RPF-0060-Things_I_Got_Wrong_and_4_Questions_to_Ask_Yourself
00:00:00.000 | Hey parents, join the LA Kings on Saturday, November 25th for an unforgettable kids day presented by Pear Deck.
00:00:06.400 | Family fun, giveaways, and exciting Kings hockey awaits.
00:00:09.600 | Get your tickets now at lakings.com/promotions and create lasting memories with your little ones.
00:00:15.000 | Radical Personal Finance, Episode 60.
00:00:18.000 | I got some stuff wrong, and you need to know about it.
00:00:21.800 | [Music]
00:00:37.800 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast. I thank you for being here.
00:00:41.600 | Today is Friday, September the 12th, 2014. My name is Joshua Sheets. I'm your host.
00:00:47.800 | On today's show, I'm going to talk about some stuff I got wrong,
00:00:51.800 | and give you guys some most excellent questions to consider where you want to go over the next few years.
00:00:59.800 | Hope you find it beneficial.
00:01:01.800 | [Music]
00:01:10.800 | I thank you for being here on a beautiful Friday.
00:01:12.800 | First off, right off the bat, those of you who are regular listeners, you may be able to hear in my voice, I apologize that A)
00:01:18.800 | I haven't been here for you the last couple days, and B) I apologize that my voice is a little bit wonky.
00:01:24.800 | I didn't get the show put out on Thursday, or Wednesday. I had the previously scheduled interview show lined up,
00:01:30.800 | and that was all pre-recorded, ready to launch live on Thursday, so that went out on schedule.
00:01:35.800 | But early Wednesday morning, I woke up right in the middle of the night and had to throw up right in the middle of the night.
00:01:41.800 | It was most unpleasant.
00:01:42.800 | And just out of the blue, don't know where it came from, and then was flat on my back for a day and a half,
00:01:47.800 | and then pretty weak for the next half a day.
00:01:49.800 | So I lost two days of work that I had planned.
00:01:52.800 | By the way, if this is your first show joining me, either go back a day or go forward a day,
00:01:56.800 | because this show is going to be of interest to those who are regular listeners,
00:02:00.800 | but it's not going to be of interest to you if this is your first show.
00:02:03.800 | So again, go back a day or go forward a day.
00:02:05.800 | This is going to build on a lot of other shows and correct some things that I've gotten wrong in other shows,
00:02:10.800 | and then also it's going to be for the regular listeners.
00:02:15.800 | So I woke up and was sick for two days, and just out of the blue, hadn't been ignoring my health,
00:02:21.800 | hadn't been not taking care of myself, just got sick and doing better now, but my voice is still recovering.
00:02:26.800 | So that put quite a hitch in my plans.
00:02:28.800 | I'd been working hard to have shows lined up for you guys while I was away for the next two weeks,
00:02:36.800 | already had some interview shows lined up and scheduled for this next week,
00:02:41.800 | and so those were all lined up, all the interview shows pre-recorded, the intros and outros done, ready to go.
00:02:46.800 | And then I had show notes and outlines set for five individual shows that were going to be recorded,
00:02:52.800 | so I had everything lined up, but being flat on my back Wednesday and Thursday resulted in my not being able to do that.
00:03:00.800 | And then I messed up the count because I had the shows already pre-prepared.
00:03:04.800 | So if you go back and you look in your show notes, or go back and look in your podcast feed,
00:03:08.800 | if you go back and see Wednesday's show, I've inserted a show for Wednesday after the fact,
00:03:13.800 | and I think you should check that one out.
00:03:15.800 | It's a special sick day show.
00:03:17.800 | I don't like to have--I just want to have a show here every day.
00:03:20.800 | It's important to me, but they don't have to all be the same.
00:03:23.800 | So Wednesday is just a very short nine-minute excerpt from an interview that I found very interesting with Kevin Kelly on the Tim Ferriss podcast.
00:03:31.800 | It's a nine-minute excerpt.
00:03:32.800 | I think you'll enjoy that.
00:03:34.800 | So if you are listening day by day, go back and check that out in your feed for Wednesday's show, episode 58.
00:03:39.800 | And the reason I had to go back--by the way, I don't mind missing a show.
00:03:43.800 | The reason I needed to go back and put that in was because I had 56, 57, 58, 59, 60,
00:03:48.800 | and I had pre-recorded the intros for the interviews for this next week.
00:03:52.800 | And if I did that, basically I would have a missing show or everything would be wrong.
00:03:56.800 | I just decided I didn't want to have a missing show from the numbers.
00:03:59.800 | So going on, today I am going to accomplish basically three things.
00:04:04.800 | I'm going to, number one, give you just a quick update on what you can expect for the next two weeks.
00:04:07.800 | I'll do it very quickly.
00:04:09.800 | Number two, I'm going to give two corrections that I have--some stuff I got wrong over the last couple weeks,
00:04:17.800 | and I want to correct both of those things because one of them is very important, one of them is important.
00:04:22.800 | And then number three, I'm going to give you what I think is a really great exercise this weekend,
00:04:28.800 | and I want to give it to you on a Friday show so you'll have time to do this exercise.
00:04:32.800 | And I think it would be--it's an excellent place to start or even to continue as you're working on your personal financial plans.
00:04:39.800 | Thank you.
00:04:41.800 | Today is usually--Fridays are usually a Q&A show.
00:04:43.800 | Thank you for those of you who have left some voicemails for me.
00:04:47.800 | I have received so far as of today, September 12th, as I'm recording this and as this show will go out,
00:04:52.800 | I've received a total of three voicemails, which is really cool.
00:04:55.800 | These three voicemails, two of them are questions, excellent questions,
00:04:58.800 | and one of them is just a thank you and a testimonial, and I just so appreciate that.
00:05:02.800 | It warmed my heart to hear, and I thank you.
00:05:04.800 | The questions were excellent.
00:05:06.800 | I had planned to cover one of them today but just crunched on time,
00:05:09.800 | and I can't give it justice and record the other things that I need to record today.
00:05:13.800 | So--but I thank you for those.
00:05:16.800 | Those will be on a future show.
00:05:17.800 | If you haven't called in a question yet, please do so.
00:05:19.800 | Just go by the website, and you'll see the "Send Voicemail" button.
00:05:22.800 | You can do it on your computer, you can do it on your smartphone,
00:05:24.800 | and you'll be able just to send in a voicemail.
00:05:27.800 | And feel free to call in a question or a comment.
00:05:29.800 | Either one would be fine.
00:05:31.800 | I would be happy to have them.
00:05:32.800 | The questions have been excellent, and I think it's going to be a great way to bring more of the audience into the show
00:05:36.800 | so you can hear some of the great questions,
00:05:38.800 | and also will be a great way for me to get an idea of the things that are of interest to you as an audience.
00:05:45.800 | Right now, so far, I'm kind of going based upon what's interesting to me,
00:05:48.800 | but I like to hear the things that are of interest to you.
00:05:50.800 | So thank you to you guys.
00:05:52.800 | Over the next two weeks, I am leaving Monday morning for New Orleans.
00:05:55.800 | I will be out there for a week at the FinCon conference,
00:05:59.800 | which is formerly the Financial Bloggers Conference.
00:06:01.800 | It's basically a giant meetup of people involved in the financial blogging, financial media,
00:06:07.800 | and financial advice, I don't know, the financial world.
00:06:10.800 | And I'm really excited about it, because I've never really met any financial bloggers,
00:06:14.800 | except one or two that I've met offline,
00:06:19.800 | and then others that I met at the Podcast Movement Conference.
00:06:23.800 | So I'm looking forward to meeting a bunch of financial people
00:06:25.800 | and hearing about this new industry that I've gotten myself into.
00:06:28.800 | I'm interested in learning a lot about it, so that will be fun.
00:06:31.800 | And then the following week, I will be up in Pennsylvania for a week of classes,
00:06:35.800 | fulfilling a residency requirement for my MSFS degree from the American College.
00:06:40.800 | MSFS is Masters in Financial Planning.
00:06:43.800 | FS is Masters of Science in Financial Services from the American College,
00:06:47.800 | which is a university of financial planning up there near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
00:06:52.800 | So I'll be up there for a week of classes, looking forward to that,
00:06:55.800 | but I won't have much time to record shows while up there.
00:06:59.800 | Over the next three weeks, I have two interviews recorded and scheduled
00:07:02.800 | for next week on Tuesday and Thursday.
00:07:04.800 | One is an interview with Eric Hemingway on his experience.
00:07:09.800 | He hosts the Family Adventure Podcast,
00:07:12.800 | and he and his wife and six kids spent three and a half years traveling the world.
00:07:18.800 | And really an interesting story, and we talk about how his financial planning
00:07:23.800 | allowed him to do that on a sailboat and how much he spent.
00:07:26.800 | You definitely will enjoy that.
00:07:27.800 | On Thursday, I will be releasing an interview with Jeremy and Winnie from Go Curry Cracker.
00:07:33.800 | They write an excellent blog, and are early retirees, retired in their early 30s,
00:07:38.800 | and now consider themselves perpetual travelers.
00:07:40.800 | And they're doing some excellent work with the more technical side of tax planning.
00:07:45.800 | So that will be out on Thursday.
00:07:47.800 | Next week, I do not have time to prepare the shows, the lengthy shows that I have.
00:07:51.800 | I have a series of short essays, kind of just a few-minute essays that I'll be releasing.
00:07:56.800 | Hope you enjoy those.
00:07:57.800 | While at FinCon, I may be able to record a show or two.
00:08:00.800 | I plan to, but no commitments there.
00:08:02.800 | And if I can do that, I will release those as well.
00:08:05.800 | And then hopefully we'll have some essays lined up that I hope you'll enjoy.
00:08:09.800 | And then also, there may be a day or two without shows, and I will be back,
00:08:14.800 | basically the first week in October, ready to go, with back to the normal schedule,
00:08:18.800 | and hopefully some of this traveling behind me.
00:08:21.800 | Let's get to the corrections.
00:08:22.800 | The two corrections that I need to cover.
00:08:26.800 | The first one came in on episode 55, which was the episode--which was a listener question.
00:08:34.800 | The listener was named John.
00:08:35.800 | And he said, "Joshua, I have a million bucks in assets.
00:08:38.800 | I'm 35, and I hate my job. Can I retire early?"
00:08:41.800 | And I gave through my answers of yes and no, depending on how you do it,
00:08:45.800 | and laid out the six different financial plans that I made up that would allow him to retire right now,
00:08:50.800 | depending on how he did it.
00:08:52.800 | In that podcast, I was making an illustration when talking about the IRS rule of 72(t) rules,
00:09:02.800 | which are about the series of substantially equal payments,
00:09:07.800 | which allows you to avoid the 10% early withdrawal penalty on distributions from retirement accounts.
00:09:14.800 | And I used an example of a 55-year-old who is retiring early and taking money out of their 401(k).
00:09:21.800 | And in the example, I said that this person at 55 years old,
00:09:25.800 | if making distributions from a 401(k) at early retirement,
00:09:28.800 | it would be troublesome because they would have to have those last for at least five years
00:09:33.800 | or until 59 and a half, whichever is later.
00:09:36.800 | That's what the 72(t) rules cover.
00:09:40.800 | Kevin corrected me on the blog, and Kevin, thank you for doing that.
00:09:44.800 | He said that, "I've researched this since I'm a 55-year-old,
00:09:48.800 | and I found that if you're 55 or older and leave your employment,
00:09:50.800 | you have access to the entire 401(k) without penalty.
00:09:54.800 | I thought this could be helpful information."
00:09:56.800 | Kevin, it is. Thank you.
00:09:58.800 | I just screwed up. I forgot about that rule,
00:10:01.800 | and that's what I get for making up examples on the top of my head
00:10:04.800 | and then forgetting about the little wrinkles.
00:10:07.800 | There is a rule on 401(k) plans.
00:10:10.800 | If you terminate your employment early, so terminate prior to the age of 59 and a half,
00:10:15.800 | as early as 55, you can distribute the amounts from the account
00:10:20.800 | without having to pay the 10% penalty tax.
00:10:23.800 | That is a very important rule for you to know.
00:10:26.800 | I just blanked on it. I apologize for doing that,
00:10:29.800 | and I thank you for pointing it out to me.
00:10:31.800 | Here are a couple of details on how and why that might be important for you to consider.
00:10:37.800 | If you are an early retiree and you're working at a job and you have a 401(k),
00:10:44.800 | if you're someone, which it sounds like Kevin is,
00:10:46.800 | if you're just looking at early retirement,
00:10:48.800 | you would want to make sure that you know that
00:10:52.800 | so you know you don't have to keep working until 59 and a half
00:10:54.800 | to take money out of your 401(k).
00:10:57.800 | Also, you would want to make sure you know that
00:10:59.800 | so you don't take your money and roll it into an IRA.
00:11:03.800 | And that's the big gotcha here.
00:11:06.800 | Generally, if you talk with most financial planners,
00:11:08.800 | most of us will tell you for various reasons, which I won't go over today,
00:11:12.800 | we tell you if you leave your job, take your 401(k) with you and roll it into an IRA.
00:11:16.800 | There are exceptions to that rule, and this would be one of those exceptions.
00:11:20.800 | If in this situation, if Kevin, if you were to leave your 401(k)
00:11:24.800 | and if you were to roll that account into an IRA
00:11:27.800 | and then you were to try to take advantage of that rule, the rule is now gone
00:11:31.800 | because that does not apply to your IRA.
00:11:33.800 | That only applies to 401(k) plans.
00:11:36.800 | So you would want to make sure that either you left all of your assets in the 401(k)
00:11:40.800 | and took your distributions from that 401(k)
00:11:42.800 | or that you only rolled over assets into your IRA
00:11:46.800 | that you did not anticipate using prior to age 59 1/2.
00:11:52.800 | So if you take advantage of that rule, if you're 55 and older,
00:11:56.800 | that will allow you to be a little bit smarter and not--
00:12:03.800 | it will allow you to avoid having to go through the 72(t)
00:12:06.800 | and the Roth conversion strategies and those other--
00:12:11.800 | the strategies to get the money out early.
00:12:13.800 | This also could be important for other early retiree planning
00:12:18.800 | because that basically--and I'm just going off the top of my head here,
00:12:21.800 | but I'm pretty confident in this.
00:12:23.800 | If you were planning out your early retirement strategy,
00:12:25.800 | I should tell Brandon, Mad Scientist, and Jeremy, Go Curry Cracker,
00:12:29.800 | who are both really interested in this technical side about this.
00:12:33.800 | If one of you is friends with Brandon, I'll shoot him a note
00:12:36.800 | and let him know that he might be interested in this.
00:12:38.800 | But this is one rule that he should bring into his scenarios--
00:12:40.800 | Brandon, the Mad Scientist--what he should bring into his scenarios
00:12:43.800 | that he models on early retirement is that if you had a 401(k),
00:12:46.800 | you could theoretically, I think, maintain this,
00:12:49.800 | and if you're terminated from service at an early age
00:12:52.800 | and you keep the money in the 401(k),
00:12:54.800 | then that will allow you to cover that age 55 to age 60 gap out of that 401(k),
00:13:02.800 | so then you wouldn't have to do the Roth conversion for that amount of the money.
00:13:06.800 | He ought to factor that in because he is really good
00:13:09.800 | at focusing on all these little rules.
00:13:11.800 | I've got to make sure he knows about that one.
00:13:13.800 | I had forgotten about it.
00:13:14.800 | So, Kevin, thank you for correcting me.
00:13:16.800 | I would encourage others of you, if you ever find a mistake in what I say,
00:13:20.800 | please correct me.
00:13:21.800 | Come by the blog.
00:13:22.800 | If you think I'm just wrong, come by and tell me.
00:13:24.800 | I'll enjoy hearing your side of the story, and I may change my mind.
00:13:27.800 | I have done that over many things over time.
00:13:29.800 | And two, if you find I'm factually wrong,
00:13:31.800 | not just because you think I'm wrong,
00:13:33.800 | I would appreciate knowing.
00:13:34.800 | I'm one guy doing this show with the minimum amount of time
00:13:38.800 | that I--just giving it as much as I can,
00:13:40.800 | but I don't have as much--I'm not able to make as much time
00:13:44.800 | as I would like to be able to prep everything, fact-check everything.
00:13:48.800 | I don't have a team of fact-checkers.
00:13:50.800 | It's me just doing it.
00:13:51.800 | So I am sure that I will get stuff wrong even more in the future,
00:13:56.800 | and I would appreciate your helping me to get things right.
00:13:59.800 | So if you find something, I'm relying on you
00:14:02.800 | to do some crowd-sourced fact-checking
00:14:04.800 | because I guarantee there are some of you in the audience
00:14:07.800 | who are way better at this than I am,
00:14:09.800 | and all of you will have expertise in some subject that I don't,
00:14:13.800 | so I'm relying on you for crowd-sourced fact-checking.
00:14:15.800 | And I promise I will always--either in the show notes or on the show--
00:14:20.800 | I will always acknowledge when I get stuff wrong
00:14:23.800 | and try to correct it and make it right.
00:14:25.800 | That's very important to me to do, and I will work hard to do that.
00:14:30.800 | The second thing that I got wrong was actually on yesterday's show,
00:14:33.800 | was an interview with Ryan Finley from re-craigslist.com.
00:14:38.800 | And Ryan writes an awesome blog, really enjoyed the interview.
00:14:42.800 | During that interview, we were talking about
00:14:46.800 | the ability of young people at a very early age,
00:14:50.800 | and I personally wonder a lot of times--I'm not going to say I'm sure--
00:14:55.800 | I just wonder if we don't hamstring young people at an early age,
00:14:59.800 | and by just more than we should,
00:15:02.800 | by kind of covering up their ability a lot of times.
00:15:05.800 | And this is a subject I'm interested in.
00:15:07.800 | I'll share some more thoughts in future shows.
00:15:10.800 | But for today, I just want to acknowledge two things.
00:15:12.800 | Number one is I gave two examples in our conversation.
00:15:15.800 | One was talking about Admiral Farragut,
00:15:17.800 | and I was talking about the early age at which he became a captain of a ship.
00:15:23.800 | And during the conversation, I wasn't able to remember the admiral's name.
00:15:28.800 | I went and looked it up later,
00:15:30.800 | and I read some info from his Wikipedia entry,
00:15:32.800 | and I feel like I may have misrepresented his story
00:15:34.800 | because it's amazing enough without me representing it.
00:15:37.800 | I think he was the youngest admiral in U.S. Navy history,
00:15:40.800 | but he was not made the youngest admiral at the age of 12.
00:15:43.800 | He did indeed have his first command at the age of 12,
00:15:47.800 | and that was when he was put aboard a ship,
00:15:51.800 | which was a prize that they had defeated the ship,
00:15:55.800 | and then he was put aboard with a skeleton crew,
00:15:57.800 | and he was made the temporary captain of that ship with a skeleton crew
00:16:01.800 | at the age of 12 years old to sail it into harbor.
00:16:04.800 | Then he went on and continued to serve,
00:16:06.800 | and he grew through other commands as he grew older,
00:16:09.800 | and then he did become the youngest admiral in U.S. Navy history.
00:16:12.800 | Admiral Farragut, fascinating story to read more about him.
00:16:16.800 | But I felt like I misrepresented it in the comments,
00:16:18.800 | even my own correction after the show.
00:16:20.800 | The second thing that I got wrong, and I didn't think of it at the time,
00:16:24.800 | and later after I released the show, it just was nagging my mind,
00:16:28.800 | and I went back and checked out some details,
00:16:30.800 | and I want to correct some details I got wrong about Benjamin Franklin's story.
00:16:34.800 | I believe I said in that interview that Benjamin Franklin started publishing his almanac
00:16:40.800 | at the age in his early teens.
00:16:44.800 | I was wrong about that.
00:16:46.800 | He did not start publishing his almanac until the age of 26.
00:16:50.800 | And again, I want to make sure I get this right
00:16:52.800 | because the true story is impressive enough without me getting details wrong.
00:16:56.800 | He didn't start publishing poor Richard's almanac until age 26,
00:16:59.800 | and poor Richard's almanac was what indeed won him great fame and notoriety.
00:17:04.800 | And his story, however, before age 26, of what he had done before 26,
00:17:09.800 | was amazing enough.
00:17:11.800 | And when you look at his educational background, that was amazing enough.
00:17:16.800 | The one key thing that most impresses me about Benjamin Franklin's life
00:17:20.800 | that I want to read is I want to read how he educated himself.
00:17:24.800 | And Benjamin Franklin was truly an amazing person,
00:17:28.800 | and he was financially independent at the age of 43.
00:17:32.800 | At the age of 43, he retired.
00:17:34.800 | So remember, this is in an era where he started off
00:17:37.800 | as the youngest son of a hardworking tradesperson with 13 children,
00:17:43.800 | and he started with nothing.
00:17:45.800 | And he was a self-made man in early colonial America,
00:17:50.800 | and at the age of 43, he was financially independent.
00:17:53.800 | And there are a lot of lessons that we can learn from him
00:17:58.800 | and from his experiences in achieving that financial independence.
00:18:03.800 | I'm re-inspired to go back and re-read his autobiography.
00:18:08.800 | I think I skimmed it a few years ago, but I didn't find it very interesting
00:18:11.800 | just because the language is very old-fashioned.
00:18:14.800 | But I've added it to my reading list.
00:18:15.800 | I'm going to go back and try to re-read his autobiography that he wrote
00:18:19.800 | and try to pull out some of the lessons from it
00:18:21.800 | that we can apply to financial planning.
00:18:23.800 | Because notice when he retired, that was when he went on to scientific pursuits.
00:18:26.800 | He didn't just sit around and do the equivalent of whatever watching TV was in his day.
00:18:31.800 | And he achieved early retirement in an age where he didn't have the 4% rule to do it.
00:18:36.800 | So how did he do it?
00:18:38.800 | Well, we'll talk about that another time.
00:18:40.800 | I want to read to you two pages that I find fascinating, which goes over--
00:18:45.800 | the two pages are discussing how he educated himself.
00:18:52.800 | And to me, this is amazing, because this is what I was talking about
00:18:54.800 | when he was in his early teens.
00:18:56.800 | This is what he was doing when he was in his late--
00:18:58.800 | what would those be, single digits, tens?
00:19:00.800 | No, tens would be teens.
00:19:02.800 | When he was, I don't know, about ten and older,
00:19:05.800 | this is how he was educating himself.
00:19:07.800 | These two pages are coming from a book entitled
00:19:11.800 | An Underground History of American Education
00:19:14.800 | by an author named John Taylor Gatto.
00:19:16.800 | I have referenced this book a couple times on the show.
00:19:19.800 | Of all of the books that I have read on school and education,
00:19:22.800 | this is the one that most challenged--
00:19:26.800 | that I find most challenging to basically everything I've ever thought
00:19:30.800 | and learned about school and education.
00:19:33.800 | And this is a subject of great interest to me,
00:19:35.800 | for those of you to whom it's also interesting.
00:19:38.800 | I would recommend that you read this book.
00:19:41.800 | He published it for free on his website online.
00:19:44.800 | So check it out.
00:19:46.800 | You can just Google "Underground History."
00:19:48.800 | You'll find his website, and I will try to remember
00:19:50.800 | to include a link in the show notes.
00:19:52.800 | Additionally, if you don't like the page-by-page format
00:19:55.800 | that he has on his site, you can easily find a PDF online.
00:19:59.800 | And if I can, I'll link to one of those in the show notes as well,
00:20:03.800 | where you can read it in its entirety.
00:20:05.800 | This book will challenge you with how much you know
00:20:11.800 | about the system of schooling that you live in.
00:20:15.800 | I'll just ask you one question, and I won't answer it,
00:20:18.800 | because it's a question I think we all should be asked
00:20:20.800 | and that I'm answering for myself.
00:20:22.800 | How much do you know about where the school system that you live in--
00:20:27.800 | that we all live in--came from?
00:20:29.800 | And don't answer too quickly, and do some research before,
00:20:31.800 | because I certainly have been challenged by some of the things that I have read.
00:20:34.800 | But these two pages are really interesting,
00:20:36.800 | because they lay out how Franklin educated himself,
00:20:40.800 | and I think it's utterly fascinating.
00:20:43.800 | There are some comments from the author, Gatto,
00:20:47.800 | and then there are some quotes from Benjamin Franklin's autobiography.
00:20:51.800 | So when I mention, as I read this, "quote, end quote,"
00:20:54.800 | those are the quotes from Benjamin Franklin's writing himself.
00:20:59.800 | "As it is for most members of a literate society,
00:21:02.800 | reading was the largest single element of Franklin's educational foundation.
00:21:06.800 | Quote, 'From a child I was fond of reading,
00:21:08.800 | and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.
00:21:12.800 | Pleased with Pilgrim's progress,
00:21:14.800 | my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.
00:21:18.800 | I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's historical collections.
00:21:23.800 | They were small Chapman's books and cheap, 40 to 50 in all.
00:21:27.800 | My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity,
00:21:31.800 | most of which I read.
00:21:33.800 | Plutarch's Lives there was, in which I read abundantly,
00:21:36.800 | and I still think that time spent to great advantage.
00:21:39.800 | There was also a book of Defoe's, called An Essay on Projects,
00:21:43.800 | and another of Dr. Mather's, called Essays to Do Good,
00:21:49.800 | which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking
00:21:51.800 | that had an influence on some of the principal future events in my life.
00:21:55.800 | You might well ask how young Franklin was reading Bunyan, Burton, Mather,
00:22:01.800 | Defoe, Plutarch, and works of polemic divinity
00:22:05.800 | before he would have been in junior high school.
00:22:08.800 | If you were schooled in the brain development lore of academic pedagogy,
00:22:12.800 | it might seem quite a tour de force.'
00:22:15.800 | I should have clarified before starting to read that, yes, this was when he was--
00:22:19.800 | I think I did clarify--
00:22:21.800 | when he was 10, 11, 12 years old that he was reading those books.
00:22:24.800 | 'How do you suppose this son of a working man, with 13 kids,
00:22:28.800 | became such an effective public speaker
00:22:30.800 | that for more than half a century his voice was heard nationally
00:22:33.800 | and internationally on the great questions?
00:22:36.800 | He employed a method absolutely free.
00:22:38.800 | He argued with his friend Collins,
00:22:41.800 | "Very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another,
00:22:46.800 | which disputatious turn is based upon contradiction."
00:22:50.800 | Here Franklin warns against using dialectics on friendships
00:22:53.800 | or at social gatherings.
00:22:55.800 | "I had caught it, the dialectical habit,
00:22:59.800 | by reading my father's books a dispute about religion.
00:23:02.800 | A question was started between Collins and me
00:23:05.800 | of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning
00:23:08.800 | and their abilities to study.
00:23:10.800 | He was of the opinion that it was improper.
00:23:12.800 | I took the contrary side."
00:23:15.800 | Shortly after he began arguing,
00:23:17.800 | he also began reading the most elegant periodical of the day,
00:23:21.800 | Addison and Steele's Spectator.
00:23:23.800 | "I thought the writing excellent and wished, if possible, to imitate it.
00:23:28.800 | With that in view, I took some of the papers
00:23:30.800 | and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence,
00:23:33.800 | laid them by a few days and then, without looking at the book,
00:23:37.800 | tried to complete the papers again,
00:23:39.800 | by expressing each hinted sentiment at length,
00:23:42.800 | and as fully as it had been expressed before,
00:23:45.800 | in any suitable words that should come to hand.
00:23:48.800 | Then I compared my spectator with the original,
00:23:51.800 | discovered some of my faults, and corrected them."
00:23:55.800 | This method was hammered out while working a 60-hour week.
00:23:58.800 | In learning eloquence, there's only Ben, his determination,
00:24:02.800 | and the spectator, no teacher.
00:24:04.800 | For instance, while executing rewrites,
00:24:07.800 | Franklin came to realize his vocabulary was too barren.
00:24:11.800 | "I found I wanted a stock of words,
00:24:14.800 | which I thought I should have acquired before that time
00:24:16.800 | if I had gone on making verses,
00:24:18.800 | since the continual occasion for words of the same import
00:24:21.800 | but of different length, to suit the measure,
00:24:24.800 | or of different sounds for the rhyme,
00:24:26.800 | would have laid me under a constant necessity
00:24:28.800 | of searching for variety,
00:24:30.800 | and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind
00:24:33.800 | and make me master of it."
00:24:35.800 | As a good empiricist, he tried a home cure for this deficiency.
00:24:39.800 | "I took some tales and turned them into verse,
00:24:42.800 | and after a time when I had pretty well forgotten the prose,
00:24:45.800 | turned them back again.
00:24:47.800 | I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints," his outline,
00:24:51.800 | "into confusions, and after some weeks
00:24:54.800 | endeavored to reduce them into the best order,
00:24:56.800 | which I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper.
00:25:00.800 | This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts.
00:25:10.800 | By comparing my work afterwards with the original,
00:25:12.800 | I discovered many faults and amended them.
00:25:15.800 | But I sometimes thought I had been lucky enough
00:25:18.800 | to improve the method or the language."
00:25:21.800 | By the time he was sixteen,
00:25:23.800 | Franklin was ready to take up his deficiencies in earnest,
00:25:25.800 | with full confidence he could, by his own efforts, overcome them.
00:25:29.800 | Here's how he handled that problem with arithmetic.
00:25:32.800 | "Being on some occasion made ashamed of my ignorance in figures,
00:25:36.800 | which I had twice failed in learning when at school,
00:25:39.800 | I took Crocker's book of arithmetic
00:25:41.800 | and went through the whole by myself with great ease.
00:25:44.800 | I also read Sellers and Shermy's book of navigation,
00:25:48.800 | and became acquainted with the geometry they contain."
00:25:52.800 | This school dropout tells us he was also reading
00:25:55.800 | John Locke's essay concerning human understanding,
00:25:58.800 | as well as studying the arts of rhetoric and logic,
00:26:01.800 | particularly the Socratic method of disputation,
00:26:04.800 | which so charmed and intrigued him
00:26:06.800 | that he abruptly dropped his former argumentative style,
00:26:09.800 | putting on the mask of the humble inquirer and doubter.
00:26:13.800 | I'll stop there.
00:26:15.800 | Ben Franklin had two years of schooling in his entire lifetime.
00:26:21.800 | He went to one year of grammar school,
00:26:23.800 | and he went to another year at a less--
00:26:25.800 | he got kicked out, somehow, I think he misbehaved,
00:26:28.800 | and he got kicked out,
00:26:30.800 | and he went to a year of writing and figuring school or something,
00:26:36.800 | which was evidently a little bit less prestigious
00:26:38.800 | than grammar school was at that time.
00:26:41.800 | And it's fascinating,
00:26:43.800 | because in this section of the history of education,
00:26:46.800 | Gatto goes through the history of Franklin, George Washington,
00:26:54.800 | some of the founders of the country,
00:26:57.800 | many of the people who were well-known in the Revolutionary War,
00:27:02.800 | Farragut, and a couple of other examples
00:27:04.800 | that aren't coming to mind right now.
00:27:06.800 | And he just goes through these examples,
00:27:08.800 | and he talks about how educated the average person was
00:27:11.800 | compared to their schooling.
00:27:14.800 | Now, without getting off track into schooling today,
00:27:17.800 | just what impressed me about that,
00:27:19.800 | and what I want you just to take away,
00:27:21.800 | is that how he took control of his education,
00:27:24.800 | and he modeled it.
00:27:26.800 | And he did that at a very early age.
00:27:29.800 | And that's what I found so impressive,
00:27:31.800 | is how clear he was at the age, in his early teens or before,
00:27:35.800 | recognizing his own problems and correcting them,
00:27:38.800 | recognizing that he didn't have an adequate vocabulary,
00:27:42.800 | and so practicing writing poetry
00:27:44.800 | in order to enhance that vocabulary,
00:27:47.800 | and in studying new words.
00:27:49.800 | And he recognizing that he didn't have the skill
00:27:52.800 | that he needed in mathematics,
00:27:54.800 | so going and buying a book of mathematics to learn.
00:27:56.800 | And simply recognizing and practicing his writing style
00:28:00.800 | by comparing it to the best that he had available to him,
00:28:03.800 | and correcting that and learning.
00:28:07.800 | And I was so impressed by that,
00:28:08.800 | and also by the things that he did at an early age,
00:28:11.800 | and how it seems as though we forget about the fact
00:28:16.800 | that George Washington, at 12 years old,
00:28:20.800 | is out surveying as a professional surveyor.
00:28:24.800 | Excuse me, not 12 years old, 17 years old.
00:28:28.800 | It's so hard to get these dates right, forgive me.
00:28:30.800 | I'm doing my best to be very accurate,
00:28:32.800 | but I need to make sure that I have my facts
00:28:35.800 | very carefully lined up.
00:28:37.800 | Washington had no schooling until he was 11.
00:28:41.800 | Let me read one quick paragraph from,
00:28:45.800 | one more paragraph here from
00:28:48.800 | an underground history of American education,
00:28:51.800 | and you can see why I'm so impressed
00:28:54.800 | with some of these stories.
00:28:56.800 | Washington had no schooling until he was 11.
00:28:58.800 | No classroom confinement, no blackboards.
00:29:01.800 | He arrived at school already knowing how to read,
00:29:04.800 | write, and calculate about as well as
00:29:06.800 | the average college student today.
00:29:08.800 | If that sounds outlandish,
00:29:10.800 | turn back to Franklin's curriculum,
00:29:12.800 | and compare it with the intellectual diet
00:29:14.800 | of a modern, gifted, and talented class.
00:29:17.800 | Full literacy wasn't unusual in the colonies
00:29:19.800 | or early republic.
00:29:21.800 | Many schools wouldn't admit students
00:29:23.800 | who didn't know reading and counting,
00:29:25.800 | because few schoolmasters were willing
00:29:27.800 | to waste time teaching what was so easy to learn.
00:29:30.800 | It was deemed a mark of depraved character
00:29:33.800 | if literacy hadn't been attained
00:29:35.800 | by the matriculating student.
00:29:37.800 | Even the many charity schools operated by churches,
00:29:40.800 | towns, and philanthropic associations for the poor
00:29:43.800 | would have been flabbergasted at the great hue
00:29:46.800 | and cry raised today about difficulties
00:29:48.800 | teaching literacy.
00:29:50.800 | American experience proved the contrary.
00:29:53.800 | Following George to school at 11 to see
00:29:55.800 | what the schoolmaster had in store
00:29:57.800 | would reveal a skimpy menu of studies,
00:29:59.800 | yet one with a curious gravity.
00:30:01.800 | Geometry, trigonometry, and surveying.
00:30:04.800 | You might regard that as impossible,
00:30:06.800 | or consider it was only a dumbed-down version
00:30:08.800 | of those things, some kids' game
00:30:10.800 | akin to the many simulations one finds today
00:30:13.800 | in schools for prosperous children.
00:30:15.800 | Simulated city building, simulated court trials,
00:30:18.800 | simulating businesses, virtual realities
00:30:21.800 | to bridge the gap between adult society
00:30:23.800 | and the immaturity of the young.
00:30:25.800 | But if George didn't get the real thing,
00:30:27.800 | how do you account for his first job
00:30:29.800 | as official surveyor for Culpeper County, Virginia,
00:30:32.800 | only 2,000 days after he first hefted
00:30:35.800 | a surveyor's transit in school?
00:30:37.800 | For the next three years,
00:30:39.800 | Washington earned the equivalent
00:30:41.800 | of about $100,000 a year
00:30:43.800 | in today's purchasing power.
00:30:45.800 | It's probable his social connections
00:30:47.800 | helped this fatherless boy get the position,
00:30:50.800 | but in frontier society, anyone would be crazy
00:30:53.800 | to give a boy serious work
00:30:55.800 | unless he actually could do it.
00:30:57.800 | Almost at once, he began speculating in land.
00:31:00.800 | He didn't need a futurist to tell him
00:31:02.800 | which way the historical wind was blowing.
00:31:04.800 | By the age of 21, he had leveraged
00:31:07.800 | his knowledge and income into 2,500 acres
00:31:10.800 | of prime land in Frederick County, Virginia.
00:31:14.800 | So again, I don't want to get the facts incorrect
00:31:17.800 | because the facts are impressive enough
00:31:20.800 | without my mixing up a date or two.
00:31:22.800 | So I'm going to try to be very careful
00:31:24.800 | in the future with some of those dates and ages.
00:31:29.800 | And I'm going to be very careful.
00:31:32.800 | And if you find me getting one wrong,
00:31:35.800 | please let me know.
00:31:36.800 | And I hope that you find those thoughts interesting.
00:31:40.800 | Washington would also be one who would be interesting
00:31:43.800 | for me to study and do a show on
00:31:45.800 | what we could learn from his example.
00:31:47.800 | I love these historical examples
00:31:49.800 | because what you find is that people
00:31:51.800 | have been achieving their financial goals
00:31:53.800 | since long before we ever had 401(k)s
00:31:56.800 | and since we ever had disability income insurance.
00:31:59.800 | They've been applying the principles of finance
00:32:02.800 | that go far beyond just the short-term tactics.
00:32:05.800 | And then once you understand the principles,
00:32:07.800 | then we can apply them in our own lives,
00:32:09.800 | whether we're living in the United States,
00:32:11.800 | whether we're living in Canada,
00:32:13.800 | whether we're living in Kenya,
00:32:15.800 | whether we're living in Brazil or Costa Rica
00:32:19.800 | or you insert wherever you happen to live.
00:32:22.800 | We can apply those principles
00:32:24.800 | beyond whatever our local scenario is.
00:32:26.800 | And then once we understand those principles,
00:32:28.800 | I think that'll help us to be less worried,
00:32:31.800 | so to speak, about the changes that can occur.
00:32:35.800 | So we may be less worried about
00:32:37.800 | when the monetary system is adjusted,
00:32:39.800 | whether we're dealing in pounds or euros
00:32:42.800 | or whether Scotland separates from England
00:32:45.800 | or whether the Federal Reserve continues their purchases
00:32:51.800 | or doesn't continue their purchases
00:32:53.800 | or whether we have access to a 401(k) at work or not
00:32:58.800 | or whatever, you get the point.
00:33:00.800 | Yes, all those things matter and they are important,
00:33:04.800 | but we can work through them
00:33:08.800 | because they will always be changing.
00:33:10.800 | They're changing now. They will always be changing.
00:33:13.800 | We need to look forward and see the changes
00:33:15.800 | and then create plans that will work
00:33:17.800 | no matter what those changes are.
00:33:19.800 | Now, let's wrap up with some questions
00:33:23.800 | that I would like to share with you,
00:33:24.800 | and I hope you'll find these helpful.
00:33:27.800 | I really want to, in each show,
00:33:29.800 | I'm not just doing a show every day
00:33:31.800 | to fill up the air with my shows.
00:33:35.800 | I'm doing a show every day
00:33:37.800 | because I want to provide useful opportunities
00:33:42.800 | and useful thoughts for each and every day
00:33:45.800 | that will help you on your journey towards wealth
00:33:47.800 | and towards independence in every way.
00:33:50.800 | I want to share with you some questions,
00:33:52.800 | and these are actually, I want to give credit
00:33:55.800 | to Dan Sullivan as the inventor of these questions.
00:34:00.800 | Now, when I first heard these questions,
00:34:02.800 | I didn't actually know that it was Dan Sullivan
00:34:05.800 | who had invented them.
00:34:06.800 | I first heard these questions,
00:34:07.800 | especially the first one,
00:34:09.800 | when I was working as a financial planner.
00:34:11.800 | And most financial planners,
00:34:13.800 | or at least any good financial planners,
00:34:15.800 | will generally not start by talking about, with you,
00:34:18.800 | if you were consulting with a financial planner,
00:34:21.800 | they won't start by talking with you about,
00:34:23.800 | "Okay, how much you got in your 401(k)?"
00:34:25.800 | or "How much insurance do you have?"
00:34:28.800 | That's not a good place to start for a good conversation.
00:34:31.800 | It's really not.
00:34:32.800 | So a good financial planner will never start there.
00:34:35.800 | And if a client wants to start there,
00:34:36.800 | I'd usually avoid the conversation,
00:34:37.800 | because I've never had good experience
00:34:39.800 | with clients who want to start there.
00:34:40.800 | No offense to those of you who would start there, I'm sure.
00:34:42.800 | But the thing is, most of the people who want to--
00:34:45.800 | most of the people who sit down in a financial planner's office
00:34:48.800 | and say, "What can you do for me?"
00:34:50.800 | without sharing anything about their situation,
00:34:52.800 | it's either kind of a baiting game--
00:34:55.800 | this is my experience, okay?
00:34:56.800 | If your experience is different, that's fine.
00:34:58.800 | But my experience is either a baiting game,
00:35:01.800 | as far as, "Let me see if I can trap the financial planner
00:35:03.800 | "in something that I can point out where they're just stupid
00:35:06.800 | "and they don't understand what they're talking about,"
00:35:08.800 | or it may be some kind of just comparison of services,
00:35:12.800 | as in, "I've already decided that I'm going to use Company X,
00:35:15.800 | "but let me just check real quick
00:35:17.800 | "and do some quick quotes from B, C, and D,"
00:35:20.800 | and--or something like that.
00:35:23.800 | It's just I've never had any of those conversations go anywhere,
00:35:27.800 | so I always just used to end them.
00:35:29.800 | And if those of you--some of you use that tactic, that's fine.
00:35:32.800 | Maybe you'll find people that are interested to work with you
00:35:34.800 | in that way.
00:35:35.800 | I never found it effective for me.
00:35:37.800 | It doesn't work for my personality.
00:35:39.800 | I don't like to be compared, you know, by--
00:35:41.800 | I don't mind being compared,
00:35:42.800 | but I don't like to be compared with someone else's spreadsheet
00:35:44.800 | when I don't even know what the factors are
00:35:46.800 | on the spreadsheet yet,
00:35:48.800 | and I would just rather avoid the whole scenario
00:35:50.800 | and work with people that I like and that respect me
00:35:52.800 | and that trust me.
00:35:54.800 | So hopefully that's not insulting to anybody.
00:35:57.800 | But--so a good--most good financial planners
00:35:59.800 | will start with goals,
00:36:00.800 | and a lot of times this gets kind of a bad rap
00:36:03.800 | 'cause people often hear this
00:36:06.800 | and they kind of make fun of it and say,
00:36:08.800 | "Well, you know, what are your goals?
00:36:09.800 | What are your goals?"
00:36:10.800 | But hopefully you're starting to understand,
00:36:12.800 | and this shows by now,
00:36:13.800 | is that everything depends on your goals.
00:36:15.800 | So a good financial planner who's working as a consultant
00:36:18.800 | and who's really listening to you has to start there,
00:36:22.800 | not with saying, "Let me compare the--you know,
00:36:24.800 | let me assess the fees on your mutual funds for you."
00:36:27.800 | That has a place, and that's important,
00:36:29.800 | but it's not where to start.
00:36:30.800 | And so years ago, I found--
00:36:32.800 | I was listening to a tape by somebody
00:36:35.800 | with financial planning training,
00:36:36.800 | part of my automobile university while I was driving around,
00:36:39.800 | and I heard someone ask this question,
00:36:41.800 | and the question was--
00:36:43.800 | as a kind of an opening question for a client,
00:36:45.800 | the question was,
00:36:47.800 | "If we were sitting down three years from today,
00:36:50.800 | what has to have happened for you
00:36:52.800 | over the next three years
00:36:54.800 | for you to really feel happy about your progress?"
00:36:58.800 | And I just thought, "What a brilliant question."
00:37:02.800 | Because the trouble when you're working
00:37:04.800 | as a financial planner with clients
00:37:06.800 | is you want to be specific and direct,
00:37:08.800 | but you don't want to be too specific
00:37:10.800 | and too direct too quickly.
00:37:12.800 | You know, there's a little bit of a getting up
00:37:14.800 | and kind of a getting-to-know-you time,
00:37:17.800 | and there's a real art to it,
00:37:19.800 | to be able to do it in a way that's comfortable for people
00:37:21.800 | and is something that you just have to learn.
00:37:23.800 | But when I heard that question, I said,
00:37:25.800 | "That's a great question. I can use that."
00:37:27.800 | And so I immediately started using it with clients
00:37:30.800 | to good effect.
00:37:32.800 | And from then on,
00:37:34.800 | basically for every introductory financial planning meeting
00:37:37.800 | that I ever did for the next--
00:37:40.800 | it must have been three, four, five--I don't know,
00:37:42.800 | three or four years, something like that,
00:37:44.800 | I always started with that question.
00:37:46.800 | But I didn't know where it came from.
00:37:48.800 | And then I later found it on--
00:37:50.800 | I was listening to a success CD,
00:37:52.800 | the success magazine.
00:37:54.800 | If you subscribe every month, they send you a success CD.
00:37:56.800 | And somewhere on a success CD, I heard that question.
00:37:59.800 | I said, "Oh, it came from someone else
00:38:01.800 | other than the person I heard it from."
00:38:03.800 | And then at some point, I was rereading a book
00:38:05.800 | called "The Success Principles,"
00:38:07.800 | which is written by Jack Canfield.
00:38:10.800 | And in that book, I found the same question.
00:38:13.800 | Except when I found it in Jack Canfield's book,
00:38:17.800 | it had three follow-up questions
00:38:19.800 | that I found were super valuable.
00:38:21.800 | And so that's what I'm going to share with you today.
00:38:23.800 | And I hope you'll take these.
00:38:25.800 | I will write the questions out in the show notes,
00:38:27.800 | and I hope you'll take these
00:38:29.800 | and use them as a stimulus for your own thinking.
00:38:32.800 | So I thought they were well-written questions.
00:38:35.800 | In preparation--oh, by the way,
00:38:37.800 | just real quick, since I mentioned
00:38:39.800 | Jack Canfield's book, "The Success Principles,"
00:38:41.800 | if you're looking for one book
00:38:43.800 | that is probably the best book
00:38:45.800 | that is the most comprehensive
00:38:47.800 | and the most pithy,
00:38:50.800 | I would recommend to you a book
00:38:52.800 | called "The Success Principles" by Jack Canfield.
00:38:54.800 | Of all of the "success literature"
00:38:57.800 | that I've ever read,
00:38:59.800 | it's really comprehensive,
00:39:01.800 | really well-written,
00:39:02.800 | and just an excellent resource.
00:39:04.800 | So I would commend it to you as worth your time
00:39:06.800 | if you're looking for one book.
00:39:08.800 | It's the type of book where it's great to read
00:39:10.800 | one chapter a day.
00:39:11.800 | They're very short chapters, very comprehensive.
00:39:13.800 | Every one is very useful.
00:39:15.800 | And then there are many other books
00:39:16.800 | that you can follow up for more detailed information.
00:39:19.800 | But even just in preparing real quick
00:39:21.800 | to see if I could find something for this show
00:39:23.800 | and to see if I could find something on Dan Sullivan's site
00:39:25.800 | with a link to these questions,
00:39:27.800 | I actually found he wrote a whole book on it.
00:39:29.800 | And it's called "The Dan Sullivan Question."
00:39:32.800 | I didn't know about the book,
00:39:34.800 | but I just found it a couple minutes ago.
00:39:36.800 | I've gone ahead and added it to my list here.
00:39:39.800 | You can find it on Amazon.
00:39:40.800 | It's called "The Dan Sullivan Question."
00:39:42.800 | And I assume that this is what--
00:39:44.800 | this specific question is what the whole book is about.
00:39:49.800 | But I need to verify that.
00:39:51.800 | But we're going to wrap up today with these questions.
00:39:54.800 | And what I want to do is I'm just going to read you the questions.
00:39:58.800 | There are four of them total.
00:40:00.800 | And then I will kind of stop,
00:40:03.800 | and then I will read them again.
00:40:06.800 | And so that way, if you are interested in just hearing them again
00:40:10.800 | and then pausing and then writing down your answers
00:40:12.800 | or thinking about them--
00:40:13.800 | a lot of times when I hear audio things,
00:40:14.800 | I'm usually driving in the car.
00:40:16.800 | So I'll read all four of them through quickly, one time.
00:40:18.800 | And then I will read them again, and I'll stop.
00:40:21.800 | And you can pause the audio in between.
00:40:24.800 | And you can just think about them as you're driving down the road
00:40:27.800 | or doing whatever you're doing.
00:40:29.800 | And that can be helpful.
00:40:31.800 | If you have time this weekend,
00:40:32.800 | it might be a good journaling exercise
00:40:33.800 | to journal your answers to the questions.
00:40:36.800 | And after I read the questions the second time,
00:40:39.800 | I won't--don't worry about me putting anything extra in there.
00:40:42.800 | So feel free just to--
00:40:44.800 | I'm going to wrap up the show with that,
00:40:46.800 | and I won't put anything in after I read these questions again.
00:40:50.800 | But I like the questions for many reasons,
00:40:52.800 | and I'm not going to spend any more time talking about them.
00:40:54.800 | I'm just going to tell you that they are probably the best written questions
00:40:58.800 | that I've ever found that are good for framing an overall view.
00:41:03.800 | And I think they're an excellent topic to have in your journaling notebook
00:41:08.800 | of thought starters to make sure that you're working towards
00:41:11.800 | the things that are important to you.
00:41:14.800 | Question number one.
00:41:17.800 | If we were meeting three years from today,
00:41:20.800 | what has to have happened during that three-year period
00:41:23.800 | for you to feel happy about your progress?
00:41:30.800 | Question number two.
00:41:31.800 | What are the biggest dangers you'll have to face and deal with
00:41:35.800 | in order to achieve that progress?
00:41:40.800 | Question number three.
00:41:42.800 | What are the biggest opportunities that you have
00:41:45.800 | that you would need to focus on and capture to achieve those things?
00:41:52.800 | Number four.
00:41:53.800 | What strengths will you need to reinforce and maximize,
00:41:57.800 | and what skills and resources will you need to develop
00:42:01.800 | that you don't currently have in order to capture those opportunities?
00:42:08.800 | And those are the four questions.
00:42:10.800 | I recommend them to you as a worthy subject of thought,
00:42:13.800 | as a journaling exercise, so that you can help yourself to coach yourself
00:42:17.800 | and understand what you're trying to work toward,
00:42:20.800 | what your opportunities are.
00:42:22.800 | I hope that they are valuable to you.
00:42:24.800 | They've been very valuable to me, both professionally and personally.
00:42:27.800 | I'm going to read them again.
00:42:28.800 | I will pause in between them.
00:42:30.800 | Feel free to pause your phone or MP3 player or whatever
00:42:34.800 | in between these questions if you're driving down the road
00:42:36.800 | and you'd like to just think about it.
00:42:38.800 | And there won't be anything after that.
00:42:41.800 | So number one.
00:42:43.800 | If we were meeting three years from today,
00:42:46.800 | what has to have happened during that three-year period
00:42:49.800 | for you to feel happy about your progress?
00:42:57.800 | Number two.
00:42:58.800 | What are the biggest dangers you'll have to face and deal with
00:43:02.800 | in order to achieve that progress?
00:43:09.800 | Number three.
00:43:10.800 | What are the biggest opportunities that you have
00:43:13.800 | that you would need to focus on and capture to achieve those things?
00:43:22.800 | Number four.
00:43:23.800 | What strengths will you need to reinforce and maximize?
00:43:28.800 | And what skills and resources will you need to develop
00:43:31.800 | that you don't currently have in order to capture those opportunities?
00:43:39.800 | Thank you for listening.
00:43:40.800 | Hey parents, join the LA Kings on Saturday, November 25th
00:43:43.800 | for an unforgettable Kids Day presented by Pear Deck.
00:43:46.800 | Family fun, giveaways, and exciting Kings hockey awaits.
00:43:49.800 | Get your tickets now at lakings.com/promotions
00:43:52.800 | and create lasting memories with your little ones.