2024-01-24_Are_Wealth_and_Poverty_Infectious_Diseases
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00:00:30.160 | - Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,
00:00:31.440 | a show dedicated to providing you
00:00:32.520 | with the knowledge, skills, insight,
00:00:34.160 | and encouragement you need to live a rich
00:00:35.960 | and meaningful life now,
00:00:37.760 | while building a plan for financial freedom
00:00:39.320 | in 10 years or less.
00:00:40.920 | My name is Josh Rasheeds.
00:00:41.760 | I'm your host.
00:00:42.600 | Today, I want to give you one simple encouragement,
00:00:46.560 | and that is this.
00:00:48.840 | Surround yourself with the things
00:00:53.680 | that you want more of in your life.
00:00:57.680 | Surround yourself intentionally
00:01:00.480 | with the things that you want more of in your life.
00:01:04.840 | Or said differently,
00:01:06.480 | intentionally surround yourself
00:01:08.880 | with more of the things that you want in your life.
00:01:11.760 | I'm not sure how else to say it,
00:01:14.960 | but I want to expand it for you
00:01:16.480 | and give you some ideas.
00:01:17.800 | But first, a simple story.
00:01:20.360 | I'm broadcasting to you today from Panama City, Panama.
00:01:24.240 | I'm here with Gabriel Custodiate
00:01:26.520 | and Mikel Thorup and a bunch of my listeners,
00:01:29.160 | and we're doing our Panama Investment Tour.
00:01:32.560 | And yesterday, we spent a good amount of the day
00:01:35.920 | touring real estate.
00:01:37.760 | We had some morning sessions, some educational sessions,
00:01:40.600 | and then we went to kind of a mid-upscale luxury tower
00:01:45.600 | that was newly built
00:01:47.120 | and checked out some of the things there.
00:01:48.600 | Then we went and visited kind of a mid-rise building
00:01:52.120 | that was going to be primarily designated
00:01:55.200 | for kind of young people housing, student housing,
00:01:57.800 | things like that, kind of entry-level stuff.
00:02:00.200 | And then we finished our evening
00:02:02.280 | at a very private, exclusive community
00:02:06.600 | that is being developed just off the coast of Panama.
00:02:11.720 | It's got a very interesting story.
00:02:13.360 | It's a set of man-made islands.
00:02:15.600 | It's called Ocean Reef Islands.
00:02:17.560 | And evidently, it's an interesting story
00:02:20.440 | because they are created islands,
00:02:22.920 | kind of like I think most people would know
00:02:24.760 | about the palms in Dubai,
00:02:26.640 | some of the man-made island developments
00:02:28.320 | that have been built in Dubai.
00:02:30.240 | Well, these are kind of like that,
00:02:32.600 | but it's a rather exclusive opportunity
00:02:34.760 | because no one can build islands like these anymore.
00:02:39.600 | The way that these islands came about
00:02:41.640 | is that a contractor built a highway through Panama City
00:02:46.640 | for the Panamanians.
00:02:48.480 | And as I understand the story,
00:02:50.400 | the Panamanian government didn't have all of the money
00:02:53.480 | that they had pledged to pay the contractor.
00:02:56.320 | And so they paid part of it with money,
00:02:58.760 | and they paid the other part of the bill
00:03:00.920 | with rights, with property rights.
00:03:04.280 | And so they granted a small selection of property rights,
00:03:07.520 | of basically development rights to the sea
00:03:11.240 | right off the coast of Panama City,
00:03:13.360 | right in front of the city.
00:03:14.280 | Well, that contractor later sold it to a developer
00:03:17.080 | who we met last night.
00:03:18.840 | And this developer has built these two man-made islands
00:03:23.160 | and they are developing the real estate on it.
00:03:25.800 | But these islands are very exclusive
00:03:28.480 | because some time back,
00:03:31.320 | the Panamanian court found it unconstitutional
00:03:34.680 | to do things like build man-made islands in the sea
00:03:37.840 | because the sea is part of the patrimony of all people.
00:03:41.800 | It's the heritage,
00:03:42.840 | it's the collective heritage of all the people.
00:03:44.880 | And so it would be unjust and unconstitutional
00:03:47.960 | to give it away to individuals to develop it.
00:03:50.680 | So in essence, this development is one of a kind,
00:03:53.760 | and as such, it's quite an exclusive development,
00:03:56.680 | have lots of beautiful houses there, et cetera.
00:03:59.760 | But as I was there last night,
00:04:01.200 | touring some of the apartments that are there for sale
00:04:04.440 | and some of the houses and thinking about it,
00:04:06.880 | I was quite shocked at how inspired I was
00:04:11.440 | simply by being there on the island,
00:04:15.440 | being there in the beautiful condo,
00:04:18.200 | being there in the beautiful apartment,
00:04:19.920 | being in the beautiful houses.
00:04:21.600 | And as we finished the evening,
00:04:24.240 | having dinner on the terrace overlooking the marina,
00:04:27.360 | and just surrounded by beauty and wealth,
00:04:29.640 | and there's the gorgeous skyline
00:04:31.280 | of Panama City at the distance,
00:04:32.760 | and the evening turns cool when the sun goes down.
00:04:36.200 | It's just a very inspiring experience.
00:04:38.960 | And I realized that this is something
00:04:41.600 | that I myself have neglected significantly
00:04:45.560 | over the last couple of years.
00:04:47.040 | I didn't always neglect it.
00:04:48.920 | I used to give great attention to this.
00:04:53.000 | So for example, practical application.
00:04:55.160 | I enjoy being surrounded by wealth,
00:04:57.520 | being surrounded by luxury, et cetera.
00:04:59.800 | And so one of the things that I have frequently
00:05:02.000 | had a habit of doing for many, many years
00:05:04.360 | is always to go and quarterly do something
00:05:07.560 | like take myself to a nice lunch
00:05:09.600 | at a nice five-star hotel often,
00:05:12.440 | and sit out on the balcony
00:05:13.920 | and think about my plans for the quarter,
00:05:16.200 | and build my goals and build my dreams.
00:05:18.720 | Et cetera.
00:05:20.280 | Things like that.
00:05:21.120 | I've been very fortunate to grow up in an environment
00:05:25.000 | in which I've had lots of wealthy friends
00:05:27.960 | and wealthy people around me,
00:05:29.400 | and I've lived just a privileged existence.
00:05:33.080 | I've done some of the coolest things,
00:05:35.120 | been around money, been with very wealthy people, et cetera.
00:05:38.600 | And so that was just part of my life
00:05:40.880 | in some ways automatically,
00:05:42.280 | even though the money wasn't mine, it was just around me.
00:05:46.080 | And I realized last night that this is something
00:05:49.760 | that I have unconsciously neglected for the last few years.
00:05:53.520 | I have not been doing this.
00:05:55.560 | And it's understandable why I haven't been doing this.
00:05:58.640 | It's understandable.
00:05:59.520 | I've been having babies and staying close to home
00:06:02.720 | and working and homeschooling, et cetera.
00:06:05.080 | But I realized, Joshua, what are you doing?
00:06:07.840 | You've neglected the basics.
00:06:09.240 | You've neglected to give yourself inspiration.
00:06:11.680 | You've neglected to give yourself a vision.
00:06:13.320 | You got your head down, you're working, working, working,
00:06:15.440 | but you don't know what you're working towards.
00:06:19.360 | And if you'd asked me that the day before yesterday,
00:06:21.880 | I would have said, well, maybe,
00:06:24.240 | but I wouldn't have realized it.
00:06:25.520 | But having that emotional experience made me realize it.
00:06:29.320 | And as I was reflecting on it throughout the day-to-day
00:06:32.200 | and last evening, I realized that this is something,
00:06:35.840 | again, that I've neglected, that I need to change.
00:06:37.840 | I need to pick up my old habits,
00:06:39.200 | and more importantly than picking them up,
00:06:40.840 | I need to reinforce them.
00:06:42.840 | And this is something that I thought
00:06:45.680 | would be helpful for you,
00:06:46.800 | 'cause perhaps you yourself have neglected
00:06:49.800 | to surround yourself with more of the things
00:06:52.000 | that you want in life.
00:06:54.000 | Now, money, wealth, luxury,
00:06:57.200 | certainly those things are inspirational.
00:07:00.680 | I think we should pay attention to this
00:07:03.000 | because we can measure these things.
00:07:05.960 | I wonder if there's an academic out there
00:07:08.160 | who has tried to figure out
00:07:12.240 | how much of the growth of wealth,
00:07:16.400 | how much of the fact that the rich get richer
00:07:18.680 | and the poor get poorer,
00:07:20.400 | how much of that could be attributed to environment?
00:07:23.840 | I've never read any research on that,
00:07:26.840 | but I'd be fascinated to know if anyone has tried to do that
00:07:29.240 | because although there's clearly
00:07:31.600 | a behavioral function of this,
00:07:35.600 | meaning that wealthy people become wealthy
00:07:38.280 | because they do the kinds of things that wealthy people do,
00:07:41.680 | the precursor to behavior is influence.
00:07:44.800 | It's environment.
00:07:46.840 | And I was considering, I did see recently
00:07:49.680 | something of a write-up or a paper or something
00:07:51.720 | where an academic or some kind of analyst
00:07:54.840 | had proposed and said that obesity should be treated
00:07:59.760 | exactly in the same way that a contagious disease
00:08:04.000 | is treated, as an epidemic,
00:08:06.240 | because obesity truly is contagious.
00:08:10.040 | And I didn't immerse myself in the details
00:08:12.160 | enough to articulate it to you,
00:08:13.440 | but the basic argument was that if you track obesity,
00:08:18.160 | fat people, if you track fatness,
00:08:20.880 | it's connected, it's correlated, it's connected,
00:08:25.080 | and it's, and this person was making the argument,
00:08:27.680 | that it's causally connected.
00:08:29.000 | It's not correlated.
00:08:29.880 | It's causally connected to being surrounded
00:08:32.600 | by other fat people, and I realized, isn't that true?
00:08:36.320 | I know for me, if I'm hanging out with my fat friends
00:08:40.000 | and we go out to dinner, then it's very easy
00:08:43.560 | and easy for me to order fattening, unhealthy foods,
00:08:47.480 | because that's normal, whereas if I go out
00:08:50.440 | with a bunch of health-conscious people
00:08:52.400 | who are very thin and athletic, et cetera,
00:08:56.360 | I don't wanna be the guy that's ordering fat person food.
00:08:59.400 | That's just, how come I'm not gonna do it?
00:09:01.440 | And so that influence spreads itself,
00:09:04.840 | and you see that in terms of exercise.
00:09:06.800 | Healthy, athletic people are more likely
00:09:09.960 | to suggest healthy ways of passing time together.
00:09:12.480 | They're not gonna say, let's come over and,
00:09:14.360 | I don't know, binge watch TV and pizza.
00:09:16.280 | They'll say, let's go for a walk.
00:09:17.720 | Let's go play a game.
00:09:18.760 | Let's go to the park.
00:09:19.840 | Let's go skiing.
00:09:20.960 | Let's go hiking.
00:09:21.880 | Let's go do something athletic,
00:09:23.480 | and what's interesting to me is I realized
00:09:26.960 | that that research-based statistical analysis
00:09:31.000 | is something that we should apply to other areas of life,
00:09:33.960 | and I could imagine this being true.
00:09:37.120 | I could imagine a researcher 10 or 20 years from now,
00:09:40.200 | if it hasn't been done already, and I'm just ignorant of it,
00:09:42.920 | showing how so many of the individual decisions
00:09:47.920 | that cause somebody to be wealthy
00:09:51.480 | are based on an infectious form of behavior.
00:09:56.480 | You see one of your friends buying a house
00:09:59.640 | instead of renting, and you say, well, why couldn't I?
00:10:02.360 | Why not me?
00:10:03.320 | And you go and buy a house instead of renting,
00:10:05.560 | and that single decision alone accounts
00:10:07.280 | for an enormous amount of the growth of wealth
00:10:10.840 | that other people do, that people experience.
00:10:13.840 | You see one of your friends going and getting a better job,
00:10:16.800 | and sometimes your friend will say to you,
00:10:18.320 | well, why don't you go get a better job,
00:10:19.720 | and you never thought about it before.
00:10:20.920 | You realize, why don't I go get a better job?
00:10:23.280 | One of your friends starts a business
00:10:24.760 | or someone you know starts a business,
00:10:26.720 | and you recognize, hey, I could do that, too,
00:10:29.720 | and sometimes a business wins.
00:10:31.640 | And people who grow up in that environment,
00:10:33.800 | who grow up surrounded by success,
00:10:35.600 | who grow up surrounded by people
00:10:37.880 | who make those kinds of decisions,
00:10:39.440 | they naturally think that it's normal to do that,
00:10:43.000 | and that expression of normality is so powerful.
00:10:46.760 | I wish that I had lots of other examples to point to,
00:10:49.840 | but the one that just is so striking to me
00:10:51.720 | is the one that I have said about fat people
00:10:54.240 | versus non-fat people and unhealthy people
00:10:56.720 | versus healthy people.
00:10:58.160 | I think you see this if you listen to people
00:11:00.240 | who are from a place that is very image-conscious,
00:11:04.480 | maybe Miami, Florida, or Los Angeles, California,
00:11:08.240 | or something like that, and what you find
00:11:10.640 | when you hang out with people from those areas
00:11:12.760 | is they're very, very conscious
00:11:14.920 | of everything related to image,
00:11:17.760 | and so they're very health-conscious,
00:11:19.680 | they're very focused on how they eat,
00:11:21.760 | they're very prone to athletic endeavors,
00:11:25.040 | and the lifestyle around them grows up
00:11:27.920 | because of their interest in those things,
00:11:30.920 | and there are more healthy options available.
00:11:34.560 | And you look around at the people,
00:11:35.720 | and you see fat people, you see unhealthy people,
00:11:37.760 | but on the whole, the people have beautiful bodies,
00:11:40.600 | they have beautiful skin, they dress beautifully, et cetera,
00:11:43.520 | this external expressions that we have of health,
00:11:46.640 | and it seems like it's contagious.
00:11:49.040 | Then if you go somewhere else,
00:11:50.640 | I've watched several YouTube videos
00:11:52.600 | where people will travel to the fattest city in America,
00:11:55.280 | and genuinely, just good-hearted, genuinely caring people,
00:11:59.440 | they go to the fattest city in America,
00:12:00.800 | and they talk to people.
00:12:02.120 | And even some of the residents of that city
00:12:04.920 | talk about how hard it is for them
00:12:08.600 | to be in that environment,
00:12:10.240 | and to not be unhealthy, not be fat,
00:12:16.720 | and it's very much an environmental thing.
00:12:19.640 | And you can see this, right?
00:12:22.280 | You may have somebody that comes from one of those places
00:12:26.760 | and moves to, again, beautiful city,
00:12:29.240 | beautiful people city, wherever that happens to be,
00:12:31.600 | and pretty soon, they're dressing differently,
00:12:33.600 | their habits start to rub off on them, et cetera.
00:12:36.240 | So this is something, again, I wish I had a better,
00:12:39.480 | multiple examples to give,
00:12:41.040 | but I think this connects enough.
00:12:43.040 | I think most people would acknowledge
00:12:45.160 | that what I'm saying has truth.
00:12:47.360 | And you can see that causal connection
00:12:51.200 | that the researcher was recently referring to.
00:12:54.520 | And this turning to money and business,
00:12:56.800 | this is one of the reasons why the big mega cities
00:13:00.240 | are likely to only get bigger,
00:13:02.440 | because when somebody goes into that environment,
00:13:04.800 | so when somebody goes to New York City
00:13:06.600 | and lives in New York City,
00:13:07.720 | and they start to be surrounded by the hustle,
00:13:10.240 | and the bustle, and the opportunity,
00:13:11.840 | and the enthusiasm that pervades
00:13:14.400 | and permeates the city like that,
00:13:17.000 | it's hard not to be affected by it.
00:13:19.360 | It's hard not to be infected by it.
00:13:22.200 | It affects you.
00:13:23.480 | I notice this every time I spend time in the United States
00:13:26.000 | is that when I'm in the United States,
00:13:29.080 | the culture of achievement, the culture of hard work,
00:13:33.120 | the work ethic, et cetera, starts to rub off on me.
00:13:36.280 | I start to feel more and more competitive,
00:13:39.720 | and I wanna strive, I wanna compete, et cetera.
00:13:42.760 | But when I go to a place that has a slower pace of life
00:13:45.840 | and has a more laid back culture, et cetera,
00:13:48.720 | I just, eh, there's no need to do it,
00:13:51.040 | and I start to just be more content
00:13:53.240 | and more complacent, et cetera.
00:13:55.280 | Now, it's certainly advisable
00:13:58.320 | to take a good, hard, honest look
00:13:59.880 | at what you want more of in your life.
00:14:01.840 | And if you don't want more money in your life,
00:14:04.320 | but you want more relaxation,
00:14:05.840 | then perhaps you should relocate
00:14:07.960 | to a place where that is the key.
00:14:10.400 | But the point I wanna drive home today
00:14:13.680 | in a very simple way is you can make conscious decisions
00:14:18.040 | to surround yourself with more of what you want in life.
00:14:23.000 | And you can do that in a variety of ways.
00:14:26.000 | A very actionable way that you can do that
00:14:29.760 | is by surrounding yourself virtually
00:14:32.640 | with what you want more of in your life.
00:14:36.660 | Remember that every influence that you invite
00:14:39.800 | into your life is going to influence you.
00:14:43.720 | And so all of us need to do a careful audit
00:14:48.040 | of the types of things that we allow
00:14:50.760 | into our homes, into our eyeballs,
00:14:55.200 | into our ear balls, and into our minds.
00:14:59.720 | We need to be very careful of the things that we allow in.
00:15:04.040 | And unfortunately, there's such a tendency
00:15:07.840 | that we all have to be rather aimless
00:15:10.960 | about what we consume, because it just sneaks its way in.
00:15:14.920 | And usually it's an algorithm
00:15:16.800 | just kind of serving things up to us.
00:15:19.440 | And so as I realized this truth last night,
00:15:22.860 | I said, I need to take another good hard look
00:15:25.720 | at my algorithms.
00:15:27.520 | Are they serving me with what I want?
00:15:30.560 | Or have they been trained to give me what I don't want?
00:15:34.200 | I want to be surrounded by the virtue,
00:15:38.040 | the righteousness, the success,
00:15:43.040 | the freedom, the wealth, the good living.
00:15:46.720 | I want to be surrounded by the good, the beautiful,
00:15:49.200 | the positive, et cetera, in my life.
00:15:52.000 | I don't want to be surrounded by negativity
00:15:54.880 | and sarcasm and cynicism and poor little old me-ism
00:15:58.920 | and I can't do it and the world is falling.
00:16:01.120 | I don't want to be surrounded with that stuff.
00:16:03.360 | I'm gonna, I don't want it.
00:16:05.080 | And so I'm going to very intentionally take a look
00:16:08.480 | at all of my virtual environments
00:16:10.440 | and consider what can I prune, what do I want more of?
00:16:14.520 | Am I surrounding myself with the things that I want?
00:16:17.440 | Now we can extend virtuality or virtual environment
00:16:21.000 | to things that aren't digital technology.
00:16:24.240 | And I've always loved magazines for this reason.
00:16:26.760 | Traveling the world, my magazine consumption is much less,
00:16:31.920 | but I really love magazines for this reason.
00:16:35.200 | And I think even in 2024, there's still something special
00:16:39.400 | about having some magazines that flow into your life
00:16:42.440 | on a monthly basis that remind you of what you want.
00:16:45.520 | For example, this is goofy and I don't, kind of personal,
00:16:48.960 | but there's a magazine, I think they're still published,
00:16:51.200 | I subscribe to for years, called Coastal Living.
00:16:53.920 | And it was just this wonderful, simple magazine
00:16:57.360 | about seaside homes and the feelings that came with them.
00:17:00.760 | And I always loved that magazine 'cause it inspired me
00:17:03.040 | and it's the kind of aesthetic that I like
00:17:05.440 | and that I enjoy being around, et cetera.
00:17:07.960 | So think about what kinds of magazines
00:17:10.120 | could you surround yourself with?
00:17:12.000 | It's inspiring to have a magazine
00:17:13.960 | that feeds you fresh new images for yourself.
00:17:17.120 | And I haven't done this in years.
00:17:18.960 | I regret not doing it more,
00:17:20.400 | but for years I used to keep a lookbook,
00:17:22.960 | a physical lookbook, and I would take the magazines
00:17:26.000 | and I would cut out anything that I found inspirational
00:17:29.280 | from those magazines and I would paste, literally,
00:17:31.760 | the pictures into a notebook.
00:17:34.760 | I would just get cheap composition books.
00:17:36.360 | And I used to love going through those notebooks
00:17:38.360 | because they filled my mind with images that I wanted,
00:17:41.520 | that I wanted to see more of, and they were inspirational.
00:17:44.520 | And I would think, what can I do
00:17:46.200 | to have more of this in my life?
00:17:48.900 | You can make your images in any way that you want
00:17:51.960 | and you can make any kind of associations
00:17:54.120 | with anything that you want.
00:17:55.640 | So you make your own associations
00:17:57.680 | and don't be bashful about the things
00:17:59.200 | that you want in your life.
00:18:00.560 | One other application of that,
00:18:04.280 | today I do this more with digital tools.
00:18:07.880 | I don't think they're as effective,
00:18:09.380 | but I keep a folder full of images that inspire me.
00:18:12.480 | Whenever I see something online that inspires me
00:18:15.720 | in whatever way, I screenshot it
00:18:17.640 | and I add it to my inspiration folder.
00:18:19.960 | And so it's kind of like a digital lookbook.
00:18:22.380 | Recently I've been creating images for my children.
00:18:27.660 | And what I'll do is I'll take a virtue.
00:18:29.660 | We practice a lot of virtue in character study.
00:18:32.980 | And so I have gotten pretty good
00:18:36.140 | with using Dolly through Chat GPT.
00:18:40.180 | I've gotten pretty good at training Dolly
00:18:42.020 | to give me the kinds of things that I want.
00:18:43.980 | So what I do for my children is I take a picture of,
00:18:48.060 | I create an image using the AI art generation system,
00:18:53.060 | and I age them a little bit.
00:18:54.420 | So I show them, say, seven, eight, 10 years down the road.
00:18:57.660 | And then I use that avatar that I've created
00:19:02.420 | that looks sort of like what they might look like
00:19:05.660 | in seven, eight, 10 years.
00:19:07.300 | And then I put that avatar in a situation
00:19:09.980 | where, say, the person is demonstrating determination
00:19:14.140 | or courage or honesty or empathy
00:19:16.780 | or whatever the character quality is.
00:19:19.060 | And I've been making a book of these for my children,
00:19:23.300 | individualized for each of the children.
00:19:24.700 | I'm not done with the project, but I'm gonna finish it.
00:19:27.340 | And I have that printed 'cause they love to look at it.
00:19:30.600 | My wife makes yearbooks for each of the children.
00:19:32.900 | So every year, we create a standalone printed photo book
00:19:37.820 | of the experience that the child has.
00:19:40.620 | And my children love to go through those.
00:19:42.500 | They love to look at their pictures,
00:19:43.740 | and that really helps cement the memories
00:19:45.500 | of all the things that we did together
00:19:46.900 | and all the good times and the places we went
00:19:49.100 | and the things that we did, et cetera.
00:19:50.700 | And I see this as an application of that.
00:19:52.620 | Here's where we're going.
00:19:53.660 | And I try to put those things that are good
00:19:55.900 | and beautiful and inspiring into the images
00:19:58.100 | and check back in five or 10 years.
00:20:01.100 | But if someone had done that for me when I was a child,
00:20:03.400 | I would have loved that 'cause I want my children
00:20:05.380 | to have something to go into.
00:20:07.380 | And I've been doing pictures for myself as well,
00:20:09.780 | but I haven't followed all the way through.
00:20:11.460 | And I'm newly determined to do more of that,
00:20:14.900 | to create those images because I do really believe
00:20:20.700 | that what the mind can see, what the mind can conceive
00:20:25.460 | and see and believe, the mind can achieve.
00:20:28.480 | We are goal-achieving mechanisms.
00:20:31.660 | And I don't wanna let my life slip behind.
00:20:35.980 | I wanna be diligent to achieve those things.
00:20:38.740 | And then continuing on, then of course,
00:20:41.020 | virtual can expand outwards to the books that we read.
00:20:44.180 | And I've been doing pretty well with this.
00:20:47.140 | I've been reading a lot more biographies over the last year.
00:20:50.580 | I didn't get into biographies when I was a kid.
00:20:52.900 | I spent years reading basically like nonfiction,
00:20:56.220 | self-help stuff and business books and whatnot.
00:20:59.260 | And I guess a few years ago,
00:21:00.900 | most of that stuff started to feel hollow for me.
00:21:03.340 | And my appetite for any of it just basically disappeared.
00:21:07.260 | And I found it very hard to sit down
00:21:08.860 | and read a nonfiction book,
00:21:11.060 | especially kind of the light, fluffy self-help books.
00:21:13.620 | I've read a few that I think are genuinely helpful,
00:21:16.260 | but it seemed like something happened in me.
00:21:18.260 | And what I longed for was to experience
00:21:21.740 | what other people have experienced.
00:21:23.460 | And so I've been looking for reading biographies.
00:21:26.420 | And I find that really connects with me.
00:21:29.740 | It helps me to connect with them.
00:21:30.780 | I'm reading a book on the Rothschilds right now.
00:21:34.540 | I'm fascinated by the Rothschild family.
00:21:36.820 | And it really inspires me and connects with me.
00:21:39.540 | And so we need to be careful about what we do more of,
00:21:43.220 | of that in our lives.
00:21:44.260 | Because you can, this sounds so like weird,
00:21:47.860 | but really you can commune and connect and interact
00:21:52.820 | with the greatest men and women of history
00:21:54.820 | through their biographies, their autobiographies,
00:21:58.020 | their biographical sketches, et cetera.
00:22:01.340 | And that transforms your circle of influence
00:22:04.020 | to be those men and women that you admire
00:22:06.460 | and that you want to be like.
00:22:07.740 | And it impacts you and it's effective.
00:22:11.960 | So there are many things that we can do
00:22:13.820 | to surround ourselves
00:22:14.980 | with those kinds of virtual influences,
00:22:18.100 | even if we don't have the physical influences
00:22:22.860 | that we might like to have today.
00:22:25.420 | The next thing that we can do
00:22:26.620 | is insert ourselves into the kinds of situations,
00:22:31.620 | into the kinds of things that we want more of in our life,
00:22:36.300 | even if it's on a temporary basis.
00:22:38.680 | It's perfectly reasonable to go places on a temporary basis
00:22:44.920 | and spend time around the things
00:22:46.980 | that you want more of in your life.
00:22:49.340 | And there are many ways that you can do this.
00:22:51.620 | So I grew up near Palm Beach
00:22:53.780 | and I would routinely go over to the island
00:22:56.740 | and just spend time hanging out on the island
00:22:59.460 | because it's a beautiful place filled with beautiful people
00:23:01.960 | and everything is immaculate, et cetera,
00:23:04.420 | and it just makes you feel differently.
00:23:06.740 | Back to the example I gave earlier
00:23:08.660 | of going to a nice hotel and sitting there
00:23:10.540 | and dressing up and saying,
00:23:12.660 | "What do I need to do to comfortably stay
00:23:15.280 | at this kind of hotel?"
00:23:16.980 | And surround yourself with those kinds of people,
00:23:18.900 | even if it's on a temporary basis.
00:23:21.080 | We can do this if you,
00:23:24.160 | let's say it's a character quality
00:23:25.880 | and you wanna be surrounded by people
00:23:27.820 | who are not drug dealers.
00:23:29.600 | Well, go to church on Sunday morning
00:23:31.920 | and surround yourself with people who are churchgoers
00:23:34.940 | and it will impact you and change you and influence you.
00:23:39.280 | You can experience this if you go to a gym.
00:23:41.380 | You can experience this in any positive sense.
00:23:44.680 | You can experience this if you go to the kinds of place
00:23:46.640 | where business guys hang out.
00:23:48.840 | It's so much better to go and work at a coworking space
00:23:52.020 | where you're surrounded by other people
00:23:53.560 | than to sit at home where it's just you.
00:23:56.160 | It's so much better to be connected with these people
00:23:58.980 | and these inspiring places,
00:24:02.740 | these inspiring feelings, et cetera,
00:24:05.240 | even if it's only on a temporary basis.
00:24:07.880 | And I think that that's something
00:24:09.320 | that is accessible to all of us.
00:24:12.400 | If you want to study more and be more learned,
00:24:16.260 | regardless of whether you are a college student or not,
00:24:19.960 | go to your local college and go sit in a library
00:24:23.360 | and that library environment will influence you.
00:24:26.800 | I don't have a longer string of examples to give you,
00:24:30.520 | but don't neglect the temporary influence
00:24:35.200 | that is available to you.
00:24:36.880 | And as your financial advisor,
00:24:40.140 | don't be scared to spend money on those temporary influences.
00:24:43.960 | I'll talk more about this in just a moment,
00:24:46.680 | but sometimes spending money to be on a trip with someone
00:24:50.840 | that's just a little bit outside of your normal ability,
00:24:55.080 | just a little bit of a stretch,
00:24:57.420 | that can be the thing that inspires you to action.
00:25:00.380 | Now, in many cases,
00:25:04.040 | there are ways to make these experiences more permanent.
00:25:08.380 | And I want to concede quickly that I never knew in the past
00:25:14.240 | whether to believe in this or not.
00:25:17.120 | For example, my parents were not members of a country club.
00:25:20.120 | I would have been prone when younger in life
00:25:23.460 | to make fun of people who were at a country club
00:25:26.940 | or a member of a private club.
00:25:28.680 | I would have been prone to say,
00:25:30.280 | "There's no point in that, come on,
00:25:31.840 | "why are you spending the money?"
00:25:33.420 | And I just didn't understand.
00:25:36.320 | And when people would say,
00:25:39.000 | "Why should I join the country club?"
00:25:40.120 | It usually sound like some self-serving,
00:25:41.760 | "Well, there's gonna be business there, right?
00:25:43.240 | "I'm gonna sell life insurance,
00:25:44.380 | "and so I gotta go to the country club
00:25:45.560 | "'cause that's where all the people
00:25:46.400 | "are gonna buy life insurance are."
00:25:48.160 | But one of the reasons that people wanna join private clubs
00:25:51.160 | or exclusive neighborhoods, et cetera,
00:25:53.880 | is simply that they surround themselves
00:25:55.400 | with more of what they want in life,
00:25:56.560 | and their success becomes easier.
00:25:58.760 | This goes back to why does one person,
00:26:01.800 | why does a wealthy parent spend hundreds of thousands
00:26:06.400 | of dollars in some cases to send a child
00:26:09.920 | to an exclusive Ivy League university?
00:26:12.800 | People say, "Well, it's because of the network."
00:26:14.240 | Yeah, but it's partly the network,
00:26:17.880 | but in some cases, is it the network effect?
00:26:21.540 | Meaning that you're basically in many cases
00:26:25.440 | choosing the peer group that's gonna make
00:26:27.200 | the kinds of decisions that may rub off on you.
00:26:29.800 | And is the ability to pick up the phone
00:26:31.760 | and call somebody who knows somebody really powerful?
00:26:34.280 | Yes, but perhaps it's also the fact
00:26:37.520 | that you're surrounded by people
00:26:38.880 | who know that they can pick up the phone
00:26:40.780 | and call people who can get stuff done,
00:26:43.460 | and that changes the person.
00:26:45.560 | That's why I led off with the idea on obesity,
00:26:49.560 | is that if obesity is contagious,
00:26:52.200 | then thinness or athleticism,
00:26:57.440 | or we don't have a good opposite of obesity,
00:27:00.120 | like non-obesity is also contagious.
00:27:03.040 | And if poverty is contagious,
00:27:05.680 | I think we could make a good argument
00:27:08.560 | that it at least bears a lot of similarity
00:27:11.400 | to research on obesity, then wealth is also contagious.
00:27:16.280 | And I could justify that.
00:27:17.760 | I can't prove it, but I could justify that argument
00:27:20.600 | with a lot of strength.
00:27:22.600 | And so it makes sense to spend money
00:27:26.080 | to put yourself into those situations permanently.
00:27:31.080 | And this is where penny-pinching often doesn't make sense.
00:27:36.400 | It makes sense to move to an expensive city.
00:27:41.720 | It doesn't always make sense
00:27:42.920 | to just go somewhere else where it's cheaper.
00:27:45.080 | If the expensive city has some of the values
00:27:48.600 | and qualities that you want more of in your life,
00:27:51.040 | it makes sense to live in an exclusive neighborhood.
00:27:55.560 | It makes sense to surround yourself with those things
00:27:58.320 | because they will rub off on you
00:28:00.720 | and you will be more motivated to make changes.
00:28:03.680 | You will be more inspired to take the kinds of actions
00:28:06.800 | that lead you to have more of that in your life.
00:28:10.440 | And this is what I wanna focus on
00:28:11.480 | for the final few minutes of the show.
00:28:12.880 | How does this relate to wealth?
00:28:15.440 | As far as I can tell,
00:28:18.720 | a great error,
00:28:23.920 | or a great mistake
00:28:28.440 | is that we think that wealth is produced by robotic people.
00:28:34.480 | We think that we ourselves function
00:28:38.640 | as rational, robotic creatures.
00:28:41.320 | And yet, this isn't the case.
00:28:45.240 | We're highly emotional, largely irrational creatures.
00:28:49.560 | And by the way, obviously,
00:28:50.480 | there's a whole field of behavioral economics
00:28:52.200 | that's dedicated to studying this.
00:28:54.080 | I'm not an expert in that, casual observer.
00:28:58.600 | But in reality, we are highly irrational,
00:29:02.800 | emotional creatures who look for logical justifications
00:29:06.840 | for our impetuous actions.
00:29:09.280 | We don't articulate the fact
00:29:11.160 | that we make most of our decisions
00:29:12.600 | based on emotion, passion, et cetera.
00:29:15.480 | We just make our decisions
00:29:16.920 | and then we come up, in many cases,
00:29:18.280 | with a logical explanation
00:29:19.560 | for why we did the thing that we did.
00:29:22.000 | But what's interesting is,
00:29:24.200 | that irrationality often pays off for many people.
00:29:29.200 | If you think about something as irrational
00:29:32.440 | as starting a business,
00:29:34.120 | the decision to start a business,
00:29:36.360 | when you sit down and you look at the enormous odds
00:29:41.200 | against your success in any business pursuit,
00:29:44.440 | it would cause most people to, I think, admit
00:29:48.480 | that most businesses are begun for irrational reasons.
00:29:52.880 | But you have a passion for the idea.
00:29:55.960 | You want desperately to make something of yourself.
00:29:58.280 | You want to be free.
00:29:59.400 | You wanna make a bazillion dollars, whatever it is.
00:30:02.040 | And you find an idea and you say, "I want this."
00:30:05.440 | And then you basically justify it to yourself
00:30:07.560 | with some kind of logical, rational argument, et cetera.
00:30:10.240 | And then you go do it.
00:30:12.160 | But what's interesting is,
00:30:13.520 | the key to a lot of business success
00:30:16.760 | is the lengths that you and I are willing to go to
00:30:21.480 | to prove that our irrational emotional decision
00:30:25.920 | was actually the right one to do.
00:30:28.600 | And so we'll work like crazy to justify
00:30:31.200 | that this new business we started actually works.
00:30:33.080 | And that extra amount of work causes us
00:30:36.560 | to actually have the self-fulfilling prophecy
00:30:39.720 | of the successful business.
00:30:42.600 | And this isn't perfect.
00:30:44.840 | It's not true all the time.
00:30:46.040 | But it's those 80-hour, excuse me,
00:30:48.520 | those 80-hour, those 80-hour weeks
00:30:53.520 | that get rid of all of the mistakes
00:30:58.240 | that we made along the way.
00:30:59.200 | And on the back end, we got all the work done.
00:31:02.680 | And then we start justifying.
00:31:03.800 | We forget all the bad because we got the good.
00:31:06.560 | And that applies, I think, to a lot of other areas in life.
00:31:10.240 | You'll see this with someone, again, who'll buy a house.
00:31:12.600 | It is a major decision that generally works out
00:31:16.440 | really well for most people.
00:31:17.560 | They buy a house, but they get way in over their head
00:31:19.640 | and they can't pay the mortgage.
00:31:20.640 | But then they really wanna keep the house.
00:31:23.120 | They wanna justify that this was the right decision.
00:31:25.000 | So a guy will go out and get two extra jobs
00:31:27.160 | and cut his budget, et cetera,
00:31:28.280 | make those mortgage payments, make those mortgage payments.
00:31:30.280 | And then two years after the valley,
00:31:32.320 | he's still making them and then things are better.
00:31:34.200 | And then for the rest of his life,
00:31:35.320 | that house is a great financial decision for him.
00:31:37.720 | And the irrational goal of keeping the thing
00:31:42.720 | caused him to go and do the extra work.
00:31:45.280 | Or let's say that someone who gets a job
00:31:49.440 | making a lot of money,
00:31:50.960 | you're gonna go through a professional career formation
00:31:55.360 | that's gonna require you to go to school for 10 years
00:31:57.800 | and you're gonna be underpaid, et cetera,
00:31:59.240 | but you wanna do it.
00:32:00.520 | So you go into it
00:32:01.360 | and you pour enormous amounts of effort into it.
00:32:04.080 | And you question it, is this the right thing?
00:32:05.600 | But you just wanna justify
00:32:06.840 | that you're gonna make it through and you make it through.
00:32:08.800 | And then on the other side, you make huge amounts of money.
00:32:12.000 | And these are the kinds of decisions
00:32:14.080 | that ultimately lead to wealth.
00:32:18.920 | These irrational emotional decisions
00:32:21.920 | that cause someone to do the work necessary
00:32:25.160 | to actually achieve the outcome
00:32:27.560 | that they want in the fullness of time.
00:32:29.840 | Now, perhaps not everybody
00:32:33.740 | is as emotionally driven as I am.
00:32:35.920 | Perhaps there are people who could,
00:32:38.360 | maybe engineers are the best, right?
00:32:40.200 | Engineers seem to have this discipline, this mindset,
00:32:44.600 | this consistency, this steadiness.
00:32:47.120 | And engineers tend to have a good job
00:32:49.840 | that pays them a good income.
00:32:51.280 | And they have a tight budget
00:32:52.480 | and they have a beautifully developed
00:32:55.240 | investment portfolio.
00:32:56.320 | And they read all the books on financial planning.
00:32:58.280 | They listen to "Radical Personal Finance"
00:32:59.800 | because Joshua said years ago
00:33:01.480 | he was gonna teach the CFP curriculum.
00:33:03.720 | And they just have the consistent plan.
00:33:06.080 | And that works, that works.
00:33:08.120 | But does engineers frequently reach
00:33:14.080 | a couple million dollars, right?
00:33:15.800 | A few million dollars, five million dollars?
00:33:18.680 | It's pretty unusual, though,
00:33:20.100 | to find an engineer with a yacht.
00:33:22.200 | I've never met one.
00:33:24.680 | A small boat, yes.
00:33:27.240 | Yeah, a center console fishing boat, yes.
00:33:30.120 | A bass boat, yes.
00:33:31.880 | I've never met an engineer with a yacht.
00:33:33.880 | That's not to say that there aren't a whole lot of people
00:33:39.280 | who've destroyed their lives because of emotionalism.
00:33:41.640 | But it is to say that if you can figure out a balance,
00:33:44.640 | how to harness that emotional desire in a positive way,
00:33:48.400 | control the risk of stupid decisions,
00:33:53.160 | control the downside,
00:33:54.560 | that's probably your most powerful tool.
00:33:58.200 | I hope you'll think about it.
00:34:01.360 | I don't think any of us are
00:34:04.880 | mis-served by surrounding ourselves
00:34:10.640 | with more of what we want.
00:34:13.240 | Be it the kinds of people that we want in our lives
00:34:17.340 | and connecting ourselves with them
00:34:19.880 | by reading books about them
00:34:21.800 | or filling our algorithmic social media feeds
00:34:25.640 | with their stuff.
00:34:28.720 | We're certainly not served by intentionally
00:34:31.120 | sticking ourselves in their way
00:34:32.680 | and being the kind of person at the gym at 6 a.m.
00:34:36.320 | or the kind of person at church on Wednesday night
00:34:39.080 | or whatever version of that is.
00:34:41.400 | And there's a pretty strong argument
00:34:44.880 | for surrounding ourselves with them,
00:34:48.340 | with people, even on a permanent basis.
00:34:52.920 | Am I gonna buy a house on Ocean Reef Island
00:34:58.640 | in Panama City, Panama?
00:35:00.480 | I just might.
00:35:03.040 | I just might.
00:35:05.160 | Are you gonna buy a house
00:35:08.520 | in the exclusive neighborhood in your town?
00:35:11.520 | You just might.
00:35:12.440 | I don't know if we're ever gonna be able to calculate
00:35:18.040 | the exact outcome of these kinds of decisions,
00:35:24.140 | but I think there's something here
00:35:27.560 | that we should think about more
00:35:29.680 | and we should research more.
00:35:31.220 | I found that author's,
00:35:35.120 | wish I could cite 'em, I didn't look 'em up, forgive me,
00:35:36.920 | but I found that author's paper
00:35:39.200 | on obesity being infectious to be pretty compelling.
00:35:44.200 | Regardless of the ultimate truthfulness
00:35:49.440 | of the author's claim,
00:35:51.580 | it's kind of a mind virus
00:35:55.940 | that I'll probably never be able to get away from.
00:35:59.180 | And regardless of whether it's proven ever
00:36:01.620 | to be true or not, it's pretty immaterial.
00:36:04.700 | I think it's useful to think about obesity
00:36:07.380 | as an infectious disease.
00:36:09.060 | I think it's useful.
00:36:11.900 | And to me, that's a pretty good standard
00:36:14.820 | for the truthfulness of something,
00:36:16.420 | is that we don't have to say this is true,
00:36:17.780 | but is it useful?
00:36:18.660 | Is information or an idea useful?
00:36:21.300 | And similarly, I think it's useful
00:36:24.820 | to think about wealth and poverty
00:36:29.300 | as an infectious condition.
00:36:32.980 | Let's not put the label disease on it,
00:36:35.060 | an infectious condition. (laughs)
00:36:38.420 | And let's try to surround ourselves
00:36:39.940 | with people who are doing smart stuff with money.
00:36:42.820 | Maybe all the other values are infectious.
00:36:45.140 | I know that if I watch a movie
00:36:47.460 | of a guy acting with courage,
00:36:49.300 | I go out and I'm more willing to be courageous.
00:36:53.780 | Maybe they're all infectious.
00:36:55.220 | I'm not gonna go that far today,
00:36:56.940 | but I do think it's useful to think about them as infectious.
00:37:01.300 | I hope that's useful to you.
00:37:02.880 | Those are my thoughts for the day.
00:37:03.820 | I'll be back with you very soon.