RPF0476-Pathways_to_FI-Expediting
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00:00:29.800 | Today on Radical Personal Finance, we're going to talk about pathways to independence
00:00:35.840 | and I'm going to share with you how you can turn a simple straightforward job of an expediter
00:00:41.640 | into a strong foundation for financial freedom.
00:00:47.640 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:01:05.400 | skills, insight and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while
00:01:10.040 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:01:12.600 | My name is Joshua and I am your host today.
00:01:15.340 | An example of that tagline, I'm just going to talk to you about how you can take a very
00:01:19.720 | simple job working as an expediter, a driver of an expedited truck and do expedited shipping
00:01:26.080 | and turn that into financial freedom in short order.
00:01:34.720 | Last few days I just returned from watching the eclipse up in the 100% band in Florida,
00:01:41.720 | the eclipse on Monday.
00:01:42.720 | It took me a little bit longer to get home and get back to work than I imagined.
00:01:47.440 | I thought I had planned for the traffic but the traffic was terrible.
00:01:50.520 | It was a remarkable experience though to be there watching the eclipse.
00:01:53.680 | I really enjoyed it.
00:01:54.680 | I hope that many of you took time out of your schedule and planned for it.
00:01:59.520 | It's certainly an unusual occurrence and definitely an enjoyable experience to be there in the
00:02:05.040 | 100% band and to see the total eclipse of the sun.
00:02:09.720 | Really, really remarkable.
00:02:10.720 | While I was there, I happened to sit down at a cafe and I sat down and started talking
00:02:15.160 | to this young man at the cafe and we talked about his job.
00:02:21.160 | He works as something called an expediter.
00:02:23.160 | Now, if you're not familiar with expediting or expedited shipping, an expediter is in
00:02:28.240 | essence a trucker.
00:02:30.160 | But unlike a trucker who drives a larger truck, a larger semi truck or even a larger box truck,
00:02:36.520 | an expediter drives a smaller van, a cargo van.
00:02:42.040 | Because the expediter drives a cargo van, they are not subject to the same DOT, Department
00:02:48.520 | of Transportation regulations that truckers are subject to.
00:02:52.480 | This is of great value and attractiveness to people who need to ship things quickly.
00:02:58.480 | It may be somebody may need to ship a pallet of goods or a couple of pallets of goods.
00:03:03.800 | Usually these large cargo vans can fit three pallets, some of them two, but usually three
00:03:10.760 | pallets.
00:03:11.760 | They call them skids, three skids in the back.
00:03:14.480 | So that allows somebody to ship a decent volume of goods.
00:03:19.000 | Or it may be somebody who just needs a certain part.
00:03:21.200 | Maybe there's an oil rig in Texas that needs a part shipped down from Illinois or any number
00:03:26.880 | of things that can be needed.
00:03:29.240 | Because the expediters are not subject to the DOT regulations on having to stop and
00:03:33.440 | be weighed, as an example, they can make time more quickly.
00:03:37.440 | They can usually drive a little bit faster and they're not subject to the regulations
00:03:41.700 | involving how much truckers are required to sleep.
00:03:47.080 | If you're not familiar, the Department of Transportation puts a limit on how many hours
00:03:51.700 | continuously a truck driver can operate their vehicle.
00:03:56.440 | And so because of that, unless there's a team driving a large semi truck, they have to stop
00:04:02.200 | and take certain legally prescribed amounts of rest.
00:04:07.720 | And so that's the world of expediting trucking.
00:04:11.320 | They take smaller quantities of cargo across the country very quickly, across the state,
00:04:16.000 | across the country.
00:04:17.000 | They're shippers on custom jobs.
00:04:19.560 | I've had an interest in this because I have various weird interests like this and I've
00:04:23.960 | hung out quite a bit on some of the expediters' forums, looking around at what they do.
00:04:30.000 | And I was intrigued with how they make their business, how they accomplish their lifestyle.
00:04:37.040 | And just – I've always – it's been one of my interests.
00:04:40.760 | But this was the first time I've actually sat down and talked with somebody.
00:04:44.160 | Now usually the expediters, if you don't know what – if you know what to look for,
00:04:47.080 | you'll see them everywhere.
00:04:48.200 | But basically they usually will drive a large white cargo van of some kind.
00:04:52.720 | You can almost always see a couple of them at a truck stop.
00:04:56.280 | You'll just see a white cargo van parked in a parking space.
00:04:59.880 | A lot of times you'll see them at a Walmart or other places as well.
00:05:03.400 | And the reason that they're parked is because usually they're waiting on their next job.
00:05:08.640 | The life and lifestyle of an expediter is very unique because generally they're on
00:05:15.120 | the road from – on one-way shipments.
00:05:17.920 | They don't necessarily work regular routes.
00:05:20.520 | They just simply respond to the call and go wherever their shipment calls them to be.
00:05:25.640 | And then in between jobs, they'll be resting.
00:05:28.280 | Most of the time they will stay in their vehicle.
00:05:30.880 | They'll either rig up a little bed sometimes right behind the front two driver seats, a
00:05:34.840 | little bed.
00:05:35.840 | Or this particular man that I was talking to, he was driving a sprinter van that had
00:05:41.560 | – it was a chassis cab, a sprinter van with a box on the back.
00:05:45.160 | And then he had a little bunk up above the cab that he could sleep in when he needed
00:05:50.360 | to just pull over and stay in a bed.
00:05:53.140 | So you'll see them resting.
00:05:55.240 | And the job is unique because it is one of these live on the job types of jobs.
00:06:04.120 | And that's why I'm going to use it as an example to talk about how you can use a
00:06:07.480 | job like this to launch you towards financial freedom in a very short order.
00:06:13.640 | There are a number of different jobs like this where you actually live in the same place
00:06:17.320 | that you work.
00:06:18.640 | Of course, trucking or truck driving is certainly one example of that, whether it's a larger
00:06:24.600 | truck or a smaller truck.
00:06:27.200 | The man that I'm talking to, his name is John.
00:06:29.360 | John was – basically was living in his van.
00:06:33.800 | He had been doing this work for about three months.
00:06:36.360 | He had had an apartment for a short time and then he got rid of his apartment and he lives
00:06:39.960 | in the van full time.
00:06:41.200 | Young man, perhaps early 20s, he lives in the van.
00:06:45.040 | So when he's not taking a load from one place to another, he has free time to sleep
00:06:50.880 | or to go and do sightseeing or do anything that he wants to do.
00:06:54.520 | But this is not the only job that's like that.
00:06:56.800 | You could go and work on an oil rig or have a friend that worked in a commercial Alaska
00:07:01.840 | ship – fishing operation one time, things like that.
00:07:05.320 | There are many variations of this where you can go and do work where you live.
00:07:11.760 | You're a mercenary and you go and do soldiering for hire or work for a contractor in Iraq,
00:07:17.480 | these types of things.
00:07:18.840 | The benefits of this type of work is you can earn moderate to high wages and have, if you
00:07:29.680 | play your cards right, almost no living expenses.
00:07:35.580 | This opens up a real opportunity for normal people without extraordinary education, extraordinary
00:07:44.560 | training, extraordinary skills.
00:07:47.480 | It opens up the opportunity for normal people to break free if you play your cards right.
00:07:56.840 | Many of these types of jobs don't require a high level of skill or at least not to start
00:08:02.760 | with.
00:08:03.760 | Certainly, in time, you're going to need a high level of skill if you're working
00:08:06.960 | on an oil rig or driving a crab boat or some similar operation.
00:08:12.300 | But there are often opportunities for people without those developed skills to start.
00:08:19.240 | If you're careful, because of the fact that your expenses are so low, you've got a real
00:08:23.800 | opportunity.
00:08:24.800 | Today, I want to tell you how – just some ideas on how you can leverage a few years
00:08:30.060 | of this type of work to open up a very bright future.
00:08:34.820 | I told John as I was sitting having breakfast with him, I told him I was going to do this
00:08:38.120 | show for him.
00:08:39.120 | I'm not going to go on your ideas specifically, but other listeners, of course, here are ideas
00:08:45.360 | that you can take and you can apply them to your situation.
00:08:48.520 | So here's my advice.
00:08:50.360 | Number one, you must view this type of venture as a temporary, temporary thing.
00:08:57.800 | There are – there is a small percentage of society, a small number of people who would
00:09:04.160 | like to do these types of things on the long term.
00:09:08.200 | There are some people who enjoy being alone.
00:09:10.020 | There are some people who enjoy this type of work on the long term.
00:09:14.200 | But for most of us, this type of work where you are going to be away, away from your family,
00:09:21.160 | away from your friends, doing hard physical work and you're living and working on the
00:09:25.040 | job, this is something that's best viewed on a temporary basis.
00:09:29.240 | Certainly, this is most ideally suited to people who are single.
00:09:34.200 | I would strongly discourage any person who is married or who has children from engaging
00:09:40.120 | in this type of work.
00:09:41.920 | Almost no marriage would be able to survive work like this, whether it's somebody who's
00:09:48.480 | an on-the-road truck driver, somebody who's in the military.
00:09:51.400 | Almost no marriage can survive circumstances like this.
00:09:53.920 | If you lose your marriage over your job, the price and the cost is just simply far too
00:09:57.680 | high.
00:09:59.000 | There is no amount of money that will make it worth it.
00:10:01.520 | So this type of approach is best suited for somebody who is single and who can go and
00:10:08.360 | engage in hard work.
00:10:09.800 | But it's best to view this as temporary.
00:10:12.120 | Here's your first layer of advantage because most people who do this type of work are not
00:10:15.960 | thinking all that far down the road.
00:10:19.920 | In general, very few people labor with a vision.
00:10:22.080 | Very few people think more than for this weekend or for the end of the month or for the end
00:10:26.800 | of the year.
00:10:27.800 | So if you're someone who can see beyond that, that puts you far ahead.
00:10:31.600 | But when you get into simple, usually menial or repetitive work like this, then the field
00:10:38.400 | narrows even farther and it's very rare to find somebody who's a long-term thinker in
00:10:43.700 | a job or an approach like this.
00:10:46.040 | But this is not for you.
00:10:47.920 | You can labor at this with a long-time perspective.
00:10:52.240 | This will dramatically affect how you use your money.
00:10:55.120 | It will allow you to take advantage of the savings opportunity by not expanding your
00:11:01.120 | lifestyle and spending money on stupid stuff.
00:11:05.280 | Many people who are in this type of work make a series of unfortunate decisions where they
00:11:09.600 | buy unnecessary things that suck up all of their earnings.
00:11:13.160 | It's not unusual to find a young, low-ranking person in the military who has a big, beautiful
00:11:20.160 | $40,000 pickup truck outside.
00:11:22.720 | Their entire opportunity to save money because the military can cover their housing is blown
00:11:27.520 | because of the truck outside.
00:11:28.560 | It's not unusual to find people with serious bad habits that suck up all of their money.
00:11:34.720 | It's not unusual to find that.
00:11:38.160 | But it's not required.
00:11:39.960 | If you view this as temporary and you view this type of work as giving you a foundation
00:11:44.720 | that's going to set you financially free for the rest of your life, you have a real opportunity
00:11:49.440 | to make a big difference.
00:11:50.440 | So view it as temporary and deal with the temporary pain.
00:11:54.680 | Deal with the temporary discomfort.
00:11:56.840 | Deal with the temporary frustration and keep your expenses low so that you can fully reap
00:12:01.200 | the benefits of this job.
00:12:05.800 | Number two, enjoy the benefits of the work now.
00:12:09.160 | Many people who are working in a job like this are not thinking of the benefits.
00:12:13.940 | They only focus on the hard times.
00:12:15.560 | That's what I really enjoyed about talking with a young man, John, who I met this weekend
00:12:20.760 | or this week.
00:12:21.840 | He was – he'd only been doing this for a few months.
00:12:24.440 | He was from Tennessee and he was enjoying the opportunity to travel the country.
00:12:28.320 | Even in three short months, he'd driven across 38 states and he was looking forward to being
00:12:32.400 | able to take shipments up to Canada as well and drive across Canada when he had the opportunity.
00:12:37.960 | So for somebody who wants to travel, you can do that in the context of a job.
00:12:44.160 | But you'll only get the benefits of it if you see it as an opportunity and you focus
00:12:48.860 | on the benefits of that job.
00:12:51.440 | John was planning to buy a nice camera.
00:12:53.100 | He enjoys photography, enjoys hiking.
00:12:55.400 | So when he was on duty, he would go and deliver a load.
00:12:58.780 | When he was in a place he was interested in seeing, he would ask his boss for a day off
00:13:03.600 | and he would then just take his van, very mobile.
00:13:07.680 | He's not trying to drive an 18-wheeler through a national park.
00:13:10.400 | He could take his van and go and visit some great site that he would be interested in
00:13:13.900 | seeing and interested in photographing.
00:13:16.360 | There are lots of benefits of this type of work that if you focus on, you can really
00:13:20.520 | enjoy.
00:13:21.740 | Maybe the benefit of travel.
00:13:23.320 | Maybe the benefit of being able to be outside and enjoy beautiful weather.
00:13:27.160 | It may be the benefit of doing hard physical work that makes you strong.
00:13:30.680 | It may be the benefit of doing work that is hard and forges character in you.
00:13:36.520 | Or maybe it's the benefit of an adventure.
00:13:38.360 | You're working as a contractor, a military contractor in Iraq.
00:13:43.160 | Well, maybe you just say it's an adventure, an opportunity to learn Arabic or some version
00:13:47.880 | of it.
00:13:48.880 | But count the blessings and enjoy the benefits of it knowing that it's going to be temporary
00:13:53.800 | and embrace it with an attitude of adventure, an adventurous spirit.
00:13:58.920 | Number three, when you're doing this type of work, stack the cash and wait.
00:14:05.600 | Do as close to nothing as practically possible.
00:14:11.560 | Don't feel like you've got to make long-term decisions quickly.
00:14:15.800 | One of the great opportunities about this type of work is it can be done usually by
00:14:19.900 | somebody who has no starting pay.
00:14:21.640 | For example, the guy that I was talking to, John, the expediter, shared with me how the
00:14:26.840 | financial arrangements of his operation with his boss works.
00:14:31.340 | His boss owns the trucks, owns the vans that his employees drive.
00:14:35.700 | The boss coordinates the loads, is connected with the opportunity to bid on people who
00:14:40.080 | want to make these types of last-minute shipments.
00:14:44.040 | His boss owns the van and handles the maintenance on the van and takes 40% of the price of the
00:14:50.960 | shipment and the driver keeps 60% of the price of the shipment and pays for fuel and expenses
00:14:57.560 | along the way.
00:14:59.680 | This seems like a very fair arrangement.
00:15:03.000 | John was very pleased with it, but it means that you can start with nothing.
00:15:06.760 | Somebody else owns a van and you just simply do the work and you can pile up money.
00:15:11.560 | Many times, this may be the first time that someone in this situation has had a chance
00:15:17.120 | to pile up money, any even substantial money.
00:15:21.880 | And unfortunately, without our making firm decisions to get used to having large amounts
00:15:27.960 | of money, it starts to burn a hole in our pockets.
00:15:32.600 | Don't let this happen to you.
00:15:35.440 | Resolve not to spend money in the short term and not to make any kind of long-term decisions
00:15:43.600 | for what you should do with the money until you pile up a lot of it.
00:15:49.640 | Just stack the cash and wait.
00:15:52.880 | Go through the entire season.
00:15:54.880 | Work out the entire contract.
00:15:56.820 | Do a couple of years and don't be scared to just simply put the money in the bank and
00:16:01.960 | wait.
00:16:04.040 | It takes time to train yourself to be comfortable having large amounts of money on hand.
00:16:09.640 | And it takes time to train yourself to think like somebody who has large amounts of money
00:16:16.240 | on hand.
00:16:18.920 | Far too many people get nervous about the fact that for the first time in their life
00:16:21.980 | they have 10 or 15 or 20 or $50,000 in the bank and all of a sudden they feel like they
00:16:28.120 | got to do something.
00:16:30.840 | And their friend wants to start a business and they say, "Here, I got 20 grand."
00:16:33.760 | And they all of a sudden start investing.
00:16:36.680 | Take time and stack the cash.
00:16:39.880 | In just a moment, I'm going to give you a bunch of things you can do with the money
00:16:43.440 | and they'll be very diverse.
00:16:46.440 | But the unifying thread is you have to have the money ready to go.
00:16:52.240 | Number four, use this time in your life to educate yourself about things that matter
00:16:59.940 | to you.
00:17:02.660 | Use this time to educate yourself and don't waste it.
00:17:08.860 | Depending on the nature of your work, you'll have different opportunities for education.
00:17:12.660 | If you're working as a driver, driving a van across the country as an expediter, you'll
00:17:18.320 | have plenty of time to listen to audio materials.
00:17:21.180 | So set aside a budget and buy good quality audio books that are going to teach you about
00:17:25.460 | the things that you need to know about.
00:17:27.960 | Find and subscribe to relevant podcasts.
00:17:31.640 | Find and subscribe to the appropriate iTunes U channels of learning.
00:17:37.540 | Go ahead and figure out a plan so that you can get those videos on courses, buy the great
00:17:41.460 | courses or download the videos and get them tuned into your sound system so that you can
00:17:46.580 | learn and take those college classes while you're driving.
00:17:49.700 | You can do a tremendous amount of learning with audio.
00:17:53.340 | You may not be able to take detailed copious notes on audio as you drive, but you'll certainly
00:17:57.180 | retain some of it.
00:17:58.800 | You may retain 30%, but 30% of 50 or 60 hours of driving is a lot of learning.
00:18:06.420 | So do an assessment of the types of things that you need to learn in order to advance
00:18:09.580 | yourself towards the things that you're interested in and start listening.
00:18:17.700 | Other jobs may not involve time for listening, but if you're working on an oil pipeline up
00:18:22.740 | in Alaska or you're out on a rig at sea, you're going to have lots of time to read.
00:18:27.820 | Instead of wasting your time goofing off online, dedicate yourself to serious reading in your
00:18:34.220 | fields of interest.
00:18:36.180 | Become knowledgeable and expert, become an expert in the things that you care about.
00:18:41.660 | Take the time to pursue formal certifications, formal credentials.
00:18:47.340 | There are all kinds of colleges and universities that you can go through and do your work via
00:18:52.740 | correspondence study.
00:18:55.460 | Work by a correspondence study is a time-honored technique of learning.
00:19:01.180 | One of my grandfathers did this.
00:19:03.260 | He worked on a small cattle ranch up in the mountains of Colorado and he – I forget
00:19:08.380 | which degree or maybe it was my grandmother got a teaching certificate.
00:19:11.460 | I forget which degree but wound up finishing his academic coursework in a college degree
00:19:16.940 | through long-distance correspondence study.
00:19:18.740 | Went on and got a master's in chemistry and became a college professor.
00:19:24.020 | But it started with him studying at the kitchen table late in the evening on a little ranch
00:19:29.300 | up in the mountains.
00:19:31.020 | When you add on the accessibility of the internet, it is so much easier today.
00:19:35.340 | So get the books, get the courses and get the degree.
00:19:38.680 | As I was talking with John the Expediter, we were talking about his scenario versus
00:19:42.760 | and compared to the financial situation of one of his friends and he was sharing how
00:19:48.100 | his friend was $30,000 in student loan debt and had gotten a degree to work as a dental
00:19:53.800 | hygienist.
00:19:55.300 | But then she had just simply put herself in a situation where she got laid off from the
00:19:59.420 | dental hygiene job.
00:20:01.540 | So here she was $30,000 in debt and didn't really like dental – the work of dental
00:20:06.900 | hygiene and was – unfortunately, was jobless and trying to figure out what to do.
00:20:11.460 | She was asking him, "How do I get started working as an expedited trucker?"
00:20:15.880 | If you compare the approach of that versus the approach of, "Hey, I'm going to work
00:20:21.700 | hard during this period of my life.
00:20:24.260 | I'm going to live cheap and I'm going to study hard."
00:20:28.820 | You can come out of the other side of two or three years on the road with a college
00:20:32.580 | degree under your belt and $100,000 in the bank instead of coming out of a four or five-year
00:20:37.980 | college program or maybe it's a dental hygienist training program, a couple, three years with
00:20:42.620 | $30,000 of student loan debt.
00:20:45.660 | Taking the path of hard work and using the time to study is the better course.
00:20:52.720 | There is so much information available today.
00:20:57.740 | You could become a world-class investor practically for free through study, listening, reading
00:21:08.060 | and application and you hardly need to pay for anything.
00:21:13.100 | So as you're piling up money, recognize that you've got to learn new skills.
00:21:17.460 | If you act like a bozo and spend all the money as quickly as possible, you'll always be
00:21:23.260 | broke.
00:21:24.500 | But if you recognize the fact that, "Hey, perhaps I'm starting from a disadvantaged
00:21:28.260 | place and I'm just simply working a simple job, driving a truck," that's a time at
00:21:34.460 | which you say, "I've got to learn new skills.
00:21:36.180 | Let me learn to think like an investor.
00:21:37.620 | Let me learn to think like a millionaire.
00:21:38.940 | Let me understand what the millionaires do and how I can copy them."
00:21:43.660 | You're going to need to be successful in life.
00:21:45.540 | You're going to need a diverse array of skills.
00:21:47.140 | So don't get locked into thinking that it's just one thing.
00:21:50.060 | Yes, you need to study investing.
00:21:52.380 | But in John's case, he's interested in photography.
00:21:54.940 | You need to study photography.
00:21:57.020 | So listen and learn about photography.
00:21:58.620 | Take the courses.
00:22:00.420 | Maybe you need to study about home building.
00:22:02.100 | We'll talk about why in a moment.
00:22:03.580 | Well, start studying.
00:22:05.660 | Develop a diverse array of skills.
00:22:07.220 | Maybe learn a couple of languages.
00:22:08.460 | You can learn languages entirely by audio.
00:22:11.980 | I've done this for years, listening to educational audio on various languages while I drive around
00:22:17.620 | in my car.
00:22:19.500 | Easy to do.
00:22:20.500 | You can learn a new language every year that way with the amount of time that people spend
00:22:23.300 | on the road.
00:22:25.020 | So if you're interested in anthropology and you're going to go and work in the Middle
00:22:28.860 | East, use your truck driving time to study anthropology, learn about anthropology, read
00:22:34.900 | the books on anthropology, and go ahead and, why don't you, learn a couple of languages
00:22:39.660 | that will be useful to you while you're working in your area of expertise.
00:22:42.820 | And then when you're ready, get out of the truck and go into the classroom or go into
00:22:47.740 | the field.
00:22:49.140 | So now let me give you some ideas of what you can do with the money.
00:22:52.340 | I'm going to use, for my example, the idea of having saved $100,000 as your starting
00:22:59.620 | fund.
00:23:01.020 | I've become convinced that this is a useful and achievable goal for any motivated, diligent
00:23:07.140 | person to work towards, $100,000.
00:23:11.300 | I've also become convinced that this is a good amount of money to work towards as a
00:23:14.740 | starting fund.
00:23:16.900 | I think that just about everybody should start by accumulating $100,000 before they start
00:23:22.340 | making big life decisions about what direction they're going to go in.
00:23:28.900 | Now it's not necessarily required that – there's nothing magical about it.
00:23:33.600 | You could do it on 50, you could do it on 150, but I think it's a good, achievable
00:23:37.580 | goal.
00:23:39.580 | So using my new friend John the Expediter as an example, he said that it's been many
00:23:44.140 | weeks that he can make at least $1,000 a week, sometimes more, sometimes less.
00:23:49.140 | But $1,000 a week for someone who's working hard is probably a reasonable amount of money.
00:23:54.980 | The reason it's reasonable for entry-level work is because of the lifestyle costs associated
00:23:58.800 | with it.
00:23:59.800 | The labor market here where I work – where I live in Florida is just for simple manual
00:24:06.020 | labor.
00:24:07.020 | The labor market probably shakes out to about $12 an hour is basically the minimum wage
00:24:12.980 | for somebody who's working as a laborer.
00:24:14.740 | If you're going to go and work in retail or something like that, it will be less.
00:24:18.180 | There are certainly plenty of teenagers making $9 an hour working at a fast food joint.
00:24:22.900 | But for somebody who's able to do a full day's work, $12 an hour is pretty much the
00:24:30.040 | minimum.
00:24:31.040 | If you go and you hire some people to work as day laborers, that's about what they're
00:24:34.500 | going to work for.
00:24:35.500 | Well, that comes out – $12 an hour, 50 hours a week comes out to about $600 a week.
00:24:39.860 | When you start adding in the lifestyle considerations of being on the road full time, missing family,
00:24:45.220 | missing friends, in order to get people to do that, the employers have to pay higher
00:24:50.100 | wages.
00:24:51.100 | There would be no reason for you to go and live on the road if you could stay in your
00:24:56.060 | hometown and be home with your family and friends and make the same amount of money.
00:25:00.700 | So they have to pay more for a lot of these types of work.
00:25:03.060 | If you're going to go and work on an oil rig, they got to pay you more money to be
00:25:06.180 | stuck out at sea.
00:25:07.180 | If you're going to go and ship out to Iraq for six months, they got to pay you more money
00:25:11.900 | to be stuck in the big sandbox.
00:25:13.820 | So consider that that's a reasonable assumption to say you can make a thousand bucks a week.
00:25:19.620 | Maybe it's a little bit less.
00:25:20.620 | Maybe it's a little bit more.
00:25:21.620 | But what that means is that in under three years of work, if you keep your living expenses
00:25:26.380 | light, you could accumulate 75, 50, 75, $100,000 with two or three years of work.
00:25:34.740 | Anybody in the world can stay focused for two or three years on hard work, especially
00:25:38.820 | when you've got a clear goal and a clear idea.
00:25:42.860 | Anybody can do that for two or three years.
00:25:45.900 | So let's say that you can stay focused for three years and you can save a hundred grand.
00:25:49.420 | What are the things that you can do with it?
00:25:51.640 | What can you do with that?
00:25:53.700 | Here are some examples.
00:25:55.100 | Number one, you can move from employee to employer in your field of work.
00:26:04.780 | John the expediter should seriously consider what his boss has done, buying a van, putting
00:26:11.100 | it on the road.
00:26:12.340 | His boss gets to sit at home and collect 40% of the revenues in exchange for his capital
00:26:19.000 | that he was able to use to buy a van and also his help with the scheduling services.
00:26:24.100 | So as you go from having no capital and hiring at your labor to having – excuse me.
00:26:30.980 | As you go from having only human capital where you're hiring at your labor to drive on
00:26:35.260 | the road to having financial capital, you should look closely at your current line of
00:26:40.860 | work and see, "Is there an opportunity for me to profitably employ this financial capital?"
00:26:48.260 | Maybe you employ it in buying your own van, buying your own truck.
00:26:52.660 | That allows you to capture more of the earnings yourself.
00:26:56.260 | Or maybe you go ahead and employ it in purchasing your own vehicle and then having somebody
00:27:00.840 | else drive for you part of the time or all of the time.
00:27:06.660 | That's the first place that most of us should work.
00:27:09.660 | Might be hard for you to do this if you are working on an oil rig.
00:27:13.100 | You may not have a couple hundred million dollars sitting in your back pocket, but maybe
00:27:17.980 | it's time for you to buy your own fishing boat.
00:27:22.260 | And now you can move up to be the captain of your own fishing boat instead of being
00:27:26.820 | a crew on someone else's.
00:27:29.540 | But don't restrict yourself to that.
00:27:32.100 | It may be that as you've accumulated this capital, you've developed an interest in
00:27:35.860 | some other type of business.
00:27:38.420 | A hundred thousand dollars is certainly enough to buy a franchise fee for many of the very
00:27:43.940 | profitable franchises that are available.
00:27:47.260 | You may go ahead and say, "I'm going to open a Subway restaurant here in this town."
00:27:51.900 | A Subway sandwich stop can make quite a bit of money, but you've got to have the franchise
00:27:54.580 | fee.
00:27:55.580 | But with your hard work, you've developed that or some version of that.
00:28:03.380 | Or maybe you're going to open your own thing, open your own store, but you need to buy the
00:28:07.340 | inventory and you've got your idea.
00:28:09.100 | A hundred thousand dollars will inventory most types of businesses.
00:28:14.700 | A hundred thousand dollars opens up almost any kind of reasonable business for you to
00:28:21.580 | start.
00:28:23.220 | And that means that you can continue your work and start to reap the benefits of being
00:28:28.300 | a business owner and an entrepreneur.
00:28:30.500 | And you can do this with those few years of hard work.
00:28:35.940 | Most people who go out to start a business are flat broke.
00:28:38.780 | They're borrowing on their credit cards to start it.
00:28:40.780 | They're scrimping and saving.
00:28:42.820 | They're trying to support a lifestyle, etc.
00:28:45.300 | You have the opportunity to come in well capitalized.
00:28:49.820 | Quick sidebar, my recommendation to you is don't start any business until you've worked
00:28:54.740 | in it.
00:28:56.440 | If you want to open a restaurant, make sure you go and first work in a restaurant.
00:29:01.660 | It's a lot cheaper for you to go and hire yourself out for an hourly wage for three,
00:29:09.700 | four, five, six months.
00:29:11.900 | Before you start buying a business, you'll learn a lot more and it'll be a lot cheaper.
00:29:17.180 | You may decide, "Hey, I don't actually want to own this business after all."
00:29:21.180 | But a hundred grand will open up just about any kind of business to you.
00:29:25.620 | A hundred grand is enough to purchase living accommodation that will provide for you essentially
00:29:34.840 | for the rest of your life if you like.
00:29:37.700 | Couple ideas on how to do it.
00:29:38.860 | I have to start first with unique ideas.
00:29:41.100 | For somebody who's been on the road, maybe that mobile lifestyle appeals to you.
00:29:44.980 | A hundred grand will buy you a sailboat and provision it very well and you can use that
00:29:50.020 | and sail the world.
00:29:51.020 | One of my favorite thrillers, if you're into thriller novels, Matthew Bracken's book called
00:29:57.380 | Enemies Foreign and Domestic is fantastic.
00:29:59.260 | The whole trilogy is great.
00:30:01.300 | But the hero of that story is a young man who worked on the oil fields.
00:30:05.820 | His name was Brad in the story.
00:30:07.680 | He worked on the oil field, saved up his money, then he bought an old sailboat and then used
00:30:12.540 | his saved money to purchase the necessary equipment and then used his labor to fix up
00:30:19.360 | and refit the whole sailboat so he could wind up having a paid for livable ocean going sailboat
00:30:26.900 | to live on and have enough money to have it fully outfitted.
00:30:29.820 | Well, he bought his freedom on that sailboat with a few years of work in the oil fields.
00:30:35.860 | So you could do that with a boat if you're interested in that or an RV if you're interested
00:30:39.020 | in that.
00:30:40.020 | But you could certainly do that also with any kind of normal traditional house.
00:30:43.980 | There are towns all over this country and all over the world where you could go in and
00:30:48.500 | pay cash for a nice little house with a hundred grand and have a paid for debt free house
00:30:55.820 | to live in.
00:30:57.740 | What would that buy you?
00:30:58.740 | Well, it buys you the ability to do just about anything you want because you've taken away
00:31:05.380 | many of your living expenses, many of your housing expenses at least.
00:31:10.620 | Buy it right, fill it with some roommates, and now not only does it remove your cost,
00:31:18.700 | but it gives you a source of income, revenue.
00:31:22.620 | I've always found it interesting for those who say, "Well, $100,000 isn't enough to buy
00:31:27.380 | the kind of house that I'd like to live in."
00:31:29.100 | That's true.
00:31:30.100 | But is $100,000 enough for you to build for yourself the type of house you'd like to live
00:31:35.240 | in?
00:31:36.240 | If I were going to go back and do it all over again, I'd love to have some older person
00:31:42.620 | come along and give me an idea like this and say, "Joshua, why don't you take, say, the
00:31:48.020 | first few years, 18 years old, why don't you go and work?
00:31:51.460 | But work in a job that'll allow you to learn while you're on the job, learn while you're
00:31:54.660 | driving across the road.
00:31:56.660 | And then take that money and come back and start working in some of the trades and apprentice
00:32:01.780 | in a few of the different trades, work six months in carpentry, work six months in plumbing,
00:32:07.220 | et cetera.
00:32:08.220 | And then use your off time and go ahead and build your own house for yourself.
00:32:11.180 | Got $100,000, learning the skills, applying them.
00:32:15.100 | I saw a news story a couple of, some months ago where a woman had built for herself a
00:32:21.500 | house and she ostensibly had learned it all on YouTube.
00:32:25.260 | It's incredible the opportunities that are there, but you're going to need some capital.
00:32:30.140 | You create the capital with work and then you may take and apply the labor.
00:32:35.540 | Buy the piece of land, build the house, live in a tent if you need to, keep your expenses
00:32:39.720 | down while you're building it.
00:32:41.820 | But think about where you come out the other side.
00:32:43.860 | You can do this at relatively any age, but I'm thinking especially of young people like
00:32:47.820 | John the Expediter.
00:32:49.580 | You come out at say 25 years old, you've got a nice house, paid off, gives you tremendous
00:32:56.700 | flexibility.
00:32:58.740 | Keep enough capital to start a business, make sure you have sources of income so you
00:33:01.980 | don't spend it all on a place to live, but you've got tremendous flexibility.
00:33:06.140 | Another big picture area of focus, remember I started with business, then housing, is
00:33:11.060 | education.
00:33:12.420 | You can use the money to purchase for yourself an educational accreditation that can be helpful
00:33:17.220 | in launching a significant career.
00:33:21.460 | Maybe that's an area of specialty.
00:33:23.760 | Maybe that's you go ahead and get your degree from long-distance study while you're saving
00:33:29.000 | up money.
00:33:30.260 | Then you sit for your board exams or sit for your MCATs or the LSATs or for something like
00:33:37.260 | that, medical school or physical therapy school or law school or business school.
00:33:41.620 | You go ahead and now you have the money that you can use so that you come out the other
00:33:44.880 | side debt-free.
00:33:47.000 | Much more powerful place to start than being $100,000 in debt.
00:33:52.960 | Use those years of hard work to home in on what you're interested in.
00:33:56.720 | Get some experience in the field to make sure you're sure about it.
00:34:00.080 | And then go ahead and buy yourself the educational accreditation you need to open a market that
00:34:05.240 | moves you from earning $50,000 a year to earning $500,000 a year.
00:34:09.920 | I'd much rather see someone do that than come out the other side with a six-figure student
00:34:14.600 | loan bill.
00:34:16.920 | Much more respect, and I'm convinced the lifestyle is much better for the person who's worked
00:34:22.480 | their way through.
00:34:24.640 | And these are ideas on how you can do it and how you can use this type of work that, again,
00:34:29.600 | has simple entry requirements to open up an entirely different world of educational opportunities
00:34:37.600 | for you.
00:34:39.480 | In some ways, I did a certain version of this myself.
00:34:42.200 | When I was in college, I worked my way through my freshman year of college with scholarships
00:34:49.240 | and earned income and didn't borrow money my freshman year of college.
00:34:52.600 | Then in my sophomore year of college, I got lazy and I started borrowing money on credit
00:34:56.320 | cards to pay for my living expenses and student loans to pay for my school expenses.
00:35:00.580 | That continued on my sophomore and my junior year.
00:35:02.800 | In my junior year, I said, "This is crazy," and I decided to get out of debt.
00:35:07.520 | I worked like crazy to get out of debt my senior year of school.
00:35:11.680 | I was able to graduate.
00:35:12.680 | I checked with Sally May two weeks before I graduated and I was able to graduate debt-free
00:35:16.560 | from college.
00:35:18.160 | On my resume, when I was applying for jobs and talking to people, I put at the bottom
00:35:22.600 | "graduated debt-free," I phrased it appropriately, but something like, "Paid for my own school
00:35:28.720 | and graduated debt-free."
00:35:31.560 | People would skip over the rest of my resume and they would home in on that and they would
00:35:35.840 | ask me the story.
00:35:38.360 | I had various people that I interviewed with really appreciate that and it opened a lot
00:35:44.700 | of doors for me.
00:35:48.280 | If you followed a path like I've laid out here, it would open a lot of doors for you.
00:35:53.440 | Number four, investments.
00:35:55.800 | Obviously, when we've developed this amount of money and savings, we need to think carefully
00:36:01.860 | about how to invest it wisely.
00:36:05.720 | $100,000 can open the world of wealth if well invested.
00:36:12.720 | $100,000 of starting capital is enough to capitalize a real estate empire.
00:36:19.720 | $100,000 is enough wealth to capitalize a profitable trading business.
00:36:27.280 | $100,000 of wealth is enough to capitalize private investments and private businesses.
00:36:34.600 | $100,000 is more money than almost anybody puts their hands on.
00:36:42.800 | Depending on which data source we use, about half of US Americans can't come up with $1,000
00:36:51.160 | cash.
00:36:52.720 | About half of Americans can't come up with $1,000 cash.
00:36:58.560 | By saving anything more than $1,000, you move yourself from the bottom 50% to the top 50%.
00:37:07.640 | Here's one that's even more sobering.
00:37:10.400 | About 75% of Americans who reach retirement age, what we usually consider to be retirement
00:37:17.600 | age, have less than $100,000 saved.
00:37:25.720 | That's why I don't take people who talk about retirement seriously in this way, meaning
00:37:31.080 | that most people will not retire because they just don't have the money saved.
00:37:34.660 | If people do have the money saved, they don't have it liquid.
00:37:37.000 | Usually it's tied up in home equity.
00:37:41.400 | If you can accumulate for yourself $100,000, you move yourself into essentially the top
00:37:47.800 | quartile.
00:37:50.840 | Not only the top quartile of all Americans, but even the top quartile of retiring age
00:37:54.320 | Americans.
00:37:59.000 | Think about the impact on your life.
00:38:01.480 | Yet, is there anything complicated about this plan that I've laid out?
00:38:04.800 | Is there anything that requires some kind of special skill?
00:38:09.160 | John the Expediter seemed like a very nice man, but the basic skill is to go and get
00:38:18.040 | a job in this type of field, to get rid of his stuff that's costing him money at home
00:38:24.360 | to lower expenses, and the ability to keep your bottom planted in a seat and keep the
00:38:30.640 | van headed between the little white lines.
00:38:34.740 | Those aren't very unique skills.
00:38:41.320 | You don't need to be a special fancy person, but you do need to consider it and you do
00:38:46.740 | need to have the idea and you do need to work about it.
00:38:50.320 | If you're struggling to get ahead and you're struggling with trying to figure out what
00:38:54.240 | to do, consider just the example of John the Expediter and consider these simple examples
00:38:59.600 | I've used to see how they can apply to your situation.
00:39:02.760 | You'll need to calculate for yourself your own path.
00:39:06.320 | I would not do what I've described in this show at this point in time.
00:39:11.720 | The cost would be too high.
00:39:13.120 | I'm married.
00:39:14.120 | I have children.
00:39:15.560 | I would never take the chance of losing my family to go and sit behind a wheel.
00:39:21.080 | But that may not be you.
00:39:23.040 | You may be in a situation where you don't have those responsibilities.
00:39:29.040 | You could take two or three years of work and apply this type of mindset and put yourself
00:39:35.560 | well on a pathway to financial freedom in ten years or less.
00:39:41.240 | That's all I want to share with you today.
00:39:42.240 | I hope this has been useful to you as a practical, real example.
00:39:45.520 | John, as I promised, I told you I'd do the show for you.
00:39:48.200 | Thanks for sharing your story and sharing just some of the stories of the business with
00:39:52.000 | you.
00:39:53.000 | By the way, John and other listeners who are in driving businesses, you need to think carefully
00:39:56.240 | about the future of your market.
00:39:58.320 | If I were in a driving occupation as a job, working as a taxi driver, working as an Uber
00:40:04.360 | driver, working as a truck driver, working as an expediter, anything that involves just
00:40:09.240 | driving, I would not be planning on a long-term career in that.
00:40:14.480 | The writing is on the wall.
00:40:15.480 | Most of those jobs, I don't know if it would be a decade, who knows, a decade and a half,
00:40:19.840 | but I would not be making plans beyond a decade for my job to still exist.
00:40:24.140 | So you need to be using this time to retool, use this time to earn, and transition to something
00:40:30.880 | else.
00:40:31.880 | There are always opportunities available.
00:40:32.880 | Hope you've enjoyed today's show.
00:40:34.400 | If you'd like to get more in contact with me, remember the website's always there at
00:40:37.560 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com.
00:40:39.760 | Thank you for those of you who signed up for the class, the Career and Income Guide class.
00:40:45.420 | We sold out in the first week, so I closed it down over the weekend a week early.
00:40:51.020 | Thank you to those 100 of you who joined that.
00:40:53.400 | We're kicking that off this week, towards the end of this week with the first session.
00:40:57.200 | If you didn't get in for the beta launch, I'll be happy to have you in when we launch
00:41:01.800 | the full version, and I'll be back with you soon.
00:41:04.680 | Thank you for listening.
00:41:05.200 | This show is part of the Radical Life Media Network of podcasts and resources.
00:41:16.620 | Find out more at RadicalLifeMedia.com.
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