RPF0369-Dont_Wait_for_Financial_Abundance
00:00:00.000 | In past episodes of Radical Personal Finance, I've talked about the seven stages of financial
00:00:05.760 | independence which I designed a couple years ago.
00:00:08.760 | These stages are where you go from stage zero financial dependence and systematically, step
00:00:12.600 | by step, work your way through financial independence and on to financial abundance.
00:00:18.520 | But the reality is this process is going to take a really long time for most of us.
00:00:23.320 | It's going to take, at the minimum, a few years.
00:00:26.560 | At the most, maybe many decades and perhaps our whole life.
00:00:31.040 | So here's the question.
00:00:32.040 | What if there were a way to short circuit the process?
00:00:36.000 | What if you could skip straight from where you are to stage seven, financial abundance,
00:00:41.880 | without passing through all of the other stages?
00:00:47.520 | Would that be worth it?
00:00:48.520 | Well, I think you can and today I'm going to share with you some ideas on how.
00:01:08.920 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:01:12.160 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while
00:01:17.160 | building a plan for financial freedom in ten years or less.
00:01:20.360 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host and today we get philosophical.
00:01:26.280 | I think there's a way to short circuit this whole process and yes, I know I designed the
00:01:30.400 | model so maybe I designed it from the beginning to be collapsed.
00:01:33.800 | But I'm going to talk to you about some things that I don't hear many people talking about
00:01:38.440 | and I hope you benefit.
00:01:42.440 | And throughout this world of financial independence, wealth building, retirement, early retirement,
00:01:49.560 | just this whole world that I live and work in, there are a lot of concepts and a lot
00:01:53.480 | of things that we often skip past.
00:01:56.800 | And I've been thinking a lot.
00:01:57.800 | I've threatened to do this show a number of times, this show on skipping straight to financial
00:02:01.200 | abundance.
00:02:02.200 | I've been thinking a lot about it though.
00:02:03.200 | This last few days, last week I was interviewed on Paula Pant's program at affordanything.com
00:02:10.040 | on her podcast.
00:02:11.480 | And she released that show and it seemed to be fairly popular.
00:02:14.280 | I've gotten some good feedback on that.
00:02:16.280 | And in that show, the dominant topic of conversation was these stages of financial independence.
00:02:23.880 | In short, for those of you who are new listeners, I began with stage zero, financial dependence,
00:02:30.260 | move on to stage one, financial solvency, stage two, financial stability, stage three,
00:02:36.080 | financial freedom, stage four, financial security, stage five, financial independence, stage
00:02:41.320 | six, financial freedom, and stage seven being financial abundance.
00:02:45.040 | So I kind of broke this process of wealth building down into some more actionable steps
00:02:49.760 | to try to get more wins and more celebrations along the way.
00:02:52.880 | If you're interested in that, go back and listen to episode 174 of Radical Personal
00:02:56.360 | Finance or jump over to affordanything.com and you can listen to the podcast there.
00:03:00.940 | It is episode 39 of her show.
00:03:03.200 | And I'll do more shows on it in the future.
00:03:04.560 | And I'll probably release that show into my RSS feed at some point in the future so that
00:03:09.160 | you can hear Paula's interview when I'm traveling, something like that.
00:03:12.440 | But I really enjoyed talking about these stages.
00:03:14.320 | But even when I was designing them, I was trying to figure out how does this make sense.
00:03:22.240 | And who knows, I might change them in the future.
00:03:23.920 | But the one that most intrigues me and that really intrigues a lot of people is stage
00:03:30.440 | seven, financial abundance.
00:03:33.680 | Let me articulate what financial abundance is very clearly by just simply reading off
00:03:38.100 | of the website at radicalpersonalfinance.com where I wrote this.
00:03:41.480 | Stage seven is financial abundance.
00:03:43.280 | When you reach this stage of your financial journey, you've reached the most challenging
00:03:47.440 | stage of all.
00:03:48.960 | But it can be a very enjoyable challenge.
00:03:51.600 | You've accumulated wealth beyond the amount needed to fund your own lifestyle expenses
00:03:56.680 | with a comfortable margin of safety.
00:03:59.960 | Now you have to decide how to responsibly manage the surplus.
00:04:05.120 | How will you allocate it productively while you control it?
00:04:08.560 | And who will control it when you're done with it?
00:04:10.760 | How will you assure that the money is used for good and not for evil?
00:04:15.960 | It's a real challenge, but it's one faced by all those who have faithfully and steadily
00:04:20.800 | built wealth throughout their lifetimes.
00:04:23.760 | It's the most important stage of all.
00:04:25.640 | So that's how I define financial abundance.
00:04:27.920 | And we've passed through this point of meeting all of your own needs, meeting all of your
00:04:31.640 | current needs plus any future anticipated needs, and you've got plenty of money is
00:04:35.680 | the idea.
00:04:37.520 | But I'm convinced that you don't have to wait until you've got that point to experience
00:04:42.280 | this mindset.
00:04:43.520 | I'm convinced you can have this mindset of financial abundance from the beginning.
00:04:47.360 | And I don't mean this mindset of kind of this airy fairy, I'm just going to imagine that
00:04:52.360 | I have financial abundance.
00:04:53.360 | I'm going to sit in my easy chair and imagine $100 bills floating into my life.
00:04:57.480 | I mean, okay, if some people want to delude themselves, that's fine, but I prefer to stay
00:05:01.720 | in the world of honest, you know, I prefer not to start by lying to myself.
00:05:07.920 | So imagining dollar bills floating into your life is, I don't know, for some people maybe
00:05:13.520 | it's valuable, but more valuable to imagine what you're trying to accomplish and then
00:05:17.400 | imagine the plan to get there and then get busy and get to work.
00:05:20.400 | It doesn't come from imagining, it comes from work.
00:05:23.680 | But we're not going to talk about it in that sense.
00:05:25.680 | We're going to talk about it in a very real sense of enjoying and appreciating that you
00:05:31.680 | can move always from a place of financial abundance.
00:05:36.320 | Because if you're listening to the sound of my voice right now, I'm pretty confident just
00:05:40.760 | due to the fact that you have internet access, most likely on a mobile device, and that you
00:05:45.880 | speak English.
00:05:48.120 | Guess what, the vast majority of you are wealthy, incredibly wealthy on a global standard.
00:05:58.000 | We don't often stop to appreciate that.
00:06:00.840 | You already have financial abundance.
00:06:03.480 | Even if you think back to the way that I wrote this, think about how many of these things
00:06:08.220 | apply to you.
00:06:10.960 | Because I was careful to not necessarily put in here that you can do this all off of the
00:06:16.080 | income from your investments.
00:06:18.560 | Read this again and let me ask you this.
00:06:21.520 | You've accumulated wealth beyond the amount needed to fund your own lifestyle expenses
00:06:27.120 | with a comfortable margin of safety.
00:06:30.400 | Now I know that not all of you, and in fact very few of you listening, have that amount
00:06:34.460 | of wealth sitting behind where you can just live on your wealth.
00:06:37.400 | But do you not have enough money, enough wealth to fund your own lifestyle expenses?
00:06:42.120 | And do you not have a somewhat comfortable margin of safety?
00:06:46.040 | Can you have some excess every month?
00:06:48.920 | I know not everybody, many of you are struggling, but the majority of you are already there.
00:06:55.240 | Now you have to decide how to responsibly manage the surplus.
00:06:58.960 | Do you not have some surplus in your budget?
00:07:02.080 | How will you allocate it productively while you control it?
00:07:05.760 | And who will control it when you're done with it?
00:07:07.440 | Do you not already have that problem?
00:07:10.400 | You die and leave your house to your errors.
00:07:13.600 | Well, is that what you should do or should you do something else?
00:07:17.400 | How will you assure that the money is used for good and not for evil?
00:07:22.000 | Now I know I'm part of the now generation.
00:07:24.400 | I know that the idea is that we're supposed to get everything now.
00:07:28.240 | We just, you know, my age, my generation, we want to be at the top now.
00:07:31.400 | Well, there's good things and bad things about that.
00:07:35.040 | The bad thing is if we get into this delusion of saying that we just deserve it simply because
00:07:40.840 | we exist, I deserve to be at the top of my pay scale because I just started and I'm really
00:07:45.560 | good looking.
00:07:46.560 | Well, come on.
00:07:47.560 | But on the other hand, that now idea is really valuable because why wait if you don't have
00:07:52.280 | to?
00:07:53.280 | Why wait if you've already developed the skills?
00:07:54.640 | Why wait if you figured out a different way to do things?
00:07:58.960 | I'm very much part of the now generation because I always think constantly, you know, as Stephen
00:08:07.120 | Covey said, I begin with the end in mind and I think the best end in mind to begin with
00:08:11.960 | is the fact that you're going to die.
00:08:13.720 | I'm going to die.
00:08:14.720 | Now we don't know when it is, but you're going to die and I'm going to die.
00:08:18.320 | And so we always begin with that in mind and what's going to happen at that situation.
00:08:22.760 | So with regard to the now generation, this, or my being part of the now generation, this
00:08:26.680 | dramatically affects my own personal lifestyle.
00:08:29.200 | I tell my family and friends and I tell you now, don't give me a nice eulogy at my funeral.
00:08:34.000 | I mean, I'm sure that'll happen.
00:08:36.060 | Thank you very much.
00:08:37.300 | But tell me now, go ahead and write me a note now and encourage me or do that to somebody
00:08:43.520 | else.
00:08:44.520 | Don't wait to give your dad or your mom or your best friend a nice eulogy.
00:08:49.160 | Tell them how you feel now while they can actually appreciate it.
00:08:53.120 | Because when they're dead, they're dead and gone.
00:08:54.880 | They're not listening to you from the casket.
00:08:58.000 | Funerals are for the people who are alive, not for the person who's dead.
00:09:00.780 | So make sure that when you get to your friend's funeral, your family member's funerals, that
00:09:04.120 | you're not left anything unsaid.
00:09:07.560 | Don't send me flowers when I'm dead.
00:09:10.720 | Does me no good.
00:09:11.720 | I can't smell the flowers.
00:09:13.320 | I can't admire the beauty.
00:09:14.960 | Send them to me now.
00:09:18.120 | August 25th is a great day to give flowers.
00:09:21.620 | That way they can be enjoyed and appreciated.
00:09:25.600 | Don't wait to give someone in your family flowers when they're dead.
00:09:30.560 | Send them to them now.
00:09:32.640 | And then the same thing, don't leave money to me when you're dead.
00:09:36.800 | Tell my parents, "Don't leave money to me when you're dead.
00:09:39.400 | Either give it to me now while I can spend it and invest it and we can enjoy it together.
00:09:43.920 | Or if you want to spend it on me, spend it on me now.
00:09:45.980 | Or let's work on it now."
00:09:47.920 | But why wait?
00:09:49.480 | Yes, obviously there's a need for the money and we have a certain need.
00:09:53.440 | There are some assets that are only going to pass at death because they're being used.
00:09:57.220 | But we can do a lot now if we pay attention.
00:10:00.240 | So what's the point of waiting to the time when you get the least enjoyment out of something
00:10:07.400 | when you can get there quicker?
00:10:13.120 | Why wait?
00:10:16.480 | Why work like a maniac so that someday you can go and fish when you can walk down to
00:10:23.160 | the shores of a river or creek or pond or lake or ocean near you and drop a fishing
00:10:29.120 | pole in the water after work today?
00:10:33.160 | The deferred life plan is not a great plan.
00:10:37.360 | Now there's a season for all things.
00:10:38.640 | There's a season to work and there's a season to rest.
00:10:42.800 | But the idea that I fight against is that somehow you push everything to the future.
00:10:50.240 | I don't think you have to.
00:10:52.140 | Now there are many paradoxes of finance.
00:10:55.080 | Almost titles today show the paradoxes of finance because I've been thinking about these
00:10:58.500 | things that just seem so evident to me based upon the vantage point that I have of looking
00:11:03.020 | at the industry and talking to people.
00:11:04.280 | I hope you hear it in the way that I interview people.
00:11:06.360 | I hope you hear it when I interview people who are wealthy and I ask, "What's great about
00:11:09.640 | what you've experienced and what's not great about what you've experienced?"
00:11:13.400 | Now think back to the interviews you've listened to in all 360 something episodes of the show
00:11:18.400 | and think back and ask yourself, "Have I ever heard a rich person say, 'Wow, my life just
00:11:25.240 | totally changed when I got rich.
00:11:27.600 | It was just so much better.'"
00:11:28.640 | You haven't heard that, have you?
00:11:36.840 | Because when you're rich, you're just more of who you are now.
00:11:39.640 | And here are some of the paradoxes of wealth.
00:11:41.480 | First, let me talk about the paradoxes of health.
00:11:46.380 | One of the things that's plagued me and dogged my heels for many years was the idea of dieting
00:11:53.100 | so that someday I would be skinny without the idea of embracing a different lifestyle.
00:11:59.940 | And I've noticed that people who are healthy and who are fit and who are skinny, in order
00:12:07.020 | to get that way and achieve that result and to keep it for a long term, they have to change
00:12:12.960 | their perspective.
00:12:15.280 | They can't have the perspective of, "I'm going to diet so that I can eat whatever I want."
00:12:24.700 | They have to change it and say, "I'm going to become a different person and I'm going
00:12:27.920 | to choose to value what it's like to be healthy and thin and fit more than I value the taste
00:12:35.940 | of junk food."
00:12:40.000 | Keep that idea in your mind that you can observe in society around as we talk about the paradoxes
00:12:47.040 | of wealth, because I'm convinced it's a very good metaphor.
00:12:53.980 | In the same way that you don't get thin and fit and healthy by going on a diet for a short
00:13:00.840 | period of time to achieve it so you can go back to your old way, you don't get rich by
00:13:06.760 | pursuing some get rich quick scheme so that you can get rich and then go back and spend
00:13:10.960 | all your money.
00:13:12.960 | The only thing that works over the long term is to become a different person.
00:13:18.720 | That's what's so paradoxical about wealth.
00:13:23.000 | Because poor people often pursue wealth with the idea that they'll be able to get a lot
00:13:28.740 | of stuff.
00:13:30.040 | Now, wealthy people often have some nice stuff.
00:13:34.340 | All the houses on Palm Beach Island and the yachts on the shores where I live, they're
00:13:40.280 | owned by somebody.
00:13:43.840 | But usually they're not so into stuff as the guy next door who's out polishing his new
00:13:48.480 | boat every weekend.
00:13:51.220 | It's just that the stuff is kind of nice and it's just a small fraction of their net worth
00:13:54.480 | and it's great to have, but it's not all about the stuff.
00:13:58.280 | So recognize the fact that when you're wealthy, you probably won't be all that into the ownership
00:14:03.400 | and acquisition of stuff.
00:14:06.000 | Because in order to become wealthy, you probably gave up some of that along the way.
00:14:11.660 | And when you are in the future, going ahead and buying some stuff, it's going to be with
00:14:17.720 | a small portion of your net worth and it's just nice to have.
00:14:20.440 | It's nice to have a ski boat so the grandkids can have something to do and it's nice to
00:14:23.160 | have a lake house where all the family can gather.
00:14:25.360 | But if you had to sell the lake house, no big deal.
00:14:28.240 | You could do it.
00:14:29.240 | Now, one that's been challenging to me is recognize this, when you're wealthy and you
00:14:35.440 | don't have to do anything with your time, you're probably not going to be all that into
00:14:39.400 | free time as you are right now where you're working and saying, "Oh, if I just had a break,
00:14:45.440 | if I just had a vacation."
00:14:49.480 | When you're successful, you probably won't be all that into slothfulness.
00:14:53.720 | Learned this one myself more and more, that when you get yourself in a position where
00:14:58.640 | you don't have to work or you don't have to work on somebody else's projects, you'll probably
00:15:03.680 | find that you'll want to work and you're going to be working more than other people.
00:15:11.480 | Self-employed people, wealthy people often seem to work much harder than many other people.
00:15:18.040 | Why?
00:15:19.080 | Because their goal wasn't just free time.
00:15:23.520 | The goal wasn't just slothfulness.
00:15:27.780 | When you've traveled a lot, you probably won't be all that into travel.
00:15:30.600 | You'll probably want to stay home a little bit.
00:15:33.680 | Now, to all things, there's a season.
00:15:35.600 | I'm not opposed to rest.
00:15:36.680 | I'm not opposed to vacation.
00:15:37.800 | I'm not opposed to sabbaticals.
00:15:39.880 | I'm not opposed to stuff.
00:15:41.400 | I'm not opposed to travel.
00:15:44.320 | But those aren't the goal.
00:15:47.220 | Those are just things along the way.
00:15:51.360 | Self-gratification is limited in its enjoyment.
00:15:56.140 | Rest is most valuable when you're tired from work, not as a lifestyle.
00:16:05.360 | Have a neighbor of mine, lives on Social Security, very small amount of income, lives very frugally.
00:16:11.320 | All he does is basically watch movies all day.
00:16:15.000 | Drives me nuts.
00:16:16.000 | I cannot imagine doing what he does.
00:16:19.840 | Now, are we different people?
00:16:21.840 | Obviously.
00:16:22.840 | We're different personalities, yes.
00:16:24.560 | But I just don't know how to relate.
00:16:26.320 | I mean, I have to recognize my own limitations.
00:16:30.360 | Maybe even some of you listening say, "I'm nothing like Joshua."
00:16:32.600 | Yeah, Joshua, that sounds great.
00:16:34.340 | I don't know.
00:16:35.340 | I don't know how to relate to you if sitting around and watching movies all day, every
00:16:40.760 | day, seven days a week is your thing.
00:16:46.500 | I don't know.
00:16:47.500 | I respect your ability to be an individual person and to do what you like to do, but
00:16:51.800 | I don't get it.
00:16:52.800 | I don't get it.
00:16:53.800 | It seems like a waste to me.
00:16:56.000 | Why waste your life on stuff that doesn't matter?
00:17:01.520 | Invest your life into something that matters.
00:17:03.440 | That's why retirement, in my opinion, is a very short-sighted decision.
00:17:09.120 | Now, here I'm not talking about stopping to do work or quitting a job.
00:17:14.600 | I'm talking about retirement as this idea that we're going to go from being productive
00:17:18.320 | to being unproductive.
00:17:20.580 | Why would you stop being productive?
00:17:22.160 | Why would you stop contributing?
00:17:24.060 | Why would you stop working?
00:17:26.820 | Don't do that.
00:17:27.820 | Now, if you want to change, cool.
00:17:29.720 | Go for it.
00:17:30.720 | I don't think I'll be doing radical personal finance in a couple of decades.
00:17:33.240 | I'll be doing something else.
00:17:35.080 | I don't think that if you work for GE, you need to work for GE the rest of your life.
00:17:40.180 | But don't pull out of the things that matter.
00:17:45.080 | Adjust every stage along the line.
00:17:48.440 | That's what's so great is that if you get freed from this idea that I've got to work
00:17:52.880 | this career for 30 years so that I can retire and dispense with the whole retirement goal,
00:17:57.640 | it opens you up to other approaches, other possibilities, other things.
00:18:05.200 | To me, even though I'm probably struggling to articulate it, I don't want to necessarily
00:18:10.560 | go into all of my hopes and dreams, but it just seems like I've got so many compelling
00:18:17.920 | things, so many compelling projects, so many things I want to do, I can't imagine turning
00:18:23.640 | around and saying, "Oh, I'm not going to do anything."
00:18:25.600 | Now, I couldn't have said that some years ago.
00:18:33.360 | That's one of the most important things about pursuing financial independence is as you
00:18:37.000 | start to experience and enjoy the process and start to recognize that you do have some
00:18:43.160 | freedom, that you do have some capital, that you do have some control.
00:18:47.280 | It opens your mind to different things.
00:18:50.360 | It's hard to tell a mailroom employee, "Oh, yeah, fishing, it's not that great," if they
00:18:55.360 | don't like being in the mailroom, if they feel like their work in the mailroom doesn't
00:18:58.920 | matter and they're dreaming about going and fishing.
00:19:02.280 | It's a lot easier to tell someone who's out on the fishing river who's enjoying it and
00:19:10.920 | saying, "Yeah, this is good, but you know what?
00:19:12.800 | I'm also excited to get back to my work on Monday morning."
00:19:18.040 | So consider carefully the lifestyle that you want to live and build it intentionally now.
00:19:23.780 | The reason that I spend so much time on this show and in past episodes talking about imagine
00:19:29.920 | the lifestyle that you would be at if you were financially independent, imagine it,
00:19:35.840 | is because I don't think that lifestyle for most people looks like sitting around and
00:19:39.320 | watching movies.
00:19:43.000 | You don't have to take my goals on for yourself, and please don't.
00:19:47.560 | You don't have to take my desired lifestyle.
00:19:49.120 | We're individual, unique human beings.
00:19:53.960 | We're unique.
00:19:54.960 | There's no one else like you.
00:19:57.200 | There's no one else that's going to put things together.
00:20:00.040 | But imagine the lifestyle that you're working towards and then see how you can get there
00:20:04.460 | more quickly.
00:20:07.560 | The key that I want you to focus in on is once people reach financial abundance where
00:20:11.560 | they have more money than they can spend, more money than they need to cover all of
00:20:18.000 | their needs along the way, they start to consider the meaning and the impact of their life.
00:20:28.820 | If you ask wealthy retirees, some of which are in the audience, some of which of you
00:20:34.800 | are listening to me right now while you're driving around in your RV or you're sitting
00:20:39.280 | out on your back deck looking out over your retirement home, if you ask them what matters
00:20:44.840 | to them, the number one thing they'll tell you is their family.
00:20:50.040 | It's always what it is.
00:20:54.400 | Well, if that's the truth, and if you don't believe me, you go do your own research.
00:21:00.680 | Go talk to all the wealthy retirees that you know and ask them how important to them going
00:21:07.000 | and seeing their grandkids is, being with their family for Christmas.
00:21:14.800 | Most of them tell me their family is their number one most important thing.
00:21:17.480 | Well, if that's the case, doesn't it make sense to pay attention to that all along the
00:21:22.960 | way?
00:21:25.960 | You don't have to have an RV to be able to prioritize time with your family.
00:21:32.440 | You don't have to be financially independent to be able to prioritize experiences with
00:21:36.840 | your family.
00:21:39.120 | Begin with the end in mind, and instead of pursuing the foolish treadmill existence that
00:21:45.480 | so many of us see around us where you just work, work, work, work, work, work, work,
00:21:50.240 | work, work, work, so that someday you'll wake up and be rich and then pursue the things
00:21:53.120 | that you're going to do.
00:21:54.120 | Work, work, work, and along the way pursue the things that you're going to enjoy when
00:21:59.960 | you're rich.
00:22:00.960 | And if time with family is there, why don't you pull back a little bit on your work during
00:22:07.240 | the time with family and spend a little bit of time with the people that are near you.
00:22:12.880 | Make the Christmas holiday a priority.
00:22:15.720 | Don't go back to work the day after Thanksgiving.
00:22:17.840 | Adjust things and pay attention.
00:22:25.080 | Build the legacy.
00:22:26.680 | Work into it.
00:22:28.520 | So recognize that when you're old and rich and when you have this financial abundance,
00:22:33.440 | there are going to be some things that are going to be important to you and family is
00:22:36.360 | going to be at the top of the list.
00:22:37.560 | What else?
00:22:38.560 | What other impact?
00:22:39.560 | Well, there's going to be about the lives of the people that you're with.
00:22:42.880 | You're going to be considering, "Did I encourage that person?
00:22:46.040 | Was I a good boss?
00:22:47.040 | Was I a good co-worker?
00:22:48.040 | Was I a good leader?"
00:22:50.440 | So recognize that and don't lose sight of that along the way as you're building wealth.
00:22:56.280 | Make sure that you can look forward to your retirement party and have it well filled with
00:23:01.600 | people who appreciate how you've sowed into their lives.
00:23:08.760 | When it comes to your money, think carefully about what would happen with your money when
00:23:12.360 | you're old and rich and have more of it than you can spend and you got to figure out what
00:23:15.960 | to do with it.
00:23:19.560 | And recognize that your money is probably not going to be your legacy.
00:23:27.520 | Think about this.
00:23:28.580 | If you were going to make a list of historical figures, people that you admire, that you
00:23:32.480 | know about, that you studied in school, how many of them are notable simply for the fact
00:23:38.920 | that they were rich versus how many of them were notable for the impact or the legacy
00:23:45.160 | that they left in some other way?
00:23:50.360 | You can look at this from almost any extreme.
00:23:52.400 | Henry David Thoreau, was he a legend?
00:23:55.200 | Is he honored and read about in freshman classes, college classes?
00:24:00.000 | Is Walden Pond, on Walden Pond read because he was rich?
00:24:04.160 | Or was it read because he wrote a book?
00:24:09.360 | You don't have to be rich to write a book.
00:24:12.880 | You don't even need a typewriter.
00:24:14.640 | You don't need a computer.
00:24:16.120 | You can sit down with a pen and a sheet of paper and write a book.
00:24:20.080 | I feel like we often forget this these days.
00:24:22.760 | I was thinking about Jane Austen the other day and I was thinking about her life and
00:24:26.840 | I was thinking about how she composed all of her books, wrote all of her books out by
00:24:34.440 | hand using a pen and many sheets of paper.
00:24:39.200 | You ever stop to think about how simple that is and yet how many people have done it?
00:24:48.040 | One job I had when I was a boy was I had a friend of ours who had written an autobiography
00:24:53.320 | and I typed it for him.
00:24:56.960 | This was 20 years ago perhaps and he sat down with legal pads and a pen and he wrote out
00:25:04.880 | his autobiography.
00:25:07.280 | Now, the first place I go is I'm not saying you should probably use a computer.
00:25:13.160 | It's a little bit more efficient.
00:25:14.760 | But my point is to show that you don't need that much money.
00:25:19.040 | You don't need to go and buy a brand new Macbook and put Scrivener on there in order to have
00:25:23.200 | all the latest greatest writing tools.
00:25:25.720 | You just need a pen and a piece of paper.
00:25:28.120 | And yet how many people have a legacy and have made an impact on the world because of
00:25:31.600 | the time that they took to sit down and write a book or make a speech?
00:25:38.240 | And yet how many rich people are there who if they didn't pay attention to their legacy,
00:25:42.520 | if they didn't pay attention to the things that they were going to leave behind and just
00:25:45.480 | left money, they're forgotten.
00:25:49.280 | Because guess what?
00:25:50.360 | When you die and leave all your money behind, that money will be spent quickly.
00:25:57.280 | Probably much more quickly than you want it to be.
00:26:00.440 | But ideas, impact, contribution, service, love, those things will continue.
00:26:14.600 | So are you paying attention to your legacy?
00:26:17.840 | Is there something that you should be adjusting and not focusing first on money?
00:26:21.600 | Because pay attention.
00:26:23.320 | Once you've reached financial abundance, you're going to stop thinking so much about money
00:26:27.040 | and you're going to be thinking about your legacy.
00:26:30.760 | Don't wait to get there.
00:26:33.200 | Now what's actually going to happen with your money?
00:26:34.600 | Well who's it going to go to?
00:26:38.360 | For most people there's two major things.
00:26:40.560 | Number one is your children.
00:26:41.680 | Number two is your charity.
00:26:44.920 | So if you don't start from a place of financial abundance, you might make the mistake that
00:26:52.720 | many wealthy people make, where they're so focused on earning the money and building
00:26:58.440 | the capital and piling it up that they forget to slow down and train their children how
00:27:04.180 | to handle it.
00:27:06.340 | And guess what happens?
00:27:08.160 | You die, you leave the money to your kids, and it ruins their lives and your grandkids'
00:27:13.360 | lives.
00:27:16.760 | Because you didn't start from a place of financial abundance.
00:27:19.200 | You weren't beginning with the end of mind.
00:27:20.480 | You weren't recognizing the fact that someday you're going to leave a lot of money behind
00:27:24.320 | and you better do the work now to make sure that your kids do not squander the inheritance.
00:27:34.600 | So if you recognize that, then the way that you skip to step seven and you're thinking
00:27:39.120 | about financial abundance, then along the way you work on training your kids.
00:27:43.520 | And it starts from day one.
00:27:47.240 | You train character, you train discipline, you train the skills of self-control, you
00:27:55.240 | train the ability to defer gratification, you train work habits, you train diligence.
00:28:02.220 | You train these things in your children.
00:28:04.960 | Then that way, when you're old and rich and you die and leave a lot of money to them,
00:28:08.720 | then you're not giving it to them in a way that's going to ruin their lives.
00:28:11.440 | Rather, what they will be able to do is they'll have the capacity to take that money and then
00:28:16.040 | continue to channel it and continue to invest it into the types of things that you will
00:28:21.680 | be proud of.
00:28:26.560 | So begin with the end in mind and recognize that financial abundance is where you're going,
00:28:33.280 | but you can't wait until you're 63 years old to start thinking about it.
00:28:37.920 | You got to get there now.
00:28:39.320 | Now guess what?
00:28:40.480 | Should you wait until you're 63 or until you're 93 years old and you die to leave all the
00:28:44.780 | money to your kids?
00:28:46.120 | I don't think so.
00:28:50.040 | How does it help your 45-year-old son or daughter when they're finally kind of established in
00:28:56.080 | their career and finally have some money?
00:28:58.440 | How does it help them for you to die at that point in time and leave them a lot of money?
00:29:02.960 | Wouldn't it be a lot more helpful to help them at the early stages of their life?
00:29:07.040 | Well, you already know that intuitively.
00:29:09.920 | That's why you're thinking about paying for their schooling and paying for their college,
00:29:13.600 | et cetera.
00:29:14.600 | But what about more than that?
00:29:15.600 | What about helping them establish their business?
00:29:17.400 | What about helping them build a house?
00:29:20.760 | What about helping them fund some of these things at the beginning of their life?
00:29:26.160 | Most parents that I've interacted with have the idea about paying for school and paying
00:29:30.080 | for college, but they're not thinking about the rest of it.
00:29:32.680 | And they want to leave a lot of money when they're dead, but they don't want to invest
00:29:36.320 | when they're younger and when they're alive.
00:29:40.480 | Even for investing when they're younger, when they're alive.
00:29:46.200 | That way you can see it.
00:29:47.200 | You can monitor the results.
00:29:49.120 | And that's when your children need it.
00:29:52.120 | If you do a good job investing in your children in the early years, they won't need or want
00:29:56.600 | your money later.
00:29:57.600 | They'll just say, "Dad, I don't need it.
00:30:00.440 | Mom, I don't need it.
00:30:01.780 | Just give it to somebody else."
00:30:04.640 | But if you don't do a good job in the early years, they'll be desperate for your money
00:30:09.080 | and it'll destroy them.
00:30:13.920 | So train your children.
00:30:20.080 | What about the other aspect, charity?
00:30:21.720 | I think this is the other place that people are very short-sighted.
00:30:28.280 | Why are you looking forward to charity?
00:30:32.800 | Why are you looking forward to doing something in the future instead of doing something now?
00:30:39.360 | You say, "Well, there's some compelling reasons.
00:30:41.000 | I'm focused on my business."
00:30:42.000 | Well, that's true.
00:30:43.280 | There are different stages to life and I have no problem with that.
00:30:48.400 | There are times, there are seasons.
00:30:51.680 | There are seasons of family, there are seasons of business, there are seasons where you should
00:30:55.560 | be doing more or should be doing less.
00:30:59.440 | But when you're old and rich, you're going to be looking at a pile of money and you're
00:31:03.600 | going to be wondering what to do with it.
00:31:10.720 | The answer, the solution is that you're going to want to solve some kind of problem.
00:31:16.700 | If you look at what rich people do with their money, they certainly buy for themselves a
00:31:22.280 | nice lifestyle.
00:31:23.480 | They certainly enjoy some of the trappings of wealth.
00:31:26.400 | They enjoy the ski vacations.
00:31:28.180 | They enjoy the fancy house.
00:31:29.440 | They enjoy the private yachts and the private planes and they enjoy being able to do nice
00:31:33.520 | things for their family.
00:31:34.520 | That stuff's cool.
00:31:35.520 | I'm okay with it.
00:31:37.120 | But once those things are taken care of, they're thinking about their impact.
00:31:43.800 | They're funding super PACs to change elections.
00:31:48.880 | They're funding activist groups.
00:31:52.480 | They're funding the changes that they want to see in the world.
00:31:57.920 | Guess what?
00:31:58.920 | You should be doing the same and you should be doing it now, not when you're dead.
00:32:06.160 | Because once you're dead, you lose effectively all control over the money.
00:32:12.880 | Even if you've gone through and developed a beautifully written airtight trust that
00:32:16.920 | clearly lays out what you want to direct your trustee to do, there's no guarantee, there's
00:32:23.440 | no way to guarantee that your trustees will not find a way to change what they're doing.
00:32:31.200 | Some of the most well-planned estates and some of the most well-meaning people, their
00:32:34.880 | descendants are spending the money that they had accumulated in ways that would make them
00:32:39.560 | roll over in their grave if they could see it today.
00:32:45.980 | So go ahead and get busy funding the changes that you want to see in the world.
00:32:54.920 | Go ahead and get busy investing into the things that are going to make an impact.
00:33:00.060 | Put your money where your mouth is and do it now while you can see the results and measure
00:33:04.520 | the impact.
00:33:05.520 | Because you need to develop the skills and prove the concepts when they're small.
00:33:11.040 | Could you imagine if I gave you $1 billion and I said, "You've got to figure out what
00:33:16.120 | to do with this $1 billion in a way that's going to do something good."
00:33:21.720 | What would you do?
00:33:24.600 | If you actually think and consider that problem, my guess would be that you'd have no idea
00:33:29.920 | of what to do.
00:33:31.560 | I've thought about that problem.
00:33:33.400 | I don't know that I would have anything to know.
00:33:35.680 | I don't think I would know what to do with the money.
00:33:38.360 | I would be so overwhelmed if I were just handed $1 billion.
00:33:44.120 | Where do you start?
00:33:45.120 | What do you do?
00:33:47.920 | Which is why, what do you see rich people doing?
00:33:49.600 | I'm going to line up and I'm not going to do my own thing.
00:33:51.600 | I'm going to give to Bill and Melinda Gates because they've got the infrastructure set
00:33:55.800 | up.
00:33:58.840 | Which there's some arguments to be made in that.
00:34:01.440 | My point is, consider, would you know what to do with $1 billion?
00:34:05.400 | If you don't know how to effectively invest $100 into something that you want to see changed,
00:34:14.320 | charitable contribution, something that's wrong with the world that you want to improve.
00:34:18.520 | If you don't know how to invest $100, why are you worrying about the millions?
00:34:24.400 | Start now.
00:34:25.400 | Do the $100.
00:34:27.280 | Do the $1,000.
00:34:28.760 | Fund a little project.
00:34:29.760 | Test it.
00:34:30.760 | See if it works.
00:34:31.760 | If it works, put more money into it.
00:34:33.280 | If it doesn't work, scrap it and move on.
00:34:37.120 | So much money is wasted in these large charitable organizations because there's no call for
00:34:42.560 | efficiency.
00:34:43.560 | There's not enough supervision.
00:34:46.160 | So fund the projects and make them prove themselves out.
00:34:48.760 | Make sure they work.
00:34:51.040 | And if you don't have the money for charity right now, guess what?
00:34:54.600 | You can still experience the benefits of giving by giving in other ways.
00:35:01.160 | You don't need to fund the construction of a Habitat for Humanity house with a $100,000
00:35:05.320 | check if you don't have an extra $100,000 to give away.
00:35:08.760 | But your next door neighbor could sure use a hand building their shed.
00:35:11.360 | Why don't you start there?
00:35:14.360 | Or why don't you go ahead and make the rent payment for the single mom down the street
00:35:19.160 | who just lost her job?
00:35:21.240 | Or bring some groceries to those other people who are facing a hard time?
00:35:27.040 | You found out about somebody who just lost their job, call them up, ask them what the
00:35:33.040 | size of diapers their kid is wearing and put an Amazon subscribe and save order in for
00:35:38.840 | a while until they find another one.
00:35:42.440 | Those are simple things.
00:35:44.200 | And yet those are ways that you can build the habit and enjoy the abundance that you
00:35:49.080 | already have.
00:35:53.600 | And if those causes are important to you, you'll gain the most in the future by being
00:35:58.880 | able to give money to them if you're already involved in what the organization is doing.
00:36:06.560 | Why would you give a lot of money someday to an organization that you haven't given
00:36:11.360 | a little money to before?
00:36:14.220 | Or why would you give money to the organization if you haven't been out with them seeing their
00:36:19.180 | work first hand yourself?
00:36:26.400 | If you go ahead and get involved now, you can experience the joy of seeing the impact
00:36:30.880 | while you're working your way through the stages of financial independence.
00:36:37.320 | There's always a way to make a difference in it.
00:36:40.080 | If you focus on where you're going to be down the road and you think about financial abundance
00:36:47.160 | and then you think back to today, I bet you can come up with some unique ways that you
00:36:51.560 | as an individual can start to enjoy the fruits of your labor now.
00:36:58.120 | And it'll make the work that you're doing today seem much more meaningful and much more
00:37:03.200 | fulfilling because you're coming from a place of abundance.
00:37:07.640 | You're coming recognizing the path that you're on.
00:37:12.900 | I think you can learn from the exposure and the impact and the interviews I've done that
00:37:25.140 | these are the things that people look for.
00:37:29.620 | Go talk to the rich people in your town and I bet you they'll spend more time talking
00:37:34.640 | about the Boys and Girls Club or the Junior Achievement or the Halfway House or whatever
00:37:40.500 | it is that they're involved in.
00:37:41.940 | They'll spend more time talking about that stuff that they're involved in, that they
00:37:46.140 | care about than they will about their new boat.
00:37:52.940 | So recognize that you're probably going to be similar to them as you walk a similar path
00:37:56.700 | and move from a place of financial abundance.
00:38:01.460 | I feel clumsy in my articulation of this concept.
00:38:06.460 | I often feel clumsy in my ability to articulate many of these things and I just feel like
00:38:10.500 | I got to get this out there.
00:38:11.500 | Forgive me if this was clumsy.
00:38:12.820 | I know it seems like I'm violating even the stages but I really do think there are stages
00:38:19.180 | and I don't think these things are in conflict.
00:38:21.980 | I'm working to become completely financially independent but I'm not waiting for financial
00:38:30.500 | independence in order to function and to labor at the things that I believe are the most
00:38:35.060 | important.
00:38:37.420 | I'm not going to sit around and waste 40 years of my life just thinking about the money without
00:38:45.900 | realizing the fact that I'm going to die and all the money is going to be left here.
00:38:50.940 | That's why Jesus taught, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and
00:38:55.900 | rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.
00:38:58.780 | But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where
00:39:03.660 | thieves do not break in and steal.
00:39:05.940 | For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
00:39:11.860 | So I want you to hope that I've been able to effectively communicate at least enough
00:39:17.700 | to help you to see where you're going to be when you're wealthy.
00:39:23.380 | I've had various consulting calls with different people who say, "Josh, I've got more money
00:39:27.100 | than I need.
00:39:28.100 | What do I do?"
00:39:29.900 | And the answer every single time, I'll save you the money, I'll be happy to consult with
00:39:32.580 | you if you want to.
00:39:33.580 | The answer every single time is simple.
00:39:35.460 | What do you care about?
00:39:37.660 | What change do you want to make?
00:39:40.020 | What legacy do you want to have?
00:39:42.780 | Now is there a way that you can get involved now?
00:39:46.660 | And is there a way that you can start putting some money there now?
00:39:52.800 | There is.
00:39:53.800 | I haven't found a single issue yet that there's not a way that can get involved.
00:39:57.220 | Sometimes it's starting a new business, sometimes it's funding another entrepreneur, sometimes
00:40:01.500 | it's changing something, and sometimes it's funding a legal battle.
00:40:04.500 | There are all kinds of things.
00:40:05.860 | Sometimes you make money off of it.
00:40:07.320 | But if you get this through your head that someday you're going to be thinking about
00:40:10.340 | what now, what next, and you're going to look at a pile of stocks and say, "Okay, it's great.
00:40:17.340 | It's money.
00:40:18.340 | That's nice.
00:40:19.340 | But I want something more.
00:40:20.540 | I want my money to matter.
00:40:21.780 | I want to do something that I care about.
00:40:24.020 | I want it to make an accomplish, to be impactful.
00:40:28.820 | I want it to mean something."
00:40:32.660 | That's where you're going to be if you follow this path.
00:40:36.460 | Yes, you might do some things along the way.
00:40:39.220 | You might travel.
00:40:40.220 | Great.
00:40:41.220 | I'm intending to take time off and take a few years off at different points throughout
00:40:44.000 | my life and do some long-term travel with my family.
00:40:46.700 | That's cool.
00:40:47.700 | But you're not going to do it for 50 years.
00:40:56.220 | You're really not.
00:41:00.220 | You're going to look for something that matters.
00:41:05.460 | When you're in that stage, what you're going to be looking for is how can I invest my money
00:41:10.500 | into something that matters to me.
00:41:14.580 | While you're working your way through these stages of financial independence, don't wait
00:41:22.180 | to figure out what you're going to do once you have more money than you need.
00:41:27.620 | Get busy recognizing the fact that you already have more money than you need and start to
00:41:33.460 | invest small sums into the things that matter.
00:41:38.680 | Do it intentionally.
00:41:40.780 | Do it carefully.
00:41:42.460 | Do it with vision.
00:41:46.260 | And then when you reach that point in time, you won't wake up desperate to say, "I don't
00:41:52.860 | know how to give my money away."
00:41:54.900 | You'll be very, very practiced and you'll know the things that work and the things that
00:41:58.860 | won't and you'll be able to ensure that the money that you've spent so much time building
00:42:04.060 | and being a good steward of is allocated responsibly and productively and that it's used for good
00:42:15.100 | and not for evil.
00:42:16.100 | That's it.
00:42:17.100 | That's all I've got.
00:42:18.100 | Again, forgive me if this wasn't as clear as I would like.
00:42:23.540 | I've worked and worked on this and I feel a little bit...
00:42:27.620 | Well, I'll put it out there and let you decide.
00:42:33.500 | I hope it's useful to you.
00:42:36.820 | Thank you all for listening to the show today.
00:42:38.460 | I really appreciate each and every one of you listening.
00:42:40.940 | If this is your first episode of the show and you're interested in building financial
00:42:44.820 | freedom for yourself and your family, please make sure that you subscribe to this show.
00:42:47.940 | There's a free mobile app in the App Store.
00:42:50.020 | You won't miss a single episode.
00:42:51.020 | Just search the App Store for Radical Personal Finance and you'll find a free app.
00:42:54.420 | Also, you'll find the entire archive with every past episode of the show.
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00:43:01.860 | becoming a supporting patron.
00:43:03.940 | Radical Personal Finance is listener supported and it's your direct financial support which
00:43:07.940 | enables me to bring you this content.
00:43:09.620 | In addition to your voluntarily choosing to pay for the content that you've just heard,
00:43:14.540 | as a supporting patron, you'll receive access to a number of member-only benefits, including
00:43:17.980 | a private Facebook group and access to our weekly Q&A calls.
00:43:21.180 | Details of all that can be found at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:43:27.620 | Also if you would like to speak with me on a private consulting call, you can book a
00:43:30.460 | phone call with me at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/phonecall.
00:43:36.380 | Happy to talk about anything that you have, any questions that you want to cover.
00:43:40.060 | Tomorrow I'll be out with a Q&A show.
00:43:43.580 | Sorry that the episode's been slow the last couple of weeks.
00:43:45.500 | I was doing a little bit of traveling but also just struggling with a few things behind
00:43:48.780 | the scenes and I feel like I always say that I don't like to talk too much about the stuff
00:43:52.740 | behind the scenes just because, well, a lot of it's been challenging for me and I'm working
00:43:58.600 | to figure it out.
00:43:59.940 | So this coming week maybe I'll talk about that and just I do intend to make more changes.
00:44:05.300 | It's not meant to be cryptic.
00:44:07.620 | I just wasn't prepared to go into it.
00:44:10.220 | But in the meantime, I'm working to get some stuff done and so I know the frequency of
00:44:14.060 | the shows has suffered a little bit so bear with me.
00:44:17.300 | Working as hard as I can and doing the best that I can as I learn all the new skills that
00:44:21.340 | I need.
00:44:22.340 | Be back with you soon.
00:44:23.340 | Thanks for listening.
00:44:23.340 | Transcribed by https://otter.ai
00:44:24.160 | Thanks for listening.
00:44:24.660 | Transcribed by https://otter.ai
00:44:26.660 | (upbeat music)
00:44:29.240 | ♪ With a bang ♪