040 | you're going to be wealthy, and you can pay the debt back easily.

02:45:47.720 | So a guy who's got hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, and he's trying to start

02:45:50.840 | a business, he can't work a little extra, he can't go and get an extra job and somehow

02:45:55.020 | make it work.

02:45:56.480 | There's no way to do that, it's not going to work.

02:45:59.680 | And so he has to go for extraordinary means, such as make the business work and sell, or

02:46:05.680 | get investors, or something like that.

02:46:08.040 | What you're describing is not in that circumstance.

02:46:10.360 | What you're describing is just an ordinary situation.

02:46:13.680 | You make 170,000 pounds, and you have 65,000 pounds of debt.

02:46:19.600 | That's half of an annual income, and that's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme

02:46:27.240 | of things.

02:46:28.320 | So I think that it's fine to use kind of ordinary methods.

02:46:32.320 | The first thing would be that you may not be able to, or you may not choose to pay it

02:46:38.720 | off aggressively.

02:46:40.300 | You may only be able to pay off 500 pounds a month, and in that scenario, then it may

02:46:46.600 | take several years before it's paid off.

02:46:49.440 | And that would be okay, especially if this was the money that got your family through

02:46:52.860 | a difficult position.

02:46:54.680 | So you only have two areas that, if you and your wife are employed, you only have two

02:46:59.240 | levers that you can push.

02:47:01.280 | You have the lever of your income, and you have the lever of your expenses.

02:47:04.600 | So either you increase your income, or you decrease your expenses.

02:47:08.840 | So you should look at your income, and ask yourself, "How could I increase my income?"

02:47:13.080 | And I would encourage you, go back, I'm going to give your answer a fairly short answer,

02:47:17.320 | but listen to the podcast episode that I did just prior to this one, that was about how

02:47:23.760 | to save a down payment for a house, because I did about a 30-minute discussion on this

02:47:27.960 | exact topic where we discussed how do you push things up and down for a short period

02:47:33.040 | of time, and you're in the same exact situation.

02:47:35.480 | So in terms of your income, you can do a lot of things with your income that are short

02:47:41.680 | term that you won't do long term.

02:47:44.000 | So maybe you have a third baby on the way, and you are used to working five days a week,

02:47:49.920 | but for three months, especially before the baby comes, you can go ahead and pick up extra

02:47:53.960 | shifts and do seven days a week.

02:47:55.800 | I think you should do that.

02:47:57.200 | I think you can absolutely do that for three months, and if you could clear off 20,000

02:48:00.960 | pounds of debt in three months, or whatever it winds up being, because you work every

02:48:05.660 | single day, that's a great thing to do, and that's something that you should do.

02:48:09.740 | You should always look at long term wins, as far as how do I advance in my career, how

02:48:14.700 | do I advance in my job, how can I pick up extra shifts, how can I pick up overtime,

02:48:19.760 | and you should look at short term wins.

02:48:21.560 | And so short term wins are extra shifts, overtime, and it may be side work.

02:48:26.040 | I don't think, obviously a doctor should be out, I do not believe that a doctor should

02:48:29.660 | be out driving on the weekends for Uber or something like that, but you should look for

02:48:35.580 | any chance that you have to make extra money, and generally you should look close to what

02:48:39.920 | you're currently doing.

02:48:41.640 | So if you're in the healthcare business, but you can find something related to healthcare,

02:48:45.680 | focus on that, and then just work more hours.

02:48:48.760 | For ordinary debt, working more hours is a great way to make significant progress over

02:48:54.280 | a period of a few months.

02:48:57.080 | Then you should look at the stuff that you have, the assets that you have.

02:49:01.140 | So you may have stuff that could sell you, you may have an old camera that's worth 500

02:49:04.840 | pounds, you may have a car that's worth 4,000 pounds that you don't need anymore.

02:49:09.200 | And so if you could get rid of 10,000 pounds worth of stuff, and use that to pay off your

02:49:13.840 | debt, then now your debt comes down very quickly as well.

02:49:16.760 | And then in terms of your expenses, you go through your expenses systematically and you

02:49:20.360 | ask yourself, what can I change, what can I cut?

02:49:23.080 | And so probably if you and your wife both have jobs, a big expense is childcare.

02:49:27.580 | Could you renegotiate your shifts so that one of you is on, one of you is off on different

02:49:31.800 | days, so that you can care for the children and you can reduce your childcare bills.

02:49:36.620 | Maybe it's not for two more years until your children are in school, and then when your

02:49:39.960 | children are in school, then you'll be able to get this debt cleared off.

02:49:44.020 | Anything that you can exercise frugality over, you should do.

02:49:46.740 | Can you cancel the cable?

02:49:47.860 | Can you cancel the internet?

02:49:49.020 | Can you cancel a cell phone?

02:49:50.260 | A lot of these things that we think are necessary are not actually necessary.

02:49:55.140 | And so I usually want to look for big wins, but I'm going to be super, meaning, you know,

02:49:59.420 | can we change houses or something like that?

02:50:01.300 | But I'm going to be super cautious with you, with a pregnant wife, et cetera, you're going

02:50:04.940 | to have more constraints on your situation than someone else does.

02:50:09.500 | But you'd look, so don't discount the small things, don't discount the canceling your

02:50:13.660 | cell phone plan, don't discount the bringing your coffee from home, all the little stuff.

02:50:17.940 | It can add up significantly over time.

02:50:21.300 | And what I do and what I recommend is that you just basically focus on these areas one

02:50:26.300 | at a time.

02:50:27.460 | And so choose for each month a different theme.

02:50:31.540 | And so maybe January is going to be the income theme.

02:50:34.700 | And during the month of January, you spend a lot of time journaling and thinking about

02:50:38.380 | how do I increase my income in, you know, how do I increase my income to the highest

02:50:44.460 | degree possible?

02:50:45.860 | And is there some service that I can sell online?

02:50:47.940 | Is there something that I can kind of work extra shifts, et cetera?

02:50:51.300 | And then in February, you look at your expenses.

02:50:52.780 | So you track all your expenses, you go through, and you spend February focusing on how can

02:50:57.020 | we reduce our energy bills.

02:50:59.020 | And lo and behold, you're spending 180 pounds per month, when in reality, if you just unplugged

02:51:04.220 | a bunch of extra stuff, you could spend 100 pounds per month.

02:51:07.220 | So I would go down that pathway and I would say the long version of what I'm saying is

02:51:11.540 | in the previous episode.

02:51:13.260 | But this is an ordinary amount of debt that is not a big deal and could be pretty easily

02:51:18.340 | paid off in a year or two, but it's probably going to be a bumpy year or two as you try

02:51:22.660 | different things until you find some ways to earn more money and reduce expenses that

02:51:26.380 | work.

02:51:27.380 | Thank you, Joshua.

02:51:28.380 | That's really good.

02:51:29.380 | Helpful input there.

02:51:30.380 | My pleasure.

02:51:31.380 | Anything else?

02:51:32.380 | You mentioned in a previous episode about sort of your dad or your granddad in the past

02:51:42.100 | having sort of dementia or sort of memory impairment.

02:51:46.780 | So another thing that's sort of kind of playing is aging parents where you feel like you're

02:51:51.420 | in the squeezed middle where you've got young children, aging parents.

02:51:56.420 | My mother has similar condition, it's getting to a stage now where she might need some care,

02:52:01.580 | which we're not local.

02:52:04.100 | And that's sort of weighing me in my mind as I think about all these things going on

02:52:07.540 | in my family.

02:52:08.540 | It's brutal.

02:52:09.540 | It is possibly one of the most difficult things.

02:52:13.260 | Do you have brothers and sisters?

02:52:15.120 | Yeah, I have a couple of brothers and a couple of sisters as well who are more local to them,

02:52:21.500 | but I'm like the big earner and so it's just a bit – people kind of look into me, but

02:52:27.500 | I don't have that flexibility.

02:52:28.500 | Of course.

02:52:29.500 | It's a bit kind of – and I want to do more, but I'm a bit constrained.

02:52:34.420 | You can only do what you can do.

02:52:36.520 | The fact that you have a couple of brothers and a couple of sisters is an enormous blessing.

02:52:41.400 | The people who bear the load the heaviest is when you have a single child who's married

02:52:46.360 | to a single child and they've got four parents that they have to care for between two people

02:52:52.620 | and then sometimes they have their own children as well.

02:52:55.580 | And that's what's happening all across our society as our birth pyramids are collapsing.

02:53:00.920 | And so on a personal basis, instead of a parent having parents – two parents having five

02:53:05.260 | children to care for them and split the load among them, they are having too few children

02:53:09.700 | and it's one child to five parents instead of five to one or one to five – two to five

02:53:16.020 | instead of five to two.

02:53:17.340 | And then on a government-wide – or sorry, a society-wide basis, the same exact problem

02:53:24.020 | is happening.

02:53:25.020 | We're having five taxpayers paying for the retirements of two elderly people.

02:53:29.460 | We have two taxpayers paying for the retirements of five elderly people or paying for the social

02:53:33.860 | services, the Medicaid or the health service of the older people, etc.

02:53:38.340 | So my thought would be that in general, most care doesn't actually cost that much.

02:53:46.300 | And so this doesn't have to be a financial issue.

02:53:49.380 | Are your parents in England or are they elsewhere?

02:53:51.140 | What country are they in?

02:53:52.140 | They're in England.

02:53:53.420 | So in England, you're going to have a situation kind of like the United States where, yes,

02:53:59.620 | there is institutional care, but what I'm referring to is the cost of care is primarily

02:54:04.420 | an emotional cost and a physical cost more so than a financial cost.

02:54:09.580 | When we do financial planning with people, the financial cost comes because many times

02:54:14.180 | elderly people are trying to insulate their children from having to provide the physical

02:54:19.260 | care and the day-to-day physical care that an aging person might need.

02:54:24.660 | And so in order to do that, you have to hire a nurse and that nurse can be very, very expensive,

02:54:29.340 | obviously.

02:54:30.340 | And so the cost is there because the bodies are not there or the aging parents are trying

02:54:34.500 | to make sure that their children never have to provide the physical care.

02:54:37.020 | If your parents don't have the money and you don't have the money and your siblings don't

02:54:40.500 | have the money, then obviously paying for the care is out of the question.

02:54:45.380 | And so the answer is we're going to have to provide the care.

02:54:48.380 | And that's where you're going to have to find a way that works among the five of you or

02:54:52.780 | however many there are and try to figure out what's best for mom and dad and how do we

02:54:57.380 | do that.

02:54:58.780 | And at the end of the day, you can contribute what you're able to, but you can't do more

02:55:04.460 | than you're able to.

02:55:05.600 | And so if you're away and they're all providing physical care, then it's your responsibility

02:55:12.100 | to spend more money to support them in some way.

02:55:15.380 | But of course, that will have to fit into your budget.

02:55:18.220 | So I'm kind of saying generalities, but just encouraging you that it is hard work, but

02:55:22.820 | it's not that hard.

02:55:26.140 | My parents were the primary caregivers for my grandfather and later my grandmother, and

02:55:32.060 | they did it basically alone for many years.

02:55:35.820 | And we children helped out when possible, but they did it basically alone.

02:55:40.620 | And so it's certainly difficult, but it's not impossible.

02:55:45.620 | And if you can't provide money, then you're going to have to provide care in your home.

02:55:51.700 | That's your responsibility.

02:55:52.780 | And so if that means that you don't have a living room anymore, but rather there's a

02:55:55.820 | hospital bed in the front room and that's where you care for the people, well, that's

02:55:59.340 | your duty to your parents to be grateful for their contributions to you.

02:56:05.260 | So again, I'm speaking generalities, but just to encourage you, bear your load, but I'm

02:56:09.940 | grateful you have siblings among whom you can share that load.

02:56:13.140 | >> Yeah.

02:56:14.140 | Okay.

02:56:15.140 | That's great.

02:56:16.140 | Thank you so much.

02:56:17.140 | >> My pleasure.

02:56:18.140 | Pleasure.

02:56:19.140 | And then I see the other name, Margaret, but it says Nottingham.

02:56:20.140 | Is that?

02:56:21.140 | I think that's probably your second computer.

02:56:22.620 | All right.

02:56:23.620 | Gail in California.

02:56:24.620 | >> Yes, it is.

02:56:25.620 | Yes, sir.

02:56:26.620 | >> Gail.

02:56:27.620 | >> Rocky with a lady.

02:56:28.620 | Joshua's calling.

02:56:29.620 | Are we going to call her at work for a test, sir?

02:56:30.620 | >> Yes.

02:56:31.620 | I'm on post for three.

02:56:32.620 | >> Sorry.

02:56:33.620 | Gail's on the other phone.

02:56:34.620 | I'm sorry.

02:56:35.620 | Gail's waited for a long time.

02:56:36.620 | Tell you what I'm going to do is, Gail, I'm going to answer a couple of calls that came

02:56:43.620 | in.

02:56:44.620 | I'm going to answer a couple of quick questions, and I'll come back to you, but I don't want

02:56:48.220 | to miss you when you came in from staying online for two and a half hours.

02:56:56.900 | So Gail will be to you in just a moment.

02:56:59.300 | All right.

02:57:00.300 | A listener asks, a listener on Facebook asks, "Thoughts on Christians reading the great

02:57:06.040 | books of Western literature, Homer, Virgil, Dante, et cetera, and what ratio to the Bible

02:57:09.940 | is appropriate in your eyes?"

02:57:10.940 | Thanks a lot for an unusual question.

02:57:14.860 | I think that it's one of those things where I don't think that there's any reason to have

02:57:18.660 | to choose between them.

02:57:22.900 | In general, you can make enormous progress on most things with a small amount of time.

02:57:27.580 | So with less than 15 minutes a day, you can read the Bible through cover to cover every

02:57:31.700 | single year.

02:57:32.900 | That's easy to do.

02:57:34.060 | And so someone saying, "I can't read a Bible because I'm spending all my time on works

02:57:39.700 | of Western literature," is to say that I can't spend 15 minutes a day listening to an audiobook

02:57:46.820 | that's free on a bazillion apps on my phone.

02:57:49.580 | That's nonsense, of course.

02:57:50.820 | To try to understand the works of Western literature, not Homer, but Dante, you can't

02:57:57.060 | understand any of this stuff without the Bible.

02:57:59.340 | And so the Bible, even without religious connections, absolutely needs to be studied by anybody who's

02:58:05.740 | a serious student of history and of Western culture.

02:58:08.540 | I think there's enormous value in the humanities.

02:58:11.260 | I think that for me as a U.S. American, someone who's an inheritor of the Western tradition,

02:58:17.460 | that it is really important, if at all possible, for the life of the mind to understand the

02:58:23.180 | great books, etc.

02:58:26.060 | And I don't think it's necessary for someone's career success.

02:58:28.540 | I think people can live a happy life without ever studying this stuff.

02:58:32.180 | Not all people are intellectuals, but it's certainly helpful to those of us who want

02:58:36.500 | to engage in a life of the mind, to think about the big ideas, and we need more of them.

02:58:44.460 | So I think we can do both, and it's relatively easy to do both.

02:58:47.700 | I do think that there's often far too much Greek thought in Christianity and not enough

02:58:52.420 | Hebrew thought.

02:58:54.140 | And so this has been kind of a bone to pick that I've made.

02:58:56.580 | This is a very thing that a lot of people don't talk much about.

02:59:00.260 | But especially since St. Augustine, Greek thought has so infused modern Christianity

02:59:07.500 | that it's very hard to separate it.

02:59:10.660 | And the Greek thought is broadly pagan, and I would like to see a lot of the Greek thought

02:59:15.340 | replaced with Hebrew thought.

02:59:17.420 | But that's something that's going to take a significant amount of time, and I think

02:59:20.420 | it's an important thing.

02:59:21.540 | But obviously, in a public format like this, it's something that's going to need to

02:59:29.020 | be dug through, but I'm not prepared to do that extemporaneously.

02:59:33.660 | So those are my thoughts.

02:59:34.660 | A couple other questions.

02:59:35.660 | Let's go back to Gail.

02:59:36.660 | Gail, are you here this time?

02:59:38.660 | Gail, can you hear me?

02:59:42.140 | All right, I'm sorry, Gail.

02:59:45.620 | You waited on two and a half hours.

02:59:46.620 | I've come to you three times, and I apologize.

02:59:48.780 | That pains me to do it, but I will have to—I'll give you one more chance, I'll answer one

02:59:53.300 | more question.

02:59:55.500 | Nick says, "You previously mentioned you kept notes for "summer camp skills" to teach

02:59:59.620 | your kids at certain ages.

03:00:00.700 | Can you elaborate on that?"

03:00:02.060 | Yeah, basically, I think that a lot of things that people try to put into modern education,

03:00:08.260 | curricula, et cetera—so there's a couple of arguments that I see that I think are both

03:00:14.820 | fallacious with regards to education.

03:00:17.620 | The first argument that a lot of people make is that, you know, "Why did I have to study

03:00:22.940 | algebra?

03:00:23.940 | I don't do algebra or trigonometry, but why didn't they teach me how to do taxes in school?"

03:00:28.300 | et cetera.

03:00:29.300 | And so many people argue for this intensely practical, career-oriented, daily life skills-oriented

03:00:34.420 | aspect of education.

03:00:36.500 | And what they usually want to replace with that kind of argument is they want to replace

03:00:41.120 | the humanities or the great books or something like that.

03:00:44.460 | And I think that's a very short-sighted argument because those career skills are not the fundamental

03:00:50.080 | foundation of an education.

03:00:51.380 | I don't think that being an educated person, acquiring liberty, freedom from a liberal

03:00:59.340 | education—liberal, liberty—the goal of a liberal education is not to give someone

03:01:04.020 | career skills.

03:01:05.020 | That's what you do for slaves.

03:01:07.340 | So if you want to create a wage slave, then you go out and give them a bunch of career

03:01:10.420 | skills.

03:01:11.420 | If you want to create a free man, then you teach him about—you give him a liberal education.

03:01:17.260 | And so I'm not on board with people who want to replace the basic fundamentals of a liberal

03:01:22.620 | education with, you know, basic career skills.

03:01:27.740 | On the other hand, it's clearly also the case that career skills and various practical skills

03:01:32.420 | are necessary.

03:01:34.060 | And so I think they're oversold that a lot of times, "Why don't we teach tax preparation

03:01:39.480 | in school?"

03:01:40.660 | Because tax preparation is really easy.

03:01:43.020 | All you need is basically 30 minutes with a tax program or a couple hours with a textbook

03:01:47.760 | and you know everything you need to know about basic taxes.

03:01:50.500 | And you can't really teach it 10 years in advance.

03:01:52.740 | You don't go and teach a third grader tax preparation.

03:01:55.840 | You teach tax preparation when somebody makes his first money and he's got to sit down and

03:01:58.860 | do his tax return.

03:01:59.860 | So how does a school waste hours and hours and hours teaching tax preparation when you

03:02:04.980 | can teach that in a couple of hours of focus when it actually comes time to do a tax return?

03:02:09.220 | And so I think the same thing can be applied to a lot of basic practical skills is to say

03:02:13.140 | that this is not something that needs hours and hours around.

03:02:16.800 | When I read these tweets and people talking about, you know, "They should have taught

03:02:20.980 | me this."

03:02:21.980 | And I'm like, "This is 30 hours of self-education.

03:02:24.580 | This is easy."

03:02:26.420 | What we teach in academics should be much more intense and should be much more enhanced.

03:02:31.400 | But there's a whole lot of skills that we do want our children to acquire.

03:02:35.580 | And so summer camp skills is one way that I have talked about that.

03:02:39.500 | And it's basically here are some ideas of things that would be really useful for someone

03:02:44.200 | to know.

03:02:45.200 | And yet it doesn't fit into necessarily an academic year, but it should fit into a summer

03:02:50.180 | project.

03:02:51.460 | And so I do have some camps and things that I have looked at.

03:02:54.980 | First, I don't want to give my whole list, but I have a list of things like language

03:03:00.540 | camps.

03:03:01.540 | I think language camps should be a high priority.

03:03:03.300 | If you are a wealthy, you know, Argentine family and you want your children to get better

03:03:08.100 | at English, if you're not doing English skills at school every day, then the obvious solution

03:03:12.540 | is you enroll your children in an English-language summer camp.

03:03:14.660 | And it works kind of like any other summer camp of canoeing and hiking, et cetera, just

03:03:18.380 | happens to be done in English.

03:03:19.980 | But what I find is that English-speaking people from the English-speaking world don't often

03:03:23.820 | think of that, but they should.

03:03:25.360 | So enroll your children into a Spanish-language summer camp or a Chinese-language summer camp

03:03:29.840 | and give them a chance to use it.

03:03:31.460 | You may not move to China for a year of school, fine, but go ahead and go to China for a month

03:03:36.780 | or for a few weeks and enroll your children in a Chinese-language summer camp and that

03:03:40.300 | will be a big, big benefit.

03:03:41.660 | So I think language camps are really useful.

03:03:43.220 | There are a lot of skills that can be acquired in a really efficient way in a short period

03:03:47.420 | of time.

03:03:48.420 | So for example, I think we should teach young men and women to dance.

03:03:50.620 | I think that the physical grace that comes with dancing and just the enjoyment of the

03:03:54.740 | physical movement of dancing is something that should be done.

03:03:57.700 | But dance may not be something that you do all the time, but there may be a dance summer

03:04:01.180 | camp where a few weeks at a dance summer camp and a guy can come out being a very skilled

03:04:07.320 | Latin dancer.

03:04:08.320 | It's not that hard.

03:04:09.700 | And so you should make a list of your own things that you want your children to learn

03:04:12.740 | and supplement.

03:04:13.980 | And I think this is a really important structure for people who are able to provide their children.

03:04:24.600 | For people who are not going to homeschool, but who are going to keep their children in

03:04:29.540 | some form of just ordinary industrial school, then you should still supplement that with

03:04:35.360 | the things that you think are really important.

03:04:37.700 | And so if it's a religious camp to teach the doctrines and fundamental foundations of your

03:04:42.100 | faith or apologetics or dancing or woodworking, et cetera, summer camps are going to be a

03:04:47.740 | huge benefit for you.

03:04:50.100 | So that's the best I could do extemporaneously.

03:04:52.760 | And with that, I will close out today's podcast.

03:04:56.980 | Thank you all so much for listening.

03:04:58.380 | I sent out – today's invitation was sent out to the email list.

03:05:02.500 | Normally these are reserved to patrons of the show, but on the last call I had two patrons

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03:06:11.100 | Talk with you soon.

03:06:12.220 | [Music]

03:06:19.220 | (upbeat music)

03:06:21.800 | (upbeat music)

2024-01-01_Friday_QA