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Entitlement


Whisper Transcript | Transcript Only Page

00:00:00.000 | Hello, everybody.
00:00:01.480 | It's Sam from the Financial Samurai podcast.
00:00:04.120 | And in this episode, I want to share a breakthrough because for the longest time, I have been
00:00:09.620 | wondering why are there so many privileged people out there who are so angry and entitled.
00:00:18.000 | Since 2009, when I started Financial Samurai, I've been trying to battle entitlement mentality
00:00:23.880 | in my own head and in readers' heads because I truly believed then and I still believe
00:00:29.520 | now that if we get rid of entitlement mentality, we'll be happier and wealthier because we
00:00:35.840 | will put in the work and we won't expect anything from anybody.
00:00:40.440 | I remember starting work off in banking in New York City and it was a grind.
00:00:44.760 | We'd get in at 5.30 a.m., we'd leave at 7.30 p.m.
00:00:48.480 | There was no such thing as working less than 40 hours a week or single-digit workdays.
00:00:54.440 | And because of my experience, I've taken this attitude to everything I do.
00:00:59.800 | And it's probably not healthy, always grinding and grinding, but I'm trying to give you some
00:01:04.280 | background as to why I think entitlement mentality is really dangerous.
00:01:08.980 | Because if you come into your job and you expect to go straight to the corner office
00:01:12.940 | without putting in your dues, well, you're going to have something coming for you.
00:01:17.720 | You're going to be disappointed, you're going to be angry, you're going to be frustrated.
00:01:22.120 | And ultimately, you will be unhappy.
00:01:25.960 | In a previous post entitled "Entitlement Mentality is a Sneaky Wealth Destroyer," I wrote that
00:01:32.840 | after a three-year COVID pause, student loan interest will resume starting on September
00:01:37.320 | 1st, 2023, and payments will be due starting in October, according to the Department of
00:01:43.920 | Education.
00:01:44.920 | And as we recently heard, the Supreme Court struck down Biden's plan for eliminating $400
00:01:52.160 | billion of student loan debt.
00:01:54.960 | And I know some people are angry.
00:01:56.960 | Some more than others.
00:01:57.960 | Some are just like, "Well, thank you for the three-year reprieve."
00:02:00.640 | Personally, I think I would be thankful for a three-year reprieve, and I would be anxious
00:02:05.380 | to start paying back my student debt because it just feels really uncomfortable.
00:02:11.380 | Like my internals just don't feel right if I don't pay someone back ASAP.
00:02:17.360 | And if I don't pay someone back at all, that's just a non-starter for me.
00:02:21.120 | Not in my culture, not in my family.
00:02:23.600 | We always pay back our debts, and we always follow through with what we promise.
00:02:29.160 | So there was this viral tweet that went out from a woman who complained about her student
00:02:34.960 | loans.
00:02:36.180 | She highlighted her estimated monthly payment amount after the forbearance ends is $1,298.83
00:02:43.680 | a month.
00:02:44.680 | And that is a lot, folks.
00:02:45.820 | No doubt about it.
00:02:47.640 | She writes in her tweet, "Student loans and their interests are a class tax on people
00:02:53.320 | with working-class heritage.
00:02:55.500 | It is antithetical to the American Dream."
00:02:58.760 | And I had to look up how to pronounce antithetical because I was saying anti-ethical, antithetical,
00:03:03.560 | antithetical, I don't know who writes antithetical.
00:03:06.160 | "Antithetical."
00:03:07.160 | Uh-huh, see?
00:03:08.160 | Thank you, Google.
00:03:09.160 | So anyway, so I was thinking to myself, "Okay, I understand that.
00:03:13.040 | I understand the cost of student loan debt is a lot even though that is what you agreed
00:03:18.960 | to pay when you took out those loans."
00:03:22.280 | So I was curious to understand what was this person's educational background because having
00:03:27.200 | to pay that much, you know, $1,300 a month is a lot.
00:03:30.560 | You probably had to take out $100,000 to $200,000 in student loans.
00:03:34.240 | So it looks like, actually, it's true that the Twitter person went to Champlain College,
00:03:41.160 | a private university I have never heard of, which costs about $45,000 a year today, which
00:03:47.840 | is actually not that bad for a private university, many of which cost about $60,000.
00:03:52.520 | And then she went on to get a writing master's in fine arts from Columbia University, which
00:03:58.400 | costs $76,000 a year in tuition and fees alone.
00:04:02.680 | And Columbia University is an Ivy League university.
00:04:06.880 | So in other words, this person was able to go to two private universities.
00:04:12.080 | Don't know whether she also went to a private grade school.
00:04:15.600 | So it means that she probably is wealthier than the average person, the average family
00:04:20.680 | at least.
00:04:21.740 | And then she decided to study writing, poetry, fine arts, right, which is notoriously a low-paying
00:04:30.920 | sector.
00:04:31.920 | I've been writing since 2009.
00:04:33.920 | I would say it's very hard to support my family on my e-book on how to engineer your layoff,
00:04:39.480 | as well as my Wall Street Journal bestseller, Buy This, Not That.
00:04:43.640 | And I got a book deal that was pretty good.
00:04:46.340 | But these payments, they are spread out over three to four tranches over two to three years.
00:04:52.320 | It is not easy making a living as a writer or teaching writing.
00:04:57.200 | It's hard to make money in the arts.
00:05:00.000 | So if you're able to attend private universities that cost way more annually than the median
00:05:05.880 | household income in the United States after tax, and if you have the opportunity to get
00:05:12.120 | a degree in a low-paying field, then clearly it means you are wealthier than average, or
00:05:19.960 | you simply have not done your research.
00:05:22.240 | So to then take out student loans and then complain why you have to pay them back doesn't
00:05:27.760 | seem very logical.
00:05:29.840 | I mean, when I was in high school, you know, I was 16, 17 years old thinking about college.
00:05:35.520 | Back then, I knew the cost of college.
00:05:37.240 | I just looked it up, right?
00:05:38.600 | And I thought to myself, "Well, I'm going to go attend the College of William & Mary
00:05:41.360 | because it's $2,800 a year, and worst-case scenario, I'm going to be able to pay my parents
00:05:45.560 | back with a minimum wage job at McDonald's."
00:05:48.760 | And then I decided, "Well, I need to study something that hopefully will get me a well-paying
00:05:52.160 | job that is somewhat interesting."
00:05:54.240 | So I studied economics, and then I minored in Mandarin.
00:05:57.720 | And the idea was economics was relatable to many fields.
00:06:01.600 | I could work in finance, maybe law, technology.
00:06:05.000 | I don't know.
00:06:06.000 | I was a college student, but it sounded logical because I looked at the income for economics
00:06:10.920 | degrees and it seemed reasonable.
00:06:13.280 | And I studied Mandarin because I had studied abroad in China in 1997.
00:06:18.320 | My mom is from Taiwan.
00:06:19.480 | I lived in Taiwan for four years, and if I got shut out from America for getting a job,
00:06:25.040 | then maybe I can go to China or Taiwan and use my Mandarin minor degree as well as my
00:06:30.320 | economics degree.
00:06:31.640 | This was my thinking, and I think most people are logical and most people are rational long-term.
00:06:37.040 | So I don't believe in the narrative that people for the long-term do dumb, irrational, low
00:06:43.480 | ROI things.
00:06:45.440 | Maybe I have too much faith in humanity, but this is what I think because I've been trained
00:06:50.240 | to think as an economist that everything is rational long-term.
00:06:55.080 | And some people figure it out sooner than others, but at the end of the day, we're going
00:06:59.600 | to do things that improve our lifestyles, improve our happiness, and we're going to
00:07:04.040 | stop doing things that hurt our lifestyles and cause us to be miserable.
00:07:09.040 | Now it would be one thing to complain on Twitter, because we all like to complain on social
00:07:13.360 | media sometimes, that student loan debt is expensive and it's an attack on working-class
00:07:19.240 | people.
00:07:20.400 | And it would be one thing to say that and attend a private university, elite private
00:07:25.560 | universities, and work at Columbia University or whatever.
00:07:30.500 | But it would be another thing to do all that and then to follow up your tweet and say,
00:07:34.260 | I just finished my library and it's a beautiful looking library and it's a dedicated room
00:07:39.920 | to a library.
00:07:41.400 | So how many people who live in New York City can afford a dedicated room, office, with
00:07:47.560 | massive stacks of books in New York City, but then say, I can't afford to pay my student
00:07:54.520 | loan debt or I don't want to pay it.
00:07:56.960 | It's just this conundrum that bothered me so much that I went for a walk and I thought
00:08:01.100 | to myself, why do privileged, somewhat wealthy or wealthy people have this entitlement mentality?
00:08:09.100 | And then it hit me.
00:08:10.740 | Maybe the reason why some don't feel it is fair to pay back what they owe is because
00:08:15.620 | they don't fully appreciate the value of what they got.
00:08:20.220 | Think about that.
00:08:21.580 | So important.
00:08:23.460 | If you don't recognize the full value of a college degree, then you may take it for granted.
00:08:29.440 | It's similar to treating your spouse or partner poorly.
00:08:33.100 | You take them for granted because you don't recognize and appreciate all that they do
00:08:37.680 | day in and day out.
00:08:40.080 | It's like getting a new pair of jeans or a new pair of shoes for free.
00:08:44.960 | You know, you'd like it, but you don't appreciate it as much if you had to slave away over a
00:08:49.960 | hot stove earning minimum wage for 30 hours.
00:08:53.800 | Because if you put in those dues, then you really appreciate what you can buy or what
00:09:00.600 | you get for that money that you earned.
00:09:03.000 | Personally, I don't want things just given to me because it takes away the pride and
00:09:09.800 | the joy of the struggle to finally achieve that something.
00:09:13.880 | It is unbelievable how good it feels to start from nothing or to start from zero and just
00:09:19.520 | work your way up to get there.
00:09:21.840 | That is a priceless feeling of joy that I don't want anybody to take away from me.
00:09:26.800 | And it's the same thing with my kids.
00:09:28.240 | I don't want to just give them something because it takes away that meaning, that purpose,
00:09:34.240 | that struggle that we should all go through to appreciate more of what we have.
00:09:39.080 | Nothing is given, everything is earned is a better mentality to have.
00:09:43.720 | If you adopt this mentality, then you will approach life from a position of strength.
00:09:49.980 | When entitlement mentality takes hold, you might end up doing curious things such as
00:09:54.120 | complaining about having to pay back your student loan debt while posting on Twitter
00:09:57.560 | how you turned down five job offers, wrote a best-selling book, and built a dedicated
00:10:02.500 | library in your New York City apartment.
00:10:06.120 | Entitlement mentality reduces self-awareness, or maybe people who lack self-awareness have
00:10:11.640 | a greater sense of entitlement.
00:10:14.580 | If you think about all the poverty in the world, the children who are starving, people
00:10:20.440 | with disabilities, if you know what's going on, you will reduce your chances of maybe
00:10:27.080 | overeating, of maybe taking your lodging for granted, your health for granted, your vision
00:10:33.500 | for granted.
00:10:35.080 | All these things we will appreciate more if we are more aware of the suffering and the
00:10:40.760 | state of the world around us.
00:10:43.000 | Now, I want to conclude this episode by sharing with you how to calculate the value of a college
00:10:48.800 | degree because there is a student loan debt issue, two trillion plus, right?
00:10:54.720 | People are graduating college with no jobs or they're underemployed and they have student
00:11:00.000 | loan debt and that's a problem.
00:11:01.800 | That is difficult.
00:11:02.800 | So this is why, one of the reasons why I've been talking for over 10 years about trying
00:11:06.920 | to go to an affordable college.
00:11:09.360 | Nothing wrong with state school, folks.
00:11:11.800 | Get some scholarships, apply, take the effort.
00:11:15.600 | Don't really just focus on prestige and shiny degrees.
00:11:19.420 | Be practical in what you study.
00:11:21.820 | This is all practical advice.
00:11:23.440 | However, if it's too late for you in the sense that you've already graduated college and
00:11:28.080 | you have some debt or you're struggling, this calculation of how to value college degree
00:11:33.920 | should be very valuable.
00:11:35.320 | So we know that net worth equals assets minus liabilities.
00:11:39.080 | We also know the net present value of an asset is equal to its future cash flows discounted
00:11:44.840 | by an estimated growth rate.
00:11:47.160 | In this case, the future cash flows of a college degree is equal to the college graduates lifetime
00:11:53.760 | earnings.
00:11:55.440 | And to understand this calculation, you must also believe a college degree is a valuable
00:11:59.980 | asset.
00:12:01.560 | Millions of people are willing to dedicate four to six years of their lives and hundreds
00:12:05.600 | of thousands of dollars to get a college degree.
00:12:08.960 | Therefore, of course, a college degree is an asset because rationally, you wouldn't
00:12:14.360 | do something if you didn't think there was a return.
00:12:17.900 | So a college degree is an asset.
00:12:20.120 | It's an investment.
00:12:21.660 | To start, the first way to calculate the value of a college degree is to calculate the cost
00:12:27.080 | of a college degree plus a conservative rate of return on the money you would have made
00:12:32.560 | if you didn't go to college, and to assume that the cost of college increases every single
00:12:38.480 | year.
00:12:39.480 | So in my post, I highlight Boston University, an expensive private university, that for
00:12:43.520 | 2024 costs $86,363.
00:12:48.440 | And then I bump that up by 5% a year and for a full four year total cost of $372,259.
00:12:57.600 | That's a lot of money, right folks?
00:12:59.160 | And if you assume a 5% annual investment return, had you invested the money instead, the total
00:13:04.560 | cost of college for four years is about $534,000.
00:13:10.920 | Half a million dollars, folks.
00:13:12.720 | So choose wisely where you want to go to school.
00:13:16.760 | You were willing to pay that much money to attend Boston University because you believe
00:13:22.800 | it's going to give you a greater return in terms of your earnings power going forward.
00:13:26.880 | If you didn't believe, you wouldn't pay that price.
00:13:29.920 | Or you would still go to that college if you got free money in terms of grants and scholarships.
00:13:34.840 | Or you'd have gone to a different university because we are all rational actors.
00:13:40.180 | This is a fundamental variable that we must accept.
00:13:44.760 | So let's say you graduate Boston University with debt of $120,000, right?
00:13:50.920 | A lot.
00:13:51.920 | That's a lot.
00:13:52.920 | So your net worth is actually equal to $534,000, which is the value of your college degree,
00:13:58.360 | minus $120,000, which means a positive net worth of $414,000.
00:14:04.560 | Not bad, right?
00:14:05.560 | And I know some of you guys are thinking, "Well, you're crazy.
00:14:08.080 | You're not worth $414,000 if you pay the full price to attend Boston University."
00:14:14.140 | But am I really crazy?
00:14:15.140 | Am I really crazy when we pay 40x revenue for stocks like Nvidia, we pay 100 times earnings
00:14:23.520 | multiples for nascent companies that pay no dividends?
00:14:27.360 | Why do we do that?
00:14:28.460 | We do that because we expect the future earnings to be discounted back and worth something
00:14:36.360 | to shareholders now.
00:14:38.120 | We expect growth, right?
00:14:39.840 | So when you graduate college, we expect you to grow into a worker who earns more and more
00:14:45.120 | over time.
00:14:46.360 | And the longer you work, the greater the value of your investment and your assets, right?
00:14:51.520 | Because if your investment continues to spit out income for a million years, of course
00:14:56.620 | it's going to be worth more than an investment that spits out income for only 10 years.
00:15:02.080 | So what are the implications of the cost method of valuing a college degree?
00:15:06.480 | Well, here are some.
00:15:08.280 | The more you pay for college, the greater your net worth.
00:15:11.280 | So hooray for those of you who spend tons and tons of money on a college education.
00:15:17.040 | I don't recommend it, but this is a different way of thinking because you're building that
00:15:21.960 | asset.
00:15:23.520 | Wealthier families who can afford to pay more for college end up having college graduates
00:15:27.760 | with higher net worths based on this formula.
00:15:32.020 | Students who reduce the cost of college by getting grants or scholarships are able to
00:15:35.760 | quote "free ride" and benefit from the full value of a college degree.
00:15:41.600 | Because employers don't pay candidates less because candidates paid less for college.
00:15:45.440 | They just pay the market rate.
00:15:47.840 | And then finally, overall, private university graduates are wealthier than public university
00:15:52.600 | and community college graduates.
00:15:54.620 | You look at the study on the makeup of household income earners who attend Harvard University.
00:16:01.800 | Something like 15.3% of the students have household incomes that are in the top 1%.
00:16:08.880 | Now that is not a good reflection of society.
00:16:11.640 | That's very imbalanced.
00:16:12.960 | And we know this.
00:16:13.960 | We know that private universities attract wealthier families because wealthier families
00:16:18.440 | can pay higher tuition rates.
00:16:20.440 | All right.
00:16:21.440 | The second way to calculate the value of a college degree is to estimate the lifetime
00:16:26.720 | earnings of the graduate.
00:16:28.720 | According to Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, it estimates
00:16:32.760 | the lifetime earnings of a bachelor's degree holder is about $2.3 million.
00:16:37.280 | Therefore, we can assume the value of a college degree is worth about $2.3 million.
00:16:43.240 | So suddenly paying the outrageous sum of $372,000 to attend four years at expensive Boston University
00:16:50.160 | doesn't sound that bad because that is a relatively good rate of return.
00:16:55.720 | Unfortunately, in order to earn the $2.3 million, you'll have to work until the assumed
00:17:02.040 | And we're talking 40 years of work post-college, which is about $57,000 a year.
00:17:08.280 | So if you truncate your work, if you join the FIRE movement that I helped start and
00:17:12.520 | talk about in 2009, the value of your college education diminishes.
00:17:18.320 | And if you decide to work longer, let's say until you're 80 years old, as some doctors
00:17:23.080 | mention, well, the value of your college degree increases.
00:17:26.840 | However, given it takes 40 years to earn $2.3 million in the study, it is not fair to use
00:17:33.760 | the estimated lifetime earnings of a college graduate to calculate a college's value.
00:17:39.880 | Because it's due to the expected real investment returns, we should discount the value of $2.3
00:17:45.200 | million to come up with the value in today's dollars, right?
00:17:49.360 | Because we all know that if inflation is going at 1,000% a year in 10 years, the value of
00:17:56.240 | your dollar is going to be worth almost nothing.
00:17:59.000 | So little.
00:18:00.000 | But if inflation was worth only 1%, well, the value of your dollar is worth more today.
00:18:05.240 | Now, the third way to value a college degree is basically to calculate its net present
00:18:11.560 | value of future cash flows.
00:18:13.440 | And I know I'm going to lose some of you in this.
00:18:16.120 | It's kind of confusing.
00:18:18.080 | But let me give it a go.
00:18:20.360 | All right.
00:18:21.360 | NPV, net present value, equals all future cash flows over some holding period discounted
00:18:28.160 | back to the present using a rate of return.
00:18:32.760 | Discounting if you think about it is merely the inverse of growing.
00:18:36.040 | So in this calculation, let's assume a discount rate of 5%.
00:18:40.080 | You can also think about it as the rate of return on your investment, right?
00:18:44.160 | You've got the cost of college, $372,000.
00:18:47.620 | You've got the variable of 40 years, because that is the period of time the college graduate
00:18:53.240 | will work.
00:18:55.080 | You've got earnings of $56,700 a year, and the total value of the earnings over 40 years
00:19:01.440 | of $2.3 million.
00:19:03.400 | So if you input these figures in an NPV calculator, just check it out in the post or go online,
00:19:09.760 | you get about $600,000.
00:19:11.760 | Therefore, for this Boston University graduate who paid full freight, the value of their
00:19:16.760 | college degree is equal to about $600,000.
00:19:20.760 | And this includes the person's cost, initial outlay of paying $372,000.
00:19:27.000 | And what one commenter pointed out very smartly is that you should take the calculation a
00:19:31.440 | step further by subtracting the NPV of a high school degree from the NPV of a college degree,
00:19:39.880 | because the idea is high school is generally free for all if you want, and going to college
00:19:46.120 | is a choice.
00:19:47.120 | So you want to think about what is the incremental return on your earnings if you go to college.
00:19:52.880 | So the bottom line here is that any of you listeners who went to college can now increase
00:19:57.980 | your net worth, because your college degree is an asset.
00:20:01.520 | It's valuable.
00:20:02.520 | It should go in the asset column.
00:20:04.440 | Using the cost plus methodology to valuing college degrees, I personally will be able
00:20:09.800 | to add $122,000 to my net worth if I want to.
00:20:13.120 | The College of William & Mary cost about $44,000 for four years from 1995 to 1999 when I attended.
00:20:20.160 | And then UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business cost $78,000 over three years when I attended
00:20:25.600 | from 2003 to 2006.
00:20:28.300 | I went part-time.
00:20:29.760 | So all in, $122,000.
00:20:34.120 | Not bad.
00:20:35.120 | And maybe I should increase the worth of my college degree even further because my income
00:20:39.760 | grew in banking over 13 years, and I retired with about a $3 million net worth.
00:20:44.980 | So clearly, it's not worth $122,000.
00:20:48.580 | If I ascribe all of my earnings power to college, then the value of the college degree is higher.
00:20:56.760 | But you can't ascribe all your earnings power to college, right?
00:21:01.560 | Because over time, you grow, you learn, maybe you become entrepreneurial, or you read things
00:21:07.040 | like personal finance books, right?
00:21:09.040 | Buy this, not that.
00:21:10.360 | Or you watch something on TV, or you take other classes.
00:21:14.120 | And that also helps improve your earnings power.
00:21:17.400 | Well, hopefully it should.
00:21:19.220 | And there's one final point.
00:21:20.720 | Good news for college degree holders.
00:21:23.120 | We all like to complain about the cost of college.
00:21:26.200 | Ridiculous.
00:21:27.200 | Going higher faster than the rate of CPI every single year.
00:21:31.760 | How can this be when everything is free online?
00:21:34.680 | Well, the good thing is if you already have a college degree, then the value of your college
00:21:39.080 | degree also increases every single year, thanks to cost inflation.
00:21:44.840 | And this helps boost our net worth.
00:21:46.480 | Every year we're getting richer thanks to our college degree.
00:21:49.160 | You know, it only cost me $44,000 to go to William & Mary for four years back when I
00:21:54.520 | But now I'm just looking at it.
00:21:56.260 | It costs $270,000 all in for an out-of-state student today.
00:22:01.080 | And why can't I assign the value of an out-of-state student's cost?
00:22:04.800 | It's the same degree.
00:22:05.960 | So essentially I've earned a 6x return on my investment over 24 years later.
00:22:11.940 | And that's a healthy 12% compound annual return.
00:22:15.300 | And I know some of you guys are thinking, "Man, Sam, you're crazy for thinking this
00:22:18.920 | way."
00:22:19.920 | But again, what is an asset?
00:22:21.600 | What is an investment worth?
00:22:24.060 | But what we say it's worth and what kind of income it produces for us over time.
00:22:29.880 | Alright, folks, thanks for listening.
00:22:32.280 | I hope this episode has helped explain why some people have entitlement mentality.
00:22:37.880 | And I think it's because they simply don't understand the full value of what they get
00:22:43.000 | for what they're paying.
00:22:44.780 | So I guess maybe educators are right.
00:22:48.000 | Education is the key to a happier life, to more wealth, and more freedom.
00:22:52.760 | And if you want to have an easy way to keep boosting your net worth, keep reading books.
00:22:57.940 | Every book you finish adds to your net worth by at least the cost of the book and at most
00:23:03.160 | how much more wealth you can build because of the book.
00:23:07.200 | Some books, like my book, Buy This, Not That, at financialsamurai.com/buy-this-not-that,
00:23:13.200 | will give you actionable advice that will make you more money.
00:23:17.400 | That could make you far wealthier than the average person over time.
00:23:20.760 | But you gotta read it and you gotta take action.
00:23:23.320 | So do not discount the value of your education, your college degree, and do not discount the
00:23:28.700 | value of continuing education.
00:23:31.560 | I hope you appreciate this episode.
00:23:33.260 | I hope you appreciate all the posts and all the newsletters I've written over the years.
00:23:38.180 | And I'm going to continue writing because I think we should all be learning.
00:23:42.820 | Thanks so much everyone for listening.
00:23:44.580 | Please share, subscribe, and rate the podcast.
00:23:48.020 | I'm trying to get to over 500 reviews by the end of the year.
00:23:50.980 | Let's see if we can make this happen.
00:23:52.660 | It's really a great motivator for me to keep on recording.
00:23:56.140 | It's been a lot of fun, folks, and I appreciate your listening.
00:24:00.020 | Don't forget to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter at financialsamurai.com/news.
00:24:05.820 | Everything is written based off first-hand experience so you don't miss a thing.
00:24:10.100 | And also, don't forget to check out the show notes for the related links.
00:24:13.580 | Thanks so much everyone.