Always_Grateful
00:00:00.000 | Hello, everybody.
00:00:00.800 | It's Sam from Financial Samurai.
00:00:02.520 | And I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.
00:00:05.480 | This is the best time of year, my favorite time of year,
00:00:08.600 | because I feel so grateful for all of you
00:00:11.440 | guys and my family and my friends.
00:00:14.440 | And it's about just appreciating what we have
00:00:17.000 | and telling others why we do appreciate them.
00:00:20.440 | I was just reading this article on Harvard Business Review
00:00:22.960 | called "Stop Making Gratitude All About You."
00:00:26.120 | The bottom line from the article is
00:00:27.640 | that you should use gratitude not only to appreciate
00:00:30.720 | the world more, but also to strengthen your relationships
00:00:34.440 | with those you rely on.
00:00:37.520 | So expressing gratitude to someone
00:00:39.440 | who helps you keeps them interested and invested
00:00:42.040 | in having a relationship with you over the long haul.
00:00:45.080 | This is truly important.
00:00:46.160 | So think about the people you care about the most--
00:00:49.240 | your spouse, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your parents,
00:00:52.400 | your relatives, and your close friends.
00:00:54.840 | When was the last time you told them, hey,
00:00:56.720 | I really appreciate you always being there for me
00:01:00.560 | when I have a problem?
00:01:01.680 | Or I really appreciate you being flexible,
00:01:04.200 | coming to play tennis with me on my schedule.
00:01:06.600 | Or I really appreciate you always
00:01:08.400 | looking after our little one, because I trust you more
00:01:11.680 | than anyone else in the world.
00:01:13.720 | And I thought a little bit more about this article
00:01:16.400 | and how narcissistic it is for me to do this podcast
00:01:20.080 | and also to write all these posts all these years.
00:01:23.280 | Because I would say about 30% to 40%
00:01:25.800 | of my posts and podcasts are what's going on in my life
00:01:28.840 | and what I'm doing.
00:01:30.360 | And so that kind of takes a narcissistic personality,
00:01:33.520 | to be frank, right?
00:01:34.880 | But hopefully you guys appreciate some
00:01:37.360 | of my thought process that I want
00:01:38.840 | to share with you guys when it comes to investing in the stock
00:01:41.380 | market or real estate market or building a business online
00:01:45.200 | or whatnot.
00:01:46.280 | And that helps you, motivate you to do something,
00:01:50.320 | and also helps you hopefully build wealth
00:01:52.400 | over the long term.
00:01:53.800 | I'm obviously not going to get everything right, which
00:01:56.320 | is why it's so powerful to share my thoughts and feelings
00:02:00.120 | and ideas with all of you so I can
00:02:01.760 | get really critical feedback.
00:02:03.880 | So I'm really grateful for those of you who really give it to me
00:02:07.560 | and call me out and say, hey, you know what?
00:02:09.400 | You're totally missing this viewpoint.
00:02:11.080 | Or hey, why don't you do this?
00:02:12.840 | You didn't think about this.
00:02:14.920 | I don't appreciate so much the people who are kind
00:02:17.240 | of nasty in their feedback.
00:02:19.240 | But those of you who really lay out
00:02:21.360 | some really thoughtful feedback, I really appreciate it.
00:02:24.600 | And I think other readers do as well,
00:02:26.640 | because there are tons of people just reading the comments,
00:02:29.020 | lurking around, or listening to this podcast or whatnot.
00:02:31.800 | And they're thinking, uh-huh, I never thought about that
00:02:34.760 | before.
00:02:35.260 | And that's a really, really powerful, powerful way
00:02:38.280 | of living.
00:02:39.240 | There's an interesting story by Ray Dalio.
00:02:41.780 | He's the head of this $170 billion hedge fund.
00:02:46.600 | And when he first started out, what he realized
00:02:49.760 | was that there were a lot of yes men, yes women, who didn't
00:02:52.680 | really counteract anything he said.
00:02:55.480 | And then eventually, he got something really wrong,
00:02:58.200 | and his company almost closed down.
00:03:00.560 | And this is when he thought, well, you know what?
00:03:02.600 | I better get some outside perspectives.
00:03:05.440 | And so now, in all his board meetings,
00:03:07.560 | he has radical transparency where
00:03:09.920 | his colleagues and other senior executives and just
00:03:12.920 | the junior guys just say, hey, Ray,
00:03:15.280 | that was a terrible investment thesis.
00:03:17.760 | You missed this, this, this, and that.
00:03:19.480 | And the whole idea of it is to avoid groupthink
00:03:23.160 | and avoid having all these yes people just
00:03:26.280 | agree with whatever you say.
00:03:27.920 | And I really don't want that as well.
00:03:30.400 | I don't want every single reader to agree with what I say
00:03:32.920 | or what I believe.
00:03:33.720 | We're all different.
00:03:34.520 | We all have different opinions, beliefs, goals.
00:03:37.200 | And I think that's what makes Financial Samurai
00:03:39.440 | and the community special.
00:03:40.960 | So please keep on providing honest feedback.
00:03:43.040 | I love it.
00:03:43.920 | To me, to other people in the community, in a respectful way,
00:03:47.240 | we can all learn from each other.
00:03:49.920 | Financial freedom, I think, is an inevitability for all of us.
00:03:53.640 | It's like my old favorite Chinese saying,
00:03:56.320 | if the direction is correct, sooner or later,
00:03:58.840 | you'll get there.
00:04:00.200 | I also want to use this podcast to highlight
00:04:02.600 | how our wealth, I think, is mostly due to luck.
00:04:05.800 | Now, it's interesting because I wrote this post that
00:04:08.320 | got a lot of reaction and some quite negative.
00:04:11.800 | One person was like, I absolutely
00:04:14.040 | disagree with your thesis that wealth is mostly due to luck.
00:04:17.760 | And I am unsubscribing from your Facebook page.
00:04:20.440 | And I was thinking to myself, wow,
00:04:22.400 | I guess I really touched a nerve.
00:04:24.480 | But my belief is that wealth, above average wealth,
00:04:29.640 | I would say is 70% due to luck and 30% due to effort.
00:04:35.840 | You can call it hard work, effort,
00:04:37.600 | whatever you want to call it.
00:04:39.320 | Let's not kid ourselves here.
00:04:40.920 | I think we're really, really lucky to be alive.
00:04:43.800 | Many of us come from the United States
00:04:45.400 | or another developed country.
00:04:47.080 | And we just have so much opportunity compared
00:04:50.120 | to billions of other people.
00:04:53.320 | And I think the key is to recognize how lucky we are
00:04:56.880 | so we never take luck for granted.
00:04:59.440 | For example, I've got this cough.
00:05:02.000 | And frankly, it's kind of hard to speak.
00:05:04.000 | I'm taking pauses here and there because it just
00:05:06.680 | tickles my throat.
00:05:07.960 | And I got it from my boy who's been sick off
00:05:09.960 | and on for the past couple of months
00:05:12.160 | because he's in preschool now.
00:05:13.760 | And those viruses and bacteria just
00:05:15.880 | transfer over to the parents.
00:05:18.000 | And it bums me out.
00:05:19.120 | But you know what?
00:05:19.880 | I'm going to do this podcast anyway
00:05:21.440 | because I don't want to take the ability to record this podcast
00:05:25.320 | and share my thoughts with you for granted.
00:05:27.480 | I promised myself and I promised all of you guys
00:05:29.880 | that I would record at least one podcast a week
00:05:32.760 | for the whole year and just see how it goes.
00:05:35.520 | And I'm going to do that because half the battle is just
00:05:37.800 | showing up and continuing to go on and on no matter what.
00:05:42.520 | So I don't want to take my luck for granted.
00:05:44.480 | And I wanted to share some really lucky points in my life
00:05:48.320 | that has helped me achieve financial independence a little
00:05:51.520 | bit sooner than average.
00:05:53.080 | So first of all, my biggest lucky break
00:05:55.120 | was that I was born into a stable dual-parent household.
00:05:58.840 | My parents worked in the US Foreign Service,
00:06:00.760 | which enabled me to live in five countries
00:06:02.920 | before coming to America at age 14.
00:06:05.720 | And they also speak Mandarin, [SPEAKING MANDARIN]
00:06:08.640 | So with this type of background, I mean, chances are greater
00:06:11.960 | you'll be able to speak a couple languages,
00:06:13.840 | interact with people from dozens of cultures,
00:06:16.560 | adopt a zest for travel, be more understanding
00:06:19.560 | towards people of different cultures,
00:06:21.400 | and have a broader world view.
00:06:23.720 | And because of this background, I
00:06:25.000 | think it's helped me get a job easier.
00:06:28.480 | After all, I joined the International Equities
00:06:30.440 | Department at a major investment bank.
00:06:32.560 | And I don't know if a non-target school alumni could
00:06:36.800 | have got this job if I didn't have
00:06:38.280 | this international background.
00:06:40.200 | I screwed up a lot in high school, a lot.
00:06:43.080 | You know, I was caught shoplifting.
00:06:45.480 | I did a lot of other illegal things with my buddies.
00:06:48.200 | This was a public high school.
00:06:49.600 | I got suspended for fighting.
00:06:51.400 | All these things that I look back and I'm thinking to myself,
00:06:53.920 | man, I was a juvenile delinquent.
00:06:57.240 | I mean, I did study hard, but only after freshman year
00:07:01.720 | when I got in real lot of trouble.
00:07:03.880 | And I paid for my transgressions.
00:07:05.920 | But the College of William and Mary gave me a chance,
00:07:08.520 | and I'll never forget it.
00:07:09.880 | And it was not that easy, because think
00:07:12.880 | about your time in college, where you got in trouble
00:07:15.360 | in high school.
00:07:16.680 | And you didn't know whether all your hard work in college,
00:07:19.520 | trying to get those good grades, would mount to anything.
00:07:23.080 | Because, hey, what kind of employer
00:07:25.040 | would want to take a chance on you?
00:07:27.400 | But again, I got lucky again, and I got a great job
00:07:29.840 | in New York City.
00:07:31.480 | And it was all because of this one woman, Kim Perkis,
00:07:33.920 | who believed in me.
00:07:35.560 | She pushed me along in the recruiting process,
00:07:38.400 | brought me into various desks, didn't give up on me.
00:07:41.560 | I had 55 interviews, not because the process was
00:07:45.520 | that elaborate, but because I just kind of stunk
00:07:49.040 | at interviewing with various desks.
00:07:51.120 | I interviewed on the US trading floor.
00:07:53.640 | What else did I do?
00:07:54.640 | The derivatives desk.
00:07:55.840 | I had no business interviewing with those guys.
00:07:58.680 | And then on the internationals desk.
00:08:00.960 | So I was just getting thrown around left and right.
00:08:04.400 | And I don't think anybody really believed in me,
00:08:07.240 | except for this one woman.
00:08:09.520 | Other lucky breaks.
00:08:11.160 | During the 2000 dot com boom, I invested in VCSY,
00:08:15.840 | a Chinese internet stock that climbed 50x.
00:08:18.760 | I mean, that was nuts.
00:08:19.760 | I invested 3,000 and went to 170,000.
00:08:22.840 | And I sold it for 155,000, just because I was like,
00:08:27.280 | well, I don't want to lose all my money.
00:08:29.080 | And then a year later, the stock basically went to a penny.
00:08:32.600 | So that was a really lucky break.
00:08:35.240 | And if you go and read the post,
00:08:36.680 | I highlighted 15 lucky breaks.
00:08:39.080 | And what I want to do is really encourage you guys
00:08:41.520 | to look back in your lives and highlight
00:08:44.840 | what are those lucky breaks that have helped get you
00:08:47.560 | to where you are now.
00:08:49.240 | And it feels really great.
00:08:50.720 | Every time we do this, or every time I do this once a year,
00:08:53.880 | or maybe once a quarter, it just makes me feel
00:08:56.180 | so much more appreciative.
00:08:57.680 | And I get pumped up to try harder.
00:08:59.920 | And the best lucky break that I've gotten
00:09:02.160 | was meeting my wife in college.
00:09:03.960 | We met in Japanese 101 class.
00:09:06.320 | So this is how Financial Samurai started,
00:09:09.080 | I think, back in 1998.
00:09:12.520 | That's right.
00:09:13.520 | I was a senior.
00:09:14.200 | She was a freshman.
00:09:15.520 | I wanted a cruise so I could just relax my senior
00:09:18.880 | and find a job.
00:09:20.080 | And it was so fortuitous to meet her,
00:09:22.400 | because we ended up dating and sticking together
00:09:25.800 | for over 20, 21 years now.
00:09:29.000 | And that's really, really a lucky break,
00:09:30.960 | finding your life partner so early on when you're so young,
00:09:34.120 | when you both have pretty much nothing,
00:09:36.720 | and then just going through the cycles of life together,
00:09:39.400 | the ups and downs.
00:09:40.680 | It's so much easier to live when you
00:09:42.840 | have a partner who's always supporting you, who
00:09:45.480 | can be there for you when you have rough days, who
00:09:48.100 | can encourage you to keep on going,
00:09:50.480 | and just to play off each other's energy and strengths.
00:09:52.840 | It's such a blessing, because I do the front end
00:09:55.400 | on Financial Samurai, and she does a lot of the back end--
00:09:58.440 | the taxes, the finances, the admin stuff.
00:10:01.480 | And I just couldn't continue for so long without her.
00:10:04.760 | So I'm really, really blessed.
00:10:06.040 | And I hope we have 40-plus more years together.
00:10:09.480 | I really hope none of us take so much of our good luck
00:10:11.920 | for granted.
00:10:13.160 | I'm trying my best not to.
00:10:14.680 | And the best way I can appreciate my luck
00:10:17.320 | is to make an ongoing commitment to keep Financial Samurai
00:10:20.120 | running, whether through writing,
00:10:21.840 | or through this podcast, or responding to comments,
00:10:24.200 | and emails, and so forth.
00:10:25.800 | There's a lot of work involved, but I'm
00:10:27.840 | going to continue so long as I'm able.
00:10:30.440 | Because frankly, I know a lot of people who are unable,
00:10:33.560 | whether it's because they can't speak, they can't see well,
00:10:37.320 | they can't come up with ideas, whatever it is,
00:10:39.800 | I will not take my vision, my voice, my mind, my body
00:10:44.920 | for granted.
00:10:45.960 | And I hope none of you guys do as well.
00:10:48.240 | Roughly 15% of the world's population
00:10:50.960 | has some sort of disability.
00:10:52.440 | That's a billion people, folks.
00:10:54.600 | Meanwhile, out of that 1 billion,
00:10:56.440 | 200 million have a severe disability
00:10:59.680 | where it really impedes normal everyday functioning.
00:11:03.160 | So let's not forget our brothers and sisters.
00:11:05.880 | If we are able-bodied people, let's just keep on going.
00:11:10.060 | Let's use what we've got and do our best,
00:11:13.040 | and also help those who do not have what we have.
00:11:16.920 | Sooner or later, we're all going to get unlucky.
00:11:19.560 | And when we do, we must accept bad luck as a part of life.
00:11:23.800 | But we should also remind ourselves
00:11:25.280 | during bad times about all the lucky breaks
00:11:27.360 | we've experienced so far.
00:11:29.640 | Then we've got to rise up and just move on and just
00:11:32.200 | keep on going.
00:11:33.880 | So I'd love to hear about all your lucky breaks
00:11:35.880 | in your lifetime in the comments section, or an email,
00:11:38.680 | or in the forums.
00:11:40.400 | And I want to know how much you think luck plays a part
00:11:42.760 | in your success.
00:11:44.280 | I have a survey in the post that has about 3,700 entries.
00:11:50.160 | And it looks like the number one vote-getter
00:11:52.920 | is that luck plays 50% to 69% a part of your success
00:11:57.720 | and wealth.
00:11:58.800 | The number two vote-getter-- it's interesting--
00:12:00.760 | it's only 25%, 49% luck.
00:12:03.520 | And the number three vote-getter, 70% to 89%
00:12:07.320 | is luck.
00:12:08.400 | So I want to thank everyone once again for all your support
00:12:12.040 | all these years.
00:12:13.600 | Without you, Financial Samurai would not
00:12:15.440 | have been possible, because I really feed off
00:12:18.440 | interaction and feedback.
00:12:20.320 | It's just so fun.
00:12:21.240 | Every day I wake up, I'm excited to see
00:12:23.840 | what happened in the world and on financialsamurai.com.
00:12:28.120 | It kind of feels like Christmas every morning when I was a kid.
00:12:31.840 | And I'm feeling really blessed to have
00:12:33.760 | that feeling every single day.
00:12:36.240 | So thanks so much, and I'll see you guys around.