RPF0208-3_Ways_to_Increase_Income
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00:00:31.100 | I'm back.
00:00:50.000 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.
00:00:52.200 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:00:54.700 | Thank you so much for being here.
00:00:55.900 | I'm back.
00:00:56.500 | Had a nice little break.
00:00:57.600 | Feel good.
00:00:58.800 | Got an exciting show planned for you today on how to make more money at your job.
00:01:03.600 | I'm going to share with you the three iron laws to increasing your income.
00:01:08.900 | Doesn't matter the occupation.
00:01:10.200 | Doesn't matter where in the world you are.
00:01:12.200 | This is what you must do to make more money.
00:01:22.400 | Thank you so much for being here.
00:01:23.500 | It's been a nice little break the last couple of days.
00:01:25.300 | I will go into more detail on kind of what's happened over the last few days in a future show.
00:01:31.000 | Working on hard on improving the show and making some nice changes all around.
00:01:34.400 | But I will save that for a future show.
00:01:36.700 | Just took a little bit of time to catch up.
00:01:37.900 | Made a lot of progress and took a few days off just to spend some time with my wife.
00:01:41.700 | Still no baby.
00:01:42.600 | Keep an eye on the Facebook page or the Twitter or the Twitter page if you want to see baby updates.
00:01:47.600 | And if you see all of a sudden there's no shows and then you come up go over there and check to see if check to see if there's a baby.
00:01:53.500 | So far as of the recording and publishing of this show there is not yet – baby is not yet here.
00:01:59.400 | But we're excited.
00:02:00.100 | Any day now.
00:02:00.600 | Go over – by the way, if you – feel free always of course to like the Facebook page.
00:02:05.400 | But then feel free if you'd like to connect with me personally.
00:02:07.600 | Happy to have all of you connect with me personally on Facebook.
00:02:11.600 | I spend most of my time probably there more than Twitter.
00:02:15.100 | Twitter is kind of pretty boring.
00:02:16.500 | It's turned into a giant advertising pool of go here, read this.
00:02:19.900 | And I don't know about you but I don't need anything more to read.
00:02:21.800 | Facebook I like because it's actually individual people.
00:02:24.800 | So I think it's my personal Facebook profile is Facebook.com/JoshuaSheets.
00:02:30.100 | But just go into the Radical Personal Finance thing.
00:02:31.800 | Just search for me, JoshuaSheets, S-H-E-A-T-S, and feel free to connect with both me as a person and also with the Radical Personal Finance page.
00:02:38.500 | Today we're going to talk about increasing your income at your job.
00:02:42.800 | And I think that this is – it's one of the most important topics that we can possibly talk about.
00:02:48.700 | Because ultimately income is what drives everything in your financial plan.
00:02:54.500 | If you were to look and try to figure out what is the one variable that is most likely to lead to wealth versus poverty, my guess is that it would probably have to be income.
00:03:07.200 | And certainly a good argument could be made for savings rates and I have no empirical data to prove this, just a gut feeling here.
00:03:14.700 | But certainly a good argument could be made for, well, if you save enough money or investment returns.
00:03:18.700 | But realistically, a much higher portion of the people making half a million dollars a year are rich as compared to those who are making $50,000 a year.
00:03:27.700 | And it's more likely that more people making $50,000 a year are rich than those who are making $15,000 a year.
00:03:34.700 | So income is what drives everything else.
00:03:37.700 | And usually the good news is it's the most adjustable thing.
00:03:41.700 | Just look around the world and look at how many people make a lot of money.
00:03:44.700 | Well, why not you and why not me?
00:03:47.700 | All of us can make more money.
00:03:49.700 | And so income is essentially what drives every other aspect of the financial thing – of financial plan.
00:03:55.700 | And this happens and can be adjusted no matter what your age is, no matter what your gender is, no matter what your industry is, no matter how – what your experience is.
00:04:07.700 | Everyone can be focused on increasing their income.
00:04:09.700 | And so the three laws that I'm going to share with you are universally applicable.
00:04:15.700 | These laws are primarily intended for wage earners, but you could come up with a similar framework for entrepreneurs or salespeople.
00:04:22.700 | I have similar frameworks for those.
00:04:24.700 | We'll save those for another day.
00:04:26.700 | Today I'm primarily focused on those of us who earn wages.
00:04:30.700 | And if you earn wages, pay attention.
00:04:33.700 | So let's start here.
00:04:35.700 | How do you earn more money?
00:04:37.700 | Take whatever income level you are currently enjoying and ask yourself, "How can I earn more money?"
00:04:45.700 | Start there.
00:04:48.700 | Well, if you live in a free market economy, and the majority of us do, there are very few controlled – well, very few non-free market economies left.
00:04:56.700 | Even within our free market economy, there are a few non-free market economies.
00:05:00.700 | Within the free market economy, we'll cover one of those later into the day show.
00:05:04.700 | But if you live in a free market economy, the value of your wage is determined by the value of your work.
00:05:15.700 | It's as simple as that.
00:05:18.700 | So if you want your wage to go up, you have to do more valuable work.
00:05:25.700 | I'm not talking in this context about your value as a person.
00:05:29.700 | Personally, I think you have infinite value as a person.
00:05:33.700 | I'm talking about your market value in the marketplace.
00:05:37.700 | And it's important to start here because many times people get this mixed up.
00:05:42.700 | They want to go out and start asking for more money until they've developed more value.
00:05:48.700 | But if you just flip that around and recognize how simple the equation actually is, it gives you a track to run on.
00:05:57.700 | If you want to earn more money, you need to increase your value in the marketplace.
00:06:03.700 | The fundamental key to making more money is to first become more valuable.
00:06:10.700 | We know this intuitively, most of us.
00:06:14.700 | We're taught this, for example, with regard to school.
00:06:18.700 | That's the primary area where we're taught this.
00:06:21.700 | Why are you told to finish high school and get your high school diploma?
00:06:24.700 | Well, so that you can get a better job than somebody without a high school diploma.
00:06:27.700 | Why?
00:06:29.700 | Well, fundamentally, the assumption is that somehow there's something that you're learning in high school.
00:06:35.700 | And then that learning has evidence in the form of a diploma.
00:06:40.700 | And that ultimately that is affecting and is going to affect your wages.
00:06:47.700 | And we know from the data that's been collected that there's at least a strong correlation between level of educational attainment and level of lifetime earnings.
00:06:57.700 | Same thing as applied to things like college.
00:07:00.700 | Generally, I think the majority of people have asked, "Why are you going to college?"
00:07:04.700 | Well, generally, respond, "So that I can get a good job."
00:07:07.700 | Now, there might be some who would talk about personal enrichment and the social life and the ability to defer real life a little bit longer.
00:07:17.700 | But most people will say there's an economic motivation for it.
00:07:22.700 | And so what are we doing in that scenario?
00:07:24.700 | Well, we're fundamentally trying to increase our value to the marketplace first so that we can earn higher wages later.
00:07:32.700 | That's what we're trying to do.
00:07:34.700 | Now, the problem is that we're taught that with regard to school, but too many of us stop after school.
00:07:41.700 | Now, some of us stop after a little bit of school.
00:07:45.700 | Some of us stop after a lot of school.
00:07:47.700 | But too many of us simply stop after school.
00:07:51.700 | But we can't stop.
00:07:55.700 | Or at least we can't stop if we want to increase our income.
00:07:59.700 | So let's do a case study here.
00:08:01.700 | This case study comes from a discussion in the Facebook group, the private Facebook group for the Radical Personal Finance Irregulars, which is those who are contributing to the show at the $25 a month level and also the original about 80 patrons of the show that originally got in at the $10 a month level, which, by the way, thank you guys so much.
00:08:22.700 | This last weekend we just hit 200 patrons, which is awesome.
00:08:25.700 | I'll cover that at the end of the show.
00:08:27.700 | But we have this private Facebook group for those who are at regular levels of the show, and that's where I try to spend most of my time answering questions.
00:08:34.700 | So if somebody wants to get a personal interaction with me, that's one of the benefits, and we're really building a really cool community there.
00:08:41.700 | I'm starting to get to know a lot of the individuals in there, and we're really building a really cool community of people, many of whom are a lot smarter than I am.
00:08:47.700 | But this comment came in, this question came in in the Facebook group for the patrons from Kevin.
00:08:53.700 | Kevin said, "Joshua, I really enjoyed your podcast and podcast references to Brian Tracy's 1000% formula.
00:08:58.700 | I think it makes a lot of sense both in terms of financial gain and just being competent in your field.
00:09:03.700 | However, I have a bit of a hard time applying these concepts in my own life.
00:09:08.700 | Don't take this as a cop-out, but this is a bit harder to apply in my field, which is engineering.
00:09:13.700 | The main reason is engineering textbooks and journal articles aren't light reading."
00:09:18.700 | By the way, Kevin, neither are financial planning textbooks and financial planning articles.
00:09:23.700 | "Here's what I have as far as my own personal development plan.
00:09:26.700 | Number one, I'm a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
00:09:29.700 | Unfortunately, there isn't a local chapter where I am at currently." You need to start one.
00:09:34.700 | "Number two, I've joined Toastmasters and I'm working through the competent communicator manual.
00:09:38.700 | And number three, I'm spending time studying to take the PE, which is professional engineer exam, as well as taking a prep course.
00:09:46.700 | I'd enjoy a critique of my current personal development plan and suggestions that you'd have for becoming an expert in my field.
00:09:53.700 | I'd love to own my own business, but in something as specialized as engineering, it seems that you need 20 years of experience to get there.
00:10:00.700 | I'm afraid I've picked something that doesn't easily lend itself to entrepreneurship. What are your thoughts?"
00:10:06.700 | So here's my question for you. In thinking about this coaching question, where would you start?
00:10:14.700 | Kevin comes to you and lays out that question that he just laid out to me. Where would you start in coaching him?
00:10:21.700 | If you want, feel free to hit pause and think through your answer before I answer mine.
00:10:27.700 | But here's what I would say. I would start with the framework that I have around increasing your earnings and increasing your value in the marketplace.
00:10:36.700 | And I want to focus exclusively on the variables that I can control.
00:10:43.700 | It does me absolutely no good to think about the variables that I can't control.
00:10:47.700 | I can't control the general rate of unemployment in the population. I can't control the inflation rate.
00:10:52.700 | I can't control the overall demand for engineers or for nurses or for teachers in the marketplace.
00:10:59.700 | I want to focus on what I can control.
00:11:01.700 | As Stephen Covey would say, focusing on your – what do you call it? Your circle of – yeah, I was listening to the Spanish audio book, so I can't think of it in English.
00:11:13.700 | I think in the English – he calls it the circle of concern and the circle of influence.
00:11:19.700 | There are many things that you might be concerned about, but there are only some things that you can actually influence.
00:11:25.700 | And so the key overall – and this comes from the seven habits of highly effective people – the key is to focus always on your circle of influence and basically ignore everything else, all the things that are within your circle of concern but not within your circle of influence.
00:11:41.700 | And then over time, by doing that, your actual circle of influence will grow.
00:11:45.700 | So I may be concerned about the economy. I may be concerned about the inflation rate. I may be concerned about the tax rate, but I can't influence any of those things.
00:11:57.700 | They're within my circle of concern, but they're not within my circle of influence. I can influence what I do.
00:12:03.700 | And so here are the three things that impact your earnings.
00:12:07.700 | Number one, the number of hours you work. Number two, the amount of work that you output per hour.
00:12:18.700 | And number three, the value of the work that is your output as measured by its market price. That's it.
00:12:28.700 | Those are the only three things that I know of to change.
00:12:33.700 | And so if you want to actually increase your earnings, you can do any of those three things, and ideally you'd probably want to do all of them.
00:12:43.700 | Number one, you can work more hours.
00:12:46.700 | Number two, you can increase your output per hour.
00:12:52.700 | And then number three, you can increase the value of the output.
00:12:58.700 | So you're actually changing the type of output from an output that's less valuable to an output that's more valuable.
00:13:04.700 | That number three incidentally has – I think of the – it has two corollaries.
00:13:09.700 | Corollary 3A, what I just said, is changing the work that you're outputting from less valuable work to more valuable work.
00:13:17.700 | And then 3B is changing the market for the same work.
00:13:22.700 | So moving from a market that doesn't value the work to a market that does value the work, even though the work output hasn't changed.
00:13:28.700 | The actual product is the same.
00:13:30.700 | You're changing from one market to another market.
00:13:34.700 | So you need to focus on all three, but you really should start by picking the most impactful one.
00:13:42.700 | So which of these three things can you impact directly in your situation?
00:13:50.700 | The most direct way to increase your income is always simply to increase the amount of time worked up to a point.
00:13:58.700 | And it's especially going to be the best solution if you're paid per piece of work output or if you're paid per unit of time.
00:14:07.700 | So if either you're paid for production of a certain number of pieces of work or if you're paid for a certain unit of time,
00:14:14.700 | then there's going to be an immediate recognition of the increase of money that comes from the increase of time worked.
00:14:22.700 | If you're paid a flat salary, then there's going to be a lag, a time lag, between the increased efforts, the increased work, and the actual recognition of those efforts with a higher salary.
00:14:33.700 | So that's the most direct way to increase your work.
00:14:39.700 | If possible, those who can produce higher total output of work within the same amount of time, those people are going to enjoy greater gain.
00:14:51.700 | And so by focusing here, you can experience simply a greater production of work.
00:15:01.700 | That might come through greater practice, more experience, better focus, better tools, better systems of productivity, but ultimately the goal is to just simply produce more work output.
00:15:12.700 | And then as far as the value of the work in the marketplace, again, figuring out should I be doing work that has a higher requirement of knowledge, ability, and skill?
00:15:23.700 | Or should I be doing work that has a different perception where the market is just simply recognizing the higher value of the work?
00:15:30.700 | Which of those areas is your strongest and which is your weakest?
00:15:35.700 | That's what I responded back to Kevin and asked him, and I'm going to read his answer in a few minutes.
00:15:41.700 | But that's where you want to start.
00:15:43.700 | Some of these things will pay off in the short term.
00:15:45.700 | Some will pay off in the long term.
00:15:47.700 | The short-term payoff is of working more hours.
00:15:49.700 | That's the shortest term.
00:15:51.700 | Paid by the hour, paid by the piece, boom.
00:15:54.700 | Some workers, you might be working on a factory line where you're paid by the piece of output and you're paid at the end of the day.
00:16:01.700 | Well, there's a pretty direct recognition if you are working more hours, you're going to produce more pieces.
00:16:09.700 | Again, if you're paid a flat salary, over time the market and your employer will recognize your increase of output of work, but it will be a little bit of lag if you're working more hours.
00:16:18.700 | The problem here, the tradeoff, is that you're capped because you're capped with a total amount of work that you can do.
00:16:27.700 | We all have 168 hours in a week and we can't put all 168 of them into work.
00:16:34.700 | So although this can be a direct way of increasing income, it has a huge immediate short-term benefit.
00:16:42.700 | But over the long term, it has the slowest long-term benefit because you'll quickly reach the cap of the number of hours.
00:16:49.700 | Producing more work per hour is also a short-term benefit.
00:16:55.700 | And again, if you're paid by the piece and you can just simply produce more pieces per hour, then you're really going to experience a great increase in wages.
00:17:04.700 | And you can put those together for piece work and piece work can be something as physical as a production manufacturing component of a job or it can be as something as – like selling.
00:17:15.700 | That's piece work.
00:17:17.700 | You're paid on commission based upon a certain number of sales.
00:17:19.700 | And so the idea here is produce more work per hour and work more hours and there's going to be a large increase.
00:17:26.700 | There will still be a lag time with producing more work per hour.
00:17:30.700 | The only one where there won't be a lag time is piece work.
00:17:34.700 | But if you're paid a flat salary or an hourly wage, there's going to be a lag time.
00:17:39.700 | You should still focus on it though.
00:17:42.700 | The longer term increases are always going to come from increasing the value of your work.
00:17:47.700 | And this one is always going to be the longest time before it's recognized by the marketplace.
00:17:52.700 | But it's also going to be the most leverageable option.
00:17:59.700 | And it's key to recognize that.
00:18:01.700 | If you're super broke and you're just getting started, work more hours and work harder during those hours.
00:18:08.700 | But if you want to be wealthy and earn a massively high income, the biggest leverage point is always going to be focusing on increasing the value of your work.
00:18:20.700 | It's going to be the longest time between your putting in the effort and the marketplace recognizing the effort.
00:18:26.700 | But there's the most leverage in that scenario.
00:18:34.700 | So which one should you be focusing on?
00:18:38.700 | Or if you have it – find it difficult to coach yourself, think about a friend of yours or a co-worker and ask yourself,
00:18:44.700 | "Which of these things should my friend or co-worker be focusing on?"
00:18:50.700 | Imagine a co-worker of yours in the same position and look at them and just think, "How would I coach this person to make more money?"
00:18:56.700 | Number one, are they working enough?
00:18:58.700 | Somebody is working 20 hours a week.
00:19:01.700 | Unless they're already highly compensated per hour, they're probably simply not working enough.
00:19:06.700 | They're not going to be making a lot of money.
00:19:09.700 | So that's usually a simple change.
00:19:13.700 | It might mean taking two restaurant jobs because you can't get enough hours at one because they cut your hours so as to not be forced to offer you health insurance.
00:19:20.700 | It happens to a lot of people.
00:19:22.700 | A lot of people in that situation wind up working two part-time jobs.
00:19:25.700 | Very simple and direct.
00:19:27.700 | Or are you needing to coach your friend into a higher productivity per hour?
00:19:32.700 | You recognize that this person is just standing around talking all the time.
00:19:35.700 | This person is not very efficient.
00:19:37.700 | Or are you simply recognizing that they're the low person on the totem pole and they need to increase the value of their work?
00:19:44.700 | Now, let's go through some examples.
00:19:46.700 | I'm not going to start with answering Kevin's question as the engineer.
00:19:49.700 | That's going to be my second example.
00:19:51.700 | I'm going to start with actually discussing an example of a construction laborer.
00:19:54.700 | The reason I give so many examples and the reason I talk about coaching your friend or coaching your co-worker is because we all have a difficult time seeing ourselves.
00:20:04.700 | We tend to fool ourselves.
00:20:06.700 | So by looking at an external example, sometimes you do that long enough and you can start to look at yourself and say, "Ah, now I see what I'm doing."
00:20:16.700 | So let's start with the example of a construction worker.
00:20:19.700 | Pretend that you are a brand new immigrant to the United States.
00:20:23.700 | You don't have any marketable skills to speak of other than your physical capacity to walk around and perhaps lift things up, put them down.
00:20:32.700 | Let's make it even tougher.
00:20:34.700 | Let's say that you speak a foreign language.
00:20:36.700 | It doesn't matter what language, but for the sake of my example, I'm going to use Spanish, and you need a job.
00:20:44.700 | What would you do and how would you apply this formula to that job?
00:20:49.700 | I will use the landscaping industry to start.
00:20:53.700 | That's where I have experience.
00:20:54.700 | When I was a kid, I worked in the landscaping industry.
00:20:56.700 | Here in South Florida, if you are broke and you need a job, get a lawn mower, toss it in the back of your SUV, your van, and drive up and down the street and ask people if you can mow their lawns.
00:21:05.700 | It works for 12-year-old boys and it works for 30-year-old men who need income.
00:21:09.700 | I've worked with a number of very successful, very wealthy landscapers who got their start in exactly that way.
00:21:18.700 | It's a simple job to get into, and I worked with a lot of immigrants in that scenario.
00:21:22.700 | So let's start with landscaping industry.
00:21:25.700 | Now, keep these three things in your head.
00:21:28.700 | Number one, the number of hours worked.
00:21:29.700 | Number two, output per hour.
00:21:30.700 | Number three, the value of the output.
00:21:31.700 | You go and you're new to the U.S. and you get a job through your network.
00:21:35.700 | That's usually how it happens.
00:21:36.700 | Most immigrants don't move to a place unless they have an existing network there, a family member, an uncle, a friend, somebody that they're connected with that says, "Come to West Palm Beach, Florida," instead of coming to Austin, Texas, or instead of coming to Minneapolis.
00:21:48.700 | "Come to West Palm Beach, Florida."
00:21:49.700 | So you get a job through your network.
00:21:51.700 | Now, in my area, the starting wage for a laborer or a man laboring on a landscaping crew would be about $10 an hour.
00:21:58.700 | It could drift lower, but in my area, there's a lot of competition.
00:22:02.700 | If you're an able-bodied man and you're able to work, then you're going to start at about $10 an hour.
00:22:07.700 | And you get essentially no training to start with.
00:22:09.700 | You're basically just simply a human body.
00:22:12.700 | You're primarily starting with the simple jobs.
00:22:14.700 | You're raking.
00:22:15.700 | You're blowing off the sidewalks with the blower.
00:22:17.700 | You're doing weed eating.
00:22:19.700 | And it's not a high-skilled job.
00:22:22.700 | You've got about 10 minutes of instruction on how to run the blower and you're instructed to blow the grass from the street into the grass.
00:22:28.700 | That's it.
00:22:29.700 | Been there, done that.
00:22:30.700 | I was trained at that time on how to do it.
00:22:32.700 | That's how it happens, about 10 minutes, unless you're with one of the large corporate companies.
00:22:35.700 | But that's about it.
00:22:37.700 | So the very first thing you got to do is start with simply working more hours.
00:22:43.700 | And this is why in the landscape industry here where I live, the standard work week is six days, about eight to ten hours per day in that industry.
00:22:49.700 | Because the guys who work in there, they don't make enough on an hourly basis to be able to feed themselves and feed their families usually.
00:22:57.700 | My experience has been usually it's men who are here on a temporary work plan and their families are still down in Central or South America.
00:23:06.700 | And so it's tough at that basic laboring level to – it's tough to make it on a 40-hour work week.
00:23:13.700 | If you think about it, 10 bucks an hour, 40 hours a week, it would be 20 grand a year.
00:23:16.700 | You're not sending a lot home if you are working on 20 grand a year.
00:23:23.700 | So the standard work week goes up to six days, eight to ten hours a day if possible if the employer has the work available.
00:23:30.700 | Notice right off the bat the difference between a 40-hour work week and a 60-hour work week.
00:23:35.700 | It's a difference of 50 percent worth of income.
00:23:38.700 | It's a difference between $20,000 a year and $30,000 a year.
00:23:42.700 | It makes a big difference, big, big difference.
00:23:47.700 | So that's why I say it's the most direct path.
00:23:50.700 | So you're working six days.
00:23:52.700 | Next thing you got to do is you got to start with working hard, physically working hard.
00:23:56.700 | If you don't physically work hard your first day on the job, you're done after the first day.
00:24:00.700 | There are enough people that are in competition for your job that if you're a lazy bum, you're pretty much done.
00:24:08.700 | So you got to physically work hard.
00:24:10.700 | That means hustling, moving quickly, taking few or no breaks, just simply being applied and focused on the job at hand.
00:24:18.700 | Now that's going to take time to develop the skill of being able to physically work hard on an ongoing basis.
00:24:25.700 | A job like this is a tough job.
00:24:27.700 | If you're out of shape and out of condition, it takes time to build your conditioning to be able to labor out in the hot sun.
00:24:35.700 | Today it's in the 90s.
00:24:38.700 | Out in the hot in the 90s, high humidity, very hot sun, you're going to need to develop on your conditioning.
00:24:44.700 | But if you focus on that a few days on the job a couple of weeks and you get a little tougher and you can do that.
00:24:49.700 | Now if you combine those two things, it establishes the baseline of simply keeping your job.
00:24:55.700 | If you show that you're a hard and diligent worker, your hourly wage will probably creep up within a month or two.
00:25:02.700 | The foreman will watch it and they'll make sure that you get the initial 30 cents an hour increase.
00:25:08.700 | The challenge with these two things is that they're quickly maxed out.
00:25:12.700 | 60 hours a week you can maybe work.
00:25:14.700 | Maybe you can get a Sunday gig and get it up to 70 hours a week, but it's hard to do that.
00:25:19.700 | You need a day off on a physical job like that usually to rest.
00:25:22.700 | So you're pretty much maxed out at 60 hours a week.
00:25:25.700 | Even though you are maybe really hustling, you're really moving, you're really productive, you don't slow down,
00:25:32.700 | even so are you really going to be worth two people?
00:25:36.700 | That's tough.
00:25:38.700 | Remember, it's a busy job market usually.
00:25:42.700 | A lot of competition for your job.
00:25:44.700 | So there's other people that are also willing to work hard.
00:25:47.700 | So it's a good start, but the key is thing number three.
00:25:51.700 | So how do you increase your value in a situation like that?
00:25:53.700 | Well, it's a very simple job, but the first place to start is learn to be really good at the basics of your job.
00:26:02.700 | And I know for our engineer friend who's asking the question, it might not be that big of a deal,
00:26:07.700 | but you'd be shocked at how many people are really bad at the basics of their job.
00:26:12.700 | In the landscaping industry, it would be learning to operate all of the equipment and to be able to do more jobs.
00:26:20.700 | In the simple perspective, it means being able to have the skills to operate the hedge trimmer and to do a straight line.
00:26:27.700 | Learning to run the mower ultimately means learning to drive the truck and be able to back up the trailer.
00:26:34.700 | Something as simple as getting a driver's license is a simple but extraordinarily important step.
00:26:40.700 | One of the things that holds a lot of the guys that I talk to here in South Florida back is they don't have a driver's license.
00:26:45.700 | And you'll usually, if you can drive the truck, you'll usually get a $2 or $3 an hour increase right there.
00:26:52.700 | I've got a couple of buddies, again, that run landscaping companies. That's really valuable.
00:26:57.700 | And if you can drive the truck safely and not tear the stuff up and not back the trailer into a ditch, that's even bigger.
00:27:05.700 | Another simple, basic one, and the reason, think of it like an immigrant.
00:27:09.700 | Think how you would do a simple, basic one, learning English.
00:27:11.700 | This one is huge because by speaking English, it allows you to be able to interface with the customer.
00:27:16.700 | And that's where the money is. We'll come back to that in a minute.
00:27:19.700 | Then you look around and you say, "Okay, I'm good at the basics of my job. I'm able to operate all of the equipment.
00:27:24.700 | I'm able to actually – I'm competent at my job. Competent. And I work hard at it and I do it for enough hours."
00:27:33.700 | Well, now, let me see how I can increase the value.
00:27:35.700 | So the first thing I would think of is, is there a place that I can cut costs for the owner?
00:27:41.700 | Is there something I can do to cut down on the expenses of the company?
00:27:46.700 | Maybe I can learn to maintain the equipment properly and that'll save the owner money and repair costs.
00:27:52.700 | And they'll notice that every day I actually do check the oil on the machine every day and not just say I do and don't do it.
00:28:00.700 | Maybe I can learn to fix the equipment starting with the basics of how to get a flooded carburetor on a weed eater to work
00:28:07.700 | or going on to actually taking the mower deck apart, learning how to sharpen the blades.
00:28:12.700 | Simple things. But these all cut costs for the owner.
00:28:16.700 | Those are a good way to increase your value.
00:28:22.700 | But then what about people skills?
00:28:25.700 | Well, in this situation, I would be focused on learning to lead and encourage and motivate and inspire others.
00:28:31.700 | You got to start by leading by example.
00:28:33.700 | And the challenge in these types of trades is it takes time to demonstrate your worth.
00:28:38.700 | And there's this difficult human dynamic where you want to work, but you don't want to work too hard because if you're working too hard,
00:28:48.700 | a lot of times the other workers will try to tear you down, but you don't want to be the lazy person.
00:28:55.700 | So the incentive is usually just to work like as much as everyone else is doing.
00:28:59.700 | The key is to figure out how can I work a little bit stronger and take everyone else with me.
00:29:04.700 | Leadership. How can I take leadership? Build camaraderie.
00:29:10.700 | How can we figure out a way to get a little competition going and see how efficiently we can work?
00:29:16.700 | The foreman will see it. So will the boss.
00:29:20.700 | Now, you could take it a little bit higher and say, "How can I study where the money comes from and where the profit margins are?"
00:29:26.700 | So you figure out, "Okay, I am in charge of maintaining landscapes. What are the raw materials of the landscapes?
00:29:31.700 | Maybe I should spend some time studying the plants and the trees and the grass."
00:29:35.700 | What is the definition of a good job?
00:29:39.700 | And by there I was talking about the actual horticultural details.
00:29:41.700 | What does – do ficus trees like to be trimmed in this way or that way?
00:29:46.700 | Do banyan trees need fertilizer or not?
00:29:50.700 | Does St. Augustine grass, how many times should the fertilizer be applied versus Bermuda or versus whatever?
00:29:58.700 | Studying the actual details helps.
00:30:02.700 | Develop an eye for detail.
00:30:05.700 | What is a job well done?
00:30:07.700 | I've never done more than just work as a laborer on a landscape crew.
00:30:12.700 | So I don't actually know about the numbers behind the business.
00:30:16.700 | But here's my guess on where the money is in landscaping.
00:30:18.700 | If I'm wrong, come by the show notes and tell me.
00:30:20.700 | But if I were running a landscaping service, I think these would probably be the key drivers to profitability.
00:30:27.700 | Usually they just simply revolve around the number of customers, number of sales per customer and the value of each sale to customer.
00:30:34.700 | Then you got to go on the back end and look at the stuff there.
00:30:37.700 | But for landscaping, I would think here it would be focused on, number one, doing a big business in high-priced neighborhoods where quality matters.
00:30:45.700 | So here you're increasing the value of each sale.
00:30:48.700 | By working in a place where quality matters, you get into a scenario where you have a differentiated product and not just simply a commodity product.
00:30:57.700 | So you want to focus on – as this individual that we're coaching, we're going to develop an eye for detail and for customer service
00:31:03.700 | because getting into a high-priced neighborhood where there's potential for a higher profit margin requires that high level of service.
00:31:10.700 | Number two is my guess is that the real money comes from ancillary services such as installation of landscaping or reinstallation of landscaping, swapping it out.
00:31:23.700 | So one area to take advantage of that if that was true is can I be focused on becoming knowledgeable about the plants and the aesthetics of the design?
00:31:33.700 | Then number three, just what comes to me about the business is can I efficiently run the business?
00:31:41.700 | So if you can have ten customers on one block instead of ten customers across ten square miles across town, even if the value of all the customers is paying the same for you, you're going to have a much more efficient business.
00:31:56.700 | So by studying where the money would come from and where the profit margins are, focusing on – as this individual, learning a little bit about the plants that you're working with, developing an eye for detail and for good customer service, using the skills of communication that you're studying to be able to interface with the customer, you're systematically building your value and systematically moving up.
00:32:21.700 | The process starts with doing the job for which you were hired to do and doing it for as many hours as possible and working as hard on it as possible.
00:32:29.700 | But the true value is in upgrading the value of the work.
00:32:32.700 | The employee who can drive the truck safely without tearing it up, back the trailer up safely and carefully, who can assure the equipment is maintained, can fix it when it needs fixing without having to send it into the mechanic, and who can lead and inspire and train a crew of guys and train them and lead them to be productive and to work hard.
00:32:49.700 | And the person who can interface with the customer respectfully and successfully and take care of their complaints quickly and make sure that an excellent job is done every single time and make sure that they're continually making recommendations to the customer about ways that they can increase things and listening to the customer and going the extra mile.
00:33:07.700 | That employee is easily worth three times as much as the starting employee without skill.
00:33:13.700 | Now, in a business like landscaping, it's relatively simple to develop those skills.
00:33:18.700 | Those are not complicated skills.
00:33:20.700 | I don't know.
00:33:21.700 | Maybe I guess what, two or three years to make that jump, to go from $20,000 a year to $60,000 a year?
00:33:29.700 | My guess would be 20 grand would be a 40-hour workweek at $10 an hour.
00:33:34.700 | We already established it would be 30, but you get into the form and position, you're going to be around here, $60,000 to $90,000 depending on the size of the company.
00:33:42.700 | But you're ultimately going to top out there.
00:33:45.700 | You're going to top out at the $60,000-ish unless you develop other skills.
00:33:50.700 | So that would be where you would say, "Okay, well, have I tapped out and topped out where I am in this industry and should I switch and go into a more financially valuable skill?"
00:34:01.700 | And so here's where this person theoretically could pivot.
00:34:04.700 | And then they could go into sales.
00:34:07.700 | They could go into business management or into a very specialized technical field.
00:34:11.700 | And probably all three of them apply even in the landscape business.
00:34:14.700 | So, for example, you could sell for your company and make bonuses or commissions.
00:34:18.700 | Not once have I ever had one of the yard guys that works on my block come down, knock on the door, ask me if I wanted a quote for my yard.
00:34:26.700 | I don't know if I do or not.
00:34:27.700 | I don't even know what they charge.
00:34:28.700 | I'm kind of a do-it-yourselfer, but maybe I'd be willing.
00:34:31.700 | I think sometimes about the annoyance of having to do it.
00:34:34.700 | Not once have they come and made the call.
00:34:36.700 | It doesn't take much time to just simply walk down the block when you're finishing up your job and hang some door hangers.
00:34:42.700 | And if you do it on one block this time and one block the next time and one block the third time and mention that you're just nearby, things like that matter over time because what will happen is your competition, they'll screw up their job and the customer will be frustrated and say, "You know what?
00:34:55.700 | I will go ahead.
00:34:56.700 | I see these guys here every week.
00:34:57.700 | I will go ahead and talk to them."
00:34:59.700 | You might even do some fancy selling.
00:35:00.700 | If you're working in a neighborhood where you recognize that the person might have the ability and the capacity to finance a large installation of landscaping, you might drop a landscaping design for free and just leave it on the doorstep with a note asking if they want to quote it out or make recommendations.
00:35:19.700 | You could focus and you could build up the skills and set up a YouTube channel for your company and help people with their landscape design or teach people how to take care of their lawns and that will become a marketing tool for your local business.
00:35:31.700 | Or you could go the technical route and you could specialize in a technical field.
00:35:36.700 | You might take a basic knowledge of horticulture and become a comprehensive gardener for a private estate.
00:35:42.700 | I worked with a guy who's a financial planning client of mine one time who actually did that.
00:35:46.700 | He was a gardener, the master gardener for an estate on Palm Beach.
00:35:51.700 | Or you might become a chief groundskeeper for a golf course or you become a high-dollar landscape designer or you become the eco-friendly landscaping, putting in the fruit trees instead of the non-fruit-bearing trees.
00:36:07.700 | All of those would be ways where you take a foot in the door and you build up a technical background and apply those things in a technical scale.
00:36:14.700 | The golf course business and being a chief groundskeeper is a big deal and you better know how to keep that grass green and perfect.
00:36:21.700 | Or you could focus on the business skills and you could start your own company or just simply help the owner expand theirs.
00:36:27.700 | So that scaling up would require you to focus on building up business management skills or financial skills or accounting skills or sales skills or a variety of skills like that.
00:36:38.700 | So through the example of a basic job, we can see how this framework and this process can be applied.
00:36:55.700 | What does the educational process look like?
00:36:57.700 | Well, start simply.
00:36:58.700 | What are the basics of operating this equipment?
00:37:00.700 | Working hard should just be something that's taught hopefully by your mom and dad, but if not, hopefully you got someone that comes along and takes you under their wings.
00:37:08.700 | Then maybe it starts with taking the equipment manuals home at night and reading through them so you understand how to operate this piece of equipment, what the maintenance cycles are on it.
00:37:17.700 | I use the example of an immigrant maybe to learn English so it becomes classes at a local library or studying leadership, reading some John Maxwell books and figuring out how can I lead my crew.
00:37:29.700 | Lead even though I'm not in a technical position or position of leadership, but rather than just leading as a person, building the interpersonal skills and it goes on.
00:37:38.700 | So my hope is that you can see through that simple example how you can make it big in a simple field like landscaping.
00:37:47.700 | The cool thing about that field, I know a bunch of people who have done that.
00:37:53.700 | That path is very well worn and once you understand the framework for it, the outline, then you can understand how to use it to increase your income.
00:38:02.700 | What about the engineer?
00:38:04.700 | Let's go back to Kevin's example here because Kevin answered my question and he gave his feedback and his thoughts.
00:38:11.700 | And so I responded and said, "Well, which of these three areas do you need to focus on?"
00:38:16.700 | He says, "I've given it some thought and I'm planning on giving a speech at Toastmasters on the topic.
00:38:20.700 | Unfortunately, in my day job as a chemical engineer, I'm not really paid according to the output or number of hours I work.
00:38:26.700 | I enjoy my work and I work hard, but since I am employed by the army, they don't really pay me according to my output.
00:38:31.700 | However, I do earn a pretty high wage, about $80,000, and I love working with military personnel.
00:38:37.700 | They are about the smartest, most professional patriotic people in this country.
00:38:41.700 | I'm also paid via 1099 for the Ron Paul curriculum as the chemistry teacher.
00:38:46.700 | This is entirely based on how much my curriculum sells.
00:38:49.700 | This probably has more potential to earn more money since it's a sales job.
00:38:52.700 | I should in theory be paid according to both my output and the quality of my product, my chemistry curriculum that I am selling.
00:38:58.700 | Number two, I believe I put out quality work.
00:39:00.700 | I use Evernote as my main productivity tool and I also block certain time-wasting websites when I have my nose to the grind wheel.
00:39:06.700 | I think the quality of my work is only going to increase from here.
00:39:09.700 | Sometimes I procrastinate.
00:39:10.700 | That's probably where I'm the weakest, but in my defense, it's tough to sit and work through engineering and chemistry work for extended periods of time.
00:39:16.700 | My brain just gets tired.
00:39:19.700 | The professional engineer license will definitely make me far more valuable in the workplace as an engineer as well as the fact that it carries with it some level of prestige.
00:39:27.700 | I plan to take the exam in the spring of 2016.
00:39:30.700 | Unfortunately, the exam is only offered twice a year, fall and spring, and I'm not going to be ready to take it this fall.
00:39:35.700 | After I pass the exam, I'm going to continue with my personal development as a chemical engineer by attending the American Institute of Chemical Engineering conferences and taking courses through them as well.
00:39:47.700 | And then as far as the Ron Paul curriculum, I think spending more time interacting with the kids in the chemistry forum would be most beneficial.
00:39:53.700 | Ron Paul curriculum is kind of in its infant stages, so I haven't received much meaningful feedback yet.
00:39:58.700 | I know some of the lessons need to be reworked and he goes on.
00:40:01.700 | So feel free to use me as a case study for the show.
00:40:03.700 | I had his permission to cover this.
00:40:05.700 | So let's talk about this as the example within the context of a professional occupation like engineering.
00:40:10.700 | Well, we kind of run into an immediate roadblock with the army employment because the only place that my formula actually works is in the free market.
00:40:18.700 | And government employment is one of those places within the free market where there is no free market.
00:40:24.700 | In theory, you have the opportunity for things like promotion and advancement, but that's pretty limited and that's much more due to the politics involved than necessarily your productive capacity.
00:40:37.700 | For whatever reason, well, it seems to be that that seems to be the case.
00:40:43.700 | So certainly your proficiency does come into play in some regards, but the higher you go, it's much more to do with your political competency than your actual skill and productivity.
00:40:53.700 | When you're not in a free market environment, you have to sit and look and try to figure out, well, what should I do?
00:40:59.700 | And the reason why I'm using this as an example is because people will often say, well, at my company, they just don't reward productive people.
00:41:08.700 | My boss just isn't going to pay attention.
00:41:11.700 | It's probably not true about 90% of the time when people make that allegation.
00:41:16.700 | So if you're making that complaint, it's probably simply not true.
00:41:19.700 | Your company runs like anything else, and if you apply yourself, you're either going to get noticed within that company or somebody is going to come along and notice and hire you out.
00:41:29.700 | Now, in about 10% of the cases, it probably is true.
00:41:33.700 | You've probably angered somebody.
00:41:35.700 | There's a political vendetta.
00:41:37.700 | The company is messed up in some way, and that probably is true in some of the people that are complaining about it.
00:41:43.700 | But you face the same decision in that situation as you do here in the government entity.
00:41:48.700 | So if you want to work in a bureaucratic environment and you want to work for the government, then I would say, well, if you're lazy and you don't want to work hard or be subject to the demands of the free market, then, yeah, government employment is the way to go.
00:42:00.700 | Do what you simply need to get your foot in the door and go along to get along.
00:42:04.700 | Be a yes man or a yes woman, and you'll advance through the ranks over the time.
00:42:09.700 | And do the bare minimum work you need to do to not get sacked and enjoy your time off.
00:42:13.700 | And that's the same whether it's a government job or a non-government job that's just simply in a twisted, messed up work environment.
00:42:20.700 | Just do the minimum you need to do.
00:42:22.700 | Now, in the long run, in both of those scenarios, your job is severely endangered.
00:42:27.700 | On the government basis, your job is endangered in the long run due to lack of funding, although in the short term, you guys are pretty safe.
00:42:34.700 | But in the non-government entity, you're pretty endangered because over time, your company is doomed.
00:42:42.700 | So make sure in either of those scenarios that you're saving money along the way so that when you get sacked, you're not stuck.
00:42:47.700 | Now, if you're not lazy and you actually want to work and you want to advance yourself, which you wouldn't be listening to this show if you didn't want that, then use the place that you are as a launching pad.
00:42:58.700 | But recognize the specific things that will hinder you from going too far.
00:43:07.700 | So in the sense of the government position or the government engineering position that was outlined here, in that type of scenario, there's not going to be a lot of incentive to put in a lot of extra hours.
00:43:19.700 | And although you should be working, there's not going to be a lot of incentive to really be increasing your output.
00:43:26.700 | So the key is to focus on increasing the value.
00:43:31.700 | You got to do the minimum that you need to do to get any promotions that are there.
00:43:35.700 | And if you're going to be there for the long term, then figure out how to work that system.
00:43:38.700 | But look at the post non-free market position and use that as a launching pad.
00:43:48.700 | So there, focus on taking the training, building the resume, learning the skills, taking the non-monetary compensation.
00:43:54.700 | Or just simply using it to advance your goals.
00:43:58.700 | Remember that all of us are business owners.
00:44:01.700 | We're all the president and CEO of our own personal services corporation.
00:44:06.700 | Now, we just happen to have one really good customer.
00:44:12.700 | That's called your current employer.
00:44:14.700 | But your current employer is making you an offer as a customer, and they're saying, "I'll give you this in exchange for that."
00:44:18.700 | And so the key is to find the place where that exchange is the best deal for you.
00:44:25.700 | For example, you can take that non-free market alternative.
00:44:28.700 | I've had clients that I've worked in this scenario where they're getting a medical degree.
00:44:33.700 | They're getting a dental degree, something like that.
00:44:36.700 | And they go ahead and take the education route of the army paying for their degree in exchange for not indebting themselves severely with student loans to pay for the degree.
00:44:46.700 | It's a great route.
00:44:48.700 | If you're an engineer, take all the education you can get and build the connections within the service because most people aren't career army employees.
00:44:55.700 | They usually are in there for a period of time, and those connections can be incredibly valuable.
00:44:58.700 | Think about the life after the army and use that as, I guess, a way of thinking to increase the value.
00:45:08.700 | So let's get back to the framework.
00:45:10.700 | Because of the army connection, the idea of increasing the number of hours at your job has limited appeal.
00:45:14.700 | You don't get extra pay for more hours.
00:45:16.700 | There are few advancement opportunities for more hours, so don't waste your time there.
00:45:19.700 | Invest your time elsewhere and build up those other values.
00:45:25.700 | Now, back to the specific examples here that Kevin mentioned, and even the first one, the first comment that I read.
00:45:31.700 | In his original comment, he talked about being a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, but unfortunately there isn't a local chapter where I'm at currently.
00:45:40.700 | And I mentioned start a chapter.
00:45:42.700 | I repeat that. Start a chapter.
00:45:45.700 | Now, you may not necessarily want to start a formal chapter, but at least start an informal chapter.
00:45:50.700 | Your organization might have some posting boards, might have an industry publication, it might have a Facebook group.
00:45:58.700 | If not, make one.
00:45:59.700 | Figure out a way to get in contact and just try to figure out a way to establish a local chapter of chemical engineers there in your area.
00:46:08.700 | It might be as simple as once a month, beers down at the local wing place on Friday evening with any chemical engineers that you can scrape together.
00:46:18.700 | But start with two or three that you know and build it out.
00:46:20.700 | Start the chapter.
00:46:22.700 | That's what will ultimately lead to your finding out about more opportunities and finding out where the opportunities are.
00:46:27.700 | In every field, there are areas of growth and areas of decline, and you need to know what area is growing.
00:46:35.700 | I don't know anything about chemical engineering, but my guess is that there's some very exciting field where engineers with competence and ability are very valued right now.
00:46:49.700 | You need to identify that field and you need to find out who the companies are.
00:46:53.700 | You need to start now to be building the network, and that's going to come with starting the local chapter.
00:46:57.700 | You joined Toastmasters and you're working through the competent communicator manual.
00:47:00.700 | That's awesome. That's going to help you.
00:47:01.700 | But now you have to leverage that in your job and you have to market the value that you're building.
00:47:06.700 | So you have to start doing more presentations at work or whatever it is.
00:47:10.700 | And then you're spending the time studying to take the professional engineer exam at a prep course.
00:47:14.700 | That is the big deal in your industry.
00:47:16.700 | That's the big one, and so that's definitely – I would put that at the top of the list.
00:47:20.700 | I don't know if the army gives you an additional stipend for having a PE, but the private market certainly does.
00:47:25.700 | If you can figure out where the market is going and what the qualifications are, the courses are, then you can adjust everything.
00:47:35.700 | So you can say, "OK, I've got my PE. That's giving me the generalized knowledge.
00:47:39.700 | The Institute of Chemical Engineers is going to offer some individual courses in some specialized fields.
00:47:46.700 | Pick the ones that are in line with where the market is growing for those services."
00:47:51.700 | And then apply your technical learning, apply your technical work in those areas.
00:47:56.700 | I'm not going to go too much more into depth of it, but it's the same thing for all of us in every industry.
00:48:02.700 | It's an area of technical specialization.
00:48:04.700 | It's an area of functioning well within our existing situation.
00:48:09.700 | And it's about marketing that in different markets, both marketing it within the company that you're in,
00:48:14.700 | marketing it effectively, and then marketing it without.
00:48:17.700 | You mentioned that you chose an industry that doesn't lend itself well to entrepreneurship.
00:48:22.700 | It's probably true, but there are a couple different kinds of entrepreneurship.
00:48:26.700 | I don't know if this is something other people have used. It probably is.
00:48:29.700 | But think of it as entrepreneurship and, I don't know, let's make up a word, intrapreneurship,
00:48:33.700 | meaning marketing yourself as an entrepreneur in the broader market
00:48:37.700 | and also marketing yourself as an entrepreneur within your organization currently.
00:48:42.700 | So it certainly does take a lot of brain power to sit and read chemical engineering texts.
00:48:48.700 | I don't think you could do that hours a day. I couldn't. I can't do it with financial planning texts.
00:48:53.700 | But you probably also need to study a little bit on the science of self-confidence
00:48:57.700 | and you probably also need to study a little bit on how to show love to your wife
00:49:02.700 | and you probably also need to study a little bit on how to negotiate for a better salary.
00:49:08.700 | Not going to work in the army. You're paid based on class.
00:49:10.700 | But maybe there's a trick in the army, something you can do.
00:49:13.700 | Maybe by studying a foreign language and going to another sector of the world, you can get increased pay.
00:49:18.700 | I don't even know if that's something you want to do.
00:49:20.700 | There's probably something in the army environment that you can do.
00:49:23.700 | So intersperse those things.
00:49:25.700 | That's why I focused on the value aspect is you've got to increase your own value
00:49:30.700 | and then one of the other aspects of it is market that value more effectively.
00:49:35.700 | Hope those ideas are helpful.
00:49:37.700 | I've had a number of other occupations that I had listed out here to kind of go through as examples
00:49:42.700 | but I think you get the point at this stage.
00:49:46.700 | I don't think I need to go into any more examples.
00:49:49.700 | In your current occupation, you can do this.
00:49:54.700 | Take this framework of these three things and apply it to your current job.
00:50:03.700 | If you can figure out where your highest value initial stage of attack would be,
00:50:09.700 | then it will give you some guidance.
00:50:11.700 | Just think about working more hours, increasing output per hour,
00:50:15.700 | and then ultimately increasing the value of output.
00:50:18.700 | Remember that working more hours is very short-term, highest immediate payoff, lowest long-term payoff.
00:50:26.700 | Increasing the output per hour has short-term payoff and long-term payoff.
00:50:30.700 | Then increasing the value of the output usually takes the longest but has the highest long-term payoff.
00:50:38.700 | I think with that framework in mind, you'll be well-equipped to consistently increase your earnings.
00:50:45.700 | I think I'm going to quit there for today.
00:50:48.700 | Good to be back.
00:50:50.700 | I've got a bunch of show ideas lined up for these coming weeks and working all around.
00:50:55.700 | Thank you all so much for listening.
00:50:57.700 | Two things as we close out the show today.
00:50:59.700 | One, I am bringing a bunch more sponsors and affiliates on the show, doing some additional things there.
00:51:05.700 | I'll record a separate show about that in the future as I start to release things and tell you about my model.
00:51:12.700 | The Patreon campaign has been a massive success in terms of total support.
00:51:17.700 | Thank you for each and every one of you who is supporting the show.
00:51:20.700 | I really appreciate it. It means a lot to me.
00:51:23.700 | I thank you for doing that.
00:51:25.700 | It's not quite enough for me to be able to live on and that's where I need to make the adjustment right now is to be able to live on it.
00:51:31.700 | So number one, if you would like to support the show directly, please do so as a patron.
00:51:36.700 | There are a number of benefits there for you.
00:51:38.700 | You can find details at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:51:42.700 | We're almost $2,000 a month.
00:51:44.700 | We have 200 patrons and I've got a bunch more stuff continuing to come there that I want to keep building that program because I want that to be at the core.
00:51:50.700 | Number two, to support the show, I've also built out and I'm going to be building out a number of affiliate relationships and sponsors.
00:51:56.700 | The one that I want to mention today is again the FinCon Expo.
00:52:00.700 | So I have an affiliate code for the – it used to be the Financial Bloggers Conference.
00:52:04.700 | They changed it to FinCon.
00:52:06.700 | I've mentioned that on the show a few times and consider coming if that might be something that would benefit you and your – I guess either your personal connection or your personal business in some way.
00:52:17.700 | It will be this September in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 17th through September 20th.
00:52:23.700 | And list of speakers is truly fantastic.
00:52:26.700 | Keynote speakers is Grant Baldwin, Carl Richards, and Tess Viglund.
00:52:30.700 | And then there are a bunch of speakers that will be presenting individual panels, everyone from Pat Flynn and Mike Moyer and Deacon Hayes and David Stein who has been on the show and Jeff Rose from Good Financial Sense.
00:52:42.700 | And me, I'll be presenting Mark and Lauren Groopman who are on the show, Jared Easley from Podcast Movement, Bill Winterberg which I'll be releasing an interview with him this week, Steve Stewart, a bunch of people.
00:52:55.700 | Michael Kitsis will be there presenting a session.
00:52:57.700 | Consider coming.
00:52:58.700 | You can find out all the details at FinConExpo.com and I have an affiliate code.
00:53:03.700 | If you want to – if you're going to buy your tickets, I would love it if you would buy them and I'll get a commission on them.
00:53:07.700 | You can find that affiliate code at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/FinCon.
00:53:13.700 | F-I-N-C-O-N, RadicalPersonalFinance.com/FinCon.
00:53:17.700 | I'm out.
00:53:18.700 | Thanks so much.
00:53:19.700 | Thank you for listening to today's show.
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00:53:51.700 | If you'd like to contact me personally, my email address is Joshua@RadicalPersonalFinance.com
00:53:56.700 | or connect with the show on Twitter @RadicalPF and at Facebook.com/RadicalPersonalFinance.
00:54:03.700 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment.
00:54:09.700 | But your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.
00:54:16.700 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy
00:54:23.700 | and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs,
00:54:28.700 | your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.
00:54:33.700 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes.
00:54:39.700 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please come by the show page and comment so we can all learn together.
00:54:45.700 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.
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