RPF0135-Be_Confident
00:00:00.000 | Enjoying your podcast? We'll be brief.
00:00:03.000 | If you're looking for the perfect holiday gift,
00:00:05.000 | give Scratchers from the California Lottery.
00:00:07.000 | With so many to choose from,
00:00:09.000 | you're sure to find the right gift for anyone on your list.
00:00:12.000 | Now that your holiday shopping list is figured out,
00:00:15.000 | enjoy this bird singing Jingle Bells.
00:00:17.000 | [Birds chirping]
00:00:21.000 | Give the gift of Scratchers from the California Lottery.
00:00:24.000 | A little play can make your day.
00:00:26.000 | Please play responsibly.
00:00:27.000 | Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.
00:00:30.000 | Are you clear on the outcomes that you're trying to create?
00:00:35.000 | And are you willing to stick with your plan when times get tough?
00:00:41.000 | I hope you are. Sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not.
00:00:46.000 | So today we're going to have a little pep talk.
00:00:48.000 | And we're going to talk about the importance of knowing what you're trying to create
00:00:52.000 | and being willing to stick to what you can uniquely offer.
00:00:56.000 | Even when you don't feel like it.
00:00:58.000 | [Music]
00:01:14.000 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:01:16.000 | My name is Joshua Sheets and today is Thursday, January 15, 2015.
00:01:22.000 | Welcome to the show.
00:01:24.000 | Today we're going to talk a little bit about self-confidence.
00:01:28.000 | Try to view it in the right light.
00:01:30.000 | Try to help you avoid poor little old me disease.
00:01:33.000 | And try to give you and me a little bit of confidence to continue pursuing our own journey.
00:01:39.000 | [Music]
00:01:47.000 | Today's show is going to be a little bit different.
00:01:48.000 | We're not going to go deeply into any specific financial planning topic.
00:01:52.000 | But we are going to talk about something that I do believe affects our personal finances.
00:01:57.000 | And so it is highly relevant.
00:01:59.000 | I was planning to release an episode today which was an interview that I've recorded with Nick from Side Hustle Nation
00:02:07.000 | about building up side businesses.
00:02:10.000 | But I'm preempting that program.
00:02:12.000 | Because there's been an interesting confluence of factors that have affected me today.
00:02:17.000 | And I just thought this would be an interesting discussion to have.
00:02:21.000 | I don't know exactly how long today's show will be.
00:02:24.000 | I've got some clear ideas to get across.
00:02:29.000 | And it's partly a pep talk for you and partly a pep talk for me.
00:02:33.000 | But I hope you find it valuable.
00:02:35.000 | Today I want to talk primarily about knowing what you're trying to accomplish.
00:02:41.000 | And staying focused on what you can do.
00:02:44.000 | Even when you don't feel like it because it seems like other people are doing things better than you.
00:02:51.000 | And there are a few factors that have come together for me today.
00:02:55.000 | I'm going to start off with an interesting discussion on financial podcasts.
00:03:01.000 | And there were four specific catalysts for these thoughts that I've been having today.
00:03:08.000 | One of them was I noticed yesterday a new financial podcast being launched by a young lady named Farnoosh Tarabi.
00:03:17.000 | She's a financial journalist and has done a lot of work in TV.
00:03:24.000 | And now she's launching a financial podcast.
00:03:27.000 | And what's interesting to me is many things in my character are straightened out.
00:03:33.000 | But God's still working on a couple aspects of it.
00:03:36.000 | More than a couple actually.
00:03:37.000 | And one of those things is dealing with feelings of jealousy.
00:03:41.000 | I easily get jealous of other people who are doing things that I care about better than I am.
00:03:48.000 | And it's kind of an interesting aspect I think for me.
00:03:55.000 | And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
00:03:57.000 | I certainly don't care about other people being better motocross riders than me.
00:04:01.000 | I certainly don't care about other people being better bowlers than me.
00:04:06.000 | I don't care about other people being better downhill snow skiers than me.
00:04:10.000 | But I do care about people who are excellent at some of the things that I want to be good at.
00:04:15.000 | And what's interesting is it's so easy to become critical.
00:04:18.000 | I often find myself wanting to become critical.
00:04:22.000 | And I noticed yesterday actually, I briefly noticed it.
00:04:25.000 | And then today I went and looked at the site that there's a new financial podcast that's being launched.
00:04:31.000 | And I'll commend it to you.
00:04:34.000 | Maybe a show that would be of interest to you.
00:04:37.000 | It's a podcast called So Money.
00:04:39.000 | And it's with, again, the host is a lady named Farnoosh Tarabi.
00:04:43.000 | Now I've never met Farnoosh.
00:04:44.000 | I first saw her and heard her speak for the first time at the FinCon, formerly the Financial Bloggers Conference, a few months ago.
00:04:54.000 | And she gave a very excellent speech.
00:04:56.000 | She's a fabulously talented lady.
00:04:59.000 | She's published three different books, I think, on financial topics.
00:05:04.000 | And she's just extremely talented.
00:05:06.000 | And what's funny, though, is immediately when she started posting the podcast, I immediately thought to myself, "Oh, here we go.
00:05:14.000 | I can design this formula because I know all of the best practices in podcasting."
00:05:20.000 | And so sure enough, I went to check.
00:05:22.000 | And she's doing everything that she should be doing really well.
00:05:27.000 | She's got her show.
00:05:29.000 | She's doing a daily show on finance and on money.
00:05:33.000 | And it's about a little over -- it's 30 minutes long, which is essentially the ideal podcast length from what little market research data is available indicates that people have strong preference for shows that are in the 30 to 45-minute time range.
00:05:48.000 | These shows fit easily into an average person's commute.
00:05:52.000 | They are not overwhelming to look at.
00:05:55.000 | A two-hour and 45-minute podcast episode is a little bit overwhelming to look at for many people.
00:06:01.000 | And they think, "Oh, how am I going to commit to that?"
00:06:03.000 | But 30, 45 minutes, that seems to be the ideal range.
00:06:07.000 | That's why, if you're interested, you see so many shows that focus very heavily on being right in that time horizon.
00:06:14.000 | There's probably something to it.
00:06:15.000 | After all, most sitcoms or TV shows tend to be either 30 minutes or 60 minutes.
00:06:20.000 | And so, yes, there are some outliers that are much longer.
00:06:23.000 | But 30 and 60 minutes, our brains tend to work that way, whether it's a psychological principle of how our calendars are set up or whatever.
00:06:30.000 | So she's doing the show in that format.
00:06:33.000 | And she's doing interviews primarily.
00:06:37.000 | So her show is a daily show, seven days a week.
00:06:40.000 | And she's doing five days a week with interviews and then questions and answers on the weekend.
00:06:45.000 | And probably the first thing that just sparked my jealousy was her guests.
00:06:51.000 | And her first guest was Tony Robbins and another guest was James Altucher.
00:06:57.000 | And both of those are people that I have admired and read a lot of their work over the years and admired them.
00:07:03.000 | And I was just impressed that she was able to get them as guests.
00:07:05.000 | And so immediately I thought, "Oh, man, I can't get them as guests.
00:07:08.000 | Poor little old me."
00:07:10.000 | I often – and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
00:07:13.000 | The reason I'm sharing these things is because I'll bet many of you have probably had the same feelings that I have.
00:07:18.000 | And I've learned the older I get, the more I realize that I'm just like everyone else and we're all about the same.
00:07:23.000 | But sometimes we don't talk about this stuff.
00:07:25.000 | And so I immediately felt a twinge of jealousy about her guests and her ability to get them on the show.
00:07:32.000 | And then I just start looking at the format and I think, "OK, we're going to do the launch."
00:07:36.000 | And so I said, "There's a launch formula now for podcasts.
00:07:39.000 | I'll tell it to you in case you're interested."
00:07:42.000 | Basically, there's a launch formula for creating podcast episodes if you're going to create your own.
00:07:49.000 | It's very simple.
00:07:51.000 | You want to go ahead and you want to have a daily show.
00:07:53.000 | That's the ideal at this point is everyone is big on the daily show.
00:07:58.000 | And that's primarily due to the success.
00:08:00.000 | It's due to a couple of psychological connections.
00:08:04.000 | And one of the psychological principles is the idea of having a closer connection with an audience.
00:08:10.000 | Another thing, though, is it's based upon the massive financial returns of primarily the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast
00:08:21.000 | and probably the show that has had the biggest splash other than some of the recent ones with the two more well-known, famous podcasts of Serial and Startup, which are kind of their own unique things.
00:08:34.000 | But the show that's had the biggest splash and kind of the mainstream business podcast horizon is Entrepreneur on Fire.
00:08:42.000 | And the host of that show is a man named John Lee Dumas.
00:08:44.000 | And he does this daily entrepreneur interview show.
00:08:48.000 | And what's unique about it is he publishes all of his income reports from his show.
00:08:55.000 | And that brings a special measure of notoriety to him because his income reports are extremely impressive.
00:09:05.000 | He has revenues and profit at this point of a couple hundred thousand dollars a month with his show.
00:09:11.000 | Now, $200,000 of his revenue is based upon telling other people how to podcast and $60,000 of his monthly revenue is based upon his own show.
00:09:21.000 | But, hey, good for him.
00:09:23.000 | He sees a need for it.
00:09:25.000 | So I admire what he's doing.
00:09:26.000 | But this is kind of the formula now that's been developed.
00:09:28.000 | So there's this launch formula.
00:09:29.000 | And the launch formula is you want to go ahead and stack up some content.
00:09:33.000 | You want to stack up some interviews.
00:09:34.000 | And you want to release to a big audience.
00:09:37.000 | And you want to get lots of subscriptions, lots of reviews.
00:09:39.000 | This helps you get into iTunes New and Noteworthy.
00:09:42.000 | This helps you to get a little bit of notoriety.
00:09:45.000 | You want to stack up as many people as possible to leave you reviews and subscribe to your show.
00:09:49.000 | And it's effective.
00:09:51.000 | And this is what I believe anybody -- this is the best practice.
00:09:54.000 | So unless you have a better idea, this is what anybody launching a podcast probably should be doing.
00:09:59.000 | And so my point is that as I started to look at Pranusha's site, I immediately thought to myself, "Wow, she's doing a great job."
00:10:10.000 | She's got a book that she's written specially for her email opt-in.
00:10:13.000 | She's got her site set up.
00:10:15.000 | She's got these big-name guests.
00:10:16.000 | She's doing an amazing job.
00:10:18.000 | And I'm sure her show is going to be massively successful.
00:10:22.000 | And so immediately that -- or for me, that immediately kind of sparks off feelings of jealousy.
00:10:30.000 | And immediately I want to -- I have this inner desire to discredit her and to somehow come out against her.
00:10:36.000 | I'm like, "Argh!"
00:10:38.000 | If you can interpret that to be an emotion.
00:10:41.000 | And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
00:10:43.000 | Maybe many of you have had that if it's something that's important to you.
00:10:46.000 | As I was thinking about it, though, I was just relaxing a little bit and just kind of primarily just letting the emotions go and just calming my emotions and kind of letting those things go.
00:11:00.000 | And I guess to get a little spiritual, get letting God just kind of deal with me because I don't have any reason.
00:11:06.000 | And I just sat back and thought to myself -- I don't have any reason to be jealous of her.
00:11:11.000 | I sat back and thought to myself, "Look at this straightforward."
00:11:18.000 | And this is why I'm going to share the two other anecdotes that are contributing to this show.
00:11:22.000 | And I talked to my wife, and my wife is so helpful to me.
00:11:26.000 | She's an amazing woman.
00:11:28.000 | And one of the things just that I treasure about her is that she's excellent at listening to me.
00:11:34.000 | And that's so important to me.
00:11:38.000 | I'm a verbal learner, so I learn by speaking.
00:11:40.000 | And so just for her ability just to listen to me and give me an opportunity to talk myself through issues and problems is so helpful to me.
00:11:49.000 | She's wonderful in that regard.
00:11:52.000 | And I talked my way through it, and I just said, "Listen, in the end, it's a net gain."
00:11:58.000 | And I really do believe from the bottom of my heart that every additional podcaster, every additional financial podcaster, every additional blogger, every additional YouTuber, every additional whatever the new thing is, person that comes online is going to be an incredibly -- it's going to be so beneficial.
00:12:21.000 | And the reason is that we can't all speak the same language.
00:12:25.000 | And so I would be surprised if there was a lot of cross-proliferation of her audience and my audience and any of the other people that do a great job simply because we need different people who are different coaches at different points of our life.
00:12:45.000 | And especially in a technology that's so relatively nascent as podcasting, anything and anybody that can be introduced to it helps everybody else out.
00:12:59.000 | So the reality is I'm thankful that Farnoosh is doing a show.
00:13:06.000 | And I hope it's great, and I hope it helps.
00:13:08.000 | I hope it impacts millions of people's lives.
00:13:11.000 | And I hope that just so many -- I hope that she experiences massive success with it and that it helps millions and millions of people.
00:13:21.000 | I really do.
00:13:23.000 | But it's not so -- even though I believe that, though, my point is that even though I believe that and that comes from the bottom of my heart, it's hard sometimes when you're in the middle, when other people are doing things, to not want to just jump on and be like everybody else.
00:13:38.000 | So I was reflecting back, and I was just trying to coach myself a little bit through some of the emotional impact and just trying to think through and help myself kind of deal with the emotions of all this stuff.
00:13:50.000 | And I was considering why that is.
00:13:52.000 | And I realized that one of the things that's so difficult for me, even when I recognize that it's difficult, it's still difficult.
00:13:59.000 | I'm sure it's just difficult for other people, is to be confident in yourself.
00:14:03.000 | Not in an ugly way, not in, you know, hoobries and just like having a nasty ego, but being confident in your ability to deliver something that's different than other people.
00:14:22.000 | And I was reflecting back at how challenging that has been through my lifetime.
00:14:28.000 | And I blame many factors for this, but one of those things that I blame primarily is school.
00:14:37.000 | And the schooling system, as we've all gone through it, if you went through a mainstream schooling system, the schooling system teaches conformity.
00:14:46.000 | Now, whether or not you believe, as I do, that it was designed with that being a primary outcome or not, or whether you just think it's happenstance, the net effect is that it primarily teaches conformity.
00:14:59.000 | And so, we're always measured as students, if we're competing with one another in a classroom, we're being measured on the same scale, the scale of grades, the scale of the GPA.
00:15:16.000 | And no one is ever giving us the opportunity to measure ourselves on our own scale.
00:15:23.000 | There are a few students who seem to escape and seem to just simply ignore the school environment and just do their own thing and see through the foolishness of it all.
00:15:34.000 | I was not one of those.
00:15:36.000 | I was one of those people who was very concerned with getting my A's and making sure that my GPA was good and all of that.
00:15:45.000 | Now, I look back and I just think, "What a waste."
00:15:47.000 | Now, I certainly learned plenty through it.
00:15:49.000 | I don't mean to be too extreme, but my point is that nobody ever asked me about my interests and about the things that I wanted to pursue.
00:15:59.000 | Rather, I was being held to a strict standard of conformity.
00:16:07.000 | And man, has that affected my life ever since.
00:16:09.000 | And I dare say it might have affected your life ever since.
00:16:16.000 | Another bit of these four data points that really impacted me was last week I released the show on my personal development plan.
00:16:24.000 | And a listener emailed me – I think it was email, not a comment on the blog – emailed me privately and just was giving their thoughts on that show.
00:16:34.000 | And this listener encouraged me and said, "Don't compare yourself to experts."
00:16:37.000 | And I thought, "What a great encouragement."
00:16:40.000 | And he went on and said, "Don't compare yourself to experts because you never know the truth of that story.
00:16:47.000 | You never know really until you really know somebody.
00:16:50.000 | You don't know what their life is like.
00:16:52.000 | You really don't."
00:16:55.000 | And it was such a valuable reminder.
00:16:57.000 | I tend to lose sight of that sometimes.
00:16:59.000 | But you never know what someone's life is like until you actually know them as a person, intimately.
00:17:06.000 | So oftentimes we look up to experts and we try to compare ourselves to experts.
00:17:11.000 | And we try to do what other people are able to do.
00:17:14.000 | And we fall down.
00:17:18.000 | It's like if I try to compare my productivity to Tony Robbins, was the example in the email correspondence.
00:17:28.000 | If I try to say, "Well, I'm going to just be like Tony Robbins," the reality is I don't know if I want to be like Tony Robbins.
00:17:34.000 | I don't.
00:17:35.000 | Now, he's got a great public persona.
00:17:37.000 | I would love to talk with him.
00:17:38.000 | And he just seems like such an energetic guy.
00:17:41.000 | But the reality is I don't know what his actual life is like.
00:17:44.000 | You know, the man is—he's divorced from his wife.
00:17:50.000 | I don't want to go through that.
00:17:52.000 | Now, he claims that he's happy as anything, but in my mind that's a massive failure.
00:17:56.000 | I don't know what his relationship with his children are like.
00:17:58.000 | So I don't know that I want to recreate what he's recreated.
00:18:03.000 | Though he be known globally as a great inspirational figure, I don't actually know what his actual life is like.
00:18:13.000 | You know, I think of so many of the tragic Hollywood people and just the tragic endings that come to so many lives.
00:18:23.000 | You think of, you know, who's the guy, Robin Williams.
00:18:28.000 | You think of how until I didn't know that he wasn't just—his life wasn't great until all of a sudden he's dead.
00:18:37.000 | And then I find out that his life wasn't great.
00:18:40.000 | I just thought how often do I need that reminder?
00:18:44.000 | I need that reminder frequently, which is why I'm reminding myself of it today and then sharing it with you to hopefully remind you.
00:18:52.000 | I so valued the email from the listener because I thought it's exactly right.
00:18:56.000 | I need to decide what are the metrics upon which I measure my success.
00:19:01.000 | What are the metrics that are important to me?
00:19:03.000 | If GPA is my important metric, then I should pursue it with gusto.
00:19:09.000 | But if my interest in a specific aspect of science or mechanical design, which has nothing to do with my ability to create a perfect 4.0 or 4.47 GPA with my high school GPA, then it's not the right—I need to decide the metric that's right for me.
00:19:29.000 | We don't always know the whole story.
00:19:31.000 | And you have to be careful to compare yourself with experts.
00:19:37.000 | It's good to learn from other people.
00:19:39.000 | It's good to learn from experts.
00:19:40.000 | But you have to be careful of it.
00:19:44.000 | I was thinking about—when I was thinking about Farnoosh's new podcast, I was just thinking, "Joshua, why does this affect you like this?"
00:19:54.000 | The reality is that she has this—she has a—you know, she's got years of experience that you don't have.
00:20:03.000 | She's got years of contacts that you don't have.
00:20:06.000 | She's got years of—she just has a very different path than you have.
00:20:12.000 | But why are you focused on what someone else has and rather than on what you have?
00:20:18.000 | Don't a lot of us do that a lot of times?
00:20:20.000 | I know I do it, which is why I'm simply sharing it with you in hopes of reminding you.
00:20:26.000 | Don't think about what others have.
00:20:29.000 | Think about what you have.
00:20:31.000 | There's another aspect of our society, which is interesting.
00:20:36.000 | I've thought about how do I promote my show and my stuff.
00:20:42.000 | The reality is I'm not aware of anybody, any other financial broadcaster or writer practically.
00:20:50.000 | There may be some writers I could come up with.
00:20:51.000 | I'm not aware of any other financial broadcaster who has the background that I have or who has the course that I have.
00:21:00.000 | The course of study that I have.
00:21:04.000 | Yet, I'm always very slow to want to self-promote.
00:21:09.000 | Again, we're taught that he or she who self-promotes, that this person—what is the Japanese proverb?
00:21:19.000 | "The nail that stands up highest is the first hammered down."
00:21:22.000 | Isn't that so true?
00:21:24.000 | Even on that GPA scale, I remember so specifically—I generally did well in school.
00:21:31.000 | Part of it was I was a good student.
00:21:33.000 | Part of it came easily to me.
00:21:34.000 | It was a combination of those two things.
00:21:36.000 | I was never number one.
00:21:38.000 | I graduated fifth in my class, something like that, because I didn't care as much as the leaders did.
00:21:43.000 | I just remember so routinely in high school especially, where I immediately always—when the teacher would pass the papers back,
00:21:51.000 | I'd immediately cover up the paper so that no one could see that I'd gotten 106 or no one could see that I'd gotten an A.
00:21:57.000 | I was reflecting on that as well and just thinking like, "What is this crazy world where we're measured on one dimension, GPA,
00:22:04.000 | and then even that dimension, we're not proud of doing well?
00:22:09.000 | Why is it so difficult for me to promote the things that are uniquely me, the things that I can uniquely do?"
00:22:16.000 | I haven't solved that one myself yet.
00:22:20.000 | But it was just an interesting observation that not only are we measured on these arbitrary predictors,
00:22:27.000 | but rather we're measured on even those predictors we don't want to show.
00:22:32.000 | So when people talk about success, for example, they say, "Well, Mr. So-and-so or Ms. So-and-so is such a successful person."
00:22:39.000 | Often what they mean is financial success.
00:22:42.000 | But the reality is that as you're more and more financially successful, you need to in some ways downplay your success and you can't show it off.
00:22:55.000 | So what a mixed-up world.
00:22:59.000 | It kind of makes me laugh.
00:23:03.000 | But I was thinking, why is it so easy to, instead of acknowledging the things that you do well at and acknowledging the success that you've enjoyed,
00:23:14.000 | immediately you see someone else's success and we become jealous of it and we want to immediately tear them down instead of building them up?
00:23:26.000 | I don't have the answers, but I know that it's at least just been useful for me to think it through.
00:23:34.000 | I want to define success on my own terms.
00:23:37.000 | That's one of the reasons why you sometimes hear me say, even though I'm doing a show on money,
00:23:42.000 | I think money is a very poor measuring stick of success.
00:23:49.000 | Think of your eulogy as a useful journaling exercise if you've never done it, is to write a eulogy for yourself.
00:23:56.000 | Pretend you're your best friend and pretend that you are tasked with delivering the eulogy.
00:24:03.000 | So if I'm on my best mate and I'm tasked with delivering Joshua Sheets' eulogy, I've actually done this.
00:24:09.000 | It's a fascinating journaling exercise.
00:24:11.000 | And think about what you would say.
00:24:13.000 | Here's this.
00:24:14.000 | If I were giving the eulogy for Joshua Sheets, would I want to give the eulogy that is completely focused on how rich he was?
00:24:30.000 | When I did this journaling exercise, not a single time did the amount of money show up in it.
00:24:38.000 | Have you ever heard a eulogy that has eulogized how rich somebody was?
00:24:43.000 | I dare say that if you have, you've only heard it once.
00:24:47.000 | I've never heard one.
00:24:50.000 | Now you may have heard a eulogy, and I have, where the effect of the money was implemented.
00:24:57.000 | So for example, Joe Smith was so phenomenal in that he affected the lives of thousands of people with his financial contributions toward this specific cause.
00:25:08.000 | Or Jane Smith raised more money for this cause and she brought thousands of people out of poverty.
00:25:16.000 | So that's the effect of the money.
00:25:18.000 | The money is a poor measuring stick.
00:25:21.000 | What if we had a different metric of success, something like an adventurous life, or a life that had meaning, or a life that persisted to future generations?
00:25:34.000 | Frankly, to be a bit vulnerable and transparent with you, that's what I care about.
00:25:42.000 | I don't care a bit about the money.
00:25:45.000 | I'm going to spend it all during my lifetime.
00:25:48.000 | Every last dime of it.
00:25:50.000 | I care about the multi-generational impact in my family.
00:25:53.000 | I care about the difference in the world around.
00:25:57.000 | And yet in a society that praises money and financial success, where I should be proclaiming to you my great skill at piling up money,
00:26:14.000 | and I should be giving you my net worth statement so that you have an interest in hearing what I say, I simply reject that.
00:26:20.000 | It's a poor litmus test of success.
00:26:23.000 | Now, I want to be clear.
00:26:25.000 | Money is a means to an end.
00:26:28.000 | So there's certainly, if I'm just completely broke and I have no business in that situation talking about money, especially teaching about money, there is a need for it.
00:26:41.000 | I'm working toward financial independence myself and focusing on that.
00:26:45.000 | So there is careful planning.
00:26:48.000 | Don't hear me in the wrong way, but my point is that the money is a means to an end.
00:26:55.000 | It's a means to an end.
00:26:57.000 | I may wish to die broke, but I certainly don't wish to live broke.
00:27:03.000 | After all, the timing of this thing is kind of important.
00:27:07.000 | Financially independent at 40, yes, not broke at 40, broke at 100.
00:27:13.000 | So my point is we need to understand what the goals are that are behind – what the actual – what's actually important to us.
00:27:23.000 | Sometimes when you're working on something, you might not know how close you are to success.
00:27:29.000 | Here's the third of the data points that have created this show.
00:27:34.000 | Last night I was reading a book called – it's a biography of a man named Richard Feynman.
00:27:41.000 | The book is entitled Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, and Richard Feynman was a somewhat well-known professor of physics in California.
00:27:51.000 | He's quite the Renaissance man.
00:27:54.000 | I was reading, however, in this book an anecdote.
00:27:57.000 | Early in his career, immediately after he graduated from college, he took a job as a research chemist for the Metaplast Corporation.
00:28:09.000 | This was an entry-level job in some ways, but the company was involved in metal plating plastics.
00:28:18.000 | So at this time it was a new technology of how do we put a metal coating on plastic pieces.
00:28:25.000 | They had some rudimentary methods for doing so, and he was involved in helping to come up with new ways to do it.
00:28:34.000 | This was practical applied chemistry.
00:28:38.000 | However, he was the only chemist.
00:28:43.000 | With his entire chemistry lab, it was him and then he had an assistant who was in charge of – he was chief bottle washer, as they say.
00:28:51.000 | They did this for a few years and they were able to create some good products and they advertised their products in magazines and newspapers in order to bring in orders.
00:29:03.000 | So years later, he's working at another job.
00:29:08.000 | As part of this, there was another scientist who was there and they were talking one day.
00:29:14.000 | They were talking about what they had done previously and this other scientist said, "Well, I was working in a process for creating a metal plating process to metal plate plastics.
00:29:26.000 | I was one of the guys in the laboratory."
00:29:29.000 | So Feynman asks him, "How did it go?"
00:29:31.000 | I'll read from page 57 of "Surely You're Joking."
00:29:34.000 | He says, "How did it go?
00:29:36.000 | It was going along pretty well, but we had our problems.
00:29:38.000 | Oh? Just as we were beginning to develop our process, there was a company in New York."
00:29:44.000 | What company in New York?
00:29:46.000 | "It was called the Metaplast Corporation.
00:29:48.000 | They were developed further than we were."
00:29:51.000 | How could you tell?
00:29:52.000 | "They were advertising all the time in modern plastics with full-page advertisements showing all the things they could plate and we realized that they were farther along than we were."
00:30:02.000 | Did you have any stuff from them?
00:30:04.000 | "No, but you could tell from the advertisements that they were way ahead of what we could do.
00:30:09.000 | Our process was pretty good, but it was no use trying to compete with an American process like that."
00:30:15.000 | How many chemists did you have working in the lab?
00:30:18.000 | "We had six chemists working."
00:30:20.000 | How many chemists do you think the Metaplast Corporation had?
00:30:24.000 | "Oh, they must have had a real chemistry department."
00:30:27.000 | Would you describe for me what you think the chief research chemist at the Metaplast Corporation might look like and how his laboratory might work?
00:30:35.000 | "I would guess they must have had 25 or 50 chemists, and the chief research chemist has his own office, special with glass, you know, like they have in the movies.
00:30:44.000 | Guys coming in all the time with research projects that they're doing, getting his advice and rushing off to do more research.
00:30:50.000 | People coming in and out all the time with 25 or 50 chemists.
00:30:54.000 | How on earth could we compete with them?"
00:30:56.000 | You'll be interested and amused to know that you are now talking to the chief research chemist of the Metaplast Corporation, whose staff consisted of one bottle washer.
00:31:07.000 | I just thought to myself, "Isn't that the truth? Don't sometimes we see something that someone else is doing and we think, 'Wow, I could never compete with them. Poor little old me.'
00:31:20.000 | You know, after all, here we are. We only have six chemists and they must have 25 or 50 chemists and look how well they're doing.
00:31:27.000 | So we'll just shut this whole thing down. Poor little old me."
00:31:31.000 | Haven't you done that? I certainly do it.
00:31:36.000 | I have to fight against that.
00:31:39.000 | I have to fight against the poor little old me disease.
00:31:44.000 | You know what?
00:31:47.000 | You and I both are people.
00:31:50.000 | We're human beings.
00:31:52.000 | We have great talents in some areas and we have great weaknesses in others.
00:31:58.000 | That's the same as everyone else.
00:32:04.000 | We have the same fears as everyone else.
00:32:10.000 | We have the same desires.
00:32:12.000 | We all want about the same thing.
00:32:15.000 | No matter how successful someone looks or no matter how...
00:32:19.000 | I'm certain... Again, I've never met Farnoosh and I feel bad kind of using her show.
00:32:27.000 | It was just a catalyst. The show just came together in my mind this afternoon and I hope it's useful to you.
00:32:32.000 | But I'm certain that she has the same fear and trepidation that I have and that I had, especially when I was recording my first show.
00:32:43.000 | I remember that feeling of putting that out there in the world and you're bearing your soul a little bit to the world.
00:32:50.000 | And I'm certain that she is just as petrified of that as I was.
00:32:55.000 | Man, I admire her for going for it.
00:32:59.000 | And isn't that the key thing that we should be looking for?
00:33:05.000 | Shouldn't we be admiring other people?
00:33:10.000 | Yes, it took me a little bit. It took me about five minutes to...
00:33:13.000 | Okay, it was more like ten.
00:33:15.000 | It took me ten or fifteen minutes. I just stretched it from five to fifteen.
00:33:18.000 | It took me a little while to adjust my attitude and to deal with that initial feeling of...
00:33:27.000 | "Oh, here's how everyone's going to go and listen to Farnoosh's show and not mine."
00:33:32.000 | But the reality is that I admire her. I really do.
00:33:38.000 | And I hope that you have the same feeling for your competitors, your collaborators, whatever they are in your industry.
00:33:48.000 | Admire them. Look to help them. Look to support them.
00:33:53.000 | Because do you want anybody, if you're a content...
00:33:57.000 | This is new for me being a content creator.
00:33:59.000 | But... And maybe...
00:34:01.000 | If I'm a financial advisor and I have a client that's not a perfect fit for me,
00:34:10.000 | am I going to be able to give that client all of the service that they deserve?
00:34:15.000 | I can't.
00:34:17.000 | I want to send them to someone that can help them.
00:34:20.000 | If I can't help them the most effectively, then I have a duty to send them to someone who can.
00:34:28.000 | But there is a small tribe of people out there, for any financial advisor, who will love me.
00:34:37.000 | And I can help them more effectively than anyone else.
00:34:41.000 | I cannot work effectively with an audience that someone like Farnoosh could have.
00:34:48.000 | I can't help them.
00:34:49.000 | But I can help people who are interested in my stuff.
00:34:53.000 | And the same for you.
00:34:54.000 | So whether you're a salesperson or an accountant or a father or a mother or a teacher or whatever it is,
00:35:02.000 | focus on helping the people that you can help.
00:35:05.000 | Frankly, this is one of the major problems in the financial planning business.
00:35:09.000 | One of the things that gets people... Why people have such a poor...
00:35:13.000 | Not reputation. What's the poor opinion impression of people in the financial planning business
00:35:22.000 | is oftentimes we as advisors have gone after clients who are not a good fit for us.
00:35:28.000 | Because we were desperate. Desperate to make the sale. Desperate to make the mortgage payment.
00:35:36.000 | And so instead of building a stable of clients that love us, we build a stable of clients that tolerate us.
00:35:43.000 | That's not a good recipe for success.
00:35:49.000 | So make sure that you're working where your skills and your abilities can help other people
00:35:59.000 | and where they're actually well suited.
00:36:01.000 | Don't worry about what your competitor is doing.
00:36:04.000 | Stick to your knitting.
00:36:06.000 | And with that I bring myself to the fourth anecdote that is all in yesterday and today.
00:36:14.000 | I noticed an article this morning on Gary North. Gary North's website, GaryNorth.com.
00:36:19.000 | Gary North is an economist and I enjoy his writing so I read his site regularly.
00:36:27.000 | And he is I think 73 years old at this point in time. He's an economist for many years.
00:36:33.000 | And he published a book this morning that he published on his website.
00:36:38.000 | And it's free if you're interested in downloading it. I'll make a link to it in the show notes for today.
00:36:44.000 | But it's a book on a Christian economic system.
00:36:48.000 | The title of the book is "The Covenantal Structure of Christian Economics."
00:36:53.000 | My new book on an old subject. This is from January 15th, today, on his website.
00:36:58.000 | And the book is available free as a PDF and it's about a 500 page book that he's just finished.
00:37:03.000 | And Gary North is fascinating to me because he is, well, A, he's a bit of a curmudgeon.
00:37:08.000 | I admire him for his, he just doesn't seem to care what other people think.
00:37:13.000 | And he holds these opinions that are in the extreme minority.
00:37:16.000 | And I hold many of those. I hold many opinions that are in the extreme minority.
00:37:20.000 | But he just holds them and goes about his business and doesn't worry too much about what other people think.
00:37:25.000 | That's very difficult for me. I'm a people pleaser. I like to be liked.
00:37:28.000 | So that's tough for me. So I enjoy that.
00:37:32.000 | But what's fascinating to me about this book is this book is the output of a major project.
00:37:41.000 | In total, a 40 year project.
00:37:45.000 | He actually started working on this book in 1973.
00:37:52.000 | Now you say, "How does he work on the book since 1973?"
00:37:57.000 | Well, in 1973, he started the project. He had published a book that was essentially an introduction to the topic.
00:38:06.000 | And it was called "An Introduction to Christian Economics."
00:38:11.000 | And as he says himself, he says that it was a well-meaning attempt, but it certainly wasn't effective.
00:38:18.000 | That there was not enough strength behind it and some major flaws and problems with the book.
00:38:25.000 | So in April of 1973, at the suggestion of his wife, he went through and began writing a verse-by-verse commentary of the Bible, focused on economics.
00:38:36.000 | What would be the biblical worldview of economics based upon the Bible.
00:38:40.000 | And as part of that project, he's published that commentary. He's published 31 volumes of that commentary.
00:38:47.000 | So he's written 31 books as part of his exegesis of the scriptural backup for his book.
00:38:57.000 | Now, this book that he...so that's the background. He had to do that research.
00:39:01.000 | Those were his research papers, almost 9,000 pages of writing to prepare, excuse me, 8,550 pages in that 31 volume series.
00:39:14.000 | And then that doesn't count for separate appendix volumes that he wrote as well.
00:39:18.000 | So...and he completed that in August of 2012.
00:39:22.000 | And so then he has finished now the next part of that, which was this book that he just released today, "The Covenantal Structure of Christian Economics."
00:39:31.000 | And then following this book, he has to go through and essentially write the backup for this, the deeper proof book.
00:39:40.000 | That one will be about a thousand page book, but with some deeper dive into some of the issues that are raised by the book that he's just prepared, that he's just released.
00:39:51.000 | And then he's got a project to go through and create a series of YouTube videos.
00:39:55.000 | So he's got several years left on his project.
00:39:57.000 | Now, here's what's interesting to me about this project.
00:40:01.000 | Not only is it a staggering amount of work, which by the way, I'm going to interrupt my thought to give you something else interesting.
00:40:09.000 | I find Gary North to be a fascinating person because of the sheer volume of output.
00:40:15.000 | Perhaps you read, as I do, various bloggers.
00:40:18.000 | And some bloggers write, and they write one article a week, a couple articles a week, and sometimes they, maybe they write once a day.
00:40:27.000 | And we're very impressed by people who write an essay every single day.
00:40:31.000 | Well, it's interesting to me, Gary North publishes four essays every single day on his website, on his primary website.
00:40:40.000 | Plus, he publishes anywhere from three to six additional pages on an additional website of his that he runs called the Tea Party Economist.
00:40:48.000 | And in the past, and he writes books in addition to that.
00:40:53.000 | He's written over 50 books throughout his lifetime.
00:40:56.000 | And just the sheer volume of the output that he creates is fascinating.
00:41:00.000 | But this project, this 31 book of background study, and then this new book that he's just done.
00:41:06.000 | This one, the way that he actually has organized his time is he's just simply focused on it, worked on it, 10 hours per week, 50 weeks per year.
00:41:16.000 | And that he, so he began writing in 1973, then in 1977, he focused on doing 10 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, every single year.
00:41:26.000 | And since 1977, he's gone forward and done that.
00:41:30.000 | And he predicted when he first did it, after he got an idea of his pace, he predicted that he would finish it.
00:41:35.000 | Well, he wanted to finish it by his 70th birthday, which would have been February 2012.
00:41:40.000 | And he completed his backup study on July 2012.
00:41:44.000 | It was a 40-year project.
00:41:46.000 | And I just thought, wow, that, what an amazing, I've admired his dedication to his craft.
00:41:56.000 | Now, here's what, where I was going with what I find interesting.
00:42:00.000 | The entire time that North was working on his book, and even now, he knows that the audience for his work is absolutely tiny.
00:42:13.000 | The actual number of people who would be interested in his book is a tiny, tiny number of people.
00:42:22.000 | Not only is the average layperson unlikely to read a 485-page text on the economic position of the Bible, what does the Bible say about economics, not only that.
00:42:36.000 | But you have, so the average person, very little interest in economics, very little interest in religion, very little interest in the Bible, very little interest in reading heavy, heavy work.
00:42:46.000 | But who would be interested?
00:42:48.000 | So you would say, well, the economists would be interested.
00:42:51.000 | But the problem is that, as he writes even in his, in today's essay, that economists are not interested in Christian theology.
00:43:02.000 | It's very rare, it would be unusual if you would go up to the Chicago, you know, the Chicago School of Economics or the London School of Economics, and you would find a team of economists that are just waiting for a book on Christian theology.
00:43:16.000 | And then on the flip side, you'd be a rare pastor or Christian theologian who's interested in economic theory.
00:43:23.000 | So the two parties that you would say would be interested in Christian economics, you have very little interest there.
00:43:32.000 | And then even if you did, were interested, his other third sentence of today's post is that if you had a Christian economist, Christian economists are interested only in catalectics in relation to some kind of general moral principle, not associated with his overall worldview that he's done.
00:43:54.000 | And ignore the word "catalactics," it's a niche word.
00:43:58.000 | So, isn't that amazing? So you have somebody who's dedicated 50 years of their life to something that all the books are free, available online, there's not a dollar of revenue expected from it, at least not a dollar of profit, and the market for it is tiny.
00:44:16.000 | And yet, don't you admire somebody who's willing to stay focused on something that they think is going to have meaning, regardless of popular proof, so to speak, of the meaning, of the impact?
00:44:31.000 | I do.
00:44:34.000 | And that was my fourth and final point, is I realized for myself, in need of encouragement, is that as I was just encouraging myself in this, I was thinking, "Am I focusing on what's important to me, based upon my own standards, based upon what I'm uniquely qualified to bring to the table, and what I can uniquely do,
00:45:00.000 | and generally ignoring other people and their own, and their focus?"
00:45:07.000 | Now, I don't want to, you know, there's a, obviously, there's a balance there. You don't want to ignore things that are important, ignore things that are valuable.
00:45:16.000 | So, if I need to learn from something that someone else is doing, I need to be aware, at least, of certain things.
00:45:21.000 | But the point is to define life on my terms, and focus on what's important to me.
00:45:28.000 | And you can apply this at the macro scale of investing 50 years of your life in a massive lifetime project, like Gary North has done.
00:45:42.000 | Or you can apply it at the micro scale of choosing to avoid buying the latest, greatest, fanciest smartphone, because it's the cool thing to have.
00:45:52.000 | And just simply recognizing that a smartphone is taking you away from much of what actually matters in life, and you don't need to snap a picture of everything, but rather to enjoy it.
00:46:03.000 | And, or, you know, if you enjoy snapping pictures, that's fine. I'm not telling you what to do.
00:46:10.000 | Simply that my wish is that all of us would be able to tune out the external inputs that don't matter to us, and focus on the things that do.
00:46:20.000 | That's the theme that I was hoping to convey today.
00:46:27.000 | And my wish for you, and my wish for, is my wish for myself, that we, each of us, would know clearly what we're trying to accomplish and why.
00:46:39.000 | So that we would be able to stay focused on it, and not on what other people are doing.
00:46:47.000 | If we have that, I guess, approach, if we have that, if we're blessed to know what we're trying to accomplish and why, and have it clearly in our mind,
00:47:02.000 | and if we can undo some of the social conditioning that says, "Well, you need to live your life just like everyone else does,"
00:47:09.000 | then our ability to achieve things will be far faster.
00:47:14.000 | And in thinking through, as I prepared just my brief thoughts for today's show, in thinking through this,
00:47:24.000 | isn't this one of the themes that you've heard if you've listened to past episodes of this show?
00:47:29.000 | That you find so many people pursuing financial independence in their own way.
00:47:36.000 | You find so many people building different paths toward their dreams.
00:47:46.000 | But at the end of the day, every single one of them had to step off of the treadmill of what society said their dream should be,
00:47:53.000 | and pursue their own dream.
00:47:58.000 | And that's a unique person.
00:48:01.000 | I hope that that's you.
00:48:03.000 | I hope that you can build that self-confidence to ignore society.
00:48:10.000 | Even ignore your competitors.
00:48:12.000 | Just simply view your competitors as collaborators.
00:48:16.000 | It takes me a few minutes to adjust my own personal outlook on that when it gets to things that I care deeply about,
00:48:24.000 | but I really do think that's the case.
00:48:27.000 | And that our competitors are oftentimes going to be our collaborators, and they're going to force us to become better.
00:48:36.000 | I hope this is useful to you.
00:48:38.000 | That's it for today's show.
00:48:40.000 | That's the primary thrust of what I wished to share with you.
00:48:45.000 | I hope it's useful.
00:48:46.000 | I hope you can take some of that and apply it to your own life,
00:48:50.000 | and I encourage you to focus on measuring your own success by your own standards,
00:48:56.000 | and not by some sort of external standard that each person has.
00:49:02.000 | Thank you to those of you who are leaving reviews for the show on iTunes.
00:49:05.000 | I would crave many more of those.
00:49:07.000 | That's very helpful.
00:49:08.000 | Make sure if this is your first show, make sure you subscribe to the show.
00:49:11.000 | I've got an app.
00:49:12.000 | It's being built, and it was delayed over the holidays.
00:49:14.000 | Subscribe on iTunes if you have some sort of Apple-related device or iTunes on a computer,
00:49:20.000 | or you can use Stitcher at the moment if you have another device.
00:49:24.000 | Otherwise, I'm releasing -- I'll have an app built that will be in the native app store for Windows, Amazon Fire, Android, and iTunes as well.
00:49:34.000 | And so that will help you to be able to access the show.
00:49:37.000 | Many of the third-party apps are not very good, so that will be coming soon.
00:49:43.000 | And if you've benefited from today's content, I would be thrilled to have you as a supporting member of the Irregulars.
00:49:49.000 | That's how I'm earning income off of the show, which allows me to keep bringing it to you five days a week.
00:49:54.000 | Hope it's been useful.
00:49:55.000 | Tomorrow we'll probably have a Q&A show.
00:49:57.000 | I've cleared off the voicemail feedback line, but I do have some e-mail questions.
00:50:01.000 | It's been so helpful to me to be able to do that this week and just do those Q&As.
00:50:05.000 | I hope that you found them to be useful,
00:50:07.000 | and we'll be back to kind of our more planned-out schedule next week with some in-depth financial planning shows, some Q&As, some interviews as well.
00:50:16.000 | I hope that you'll stick around.
00:50:18.000 | Talk with you tomorrow.
00:50:19.000 | [Music]
00:50:25.000 | [Music]
00:50:29.000 | [Music]
00:50:34.000 | [Music]
00:50:38.000 | Thank you for listening to today's show.
00:51:01.000 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment.
00:51:08.000 | Your situation is unique, and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.
00:51:17.000 | This show is not, and is not intended to be any form of financial advice.
00:51:24.000 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy,
00:51:34.000 | and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.
00:51:45.000 | Hold them accountable for your results.
00:51:48.000 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person, and I make mistakes.
00:51:55.000 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please come by the show page and comment so we can all learn together.
00:52:02.000 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.
00:52:05.000 | With Kroger brand products from Ralphs, you can make all your favorite things this holiday season
00:52:10.000 | because Kroger brand's proven quality products come at exceptionally low prices.
00:52:15.000 | And with a money-back quality guarantee, every dish is sure to be a favorite.
00:52:20.000 | ♪ These are a few of my favorite things ♪
00:52:23.000 | Whether you shop delivery, pickup, or in-store, Kroger brand has all your favorite things.
00:52:30.000 | Ralphs. Fresh for Everyone.
00:52:33.000 | (upbeat music)