2024-02-15_Radical_Family_Camp_Promo_Episode
00:00:00.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,
00:00:01.240 | a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:02.920 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need
00:00:04.840 | to live a rich and meaningful life now
00:00:06.960 | while building a plan for financial freedom
00:00:08.520 | in 10 years or less.
00:00:10.320 | On today's podcast, I would like to further that mission
00:00:13.480 | of Radical Personal Finance
00:00:15.360 | in a physical flesh and blood format
00:00:18.400 | by inviting you to join me
00:00:20.360 | for the inaugural Radical Personal Finance Family Camp,
00:00:24.360 | which I will be hosting in the great state of Indiana
00:00:27.840 | in about a month and a half.
00:00:30.200 | I wanna give you a few minutes of details here
00:00:32.760 | on just some basic logistics of the event
00:00:35.480 | so that those of you who know, hey, I'm all in,
00:00:37.880 | you immediately know what you need to know
00:00:39.720 | and you can go and buy your tickets today.
00:00:41.960 | And then I'll give you a more detailed backstory
00:00:44.680 | of my experience with events,
00:00:46.680 | a little bit more about how I'm designing the event, et cetera
00:00:49.520 | for those of you who are looking for more information.
00:00:52.400 | In short, I am hosting
00:00:54.200 | the inaugural Radical Personal Finance Family Camp
00:00:57.000 | in Seymour, Indiana
00:00:59.280 | during the weekend of April 11 to April 14.
00:01:03.560 | So to help you place the date into your mind,
00:01:06.320 | you can remember this as the weekend before tax day,
00:01:10.000 | the weekend before tax day.
00:01:12.240 | It's also going to be the weekend after
00:01:14.960 | the big solar eclipse, which will be on Monday.
00:01:18.320 | And the family camp is going to be
00:01:20.840 | right inside of the totality.
00:01:23.160 | We weren't able to line up the dates exactly,
00:01:26.280 | but we were able to line up the location.
00:01:28.040 | So if you're traveling to see the solar eclipse, et cetera,
00:01:30.960 | this may work out really beautifully for you
00:01:33.080 | to join us the weekend after the solar eclipse.
00:01:37.200 | The location of the event is in Seymour, Indiana,
00:01:41.800 | which is right smack dab in the middle between
00:01:44.120 | Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Louisville, Kentucky.
00:01:48.520 | So it's just South of Indianapolis, Indiana,
00:01:51.080 | just West of Cincinnati, Ohio,
00:01:53.640 | and just North of Louisville, Kentucky.
00:01:57.000 | Very well connected.
00:01:58.000 | There's tons of great inexpensive flights
00:02:00.440 | in and out of those three airports.
00:02:02.120 | And then within driving distance,
00:02:04.080 | it's less than four hours driving distance
00:02:05.960 | from Chicago, St. Louis, even less from Nashville, et cetera.
00:02:09.880 | And so I hope that it's a really great location
00:02:13.200 | for many of you and a workable date for many of you.
00:02:16.640 | And in essence, what I am planning
00:02:18.400 | is what I'm calling a family camp weekend.
00:02:22.320 | What I have built is a, it'll be a three-day event.
00:02:26.640 | So you will arrive on Thursday, if you're able to,
00:02:29.040 | Thursday afternoon, Thursday evening, et cetera.
00:02:31.400 | Then we'll be together all day, Friday, all day, Saturday,
00:02:33.560 | half a day, Sunday, and then you will be on your way.
00:02:36.600 | And my idea is to provide a mixture
00:02:39.840 | of great education, personal finance talks,
00:02:43.400 | great lifestyle education on various topics
00:02:46.200 | related to things that I'm into and that you're into,
00:02:49.160 | as well as just a phenomenal time of socializing,
00:02:52.920 | getting to know one another, meaning you and me,
00:02:56.720 | also many of our friends
00:02:58.160 | in the Radical Personal Finance community,
00:02:59.920 | and then abundant camp activities.
00:03:02.280 | I've rented all the facilities of a local church camp.
00:03:05.800 | So we have all of the various camp facilities
00:03:08.120 | available to us.
00:03:09.280 | And I'll go over more details of that in a moment.
00:03:11.320 | If you know, that's it, Joshua, I'm in, I'm sold,
00:03:14.000 | go immediately to radicalfamilycamp.com,
00:03:18.120 | radicalfamilycamp.com, link in the show notes, of course,
00:03:21.880 | radicalfamilycamp.com, sign up now.
00:03:24.600 | There is a first come, first save sale on,
00:03:28.760 | a significant sale for the first 20 adult tickets
00:03:32.560 | and the first 20 child tickets.
00:03:34.520 | And that sale is valid for one week.
00:03:36.840 | So if you know I'm in, go now,
00:03:39.120 | buy those tickets before they're all gone
00:03:41.880 | at radicalfamilycamp.com.
00:03:43.960 | If you aren't sure,
00:03:45.560 | or you arrive at this more than a week from now,
00:03:47.760 | no problem, the tickets are still a great price
00:03:50.040 | and you'll see on the website there if they are available.
00:03:53.400 | I hope to sell out the event
00:03:55.760 | and I have kind of a limited number of rooms,
00:03:58.080 | details on that in a little bit,
00:03:59.560 | but I, hey, go and check it out, radicalfamilycamp.com.
00:04:04.560 | Now, four minutes and four seconds, that was pretty good.
00:04:08.360 | I'm pretty proud of myself.
00:04:09.680 | I think I get you all the information
00:04:11.080 | that the quick movers need.
00:04:12.720 | I wanna share with you now a little bit of the backstory
00:04:14.760 | and describe in more detail of what I'm seeking to do
00:04:19.760 | and why I'm seeking to do it.
00:04:22.000 | First of all, it has been my unrequited ambition
00:04:26.880 | to host events for the radical personal finance community
00:04:31.240 | for many years now.
00:04:33.360 | And it has been very frustrating to me
00:04:35.820 | that I have not been able to do it yet, or at least well.
00:04:40.200 | And I think we're finally, hopefully with this event,
00:04:42.720 | we're breaking the seal
00:04:44.840 | and we're gonna be able to do this really well.
00:04:47.320 | But since starting Radical Personal Finance in 2013, 2014,
00:04:52.320 | I have been amazed at the community
00:04:55.200 | that has developed out of this podcast.
00:04:57.760 | The number of emails that I get,
00:04:59.080 | the number of wonderful comments that I get
00:05:01.840 | is truly astounding.
00:05:03.120 | And I'm grateful for each and every one of them.
00:05:07.000 | And soon after I launched the podcast,
00:05:09.480 | I at that time attended frequently podcasting events
00:05:13.120 | and personal finance events, et cetera.
00:05:15.360 | And I was always just entirely thrilled
00:05:19.360 | to meet up with listeners in various formats,
00:05:21.340 | had lots of breakfasts and lunches and dinners
00:05:24.480 | with so many of you.
00:05:25.420 | And it's just been an amazing,
00:05:26.820 | it's a great experience for me
00:05:28.320 | that I have always really enjoyed.
00:05:31.600 | And then my wife and I started to have a bazillion babies
00:05:34.720 | and I basically swore off traveling for,
00:05:38.160 | traveling myself for a significant amount of time
00:05:40.440 | because it was a lot of work on her
00:05:42.240 | if I was not there for a significant period of time.
00:05:45.040 | And obviously I could have forced her,
00:05:46.500 | she never complained about it.
00:05:47.760 | And obviously I could have done that,
00:05:49.240 | but I figured what's the point of running your own life
00:05:52.100 | the way you wanna run it?
00:05:53.060 | Why should I go be a road warrior if I don't have to?
00:05:55.400 | And so I basically stopped going to a lot of events
00:06:00.400 | and conferences and things like that.
00:06:02.360 | Haven't been to many of those things for over five years
00:06:05.680 | 'cause we had all these young children
00:06:06.920 | and it just didn't seem appropriate to go.
00:06:10.900 | But I had a brilliant idea.
00:06:13.000 | I had a brilliant idea that,
00:06:13.840 | hey, well, it's no problem, I'll just travel with my family.
00:06:16.840 | And so starting back in 2018,
00:06:21.280 | my wife and I started traveling the United States in our RV.
00:06:25.720 | And when I set off on that trip,
00:06:27.980 | one of the ambitions that I had
00:06:29.880 | was not just to travel with her,
00:06:31.760 | but to meet up with listeners all across the country.
00:06:34.120 | I pictured myself having a different meetup
00:06:36.760 | in a different town every week, every two weeks,
00:06:39.360 | and announcing on the podcast,
00:06:40.760 | "Hey, we're in Nashville," or, "Hey, we're in Atlanta,"
00:06:42.800 | or, "Hey, we're in Denver," or whatever,
00:06:44.680 | and just hosting a new meetup across the country.
00:06:48.940 | That was my initial inclination.
00:06:51.040 | That was what I wanted to do.
00:06:52.960 | And I thought this is gonna be easy.
00:06:54.340 | After all, we got an RV, everything is great.
00:06:57.080 | Well, it turns out that it wasn't easy.
00:06:59.940 | And basically it was largely a matter of handling logistics
00:07:04.640 | of event locations, dates, et cetera.
00:07:08.360 | What we discovered at that time,
00:07:10.160 | RVing across the country with the five-year-old,
00:07:12.200 | a three-year-old, and one-year-old, et cetera,
00:07:13.720 | was that we were able to have a great time with our travels
00:07:18.200 | as long as we were not particularly committed
00:07:21.480 | to any certain schedule or to any certain dates.
00:07:25.040 | So there were a few dates we hit,
00:07:27.120 | specific dates we needed to have,
00:07:29.200 | but beyond that, it was fairly stressful
00:07:31.740 | to have to be somewhere at a certain time.
00:07:34.320 | And it was much easier if we traveled
00:07:36.920 | on a more carefree basis without firm commitment to dates.
00:07:41.920 | And also our route at that point in time
00:07:45.200 | was fairly undetermined.
00:07:48.360 | And we were trying to hit some hard dates
00:07:50.560 | that we wanted to visit with some people
00:07:52.120 | that we had planned out.
00:07:53.320 | And then it just seemed like we needed to press on.
00:07:55.860 | We needed to press on.
00:07:56.840 | And I think most people, when they start going traveling,
00:07:59.600 | certainly most RVers in the beginning,
00:08:01.340 | they have a tendency to move very quickly,
00:08:04.940 | to travel too much.
00:08:06.180 | And it was no different for us
00:08:08.540 | is that we traveled far too quickly
00:08:10.820 | and far too fast for ourselves, but we had good reasons.
00:08:13.900 | We didn't know how long we were gonna be on the road
00:08:16.520 | and we needed to keep making forward progress.
00:08:19.100 | I mean, it all seemed like good reasons.
00:08:20.340 | So we were traveling very, very quickly.
00:08:22.500 | And in order to host an event,
00:08:25.420 | I needed to be at least a week in advance.
00:08:28.300 | That would be kind of the minimum.
00:08:29.580 | And it would be ideal if it were a couple weeks in advance
00:08:31.820 | because many people listen to podcasts on a delayed schedule.
00:08:35.740 | They check in every now and then, every week or two.
00:08:38.060 | They don't listen right when a show is published,
00:08:39.820 | which is perfectly understandable.
00:08:41.460 | Just means that I needed to plan ahead more.
00:08:44.180 | And then I needed to plan ahead with certain logistics.
00:08:47.460 | So who should I host and where should we be
00:08:49.940 | and how many people will come, et cetera.
00:08:52.060 | And so the plan was to do meetups all across the country.
00:08:55.060 | As it turns out, we only did a handful.
00:08:57.260 | We met up with some listeners privately
00:08:59.020 | who had invited us to see them.
00:09:01.020 | We hosted a handful of events,
00:09:02.800 | which were beautifully attended, the ones that we did do.
00:09:05.380 | Thank you very much.
00:09:06.700 | But those events worked when we knew we were going to be
00:09:09.740 | in a specific place for a specific period of time.
00:09:12.260 | And then we cut our trip short.
00:09:13.740 | I had planned to be on the road for a year.
00:09:15.420 | Turns out that we were on the road for six months.
00:09:17.740 | And so I cut the trip short
00:09:19.940 | and kind of abandoned the idea of doing it.
00:09:23.300 | And then once again, with small children,
00:09:25.740 | it was just challenging.
00:09:26.620 | We would go to an event and my wife and children could come.
00:09:29.140 | They could be there for an hour, hour and a half,
00:09:31.500 | but usually the event would be late, bedtime, et cetera.
00:09:34.140 | It's not super great.
00:09:35.460 | And so then they would have to go back and go to bed
00:09:37.300 | and I would stay and visit for longer.
00:09:39.280 | So once again, small children,
00:09:41.700 | while wonderful accessories to life,
00:09:43.860 | certainly do change your lifestyle
00:09:45.980 | and change your options in various ways.
00:09:48.660 | Then we, over the years,
00:09:50.220 | we started traveling internationally.
00:09:51.740 | And I remember two years ago,
00:09:53.380 | my plan was, you know, let's go to Europe.
00:09:55.700 | This is going to be fantastic.
00:09:56.860 | I got lots of European listeners.
00:09:58.660 | Let's, in addition to,
00:10:00.220 | let's have meetups all across Europe.
00:10:02.420 | And so I had a car,
00:10:04.140 | we're traveling across the continent,
00:10:06.340 | going here, going there.
00:10:07.980 | And once again, though,
00:10:09.460 | my ambitions were foolishly optimistic
00:10:13.220 | for all the reasons that I just said.
00:10:14.580 | And as it turns out,
00:10:15.660 | we did no public meetups in Europe
00:10:18.460 | the entire time that we were there.
00:10:20.620 | And that trend has basically continued over the years,
00:10:23.940 | is that I've wanted to do meetups.
00:10:25.460 | And I have, when I've gone on trips by myself
00:10:28.140 | to various places, I've done meetups,
00:10:29.900 | various places in the United States, Canada, et cetera.
00:10:32.940 | And it's just been difficult
00:10:35.020 | to figure out how to do them in advance.
00:10:37.380 | It's challenging.
00:10:38.580 | Even the logistics of a simple meetup
00:10:40.460 | requires a little bit of planning,
00:10:41.780 | a little bit of commitment, et cetera.
00:10:42.940 | And it can be challenging to know how to do it.
00:10:45.660 | Why do I care about this?
00:10:49.340 | Like, why is this important?
00:10:50.900 | Well, it's my observation
00:10:52.860 | that we are living in a world
00:10:54.180 | in which the way that we interact with one another
00:10:56.660 | is changing dramatically.
00:10:58.700 | And it's not all good and it's not all bad.
00:11:00.660 | It's a mixture.
00:11:02.020 | First, with our digital communication revolution,
00:11:07.020 | a lot of our real and true interaction
00:11:12.780 | could now happen in a disembodied way.
00:11:16.740 | I don't think that internet friendships
00:11:18.540 | are fake friendships.
00:11:19.780 | I think they are real.
00:11:22.020 | The way that we communicate with one another,
00:11:24.020 | using all the various forms of digital connection
00:11:27.820 | that we have, these ways are real ways
00:11:29.900 | to build and maintain relationships.
00:11:33.580 | Many jobs now, we can do them remotely.
00:11:37.060 | But what I see happening is
00:11:39.580 | that these ways of communicating
00:11:42.780 | do not replace the value of face-to-face relationships.
00:11:47.780 | But indeed, they make the value
00:11:50.020 | of the face-to-face relationships much more important.
00:11:53.940 | And as a remote worker myself,
00:11:56.740 | I'm very conscious of this,
00:11:58.780 | that I don't mind working remotely most of the time.
00:12:02.940 | In fact, I think it's a great advantage
00:12:04.420 | for most workers who do digital work
00:12:07.460 | to be able, or work that can be transmitted digitally,
00:12:10.780 | to work from home, work from wherever,
00:12:13.060 | and do most of your work that way is really ideal,
00:12:17.540 | but it shouldn't be all the time.
00:12:19.580 | And so companies that have a dispersed workforce,
00:12:22.540 | I believe that it's far more important for them
00:12:25.900 | that they're super intentional
00:12:27.540 | about scheduling significant opportunities
00:12:32.020 | for face-to-face contact,
00:12:34.100 | significant weekend events, or three-day events,
00:12:37.860 | and it's more than just quote-unquote team-building events.
00:12:40.460 | These events are necessary for human relationships.
00:12:43.860 | Some of the strongest
00:12:45.540 | and most productive relationships that I have
00:12:48.380 | are relationships where most of our communications happen
00:12:52.140 | in a dispersed manner, where I live here,
00:12:54.700 | you live on the other side of the country,
00:12:56.220 | that's no problem,
00:12:57.460 | but there needs to be a face-to-face connection
00:13:00.500 | at some point in order for us
00:13:02.940 | to be able to communicate on a deeper level
00:13:05.580 | with our actual face-to-face,
00:13:10.580 | where we have a chance to know each other,
00:13:12.460 | to take the measure of a man face-to-face, et cetera.
00:13:15.620 | It makes all the difference in the world.
00:13:16.980 | And so it's really important.
00:13:20.980 | And I observe that when those two things go together,
00:13:24.620 | meaning digital connection and face-to-face connection,
00:13:27.820 | the relationships can be stronger
00:13:30.580 | than they otherwise would be.
00:13:32.700 | For example, I think about various groups and whatnot
00:13:35.700 | that I have set up with my family and friends
00:13:38.020 | and things like that,
00:13:38.980 | just the ability to chat with one another
00:13:41.420 | on an ad hoc basis in a private WhatsApp group
00:13:44.580 | or Facebook group or messaging group, whatever you use,
00:13:47.100 | that can strengthen relationships
00:13:49.780 | in a way that wasn't possible
00:13:51.860 | when we were only having face-to-face relationships.
00:13:55.660 | And so this makes you feel closer to people
00:13:58.020 | because you're able to share more of the moments
00:14:00.140 | of your lives with your small groups.
00:14:02.980 | However, if those relationships are only digital
00:14:07.580 | and they're not buttressed and reinforced
00:14:10.620 | by that face-to-face contact,
00:14:12.540 | then they leave us feeling extremely lonely.
00:14:18.020 | But when they go together, they're the strongest.
00:14:20.020 | That's my point, is that we want them to be together.
00:14:23.660 | And so here at Radical Personal Finance,
00:14:25.460 | I'm thrilled to have a great connection with you,
00:14:29.620 | my listener, in a digital format.
00:14:32.140 | Even when it's only one way, it's a great connection.
00:14:34.780 | But I also need that face-to-face format
00:14:39.060 | and you need that face-to-face format
00:14:41.780 | with like-minded people.
00:14:43.660 | Because at the end of the day,
00:14:44.900 | while we can appreciate these digital forms
00:14:48.460 | of connectedness that we enjoy,
00:14:51.020 | the truth remains that you and I are physical creatures
00:14:55.420 | with a physical experience.
00:14:57.420 | And that physicality should be part of our life.
00:15:01.140 | So that has been my desire, is to bring people together.
00:15:04.180 | One of the great things that concerns me enormously
00:15:06.260 | about our society is that I see with my own eyes
00:15:10.220 | and I read the data from the psychological surveys
00:15:13.620 | that indicate that in many ways,
00:15:15.700 | it's not unfair to characterize us
00:15:17.700 | as a society of people who are dying of loneliness.
00:15:20.940 | And I think this is particularly pronounced
00:15:24.140 | for those of us even who are in child-raising years,
00:15:28.060 | that while there can be variations of this,
00:15:30.580 | meaning that there are times in life
00:15:33.380 | where our children wind up being
00:15:38.380 | an expression of socialization.
00:15:40.540 | You make your friends through your child's school
00:15:43.020 | and go to sporting events and music events, et cetera.
00:15:45.940 | So it's not always lonely, but in general,
00:15:48.780 | it can be a fairly lonely experience that you have.
00:15:51.700 | Because when you're a parent,
00:15:53.220 | it's hard to schedule time to go and socialize
00:15:55.500 | with other people without having some activities
00:15:58.060 | and things planned, et cetera.
00:15:59.860 | So as a way to try to improve this,
00:16:02.900 | I've wanted to have events
00:16:04.980 | and I've wanted to have some kind of camp,
00:16:08.020 | some kind of event where people can be together.
00:16:11.420 | One more comment on the camp and I'll get into more details.
00:16:13.260 | But when my wife and I RVed across the country,
00:16:17.020 | we loved it, we loved that experience.
00:16:20.460 | And the reason we loved that experience
00:16:22.980 | was because we were able to have more intimate communication
00:16:27.460 | with our friends and loved ones
00:16:29.420 | that we had been missing for years being parents.
00:16:32.940 | So when you are a parent,
00:16:35.260 | for those of you who are aspiring parents
00:16:38.140 | or just are unaware,
00:16:39.740 | your schedule naturally changes a little bit.
00:16:42.660 | And while you can push your children and be out late
00:16:45.340 | and things like that,
00:16:46.180 | and often it's excessively difficult and not worth it,
00:16:49.540 | especially when you have young children.
00:16:51.180 | And so when you start to have young children,
00:16:53.220 | you start to experience a lot of social isolation.
00:16:55.820 | You start to experience a lot of social isolation
00:17:02.620 | and no one intends it, it's nobody's fault,
00:17:05.460 | it just is what it is, it just happens.
00:17:08.620 | Because number one,
00:17:09.820 | your children are demanding on your time,
00:17:12.340 | your attention, et cetera.
00:17:14.260 | When you are with other people,
00:17:16.060 | you have an enormous duty of caring for your children.
00:17:19.580 | So you always have to be watching,
00:17:21.260 | you always have to be making sure
00:17:22.220 | there's not fights happening,
00:17:23.340 | that children aren't in danger, physical danger, et cetera.
00:17:26.540 | The presence of children and their noisy boisterous play
00:17:31.820 | is often disruptive to adult conversations.
00:17:34.820 | And it's just not super enjoyable.
00:17:37.100 | It's hard to have a long, drawn out adult conversation
00:17:40.580 | when you're watching a three-year-old run around
00:17:42.180 | and play with his friends.
00:17:43.300 | And so you wind up going into this period
00:17:45.580 | where you often don't have many conversations
00:17:48.340 | because even when you do go to social events,
00:17:50.780 | either, I mean, you're watching your children.
00:17:55.860 | And if you don't watch your children,
00:17:57.460 | then of course you're not a great parent
00:17:59.500 | and everybody would judge you as not a great parent.
00:18:01.860 | And it's just not an option.
00:18:02.860 | You want your kids to survive and to live,
00:18:04.940 | to see another day.
00:18:05.860 | And so you've got your job to do.
00:18:07.700 | So you wind up losing a lot of this social connection
00:18:11.740 | that you formerly had.
00:18:13.500 | And then to, well, what about,
00:18:15.860 | and then you wind up taking your children home early,
00:18:17.940 | et cetera, so you get on a different schedule
00:18:19.940 | than your friends that don't have children.
00:18:21.900 | And then the relationships start to grow a little bit weak
00:18:24.900 | and people just drift away.
00:18:26.540 | 'Cause we generally socialize with people
00:18:28.620 | who have a similar lifestyle
00:18:30.540 | to the kind of thing that we have.
00:18:32.820 | And then if you don't, if you continue it,
00:18:36.860 | then you often wind up, what I mean is that,
00:18:39.340 | so you say, okay, well, I'm gonna send my wife home
00:18:41.060 | with the children and I'm gonna go
00:18:42.140 | and hang out with my buddies.
00:18:43.300 | All right, well, that's fine every now and then,
00:18:44.980 | but most good husbands and wives don't like to do that.
00:18:49.980 | And there's a balance in which going to a third place
00:18:54.300 | and having your own adult relationships is valuable,
00:18:56.900 | but there's a real balance there where you can go too far
00:18:59.620 | and then cause issues and challenges,
00:19:03.900 | and you don't wanna do that.
00:19:05.060 | And so you wind up being isolated is the point.
00:19:07.260 | And it comes on you gradually,
00:19:08.940 | and all of a sudden you wake up
00:19:09.980 | and you're three or four or five years in,
00:19:12.220 | you realize like, where are our friends?
00:19:14.220 | And you're friends with other parents,
00:19:15.420 | but you never have long time to talk to them
00:19:17.420 | 'cause you're always together when you're with children.
00:19:19.960 | So when we started traveling across the country in an RV,
00:19:22.020 | we found the sweet spot.
00:19:23.100 | And the sweet spot is we put the children to sleep
00:19:25.300 | in the RV, then we go in
00:19:26.500 | and hang out with our friends for three hours.
00:19:28.140 | And it takes you back to those heady days of college
00:19:31.500 | and young adult living where you can stay up all night
00:19:34.500 | and visit with your friends.
00:19:35.380 | It's really wonderful.
00:19:36.540 | And so we always look for opportunities
00:19:39.120 | to do a similar thing.
00:19:41.240 | But in order to do it,
00:19:42.080 | you gotta have some kind of facility is the point.
00:19:43.820 | So if I'm getting together with my family
00:19:46.100 | or family reunions,
00:19:47.780 | then ideally you wanna have some kind of facility
00:19:50.680 | where you can be together in a physical way,
00:19:53.620 | if at all possible, where you can put children to bed
00:19:56.380 | and then enjoy adult relationships.
00:19:59.100 | So back to events, it's hard to do that with events,
00:20:02.180 | but it's doable if you find an appropriate facility.
00:20:05.580 | And so one of the goals I've had
00:20:07.340 | is to host some variation of a family camp
00:20:09.760 | because there are solutions for these problems.
00:20:12.500 | And the solutions are usually camps or church camps,
00:20:16.420 | family camps, various expressions of them.
00:20:18.800 | And these are really fun.
00:20:19.980 | There are lots of professional organizations
00:20:21.860 | that offer these kinds of family camps.
00:20:23.900 | Families go there, you pay a fee.
00:20:25.460 | There's tons of activities for the children.
00:20:27.960 | There's tons of activities for the adults.
00:20:29.540 | And those are super fun to go to with your friends.
00:20:32.340 | You get a couple of families together
00:20:33.700 | and everyone's got something to do.
00:20:35.260 | You're together in the evenings and at night,
00:20:36.820 | but you have things to do in the daytime.
00:20:38.900 | And I think this is a really ideal way
00:20:40.900 | to structure a chance for people
00:20:44.020 | to spend a couple of days together.
00:20:45.300 | And so that's what I'm doing.
00:20:47.780 | So I've rented a whole church camp facility in Indiana.
00:20:53.180 | And I have a friend of mine who's helping me organize it.
00:20:56.820 | And so he's the one who found the facility.
00:20:58.700 | He's the one who negotiated everything,
00:21:00.500 | made it really simple for me to just say yes.
00:21:03.380 | And we just picked a date and let's do it
00:21:05.140 | and see what happens.
00:21:06.420 | And now the goal is, well, what can I put together
00:21:09.460 | that will be helpful and appealing to you
00:21:12.100 | that'll make you guys want to come?
00:21:13.860 | I want everyone to come.
00:21:14.980 | And so let me describe what I'm trying to do
00:21:19.140 | so you can see if it might be a good fit for you.
00:21:20.980 | Number one, I'm trying to create an event
00:21:24.380 | that will have something for everyone
00:21:26.860 | so that you'll be motivated to come.
00:21:29.100 | And so what I thought is,
00:21:31.580 | and this is kind of a classic thing also
00:21:33.620 | that kept me wondering for a long time
00:21:35.580 | is what kind of thing do people want?
00:21:37.500 | I can talk to you here on a microphone.
00:21:39.580 | So I can lecture to you with no problem here.
00:21:42.620 | If I'm gonna create something physical,
00:21:44.340 | what's the additional benefit of a physical event
00:21:46.560 | versus a digital thing?
00:21:48.460 | A digital course is often a more effective means of teaching
00:21:52.060 | than is something in person.
00:21:53.700 | So what needs to be the benefit of it?
00:21:55.400 | Well, it should be socialization.
00:21:57.820 | But then the question is, if we're just gonna socialize,
00:22:00.620 | shouldn't there be, is that gonna be easy
00:22:02.140 | to justify the money to go to a camp?
00:22:04.260 | Shouldn't I offer something more?
00:22:06.140 | And so for this inaugural event,
00:22:09.260 | what I have built is basically a three-track event.
00:22:14.260 | And it's gonna be up to you what track you come to.
00:22:18.300 | But, and how you wish to participate.
00:22:21.340 | But I'm trying to create an event
00:22:23.140 | that has something that will appeal to you,
00:22:25.580 | to everyone in your family and be a good fit for everyone.
00:22:29.720 | So first of all, I'm going to present
00:22:32.140 | a series of talks on finance.
00:22:34.700 | I'm gonna use the Radical Personal Finance Framework
00:22:37.780 | for Wealth as my outline of those talks
00:22:40.460 | because I can collapse that into two minutes
00:22:43.820 | and I can collapse and I can expand it
00:22:45.700 | into two years of university courses.
00:22:48.620 | So it gives me a good level of appropriateness.
00:22:51.380 | And I can use content and material that is appropriate
00:22:56.260 | for folks who are extremely advanced with their money,
00:23:00.100 | very wealthy, earn a high income.
00:23:01.860 | And I can use levels that are appropriate
00:23:04.560 | for your teenage son who's just getting started,
00:23:06.940 | doesn't have anything, has never even had his first job.
00:23:09.580 | And so that's my basic outline.
00:23:12.600 | Number two, though, I think a huge benefit of an event
00:23:15.460 | is to have something hands-on, have an actual workshop
00:23:18.740 | where you implement something.
00:23:20.460 | The great danger of any form of content,
00:23:23.000 | such as a podcast or a course, et cetera,
00:23:25.780 | is that you absorb an idea and it tickles your brain.
00:23:29.260 | You say, "Oh, that's a good idea.
00:23:30.260 | "I should do that someday."
00:23:31.220 | And you go on to the next thing.
00:23:32.600 | That's what we all do.
00:23:33.520 | And we just swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe,
00:23:35.460 | listen, listen, listen, more books, more information,
00:23:37.900 | more podcasts, more information, and we don't do anything.
00:23:40.740 | And in reality, we would, most of us, be better off
00:23:43.140 | if we just chucked 90% of what we listened to
00:23:45.580 | and we spent all that time,
00:23:47.020 | instead of listening to new things,
00:23:48.260 | we spent all that time implementing the few good ideas
00:23:51.120 | that we heard in the 10%.
00:23:52.500 | And so I have arranged a series of practical workshops
00:23:56.200 | to implement kind of the finance track of content.
00:24:01.020 | And so there's gonna be a complete,
00:24:02.540 | with this three-day event,
00:24:03.560 | there's gonna be a complete collection of financial talks,
00:24:10.100 | tightly concise talks with practical workshop application,
00:24:13.420 | where I'm gonna work with you to implement the ideas
00:24:16.540 | of each of the talks in a specific way.
00:24:19.360 | So my goal is that you come to the camp
00:24:21.500 | and you leave with a clear plan to make more money,
00:24:25.540 | lower your expenses, invest more effectively,
00:24:28.740 | avoid catastrophe, optimize lifestyle
00:24:30.740 | with clear specific ideas and actual actions taken
00:24:34.500 | to implement those ideas.
00:24:35.740 | I want you to make money on the event
00:24:37.220 | in the fullness of time.
00:24:38.660 | Number two is I'm bringing in what,
00:24:41.940 | calling a lifestyle track right now.
00:24:44.060 | And the idea is there's a lot of things associated
00:24:46.900 | with radical personal finance that don't fit perfectly
00:24:49.420 | into the personal finance framework.
00:24:51.820 | And so I've built out a series of sessions.
00:24:55.420 | The sessions are not yet set in stone,
00:24:58.340 | but for example, some of it may be a discussion
00:25:01.140 | on home education, some of it discussion
00:25:03.580 | on language learning, some of it discussion
00:25:05.860 | on things like that, the kinds of things that I talk about.
00:25:09.980 | But we've also got a series of presentations,
00:25:13.660 | of hands-on presentations planned that will be of interest
00:25:16.380 | to various members of the family
00:25:17.900 | and whoever is appropriate for.
00:25:20.340 | So an example would be one of the great business
00:25:23.220 | opportunities that I believe is available to anybody,
00:25:27.540 | literally anybody, although ordinarily these kinds
00:25:29.900 | of businesses, we would target towards a young man
00:25:31.900 | or a woman, adolescent or child,
00:25:36.460 | is quite simply just making money doing things
00:25:38.980 | like baking bread and selling bread to your neighbors
00:25:42.540 | or baking cookies and selling cookies,
00:25:44.620 | nicely decorated cookies.
00:25:46.340 | And so we're planning a workshop.
00:25:48.700 | I found this great entrepreneur that,
00:25:51.100 | a young teen entrepreneur who has a great business,
00:25:54.860 | great cookie business, does tons of business,
00:25:58.060 | making and selling cookies into her local event,
00:26:00.980 | corporate events, et cetera.
00:26:02.580 | And then so probably she'll be presenting,
00:26:05.500 | maybe we might do it with bread, not sure,
00:26:07.500 | but we're gonna have a hands-on workshop.
00:26:09.220 | And we're gonna present the business fundamentals
00:26:11.020 | that'll be appropriate to anybody who's looking
00:26:12.460 | for a sideline income, and then also go
00:26:15.220 | through the actual process of applying it
00:26:17.100 | and bake some bread, make some cookies, things like that.
00:26:20.500 | There are other things.
00:26:21.340 | So another example is balloon twisting and balloon tying,
00:26:25.820 | excuse me, balloon twisting, not tying,
00:26:27.580 | is an example of what I think of an ideal skill
00:26:31.180 | that some motivated teens and young people could use
00:26:35.860 | to make extra money on the side.
00:26:37.540 | And their per hour rate can be enormously higher
00:26:40.540 | than working at a local retail job,
00:26:43.060 | but it's limited in numbers of hours.
00:26:45.860 | And so we're planning a workshop on that, for example,
00:26:48.980 | to come in and say, here, you can learn a skill.
00:26:51.140 | You can learn the skill physically.
00:26:52.900 | Well, we have a presenter to come in
00:26:55.180 | and present on the skill itself.
00:26:57.140 | But then let's talk about the business application of this.
00:26:59.820 | And if there's two or three or four fairs
00:27:02.740 | that you can go to and events in your area per year,
00:27:06.180 | and you can go and you can make a couple hundred dollars
00:27:08.460 | at an event twisting balloons,
00:27:10.860 | that's a pretty good way for a young person especially
00:27:13.780 | to make money.
00:27:14.620 | So we've developed a series of lifestyle,
00:27:16.580 | we're calling just kind of a lifestyle track
00:27:18.460 | of some talks on different things
00:27:19.940 | that hopefully will be broadly appealing
00:27:22.460 | to those who may not be interested in personal finance,
00:27:25.260 | but they're interested in ideas.
00:27:26.380 | And some of these might be helpful
00:27:27.620 | and appealing to your teens.
00:27:29.060 | And then the third thing is that we've just,
00:27:30.620 | we've got an entire camp,
00:27:32.140 | and the camp is really beautiful, really well-equipped.
00:27:34.900 | It's got all the camp activities.
00:27:36.580 | So we've got all the ball games and gaga ball
00:27:39.580 | and volleyball and basketball, et cetera, ultimate Frisbee.
00:27:44.460 | We've got a bouldering wall.
00:27:47.060 | We've got hiking trails and creek stomps and horseshoes
00:27:51.460 | and kayaking and canoeing,
00:27:52.900 | although it's probably gonna be too cold
00:27:54.460 | to use all the lake stuff,
00:27:56.980 | and mountain bikes and playgrounds
00:27:59.180 | and all of the outdoor stuff.
00:28:00.740 | Plus we've got a complete kind of staff-led stuff.
00:28:05.740 | So we've got a high ropes course and a low ropes course,
00:28:10.740 | and we're gonna play archery tag,
00:28:12.540 | and we've got a BB gun range and hatchet throwing
00:28:14.940 | and all the camp stuff as well.
00:28:16.540 | So there's gonna be a complete and total,
00:28:18.340 | plus all the indoor games as well,
00:28:19.900 | foosball and ping pong and board games
00:28:22.380 | and pool and all that stuff.
00:28:24.860 | So it's a complete and very beautifully equipped camp.
00:28:28.020 | So if you've got people in your family
00:28:29.780 | that just aren't interested in classes
00:28:32.620 | and wanna just hang out,
00:28:33.660 | then this is a great opportunity to do that as well.
00:28:36.020 | And I'm sure there'll be lots of people
00:28:37.500 | who just wanna come and hang out.
00:28:39.500 | So I think that'll be the appropriate way.
00:28:43.140 | I hope that'll be attractive to you.
00:28:44.900 | I hope that you will find that and say,
00:28:47.300 | "Hey, there's gonna be something
00:28:48.300 | "for everyone in my family to do."
00:28:50.380 | Among those various options,
00:28:51.860 | if people are really into personal finance
00:28:53.660 | and they wanna attend lectures on personal finance
00:28:55.580 | with practical workshops, great.
00:28:57.900 | I'll be teaching those,
00:29:00.300 | and I will make this stuff make sense to you
00:29:02.380 | no matter what level it is,
00:29:03.900 | and you'll go away with a clear action plan
00:29:06.460 | of things that you can do
00:29:07.780 | that over the next year or two
00:29:08.940 | are gonna dramatically improve your financial condition.
00:29:12.060 | If it's more of the lifestyle track,
00:29:14.060 | there's gonna be plenty of information on that.
00:29:16.500 | And then if you just wanna hang out and go to camp,
00:29:19.060 | then that's gonna, with friends and people
00:29:21.460 | of similar persuasion as you,
00:29:23.460 | then that's gonna be available to you as well.
00:29:25.940 | I hope that the agenda that I've designed
00:29:28.300 | is an appropriate balance among these things,
00:29:31.260 | recognizing again that socialization
00:29:33.100 | is usually a primary thing,
00:29:34.300 | but then we also wanna,
00:29:35.500 | just socialization alone makes it hard to justify,
00:29:39.300 | at least for me, I like to learn things.
00:29:41.260 | So hopefully we've got a good balance
00:29:42.860 | and we'll look forward to your ideas.
00:29:45.020 | By the way, I have the agenda designed,
00:29:47.340 | but it's not set in stone yet.
00:29:48.860 | And so if you say, Joshua, I'm absolutely coming
00:29:52.180 | and here's what I would really love
00:29:53.700 | for you to prepare for me,
00:29:55.020 | there's still time and there's still opportunity
00:29:56.700 | for me to interact with you.
00:29:58.300 | And if you're thinking that,
00:30:00.540 | there's probably other people.
00:30:04.060 | Or if you're thinking, Joshua,
00:30:05.740 | I really would love to come to an event that you would host,
00:30:08.060 | but what you've described is not for me.
00:30:11.540 | But if you did this, I would really come,
00:30:14.460 | then great, let me know.
00:30:16.500 | 'Cause I wanna serve you.
00:30:17.340 | I wanna bring people together.
00:30:18.700 | I wanna bring people in my community together.
00:30:21.260 | I wanna hang out with you and enjoy interacting with you,
00:30:23.780 | but I also want you to build friends that are in your area
00:30:26.460 | and build relationships
00:30:28.060 | and have encouragement when you need it.
00:30:30.780 | Let's talk about the facilities.
00:30:31.980 | So this camp is going to be a all-inclusive.
00:30:35.460 | And what I mean is that when you buy the ticket,
00:30:37.900 | you have a bed to sleep in and a room to have and food.
00:30:42.620 | We're providing all the food
00:30:43.620 | and all the sleeping accommodations.
00:30:45.220 | The camp is nice.
00:30:47.060 | It is clean.
00:30:48.540 | It is well-kept.
00:30:49.740 | It is a bit rustic and industrial,
00:30:52.300 | as you would expect from a camp
00:30:57.060 | that's designed to be used by tons of kids and campers.
00:31:01.260 | So the facilities are very well done.
00:31:03.780 | It's a very nice camp, very well done.
00:31:06.900 | But the mattress, I would expect the mattress to be firm.
00:31:09.460 | And the shower curtain is a plastic shower curtain.
00:31:13.180 | So it's not gonna be the fanciest of things,
00:31:16.180 | but it's very nice, very clean,
00:31:18.140 | perfectly adequate, comfortable.
00:31:20.140 | Everything is there.
00:31:21.460 | And everything is gonna be included.
00:31:22.980 | So again, we'll provide you with a bed
00:31:25.660 | and we'll provide you with all of your food.
00:31:28.860 | Now, depending on the people that we have,
00:31:30.780 | we're gonna do our best to have the highest quality food
00:31:35.780 | and other things that we are capable of.
00:31:39.300 | And so I'm being careful not to make verbal commitments
00:31:42.900 | until I see kind of how things go.
00:31:46.460 | But our ambition is to provide you
00:31:48.460 | with a really fantastic event.
00:31:50.340 | That's my goal.
00:31:51.700 | And so in terms of rooms,
00:31:54.060 | it's a little bit complicated
00:31:55.620 | for me to arrange the logistics
00:31:57.620 | because I've rented the entire camp.
00:31:59.460 | I've got lots of independent cabins.
00:32:01.060 | I've got room sizes from two-person rooms,
00:32:03.580 | four-person rooms, six-person rooms,
00:32:05.260 | eight-person rooms, et cetera.
00:32:06.940 | My plan is that all the families
00:32:09.300 | will have their own individual private room.
00:32:11.620 | That's my plan.
00:32:12.580 | And then depending on how many single people I have sign up,
00:32:16.260 | then we'll try to either get you
00:32:18.500 | one of the small two-person rooms
00:32:20.180 | or I may allocate one of the rooms
00:32:25.180 | to bunk rooms for single individuals.
00:32:29.020 | So I'm selling the tickets on a price per head basis,
00:32:32.980 | but I'm gonna use a lower capacity
00:32:37.140 | than the camp would be capable of
00:32:40.220 | if it were all price per head
00:32:41.580 | to manually allocate rooms to you and your family
00:32:45.020 | so that you have privacy.
00:32:46.100 | That's the plan.
00:32:46.940 | So we'll see who signs up and kind of how that works.
00:32:50.580 | I think it'll be good, but I've rented the whole camp,
00:32:52.860 | but we'll see.
00:32:53.780 | At the end of the day,
00:32:54.620 | you and I are gonna learn a lot together.
00:32:56.180 | I hope that you guys love the event.
00:32:59.100 | I hope that it sells out.
00:33:00.460 | I hope you come.
00:33:02.180 | And that's my plan.
00:33:04.740 | If only a few of you are interested in coming, great.
00:33:07.140 | Then we're gonna do it
00:33:08.820 | and we're gonna have a great time.
00:33:10.020 | So what I need from you is, I guess, your feedback.
00:33:12.780 | Like I said, this is the inaugural event,
00:33:14.740 | so I'm putting everything I've got into planning
00:33:17.100 | something that's gonna be really great and really fun.
00:33:19.020 | I was extremely encouraged by the recent event
00:33:21.900 | that I did in Panama.
00:33:23.580 | That event was clearly a much more of a niche appeal
00:33:26.700 | in terms of internationalization
00:33:28.380 | and Panamanian investment tour, things like that.
00:33:31.020 | But for me, the best part of it
00:33:32.340 | was just hanging out with my listeners,
00:33:34.460 | some of the coolest listeners
00:33:35.740 | that I just enjoyed being with y'all for a week.
00:33:39.460 | Excuse me, those of you who were there, it was just amazing.
00:33:42.780 | I enjoyed that so much
00:33:45.540 | because it gave an opportunity for us
00:33:47.020 | to build real relationships
00:33:48.700 | that can continue in the years to come.
00:33:51.420 | And that's what I'm hoping comes out of this family camp.
00:33:53.860 | So I ask you to come.
00:33:55.100 | I really want you to come.
00:33:56.460 | I really want the event to be fantastic.
00:33:58.860 | I want it to be something that you really love.
00:34:00.220 | If you have further questions, again,
00:34:03.300 | you can sign up by going to radicalfamilycamp.com,
00:34:06.420 | radicalfamilycamp.com.
00:34:07.780 | That URL will forward through to the Eventbrite page
00:34:11.380 | where you can buy tickets, radicalfamilycamp.com.
00:34:14.620 | Sign up today.
00:34:15.460 | If you've got questions for me that I haven't mentioned,
00:34:18.700 | then you can email me, joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.
00:34:22.180 | If you live in that area,
00:34:23.700 | you'd like to volunteer for something,
00:34:25.060 | you say, "Joshua, I wanna teach a session on this,"
00:34:26.900 | et cetera, I'm open to hearing that from you.
00:34:30.060 | I've got most of the things covered, et cetera.
00:34:32.820 | But if you would like to volunteer for something
00:34:35.140 | or you have ideas that you think would really add to it,
00:34:38.940 | please email those to me, joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.
00:34:43.420 | If you think, "You know what, Joshua, I'm on the fence.
00:34:45.620 | "I'd like to come, but here's what you could do
00:34:48.220 | "that would just push me over the edge,"
00:34:49.820 | again, email me, and if I can do it, I will,
00:34:52.660 | because I really wanna serve you.
00:34:53.820 | I wanna create an event that will serve you.
00:34:56.540 | I've done my best to think about that
00:34:58.660 | based upon my experience interacting with you,
00:35:00.980 | think about what I think would be helpful and fun,
00:35:04.220 | and all the events that I've been to.
00:35:06.580 | But if I'm off in some way, then just give that to me,
00:35:09.820 | and my goal is to serve you.
00:35:10.900 | So you can reach out at joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.
00:35:14.100 | And that's it, go to radicalfamilycamp.com.
00:35:16.380 | Remember, first come, first save sale,
00:35:19.380 | the first 20 adult tickets are discounted quite a lot,
00:35:22.340 | and the first 20 child tickets are discounted quite a lot.
00:35:25.380 | And that sale is on for one week.
00:35:27.380 | So if you'd like to sign up and save money,
00:35:29.500 | go to radicalfamilycamp.com, sign up today.
00:35:33.020 | Radicalfamilycamp.com, again, radicalfamilycamp.com.
00:35:37.420 | Is that enough times?
00:35:38.260 | - I think you got it.