Fear
00:00:00.000 | Hello, it's Sam and Sydney from Financial Samurai.
00:00:03.400 | And in this episode, we want to talk about fear, the key ingredient necessary for achieving
00:00:09.780 | financial independence, and all sorts of other things.
00:00:14.020 | So first of all, what do you think?
00:00:16.080 | Is fear the key ingredient to achieving everything you want?
00:00:20.120 | I think it has so much power in terms of motivating us to change and to do more things.
00:00:29.000 | And when I was in business school, I read this book called Only the Paranoid Survive
00:00:34.040 | by Andy Grove.
00:00:35.720 | He was a former Intel CEO.
00:00:38.000 | And one of the reasons why I read the book was because we were at the Intel campus down,
00:00:43.440 | I think it was in Sunnyvale, it was like, 50 minutes south of San Francisco.
00:00:47.720 | And we were on the campus and I was sitting in there on the campus like from 830, 9am
00:00:53.360 | till 5pm on Saturday.
00:00:55.160 | And I was kind of miserable.
00:00:56.160 | I was thinking, man, I wish I was doing something else.
00:00:58.840 | But I was kind of paranoid that I would get let go from my job at Credit Suisse because
00:01:04.520 | I just joined two, three years earlier, and we were going through a hangover post dot
00:01:10.360 | com bust.
00:01:11.720 | So there's a great saying last in first out, and I was fearful that I could be next.
00:01:18.480 | So I firmly believe fear and paranoia, two negative words tend to drive us and push us
00:01:26.680 | to do better and greater things.
00:01:29.200 | And for financial independence, when I was growing up in Malaysia, in the Philippines,
00:01:34.400 | and also in Zambia, I saw a lot of poverty.
00:01:36.520 | I didn't see a lot of poverty when I was a baby because I don't remember.
00:01:38.840 | But I remember clearly in Malaysia, there were those who had and those who had not.
00:01:44.280 | And one of my friends who worked at a retail watch store, lived in one room with his sister
00:01:50.640 | and his parents.
00:01:52.520 | And when I visited his room, his home, I was really, really shocked because we were living
00:01:58.400 | in a nice place.
00:01:59.400 | It was government housing by the U.S. Embassy.
00:02:02.720 | And so that really frightened me to not screw up in high school, to try to get as good grades
00:02:09.200 | as possible.
00:02:10.200 | I just I couldn't no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get straight A's, but to try hard
00:02:13.680 | in school so that I wouldn't end up in poverty.
00:02:16.800 | Did you have any fearful moments growing up yourself?
00:02:19.160 | Yeah.
00:02:20.160 | I, my parents, my parents both had low income jobs.
00:02:24.240 | And I know my mom was always complaining about how she didn't get paid enough and how everybody
00:02:30.120 | who was coming in for new positions or whatnot were always making more money than her.
00:02:36.600 | And it was this constant struggle that she had throughout her entire career.
00:02:41.080 | And my dad also had periods of unemployment in between jobs where he was just looking
00:02:47.400 | for work because for whatever reason, he would quit a job and just have all this unhappiness,
00:02:55.440 | whether it was due to the people he worked with, or he just wasn't happy with the pay.
00:03:00.080 | And I knew that I wouldn't be able to count on them as an adult.
00:03:03.440 | So I knew I needed to educate myself well enough that I'd be able to get a job that
00:03:09.600 | I could rely on and make enough money to become financially independent so that I, because
00:03:16.480 | I knew I had no safety net to fall back on with my parents.
00:03:20.120 | It sounds like job security wasn't there for your parents and that must have been stressful.
00:03:24.920 | What type of work did they do?
00:03:26.740 | My dad was a blue collar worker and my mom was basically like an office clerk.
00:03:32.240 | Right.
00:03:33.240 | And so was, you know, my mom, although she worked at the foreign service, you know, her
00:03:36.920 | dreams, she got, I think, a scholarship to go to Duke university to study science biology,
00:03:43.220 | but she gave up those dreams to marry my father who decided to join the foreign service.
00:03:49.240 | And so that's why actually one of my fears, one of my greatest fears growing up was disappointing
00:03:53.760 | my parents because my mom worked so hard and I saw unhappiness in her here and there because
00:03:59.840 | I felt like she wasn't pursuing her dreams.
00:04:02.840 | So I felt, man, if she's not going to pursue her dreams, I better not screw up school so
00:04:08.280 | I can do better, earn my own money and at least make her and my dad feel proud that
00:04:17.060 | all their sacrifices were worth it.
00:04:19.200 | Yeah.
00:04:20.200 | I've had a similar type of feeling from my parents and, you know, I, especially in terms
00:04:26.860 | of college, you know, they had to take out loans and I had to rely on scholarships and
00:04:32.480 | they made it very clear to me that they didn't have money to send me to an expensive school.
00:04:37.640 | So I went to state school and I ended up paying half of that myself, which was fantastic because
00:04:46.300 | it taught me to, you know, I had skin in the game.
00:04:49.240 | I had to make the most of my college education because I was paying for half of it and I
00:04:55.720 | knew that I couldn't get more help from my parents.
00:04:58.160 | And did they go to college?
00:04:59.640 | No, they did not get a bachelor's degree.
00:05:03.400 | And so them not getting a college bachelor's degree, did it ever occur to you when you
00:05:09.200 | were growing up, "Oh, maybe you shouldn't get one either"?
00:05:12.600 | Not really.
00:05:13.600 | They always encouraged me to do well.
00:05:16.840 | And I think one of the lessons that they taught me was that one of the reasons they had so
00:05:22.500 | many struggles in their career is because they were not formally college educated.
00:05:28.300 | So that was something they were determined for me to be able to do.
00:05:33.080 | So I grew up expecting to go to college, which I'm grateful for.
00:05:39.120 | Yeah, I actually never, when I grew up, I never thought there was an option not to go
00:05:43.280 | to college because my parents, both my parents went to college.
00:05:46.880 | And only as an adult did I, do I realize only about 35 to 37% of Americans have college
00:05:53.120 | degrees, four-year college degrees.
00:05:55.780 | So I'm living in a bubble, we're living in a bubble, and it's important that I don't
00:06:01.000 | live in this bubble forever if I want to reach out to as many people on Financial Samurai
00:06:06.560 | and help people learn more about their finances.
00:06:10.640 | Because although our reality is real, a lot of people say, "Oh, you're living in a bubble,
00:06:15.800 | your reality is not real."
00:06:17.520 | The reality is whatever reality we experience is our reality.
00:06:21.260 | It doesn't, just because you don't experience our reality doesn't make our reality less
00:06:25.680 | real.
00:06:26.680 | Yeah.
00:06:27.680 | So you went to college.
00:06:28.680 | One of the reasons why I went to William & Mary State School was because the tuition was $2,800
00:06:33.520 | a year.
00:06:34.720 | And I knew that if I graduated from college, even if I couldn't get a job, I could always
00:06:38.760 | return to my day job making $4 an hour at the time working at McDonald's and pay my
00:06:43.880 | parents back.
00:06:46.060 | Did you have any fear that you would, I don't know, waste four years of your college education?
00:06:51.960 | Actually you went for three and a half years, right?
00:06:53.600 | Yeah, I graduated early.
00:06:55.520 | Did you have any fear of not being able to get a job and letting that time and money
00:06:59.600 | go to waste?
00:07:00.760 | I don't know that I was fearful of not getting a job, but I knew it was going to be competitive.
00:07:05.800 | And I didn't really enjoy college the way that most people do.
00:07:11.760 | I wasn't there to party and have fun.
00:07:13.760 | I was there to get in and get out.
00:07:15.960 | And that's also why I was able to graduate early.
00:07:18.560 | I was taking a really heavy class load each semester, and then I was just determined to
00:07:26.800 | get out and find a job and start working.
00:07:29.520 | Yeah, that's interesting.
00:07:31.320 | I was really happy in college.
00:07:33.480 | I had so much fun in college, study abroad, meeting a lot of people, going to parties.
00:07:37.680 | It was so fun for me.
00:07:39.200 | I was really sad to have left after four years.
00:07:41.680 | I remember taking golf in the last semester.
00:07:44.680 | I went to play golf like three times a week until my back hurt so much.
00:07:49.480 | It was kind of fun and crazy.
00:07:51.640 | But I feared wasting my four years in college tuition only to come out working at McDonald's.
00:07:58.400 | I truly feared that.
00:08:00.000 | I just remember when I didn't want to study, I would just study my butt off so I could
00:08:05.200 | get good grades to give me a chance to get a good job.
00:08:09.120 | One thing that I thought about when I was trying to decide if I could actually graduate
00:08:13.800 | early is that I thought if I get out in December, I'm roughly six months ahead of the curve
00:08:22.480 | in terms of my class who would be looking for jobs.
00:08:26.280 | So I would be available to start working as early as January, whereas everybody else in
00:08:30.800 | my class wouldn't be able to start working until June, July.
00:08:34.680 | Strategically, that's really smart.
00:08:36.720 | So if anybody wants to save money on college and graduate earlier to get a head start,
00:08:41.280 | I think that's a wise move.
00:08:42.880 | Maybe we'll tell our kids.
00:08:44.360 | Because four years to go to college now that you can learn everything online for free and
00:08:48.600 | so quickly to gather information doesn't really make sense.
00:08:51.840 | I feel like we can graduate two years to do what we did four years ago.
00:08:57.200 | Not just that, I feel like a lot of kids don't actually graduate in four years.
00:09:01.660 | A lot of them take five.
00:09:03.760 | And I think part of the reason why is because they like fear.
00:09:06.640 | They like fear that if they don't graduate sooner, they'll run out of money or their
00:09:12.960 | parents will run out of money.
00:09:14.720 | They don't fear being homeless because their parents will just take them in and live with
00:09:19.680 | them.
00:09:20.680 | I mean, in our neighborhood, we have six guys who are 25 to 35 years old still living with
00:09:25.440 | their parents.
00:09:26.440 | They don't have fear of falling down because they've always got their parents to take care
00:09:31.760 | of them.
00:09:33.360 | And so again, I think fear is a great motivator for change.
00:09:36.920 | You know, 2008, 2009 financial crisis, that was very scary for me because I was right
00:09:43.600 | front row seat in the financial crisis.
00:09:45.720 | Lehman Brothers going bankrupt.
00:09:48.000 | Bear Stearns getting taken under.
00:09:50.560 | So many rounds of layoffs.
00:09:52.120 | Friends just getting blown out left and right.
00:09:54.200 | And I was so fearful that I stopped slacking off and decided to start Financial Samurai
00:09:59.720 | in July 2009.
00:10:00.720 | If I didn't have fear, I wouldn't have started the website because I wouldn't be thinking
00:10:05.840 | about, "Oh, what do I need to do next?" or "What kind of safety net should I have just
00:10:09.920 | in case I get blown out?"
00:10:10.920 | Because I would never feel like I was going to get blown out.
00:10:13.800 | It's interesting now that there's a lot of tech layoffs due to the overhang post pandemic.
00:10:18.360 | You're hearing these LinkedIn stories saying, "It's hard not to feel down because I dedicated
00:10:23.880 | so much of my life and I just feel like a number and I feel 100% disposable."
00:10:29.540 | And that's the truth.
00:10:31.140 | Every single employee is disposable.
00:10:33.280 | Yes, you have to build relationships and networks.
00:10:36.860 | But the reality is you have to fear getting laid off and being jobless or underemployed
00:10:41.980 | for a while to actually try to work even harder and stay later and network and do all that
00:10:48.040 | stuff.
00:10:49.040 | Because if you have no fears, yeah, you just kind of coast.
00:10:52.240 | Exactly.
00:10:53.240 | Speaking of Financial Samurai, so I started in July 2009 at the bottom of the financial
00:10:57.540 | crisis.
00:10:59.240 | And one thing that has kept me going, publishing three times a week since 2009 is also fear.
00:11:05.640 | I publicly told everybody, "This is what I'm going to do."
00:11:08.760 | Most people don't remember this because that was just a small audience and the audience
00:11:11.880 | is much larger.
00:11:12.880 | But I feared looking like a public failure if I didn't do what I said I was going to
00:11:17.680 | do.
00:11:18.680 | I just needed to keep on showing up because if I did, that failure, that fear of failure
00:11:24.880 | of running the site into the ground, letting it go stale would be pushed to the side because
00:11:30.400 | I would just keep on showing up.
00:11:32.720 | Besides money and career progression, there's also physical fitness.
00:11:37.440 | And with physical fitness, it's interesting, supposedly like 65% of Americans are overweight.
00:11:42.400 | I don't believe that stat here in San Francisco and when I'm traveling in New York, but supposedly
00:11:47.280 | it's true.
00:11:48.600 | But if you're a parent, it's interesting.
00:11:51.900 | No parent wants to die before their kids become independent adults.
00:11:57.240 | So it would just be a natural, logical conclusion to get in better shape, eat better, exercise
00:12:02.520 | more once you become a parent.
00:12:04.720 | Unfortunately, being a parent sucks up so much time.
00:12:07.880 | So I wonder for you, do you have the fear of living an unhealthier life in the future
00:12:13.040 | or not living as long until our kids grow up?
00:12:17.160 | As a result, you exercise more or you actually don't exercise much because you don't have
00:12:21.600 | that much fear.
00:12:22.600 | I definitely watch what I eat.
00:12:25.800 | I pay attention to my health.
00:12:28.680 | I'm getting physicals regularly at my doctor.
00:12:33.480 | So I definitely think prioritizing health as a parent is super important.
00:12:38.680 | I can't even imagine the thought of our kids having to grow up without us.
00:12:45.400 | That's why we have all these contingency plans in place.
00:12:49.520 | But yeah, if there's something that I can control to reduce that risk, I'm all for it.
00:12:54.720 | Okay.
00:12:55.720 | Well, do you believe the people who are "not in tip-top shape" actually have the highest
00:13:02.320 | self-esteem because they don't care what all the advertisements and magazines and TV models
00:13:07.560 | tell them about their weight and what social media says?
00:13:10.240 | They have the confidence to be who they are and be comfortable in the skin.
00:13:14.040 | Whereas conversely, the fittest people, the one who spent, I don't know, three hours a
00:13:17.160 | day at the gym trying to get ripped six-pack abs, which you don't really need, might have
00:13:21.720 | conversely lower self-esteem.
00:13:23.400 | What are your thoughts about that?
00:13:24.400 | I can see your points.
00:13:26.600 | I also think it is not easy at all to be in super crazy tip-top shape and most people
00:13:33.600 | aren't that dedicated enough to spend hours and hours in the gym.
00:13:38.600 | And losing weight is hard.
00:13:40.000 | It's not easy.
00:13:41.240 | It's not easy.
00:13:42.240 | And you know what?
00:13:43.240 | We all feel better when we look better, we feel better.
00:13:45.960 | So there is definitely a point to being in shape because your confidence naturally grows.
00:13:51.040 | But I still believe, you know, if you're comfortable with the way you are, you know, you're not
00:13:55.440 | looking like a male model or a female model, I would say that you have great self-esteem
00:14:01.200 | and you don't fear judgment.
00:14:02.800 | You don't fear society's judgment of you.
00:14:05.280 | And I think that's wonderful.
00:14:06.800 | And man, I think that's awesome to not have to go to the gym for an hour a day or every
00:14:11.940 | other day and have to run three miles because I certainly don't want to do that.
00:14:15.800 | And so I think I don't fear judgment of the way I look.
00:14:19.000 | I'm happy with the way I look.
00:14:20.480 | And as a result, I don't have four-pack or six-pack abs.
00:14:24.800 | I'm just kind of a regular person.
00:14:26.320 | But you also exercise way more than I would say the average person does.
00:14:30.600 | You're very physically active.
00:14:32.320 | I'm physically active because I enjoy sports.
00:14:35.080 | I have fun in the community.
00:14:37.040 | I'm not being physically active to try to, you know, get into brands.
00:14:40.960 | It's something you love to do.
00:14:42.160 | Yeah, I just love to do it.
00:14:43.960 | And it's really hard to lose weight at my age, but whatever.
00:14:47.000 | I just am physically active because I enjoy sports.
00:14:49.120 | Yeah, which is great.
00:14:50.520 | So in conclusion, I think that comfort may be our greatest enemy for achieving financial
00:14:56.480 | independence.
00:14:57.800 | Let's say your parents are rich.
00:14:59.600 | They buy you a car.
00:15:00.800 | They send you to private school.
00:15:02.320 | You go to, you know, your Asian or European international vacations during the summers
00:15:07.020 | and winters.
00:15:08.020 | They then pay your credit card bills and they put the 20% down payment on a $1.5 million
00:15:13.920 | property in New York City.
00:15:15.840 | Are you really going to be that motivated?
00:15:18.280 | I say no.
00:15:19.640 | I say you have no fear of financial failure.
00:15:22.780 | As a result, you're largely not going to grind as hard, network as hard, work as hard to
00:15:28.400 | build your own wealth.
00:15:30.200 | I totally agree with that.
00:15:31.840 | And let's say you're born good looking.
00:15:34.040 | As a result, everybody treats you much nicer.
00:15:37.080 | They welcome you to the parties.
00:15:39.120 | They, you know, reach out and see if you need some help.
00:15:41.840 | They buy you lunch, dinner, whatever it is.
00:15:44.840 | Because you're so good looking, maybe you won't work on your personality because you
00:15:50.160 | don't have to because you get all these free passes.
00:15:53.320 | But eventually your looks will fade.
00:15:55.600 | And if they fade to the point where you're no longer very attractive, you might start
00:15:59.940 | questioning yourself and wondering what's wrong with me because people aren't treating
00:16:04.040 | me as nicely as they had in the past.
00:16:07.560 | Now let's say you're given things based on your identity, not based on merit and hard
00:16:13.880 | work.
00:16:14.880 | You know, you're an Asian American person from Guam.
00:16:17.960 | Therefore you get a free ride and you get a free job and all that stuff.
00:16:21.600 | Just for example, you start cruising because you believe society will always give you a
00:16:26.160 | helping hand.
00:16:27.480 | But then one day the gatekeepers, the elites who decide things might decide you and your
00:16:32.800 | people are no longer worthy of special favors.
00:16:36.680 | When that time comes, you might struggle to compete based on your skills alone.
00:16:41.880 | But maybe more importantly, your children might struggle to compete based on their skills
00:16:46.800 | alone because they didn't get all those benefits as you got.
00:16:51.060 | They have to go struggle by themselves.
00:16:54.920 | So I hope we all have a healthy dose of fear.
00:16:58.780 | Not so much fear that it debilitates us to paralysis, to inaction, but enough fear where
00:17:04.800 | we're just agitated enough to positively change our ways.
00:17:09.340 | It's interesting because at 45 years old now, I've become less fearful of failure because
00:17:14.560 | I feel so much.
00:17:16.000 | Academics, work and society fears are behind me now.
00:17:20.820 | It feels great not to be beholden to anyone, to be able to speak my mind, tell it as it
00:17:26.200 | is.
00:17:27.200 | If someone comes for me, I'm going to come for them right back.
00:17:29.000 | It doesn't matter.
00:17:30.000 | I don't have any like, "Oh, I got to go to the boss's office."
00:17:33.760 | "I got to go to the Monday morning because of what I did to someone."
00:17:37.440 | That feels so great.
00:17:39.640 | So my main fear now is not being a good enough father.
00:17:43.720 | Even though a parent can only do so much to teach their children right from wrong, I still
00:17:47.700 | worry how they'll turn out.
00:17:49.920 | Because you see all these people in society, murderers, rapists, thieves.
00:17:56.640 | It's just like, "What happened?
00:17:58.900 | Did all their parents treat them poorly?"
00:18:01.360 | I bet not.
00:18:02.360 | I bet some of them had really loving parents.
00:18:04.600 | Possibly, but there has to be something else going on.
00:18:08.880 | And it's probably something like mental illness or substance abuse.
00:18:13.080 | There's just so many variables.
00:18:15.160 | There's so many variables, which is why I think we need to have empathy for these people,
00:18:20.440 | but also be aware that, man, we can only control and do so much as parents.
00:18:25.720 | And I guess at 18 or whenever they leave the house, fingers crossed, they become productive
00:18:31.160 | members of society who are kind and helpful to others.
00:18:34.640 | And so that's my biggest fear, raising two kids, two wonderful kids now, who grow up
00:18:41.160 | being spoiled, entitled, arrogant.
00:18:45.680 | That is really a huge fear.
00:18:47.440 | And I plan to do as much as possible over the next 13 years or 15 years that they're
00:18:53.400 | going to be at home to teach them how to be good people.
00:18:57.480 | Yeah, I know.
00:18:59.000 | Seriously.
00:19:00.000 | All right, folks.
00:19:01.000 | I'd love to hear from you whether you think fear is the main ingredient for achieving
00:19:05.920 | financial independence and whether fear is the main ingredient for helping you stay in
00:19:11.640 | shape, keep in touch with your parents, be nice so you're not lonely, and so many other
00:19:17.360 | things.
00:19:18.680 | If you love this episode, we'd appreciate a positive five-star review.
00:19:22.160 | And if you want to support our work, check out BuyThisNotThat@financialsamurai.com/buythisnotthat.
00:19:29.520 | And if you want to subscribe to our weekly free newsletter, 60,000 people have, you can
00:19:34.240 | go to FinancialSamurai.com/news.
00:19:37.720 | Thanks so much and take care.
00:19:39.200 | Thank you.