RPF0515-Battling_Social_Sneetchery
00:00:00.000 | Now the star-belly sneetches had bellies with stars.
00:00:04.480 | The plain-belly sneetches had none upon thars.
00:00:08.600 | Those stars weren't so big, they were really so small.
00:00:12.120 | You might think such a thing wouldn't matter at all.
00:00:15.520 | But because they had stars, all the star-belly sneetches would brag, "We're the best kind
00:00:23.000 | of sneetch on the beaches!"
00:00:25.720 | With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they'd snort, "We'll have nothing to
00:00:30.400 | do with the plain-belly sort!"
00:00:33.340 | And whenever they met some when they were out walking, they'd hike right on past them
00:00:37.200 | without even talking.
00:00:39.000 | When the star-belly children went out to play ball, could a plain-belly get in the game?
00:00:43.920 | Not at all.
00:00:45.060 | You could only play if your bellies had stars and the plain-belly children had none upon
00:00:50.480 | thars.
00:00:51.980 | When the star-belly sneetches had frankfurter roasts, or picnics or parties or marshmallow
00:00:57.200 | toasts, they never invited the plain-belly sneetches.
00:01:00.900 | They left them out cold in the dark of the beaches.
00:01:04.120 | They kept them away, never let them come near, and that's how they treated them, year after
00:01:10.600 | year.
00:01:11.600 | Then, one day, it seems, while the plain-belly sneetches were moping and doping alone on
00:01:18.400 | the beaches, just sitting there wishing their bellies had stars, a stranger zipped up in
00:01:24.000 | the strangest of cars.
00:01:25.880 | "My friends," he announced in a voice clear and keen, "my name is Sylvester McMonkey
00:01:32.520 | McBean, and I've heard of your troubles, I've heard you're unhappy, but I can fix
00:01:39.360 | that, I'm the Fix-It-Up Chappy.
00:01:41.480 | I've come here to help you, I have what you need, and my prices are low, and I work at
00:01:47.160 | great speed, and my work is one hundred percent guaranteed."
00:01:52.120 | Then, quickly, Sylvester McMonkey McBean put together a very peculiar machine, and he said,
00:02:00.480 | "You want stars like a star-belly sneetch?
00:02:03.760 | My friends, you can have them for three dollars each.
00:02:07.320 | Just pay me your money and hop right aboard."
00:02:10.520 | So they clamored inside.
00:02:12.720 | Then the big machine roared, and it clonked, and it bonked, and it jerked, and it burked,
00:02:17.800 | and it bopped them about.
00:02:19.460 | But the thing really worked.
00:02:21.520 | When the plain-belly sneetches popped out, they had stars.
00:02:24.680 | They actually did, they had stars upon thars.
00:02:28.600 | Then they yelled at the ones who had stars from the start, "We're exactly like you,
00:02:32.660 | you can't tell us apart.
00:02:34.400 | We're all just the same now, you snooty old smarties, and now we can go to your Frankfurter
00:02:41.640 | berries."
00:02:42.640 | "Good grief!" groaned the ones who had stars at the first.
00:02:45.400 | "We're still the best sneetches, and they are the worst.
00:02:49.080 | But now, how in the world will we know," they all frowned, "if which kind is what,
00:02:54.680 | or the other way round?"
00:02:57.280 | Then up came McBean with a very sly wink, and he said, "Things are not quite as bad
00:03:03.680 | as you think.
00:03:04.900 | So you don't know who's who, that is perfectly true.
00:03:08.600 | But come with me, friends, do you know what I'll do?
00:03:12.080 | I'll make you, again, the best sneetches on beaches, and all it will cost you is ten
00:03:18.800 | dollars eaches."
00:03:20.080 | "Belly stars are no longer in style," said McBean.
00:03:24.680 | "What you need is a trip through my star-off machine.
00:03:29.480 | This wondrous contraption will take off your stars, so you won't look like sneetches who
00:03:35.400 | have them on thars."
00:03:37.540 | And that handy machine, working very precisely, removed all the stars from their tummies quite
00:03:43.760 | nicely.
00:03:45.040 | Then with snoots in the air, they paraded about, and they opened their beaks and they
00:03:49.600 | let out a shout, "We know who is who, now there isn't a doubt.
00:03:54.040 | The best kind of sneetches are sneetches without."
00:03:58.840 | Then of course, those with stars all got frightfully mad.
00:04:03.760 | To be wearing a star now was frightfully bad.
00:04:08.840 | Then of course, old Sylvester McMonkey McBean invited them into his star-off machine.
00:04:18.280 | Then of course, from then on, as you probably guessed, things really got into a horrible
00:04:24.200 | mess.
00:04:25.680 | All the rest of that day on those wild screaming beaches, the Fix-It-Up chappy kept fixing
00:04:31.320 | up sneetches, off again, on again, in again, out again.
00:04:36.360 | Through the machines they raced round and about again, changing their stars every minute
00:04:41.280 | or two.
00:04:42.280 | They kept paying money.
00:04:44.680 | They kept running through, until neither the plane nor the star bellies knew whether this
00:04:50.840 | one was that one or that one was this one or which one was what one or what one was
00:04:54.400 | who.
00:04:55.840 | Then when every last cent of their money was spent, the Fix-It-Up chappy packed up and
00:05:05.280 | he went.
00:05:07.040 | And he laughed as he drove in his car up the beach.
00:05:11.280 | They never will learn.
00:05:13.080 | No, you can't teach a sneetch.
00:05:17.440 | But McBean was quite wrong, I'm quite happy to say, that the sneetches got really quite
00:05:23.960 | smart on that day.
00:05:26.320 | The day they decided that sneetches are sneetches, and no kind of sneetch is the best on the
00:05:32.000 | beaches.
00:05:33.540 | That day all the sneetches forgot about stars, and whether they had one or not, upon thars.
00:05:41.480 | Welcome to the Dr. Seuss Story Children's Hour tonight.
00:06:01.480 | Wait, sorry.
00:06:03.800 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:06:07.480 | skills, insights, encouragement and fun little stories that you need to live a rich and meaningful
00:06:13.680 | life now while building a plan for financial freedom in ten years or less.
00:06:18.520 | Today we talk about stars and sneetches and diamonds and duds and drives.
00:06:30.200 | Happy Monday my friends.
00:06:31.200 | It is a brand new week and a brand new year.
00:06:34.200 | I hope that you are off to a great new year.
00:06:37.080 | How does it get better if you start your day with Dr. Seuss?
00:06:40.080 | And of course, as with every good little story, I could probably stop right there and you
00:06:43.960 | can pick up the lessons and the morals of the story for yourself.
00:06:50.280 | Now of course, some things are rather obvious, like the fact that sneetches are sneetches
00:06:55.560 | whether they have stars on their bellies or not.
00:06:59.040 | And frankly, we could use that lesson today.
00:07:03.320 | So many of us are quick to judge one another by the stars on their bellies or the lack
00:07:08.300 | of stars and draw our conclusions rather hastily.
00:07:11.440 | But today, of course, this is Radical Personal Finance.
00:07:14.760 | And in the context of this show, although I would dearly love to preach for the next
00:07:20.160 | hour on that topic, in the context of this show, we talk about money.
00:07:26.580 | And since my desire is for you to plan for, work towards and achieve financial freedom
00:07:32.360 | in your life, my goal today is to help you make sure that when your Mr. McBean tumbles
00:07:39.940 | on down the road, that your every last cent is not spent in the fix-it-up chappies pocket
00:07:51.040 | for his stupid machines to put on stars and take them off again.
00:07:57.120 | Now in order to do that, we need some discussion points.
00:08:01.920 | And so very few of us are worried about the stars on our bellies, but I thought it'd be
00:08:06.360 | fun in the theme of and the modeling of Dr. Seuss, why not have a little alliteration?
00:08:11.640 | And so today we're going to talk about diamonds, duds, and drives.
00:08:14.240 | That was the best I could do on short notice, diamonds, duds, and drives.
00:08:17.640 | And I want to talk to you about some strategies to help you avoid some of the peer pressure
00:08:22.000 | that you face, the peer pressure on all sides.
00:08:24.880 | Because frankly, many of us spend money constantly because of peer pressure.
00:08:31.480 | And none of us are exempted.
00:08:33.280 | I face continually, continually the pressure and the desire to spend money based upon peer
00:08:40.240 | pressure.
00:08:41.720 | Sometimes I can evade that pressure, sometimes I cannot, but it's a constant challenge.
00:08:46.080 | And I expect it'll be a challenge through all of my life, and thus I expect it'll be
00:08:49.160 | a challenge through all of your life because we all face that pressure.
00:08:52.000 | And I want to give you three simple strategies to help you deal with the peer pressure for
00:08:57.560 | spending.
00:08:58.560 | It's all well and good to recognize that keeping up with the Joneses really isn't a great move.
00:09:05.320 | It's all well and good to recognize that intellectually, but today I want to help you have some strategies
00:09:11.460 | for how you can avoid it.
00:09:13.580 | And these strategies are very simple.
00:09:16.320 | The fashions of the day will come and go, whether it's in to have stars or out to have
00:09:22.080 | stars on your belly, or whether it's in to have long pants or short pants or big bottoms
00:09:26.360 | or bell bottoms or tight pants or skinny pants or sleeves or any of these things.
00:09:30.840 | The fashions will come and go.
00:09:32.080 | I recently was reading a book and the author of the book talked about the fact that he
00:09:36.320 | had found this great coat that his mom was going to get rid of, a great camel-haired
00:09:41.160 | coat, and he got it for free from his mom because she was getting rid of it because
00:09:44.320 | it was out of fashion.
00:09:45.320 | And he wore it for 40 years.
00:09:46.320 | An older man said he wore it for 40 years, and for about two or three of those years
00:09:50.200 | he was completely in fashion because those were the years that the fashion industry brought
00:09:55.160 | back that fashion, and so his friends during those 40 years, "You know what?
00:09:58.200 | Let me find it."
00:10:00.600 | And I'm back.
00:10:01.600 | So the book was the book How to Survive – excuse me.
00:10:04.440 | You'll have to forgive me.
00:10:05.880 | My co-hosts haven't had their morning coffee yet.
00:10:08.200 | The book that I was flipping through is called How to Survive Without a Salary, Learning
00:10:12.640 | How to Live the Conserver Lifestyle by Charles Long.
00:10:16.800 | And it's a good book.
00:10:18.600 | I have a number of these books, but it's some of the past genre of books on how to
00:10:22.800 | live cheap, and I really enjoy these books.
00:10:24.600 | I was going through and working on my book scanning project, and that gave me the opportunity
00:10:30.000 | to flip through some of these older books.
00:10:31.560 | A little embarrassing.
00:10:32.560 | I guess my details were a little bit wrong, but here is the paragraph from page 57 of
00:10:37.320 | Charles Long's How to Survive Without a Salary.
00:10:39.520 | He relates this story.
00:10:41.640 | I'll start three paragraphs before.
00:10:45.560 | He says, "Look again, however, at the goods that fashion does change.
00:10:50.000 | They are the ones that don't need to have structural obsolescence built in.
00:10:54.080 | They last forever.
00:10:55.800 | When is the last time you wore out a necktie and a Nehru suit, like a diamond, is forever?
00:11:01.960 | The real conserver is impervious to the dictates of fashion, but is a victim, nevertheless,
00:11:07.000 | of planned obsolescence.
00:11:08.960 | He may not change his ties to match the current width or length, but his light bulbs will
00:11:14.040 | burn out like everyone else's.
00:11:15.800 | Knowing, however, that fashionable goods are discarded because of style rather than wear,
00:11:20.400 | he can often find best value by deliberately seeking out of fashion bargains.
00:11:25.000 | The conserver, examining his needs or reaching for his wallet, asks himself, "Whose need
00:11:30.000 | is it?
00:11:31.000 | Mine or the Joneses?"
00:11:33.400 | By ignoring artificial needs created by fashions and emulations, the conserver concentrates
00:11:38.480 | his money on the things that are really important to him, not on the straw men set up by the
00:11:42.800 | electronic snake oil peddlers.
00:11:46.160 | From the day my son understood this simple concept, he was never again suckered into
00:11:49.960 | anything with the promise of dessert.
00:11:53.040 | Some years ago, Grandmother was cleaning out her rag bag, scissoring up wool for a rug
00:11:57.480 | she was making.
00:11:58.900 | She pulled out a heavy camel hair coat, gleaned from a rich and distant cousin's discards.
00:12:04.680 | There was absolutely nothing wrong with the coat, except that camel hair and narrow lapels
00:12:09.920 | were just a year passe.
00:12:12.240 | For protests, I salvaged the intended rug and wore it simply because it was delightfully
00:12:17.880 | warm.
00:12:18.880 | I wore it for thirty years.
00:12:21.340 | It was indestructible, and in at least two years out of those thirty, my coat was back
00:12:26.100 | in fashion.
00:12:27.420 | At least I presumed it was back in fashion.
00:12:30.400 | Those were the years when acquaintances would admire and marvel that I could afford such
00:12:34.220 | a wonderful coat.
00:12:35.860 | In the other twenty-eight years, I got sympathy and was treated to coffee a lot.
00:12:40.940 | All that mattered to me, though, is that for thirty years, the coat fulfilled my need perfectly.
00:12:46.540 | It didn't always meet others' criteria of what a coat should be, but distinguishing
00:12:50.140 | clearly between their needs and mine saved the cost of thirty years of top coats.
00:12:57.020 | So back to our Dr. Seuss introduction.
00:12:59.300 | Old McMarty McBean was the brilliant guy in this whole story because he walked away with
00:13:04.900 | a pocket full of money.
00:13:06.580 | And I encourage you, whenever you can fill your pocket with other people's monies by
00:13:10.420 | selling them services that they desperately desire, I encourage you to do so, but to do
00:13:16.460 | it in a way that you'll feel good when you drive away with your pockets full of money.
00:13:20.040 | But the key here today is I want to help you protect your pocket of money.
00:13:22.820 | In order to do that, I want to give you these strategies.
00:13:24.500 | So here are the three strategies that I know of to help you confront the peer pressure
00:13:31.500 | that affects you and wants to affect your decisions.
00:13:34.660 | Number one, you can conform to the fashion of the day.
00:13:38.860 | As stupid as it may be, so that you can enjoy acceptance by the group and further your own
00:13:47.540 | goals.
00:13:48.540 | That's strategy number one.
00:13:49.540 | Just conform and embrace it.
00:13:52.420 | Strategy number one.
00:13:53.660 | Strategy number two, find a workaround that gives you plausible deniability without direct
00:13:59.300 | confrontation.
00:14:01.580 | So find some way to get there without fully embracing it.
00:14:07.220 | And number three, engage in the direct confrontation of the fashion at hand and make your mark
00:14:16.380 | by going against it.
00:14:18.620 | Now these three strategies I'm going to weave for you just a few bits of advice around the
00:14:22.780 | concept of diamonds, duds, and drives.
00:14:24.340 | So of course I mean here diamonds as in diamond rings and diamond jewelry, duds as in the
00:14:28.260 | clothes that you wear, and drives meaning the cars that you drive.
00:14:32.340 | Because these are three just interesting cultural sensations that all matter.
00:14:37.700 | The first thing we need to emphasize is culture and fitting into the group matters.
00:14:46.580 | It matters.
00:14:47.580 | I don't think it's a good place to start to say it shouldn't matter.
00:14:52.580 | And so therefore I'm just going to ignore it.
00:14:54.380 | That's foolish.
00:14:55.380 | It does matter.
00:14:56.380 | I've been teaching a course on career and income planning.
00:15:00.060 | In that course, guess what?
00:15:02.140 | The fashions of the day matter.
00:15:04.940 | You need to fit into the group.
00:15:06.240 | If you're working in a job where your coworkers all wear white, I recommend that you wear
00:15:12.020 | white.
00:15:13.360 | You've got to fit into the group because if you don't fit into the group, you'll make
00:15:16.380 | other people uncomfortable.
00:15:18.700 | And it's not stupid to recognize this truth.
00:15:25.340 | Signaling theory, which is a well-researched area of sociology, I guess would be the discipline
00:15:31.500 | it would fall into.
00:15:32.860 | But signaling theory would say that people will perceive you the way that you signal
00:15:35.580 | yourself to be.
00:15:37.060 | And this is important.
00:15:38.060 | If you want to fit into the company culture, you should fit into the company culture.
00:15:41.980 | You don't go for a job interview at your local white collar attorney firm wearing muddy work
00:15:51.020 | boots, jeans with holes in them, and a buttoned down flannel shirt that still smells like
00:15:57.820 | cow manure.
00:16:00.060 | You're not going to get the job.
00:16:02.300 | In the same way you don't show up for work or the job interview at your local dairy farm
00:16:08.220 | wearing a pair of $500 dress shoes and an Armani suit.
00:16:13.300 | You're not going to get the job.
00:16:15.740 | You got to look something close to the way that your interviewer or your boss expects
00:16:20.620 | you to look.
00:16:24.420 | And it's foolish to assume otherwise.
00:16:28.140 | So don't start by embracing your spirit of nonconformity, especially if you're young
00:16:34.180 | or you're broke.
00:16:36.180 | Start by embracing your spirit of conformity and then figuring out an intelligent way to
00:16:40.900 | do that.
00:16:42.980 | The clothes that you wear matter.
00:16:45.060 | And I think it's important to recognize that.
00:16:48.340 | So strategy number one, if you're looking at your clothes, you need to recognize that
00:16:51.940 | your clothes matter.
00:16:53.700 | And being out of step with your company or with your culture is not very smart.
00:17:00.700 | It will bring upon your head abuse unnecessarily.
00:17:08.740 | No matter how stupid the fashion may be objectively, if you're in the middle of the place where
00:17:17.620 | that fashion is acceptable and important, you probably should consider embracing it
00:17:26.100 | until you can get out of that place.
00:17:30.580 | This stuff matters.
00:17:31.580 | It matters if you're a junior attorney who just got hired on out of law school.
00:17:35.260 | Well, in that case, you better look like an attorney.
00:17:40.500 | You better drive like an attorney.
00:17:46.420 | You better signal to your clients and coworkers your attorney-ness.
00:17:55.100 | That's a good place to start.
00:17:57.220 | Conform to the fashion.
00:17:58.220 | Now, does that mean that you have to be stupid about it?
00:18:00.140 | No, I don't think so.
00:18:01.780 | You can still try to be smart.
00:18:02.780 | In a moment, we'll go to that workaround because I think there are workarounds.
00:18:06.660 | But if you need to wear attorney clothes, do it.
00:18:09.860 | Just buy them as smart as you can.
00:18:12.340 | Try to find all the ways to save on them so that you can keep more money in your pocket
00:18:15.980 | while still signaling your attorney-ness.
00:18:20.180 | If you need to drive an attorney's car, do it.
00:18:23.220 | But try to find ways to drive and express your attorney-ness in your driving without
00:18:29.460 | being so utterly stupid as to get ripped off or to spend more than you can afford.
00:18:36.540 | Conform to the fashion, as stupid as it may be, so that you can enjoy the acceptance by
00:18:40.540 | the group and further your personal goals.
00:18:43.300 | Now, in my opinion, this applies in other areas, even as dumb as they may be.
00:18:50.540 | Let me give an example of something that always drives me nuts.
00:18:56.140 | Diamond engagement rings.
00:18:57.740 | If you research the history of diamond engagement rings, you will find that the entire thing
00:19:04.340 | is a giant marketing facade.
00:19:08.540 | It is dumb the fact that we men give to our loved ones diamond rings to try to impress
00:19:16.520 | upon them how valuable we are so that they'll marry us.
00:19:21.880 | That is dumb.
00:19:24.940 | It's objectively dumb for multiple reasons.
00:19:28.980 | Number one, diamonds, they may last forever, but they're not in short supply.
00:19:34.780 | There are many, many diamonds and the market is artificially controlled and manipulated
00:19:42.540 | in order to make them have perceived value.
00:19:45.900 | Rubies are far more rare than diamonds are, but yet how much value do you place on a ruby?
00:19:50.500 | You probably don't even know what a ruby looks like.
00:19:53.620 | Bible said a virtuous wife who can find her worth is far above rubies.
00:19:57.620 | What it was talking about, a ruby is more valuable than a diamond, but you don't know
00:20:01.540 | what a ruby looks like and you do know what a diamond looks like.
00:20:04.540 | Well, it's this whole giant scam that the diamond industry came up with and they said,
00:20:10.220 | we have a lot of diamonds, how can we sell more of them at higher prices?
00:20:14.300 | And they decided, well, we'll market them as a symbol of love.
00:20:18.500 | Before that, they were not, and yet today they are.
00:20:24.180 | Now, no matter how dumb, I should give more examples of how objectively dumb they are.
00:20:30.100 | Ever since that time in the United States American culture, when we've embraced diamonds
00:20:34.620 | as the way for a man to profess his undying love and forever attention to his wife, his
00:20:42.460 | fiance, a prospective fiance, ever since that time, marriage has systematically declined
00:20:53.180 | in strength.
00:20:56.100 | The giving of the diamond ring certainly never helped marriage because all the trends are
00:21:02.700 | down.
00:21:04.740 | So objectively, this is dumb.
00:21:06.260 | I'm trying to give a little few objective data points.
00:21:08.980 | Yes, I'm being, speaking large and being a little bit hyperbolic, but this is really
00:21:15.500 | true.
00:21:18.300 | And yet as a young man, you probably are better served by embracing the custom and figuring
00:21:25.940 | it out.
00:21:26.940 | Now, I'm sure that there are young women out there who would be okay with marrying
00:21:34.420 | somebody and with becoming engaged to their fiance without a diamond ring.
00:21:39.340 | I've met a few of them here and there, but much of the time, probably not.
00:21:45.660 | Probably not.
00:21:46.660 | I know for my wife, when I proposed to her, which by the way, another one that drives
00:21:51.300 | me nuts about the diamond ring thing.
00:21:53.420 | When I was growing up as a little boy, I often thought to myself, you know what?
00:21:58.580 | It would be so scary to be a man kneeling down, asking a woman to marry you.
00:22:05.820 | What if she says no?
00:22:07.940 | And it wasn't until a little while before, it was in a couple of years before, I was
00:22:13.420 | in a position where I was actually going to propose to my wife that I realized if you're
00:22:19.140 | asking her to marry you and you don't know the answer, you better not be asking her to
00:22:23.380 | marry you.
00:22:27.020 | Not a good move.
00:22:28.020 | Hopefully, your relationship has a little bit better communication and has been a little
00:22:32.700 | bit more straightforward than that for that to be out of the blue.
00:22:35.540 | Don't get me wrong.
00:22:36.540 | There's a place for romantic notions and actions and all of that.
00:22:41.380 | And if your fiance embraces that, great, go for it.
00:22:44.380 | I certainly have sought to do that as well and to create the most romantic image possible.
00:22:51.620 | But that's primarily so she can tell a story to all of her friends.
00:22:54.740 | And the whole reason for a diamond is so she can feel proud to show off a ring to all of
00:22:58.340 | her friends.
00:22:59.340 | But try to do it in an intelligent way.
00:23:00.340 | So, if you're going to embrace the fashion and conform to it, try to do it in some way
00:23:06.580 | that gives you more bang for the buck.
00:23:09.220 | At this point, if I were giving advice about diamond buying to myself, I would say that
00:23:13.420 | I dramatically overspent on my wife's engagement ring.
00:23:18.980 | But to this day, she still loves it.
00:23:21.900 | And I don't...do I regret it?
00:23:23.700 | I don't know.
00:23:24.700 | I don't...I hate that question.
00:23:26.660 | She still loves it.
00:23:27.660 | I bought a custom ring.
00:23:29.100 | I had it custom made by a jeweler and it was designed exactly the way that I knew she would
00:23:33.100 | want it and she loves it.
00:23:35.620 | So, if you're going to do something, embrace it.
00:23:37.700 | Just do it as intelligently as you can and get as many long-lasting benefits as possible.
00:23:43.380 | Same thing with clothes.
00:23:44.380 | If you're going to get nice clothes, go ahead and get them.
00:23:46.800 | Just buy them as smart as you can and maintain them as smart as you can if you need them
00:23:50.740 | to fit in for conformity.
00:23:53.020 | And then finally with driving, if you need to drive a certain vehicle to fit in, to conform,
00:23:58.380 | do your best to drive it and enjoy it.
00:24:01.380 | Try to get a good deal, but enjoy it.
00:24:03.620 | If I were a new attorney, I probably would be driving some kind of car that had the luxury
00:24:08.580 | nameplate on it.
00:24:10.100 | But you know what?
00:24:11.100 | They are fun to drive.
00:24:13.580 | It is fun to drive a luxury car.
00:24:16.180 | And so, I would try to do it smart.
00:24:17.820 | I would try to get a good deal and I would try to buy used and I would try to play with
00:24:21.660 | all of the tricks, which I'll go through more in a minute.
00:24:24.540 | But at the end of the day, enjoy it and embrace it.
00:24:28.220 | Now strategy number two, find a workaround that gives you plausible deniability without
00:24:32.820 | directly confronting the specific issue at hand.
00:24:36.900 | And I think this is the most powerful strategy that we should continually be thinking of.
00:24:41.260 | When confronted with a peer pressure moment, when confronted with a fashion of the day,
00:24:45.700 | when confronted with the fact that we don't have stars on our tummies, try to figure out
00:24:51.020 | a way that gives you plausible deniability without directly confronting it.
00:24:55.740 | Because it's very tiresome to spend all of your life working so that you can blow all
00:24:59.940 | of your money and put it into Mr. Marty McBean's pocket just so that you can fit in.
00:25:05.700 | But it's also tiresome to constantly be confronting everything.
00:25:13.100 | It's tiresome for you and it's tiresome for your friends and family.
00:25:17.180 | I think at 500 episodes of the show, I don't think I've ever really ranted on diamonds.
00:25:22.140 | I don't have an interest in being known as the diamond ranter.
00:25:25.860 | There's a reason for that.
00:25:28.820 | I don't want to be the constant anti guy.
00:25:32.580 | There are a very few number of issues that I believe are very important and I will go
00:25:38.940 | to my death defending those issues if that's what it takes.
00:25:43.140 | But I'm not going to waste my life energy confronting every single thing.
00:25:50.460 | And friends, this is not a good way to live.
00:25:57.420 | Whatever your issue of choice, whether it's politics, whether it's...
00:26:05.620 | Whatever your issue of choice, don't get yourself so many issues that you spend your entire
00:26:10.420 | life just being anti.
00:26:12.700 | I was just so struck.
00:26:14.660 | I was on Twitter last week and I look at the hashtags that are trending and something...
00:26:21.380 | And I look at there and the hashtag that was trending was nothing matters but.
00:26:24.660 | That was the hashtag, nothing matters but.
00:26:26.380 | Now I don't know what the source of this hashtag was, but I clicked on it.
00:26:30.020 | The top handful of posts were all wholeheartedly politically, political.
00:26:36.620 | I took a screenshot and just listen to this.
00:26:38.480 | This is from Bryce Tacky.
00:26:41.700 | This was his post on Twitter.
00:26:44.460 | Hashtag, nothing matters but impeaching Trump and Pence, imprisoning every complicit traitor,
00:26:51.700 | flipping and keeping Congress blue, electing Democrat governors, electing Dems at every
00:26:56.860 | level everywhere and holding them accountable.
00:26:59.360 | And to do all this, we must resist and resist and resist.
00:27:04.540 | The one right below that in my little screenshot, Christopher Zullo, nothing matters but electing
00:27:10.060 | a Democratic Congress in 2018.
00:27:13.080 | If you want to destroy your life, just start actually living in accordance with these words
00:27:21.500 | saying that nothing matters but impeaching Trump and Pence, imprisoning all these people,
00:27:26.780 | flipping Congress, electing a Democratic Congress, et cetera.
00:27:30.220 | You don't have any control over a single one of those things and your Twitter posts are
00:27:38.740 | not going to make a difference.
00:27:41.620 | Now I get it.
00:27:43.460 | It's Twitter, it's hyperbole, it's political Twitter, all of that.
00:27:46.580 | But my friends, this is what we see every day.
00:27:49.300 | People destroying their lives over issues they can't change while they ignore the ones
00:27:55.220 | that they can.
00:27:58.100 | So whether it's politics or whether it's the fact that diamonds are a ripoff or whether
00:28:02.140 | it's the latest financial thing that's done or whether it's the fact that your neighbor
00:28:08.800 | cuts their grass too short, stop wasting your time confronting every single thing and embrace
00:28:20.100 | a few things.
00:28:21.580 | Just move on.
00:28:23.460 | Get some joy out of it.
00:28:25.540 | Back to plausible deniability, finding a workaround that gives you plausible deniability without
00:28:31.460 | direct confrontations.
00:28:32.460 | I said a moment ago, I'm just going to using my diamonds, duds and drives.
00:28:38.780 | I said a moment ago that I bought my wife a custom engagement ring when I proposed to
00:28:44.540 | her and that was fine.
00:28:46.780 | If I were going to go back and do it today, the only reason that I bought her a custom
00:28:50.020 | ring was because I knew she had in her head a design that she thought would be cool.
00:28:54.220 | She had told me about it a few years earlier and I'd made note of it.
00:28:56.980 | I'd gone home, I'd listened to her and I'd made note of it.
00:28:58.980 | I'd actually gone home and drawn a picture of it, of what she had said even a few years
00:29:02.900 | before I proposed to her.
00:29:04.100 | So I knew that was in her head.
00:29:05.900 | But if she had never dropped something, a hint, if I'd never known that she had a desire
00:29:09.820 | for something interesting and custom, I would have bought her an engagement ring at Costco.
00:29:15.500 | If you're shopping for an engagement ring, go to Costco.
00:29:19.020 | Walmart also, but I would go to Costco.
00:29:20.860 | And the reason is because it'll be easier for you to get something that is, again, plausible
00:29:25.980 | deniability.
00:29:26.980 | It'd be easier for you to get a diamond that is of decent clarity, of decent quality, that's
00:29:31.020 | been graded at Costco than at Walmart because Walmart sells low-end and high-end jewelry
00:29:36.380 | as well.
00:29:37.380 | Now you can learn the grading system and you can learn all of that, but go to Costco.
00:29:42.940 | Spend the money.
00:29:43.940 | Get something that's fairly valued, that's pretty inexpensive and it gives you what you
00:29:47.980 | need, the diamond ring, without directly confronting and telling your fiance, "I'm not going to
00:29:54.620 | give you a diamond ring because that just fits into the giant scheme and scam that is
00:30:01.020 | engagement rings."
00:30:02.140 | It's simpler.
00:30:06.140 | Saves you money, gets you in there, get much closer to wholesale than retail.
00:30:10.300 | Now with your clothes, my encouragement is if you need them, find some way of working
00:30:15.460 | around it.
00:30:17.100 | So perhaps in your environment, a suit is optional, but maybe you can get by with a
00:30:24.980 | shirt and tie and a coat.
00:30:28.340 | For a number of years when I was a financial advisor, I wore suits, but I came to realize
00:30:35.880 | that suits in Florida are a scam.
00:30:38.140 | Again, the origin of suits for men was that these were primarily workable, useful clothes
00:30:43.580 | that protected you from being cold.
00:30:45.940 | Same thing with academic robes.
00:30:47.580 | If you're in academia, you got to buy these crazy expensive robes to wear twice a year.
00:30:52.380 | Well, the point of academic robes, they were a practical feature.
00:30:56.020 | It was something that professors wore to keep them warm while they were in the bowels of
00:31:00.300 | the dungeon that they worked in.
00:31:02.340 | It was 50 degrees down there and that was a way that they kept warm.
00:31:05.420 | Well, that fashion became something that was a way of expressing superiority and expressing
00:31:10.940 | their status.
00:31:11.940 | Okay, if you become a PhD and you're a professor at a college, you got to buy your crazy $750
00:31:16.500 | robe and your fancy hat that shows and all of the academic regalia that you wear a couple
00:31:20.580 | three times a year.
00:31:22.220 | So same thing with suits.
00:31:24.340 | Wool suits became the fashion, but they used to be a practical thing.
00:31:28.780 | You didn't have zippers, you had buttons.
00:31:30.300 | You had a coat, it was woven a little bit more finely, it kept you warm, and then that
00:31:35.260 | became the fashion so that now in Florida, you have people that walk around in wool suits
00:31:42.660 | in Florida or polyester suits, even worse, and that's what's expected in the business
00:31:47.860 | environment where it's 90 degrees and dripping wet.
00:31:51.140 | Well, interesting, my workaround for that is embrace Spanish fashion.
00:31:57.420 | I couldn't get away with this as a financial advisor, but one of the workarounds that I
00:32:01.660 | would do is just wear a pair of linen pants or a pair of khaki pants and a guayabera and
00:32:06.700 | a straw hat and embrace that and you can get around most of it.
00:32:10.140 | If you go and you look at a picture of assembled dignitaries and presidents of a South American
00:32:15.640 | or a Central American group, you'll find that 50% of them are wearing a guayabera as their
00:32:21.140 | shirt.
00:32:22.140 | It works perfectly fine if you're in Miami as well.
00:32:24.880 | Now the other workaround would be something like wearing khaki pants and a blazer.
00:32:29.140 | I found that I could wear khaki pants and a shirt and a blazer and I would have multiple
00:32:35.980 | advantages from that.
00:32:37.260 | Number one, it pulled back a little bit on the sharkness of my look.
00:32:41.580 | I never got why financial advisors dressed like sharks with glittering French cuff pins
00:32:50.180 | and stick pins in their ties and all of that.
00:32:52.940 | They look like they're the next whoever that guy was from the Wall Street movie, the next
00:32:56.660 | wolf of Wall Street, ready to steal all their client's money.
00:33:02.820 | There was a little bit more advantage of looking like an accountant than looking like a shark,
00:33:06.460 | but it also had the advantage of being cheaper.
00:33:08.900 | Look for something like that.
00:33:09.900 | Now beyond that, fashion advice, I don't have any solution for you, but look around and
00:33:14.300 | try to figure out, is there a workaround wherein I can get what I need to get without trying
00:33:20.980 | to just directly confront this and wear jeans every day?
00:33:25.100 | Similar thing with what you drive.
00:33:27.580 | Try to drive something that doesn't neatly fit categorization.
00:33:31.220 | I'll give you my secret solutions.
00:33:33.340 | Number one, Toyota Prius.
00:33:35.580 | If you work in an industry where fancy cars are expected, buy a Prius because mostly people
00:33:43.700 | will think that you're a greenie weenie environmentalist and they won't ask if you really are.
00:33:51.780 | So you can pull in a crowd of Mercedes and BMWs and a Prius and nobody will think twice
00:33:58.300 | about it.
00:33:59.580 | It's not a poor person's car.
00:34:01.860 | It's an environmentalist's car.
00:34:03.660 | It's great.
00:34:05.140 | Or an SUV.
00:34:06.180 | That was what I wound up when I was a financial advisor.
00:34:08.220 | I was wrestling through these questions and I actually wrote an email to Tom Stanley,
00:34:13.500 | author of The Millionaire Next Door and a bunch of books that I appreciated on marketing
00:34:16.220 | the affluent, selling to the affluent.
00:34:18.100 | And I relayed to him my woes and I said, "Dr. Stanley, I need to buy a car and I work with
00:34:24.900 | wealthy people, but I don't want to buy a Mercedes."
00:34:29.260 | And he wrote back and he said, "Buy a full-size SUV."
00:34:32.100 | Vast majority of wealthy households have a Chevy Suburban or GMC equivalent of that and
00:34:37.740 | many of them also have a Ford Expedition, have that in their driveway.
00:34:42.300 | It worked.
00:34:43.300 | Bought a Ford Expedition.
00:34:44.620 | Never worried about how I looked.
00:34:46.860 | Worked great.
00:34:47.860 | Same thing with a minivan or something.
00:34:49.340 | If you buy a minivan, people will think, "Oh, you got kids."
00:34:55.020 | So look for a way to drive something that doesn't neatly fit categorization.
00:34:59.940 | Or of course, there are many other ways.
00:35:01.860 | Maybe you drive a Toyota 4Runner.
00:35:03.860 | Well, go ahead and put a nice roof rack on it and strap some unnecessary doodads to the
00:35:07.460 | front and back bumper, make it look like you spend your weekend overlanding in the Sierra
00:35:11.700 | Nevada mountains and going to Moab and people will just think, "Well, that's just your thing."
00:35:16.940 | Or drive an old Tacoma or something like that.
00:35:19.940 | Find a way to mix it up a little bit.
00:35:23.860 | What you don't want to do is drive a broken down Ford or American sedan that makes you
00:35:29.320 | look poor.
00:35:32.460 | You got to find something that gets you out of that categorization.
00:35:36.300 | So look around and think about something that you would be into that'll do the job and give
00:35:41.780 | you plausible deniability without trying to just directly confront it.
00:35:49.020 | That's strategy number two.
00:35:50.580 | Or strategy number three.
00:35:53.500 | Go ahead and embrace your confrontational spirit and engage in direct confrontation
00:35:59.300 | with the fashion of the day.
00:36:03.020 | Now maybe this is you.
00:36:05.140 | This isn't really me.
00:36:06.140 | I'm more prone to worrying about what people think of me than that.
00:36:09.940 | But if this is you, go for it.
00:36:12.540 | If you want to get back at the De Beers family for the giant scam that they've waged upon
00:36:17.460 | the world, go for it.
00:36:21.340 | And guess what?
00:36:22.340 | If that's you, you'll probably attract a fiance who's willing to put up with your funny ways.
00:36:27.220 | That's fine.
00:36:28.220 | Go for it.
00:36:29.220 | She's probably a gem.
00:36:30.220 | But stake your claim and own it.
00:36:33.460 | If you want to come against it with the clothes, stake your claim and own it.
00:36:36.740 | Dress like a rock star.
00:36:37.860 | Dress like a cowboy.
00:36:39.100 | Dress like a hoodlum.
00:36:40.100 | Whatever, I don't know, whatever it is, pick it out.
00:36:43.220 | And if you want to be that one who just says, "No, frugality is important to me," go for
00:36:47.860 | it.
00:36:48.860 | Now this is, I think, really best done in an area where you can prove your worth objectively.
00:36:57.560 | And here I'm thinking of somebody like an NFL star.
00:37:02.580 | From time to time you'll read about these sports people, whether it's an NFL star or
00:37:06.660 | an NBA player or somebody like that.
00:37:08.700 | Who knows?
00:37:09.700 | NFL is the most important because the average NFL career length is tiny.
00:37:14.580 | If memory is right, it's something like three and a half years.
00:37:16.580 | So the average NFL career length is really, really small.
00:37:19.820 | And so if you go into the NFL, speaking statistically, you better be prepared for a three and a half
00:37:27.780 | year career.
00:37:31.060 | That means you better not blow all your money signing up for a big hairy mortgage.
00:37:34.780 | Now when you become a superstar, and especially if you're a superstar in a career track where
00:37:39.300 | you can be a long-lived superstar, go for it.
00:37:43.860 | If you're a Tom Brady or if you're another quarterback where you can have these long
00:37:47.660 | careers, that's great.
00:37:49.100 | But the average NFL player is only going to have a few years of earning.
00:37:53.140 | And so from time to time you'll read a story about so-and-so in the NFL drives a Toyota
00:37:57.060 | Camry, the same Toyota Camry they went into college with and they drive it and park it.
00:38:01.100 | Guess what?
00:38:02.100 | You can only do that effectively if you're in a career where your performance is going
00:38:11.260 | to be measured by some other standard.
00:38:12.860 | And that's why it works for an NFL player.
00:38:15.500 | It all comes down to how many yards did you run the ball or how many plays did you pass
00:38:19.460 | or how many defensive plays were you able to make.
00:38:21.620 | That works.
00:38:24.980 | The president of your team, the owner of the team, the coaches, they don't care what kind
00:38:29.980 | of car you drive.
00:38:32.840 | They care how effective you are on the field.
00:38:36.700 | And so go ahead and embrace that frugal, zany person.
00:38:39.980 | "Oh, you know, this is Joshua.
00:38:41.980 | He's the guy that drives the Camry, isn't he so funny?"
00:38:44.140 | But we'd go to him on the weekends and ask him for financial advice.
00:38:46.540 | That's cool.
00:38:48.040 | Where that doesn't work and where you should be a little bit slow giving advice to other
00:38:51.300 | people is you should be a little slow giving advice to other people if their careers are
00:38:55.380 | different.
00:38:56.420 | So back to the worst example, best example, the attorney, the attorney that drives around
00:39:01.540 | in the broken down looking car, the old Toyota Camry, is probably going to be thought of
00:39:07.660 | to be a not very good attorney because it's hard to see the win-loss record and the number
00:39:11.080 | of passes.
00:39:12.080 | Now, if that attorney has succeeded in staking their claim with some big wins, they're the
00:39:18.500 | ones who beat the giant chemical company and they're the environmentalist who drives the
00:39:24.420 | old car because they beat the giant chemical company, that's one thing.
00:39:28.420 | Or if they're the attorney that has a long string of victories and successes and this
00:39:32.140 | is just their weird thing, that's fine.
00:39:34.380 | But if you're just getting started and you don't have those things, then you got to pay
00:39:37.100 | attention to what the signaling, the signaling that you're doing, the signaling theory.
00:39:41.540 | Got to pay attention.
00:39:43.180 | And so if you can stake your claim, go for it.
00:39:46.380 | Now, here would be a flip side.
00:39:48.260 | If you're going to engage in direct contradiction, confrontation of the prevailing situation,
00:39:56.520 | do it in a way that fits a brand that you're trying to achieve.
00:40:00.980 | A good example here would be my friend Alan Moore, the co-founder of the XY Planning Network.
00:40:10.340 | The first, well, I've never seen him in anything else, I guess.
00:40:13.260 | But whenever I've met Alan Moore, he's always wearing jeans, Chacos, and an XY Planning
00:40:19.540 | Network t-shirt.
00:40:20.540 | Now, that fits his brand because primarily he's involved in marketing to other financial
00:40:28.180 | advisors who he wants to enjoy to fit to come and join his firm.
00:40:33.200 | And so he can wear his t-shirt and basically he's marketing to young people and saying,
00:40:38.580 | "Hey, if you're a young financial advisor and you want to come and work with other younger
00:40:42.620 | clients, come and join us.
00:40:44.700 | And look, I'll wear my t-shirt and this is the way that we can be.
00:40:47.380 | We don't have to wear the stuffy suit and shirt culture."
00:40:52.260 | And so it's a direct marketing scheme that's pushing back against the stuffiness or the
00:40:57.140 | perceived stuffiness of the financial planning industry.
00:41:01.220 | So you can embrace that.
00:41:02.700 | I recently stumbled across a guy who all he does is he's a lawyer, but he exclusively
00:41:10.700 | defends in firearms-related cases.
00:41:16.460 | And so his image is he went ahead and he's got all the tactical gear and all the clothing
00:41:23.420 | and that stuff, and he's not wearing a shirt and tie because he's trying to be very clear
00:41:28.380 | that this is what I do.
00:41:29.740 | I'm not doing criminal defense on the weekend and doing a little bit of tax fraud cases
00:41:33.140 | here and there.
00:41:34.140 | I'm just doing firearms stuff.
00:41:35.500 | And so he embraced the tactical look.
00:41:38.300 | And you can do that.
00:41:39.660 | You can do that.
00:41:40.980 | Just think carefully about it.
00:41:43.180 | If you look at it, what you'll find is that when people who engage in direct confrontation
00:41:47.580 | of the fashion, the reason they're successful is because it's part of their overall brand.
00:41:56.520 | Why did rock stars embrace long hair or weird face paint or doing their shows from the stage
00:42:03.100 | naked or wearing leather pants?
00:42:06.780 | That's because it was countercultural.
00:42:08.380 | They're trying to push back against the stuffiness.
00:42:11.620 | That works as attraction for a time.
00:42:17.700 | But you can't be an accountant at the big four accounting firm and think that showing
00:42:22.740 | up to work in a pair of tight leather pants and no shirt is going to advance your career.
00:42:28.860 | It's simply not.
00:42:31.460 | And frankly, I think if your work is an accountant and you exclusively work with rock star clients,
00:42:37.820 | I don't think it'll help your career if you show up for your next meeting with Gene Simmons
00:42:43.900 | wearing your leather pants.
00:42:47.420 | It's fine for the rock star to do that.
00:42:49.460 | But when they want an accountant, they want an accountant.
00:42:54.300 | If you're going to go and sell books on how to fight with the IRS and you're going to
00:42:58.740 | do seminars, well now go ahead and embrace your rock star nature.
00:43:01.540 | If you're going to have a radical brand, go for it.
00:43:07.700 | But you've got to sell it all the way through.
00:43:11.340 | So if you're going to engage in direct confrontation, do it, but do it very advisedly.
00:43:15.500 | That's my point.
00:43:18.140 | See a lot of times what bothers me when people analyze things is they ignore what in my mind
00:43:23.220 | is proven and settled.
00:43:25.700 | That people care what you wear and they care what you do and they care how you act.
00:43:32.300 | I believe that's true.
00:43:35.520 | Maybe people shouldn't care what you wear, but the fact is they do.
00:43:40.580 | Maybe they shouldn't judge you by the way you dress and by the way that you speak, but
00:43:44.700 | the fact is that they do.
00:43:47.500 | And wishing it were otherwise doesn't make it so.
00:43:54.700 | You might wish that you were someone that you're not, but wishing it doesn't make you
00:43:58.300 | someone else.
00:43:59.380 | You are you.
00:44:01.140 | And so in all these things, being countercultural only works if you're in an area where that
00:44:05.880 | counterculturality is going to be useful.
00:44:10.020 | And so think carefully about it.
00:44:13.380 | If you can be measured by some objective performance or if you can use your desire to engage in
00:44:19.340 | wearing leather pants in the office and you can do that as part of your brand, go for
00:44:24.620 | it.
00:44:25.620 | But you better make sure that your prospective targeted customer will actually appreciate
00:44:31.900 | your leather pants.
00:44:32.900 | When it comes to the face paint, I don't know how to advise you on that.
00:44:38.140 | When it comes to the strategies and the fashions of the day, those are my three strategies
00:44:41.700 | for them and think through them.
00:44:43.300 | Now it's not just about your diamonds and your duds and your drives.
00:44:46.100 | It's not just about your cars and your clothes.
00:44:48.540 | If I'd have been able to come up with a C word for diamond, I would be carrots.
00:44:53.200 | That's what I should have done.
00:44:54.900 | The carrots and your clothes and your cars.
00:44:56.820 | Cars, clothes, and carrots.
00:44:57.820 | Oops, if I'd thought a little longer, I would have come up with my alliteration around the
00:45:01.740 | letter C. It's not that those are the only three things.
00:45:05.540 | I'm just trying to give you examples.
00:45:07.460 | So when you look at something that you need to do in your business and in your life, think
00:45:10.980 | about it and then think through which strategy am I going to engage in.
00:45:14.180 | Do I conform to the fashion, even though it's dumb, just so I can enjoy the acceptance by
00:45:19.940 | my group and then go ahead and move forward with my personal goals?
00:45:24.020 | It's not a wrong choice.
00:45:26.940 | If I grew up in the hood, in the inner city, I would wear baggy jeans and oversized clothes
00:45:39.140 | until I got out of the hood and I would carry a backpack and change my clothes on the bus
00:45:44.140 | or in the public restroom until I got to my job.
00:45:47.340 | And on the way home, I would change them again on the way home until I could afford to move
00:45:51.000 | out of the hood.
00:45:53.220 | It's not stupid to not get picked on because you don't match.
00:46:00.820 | What's stupid would be to be late to your job because all your buddies in the hood are
00:46:06.460 | picking on you and being bullies to you because you don't wear baggy clothes.
00:46:12.020 | So sometimes conform to the fashion, dumb as it is, so you can enjoy acceptance by the
00:46:16.340 | group around you and further your personal goals.
00:46:20.500 | Number two, find a workaround that gives you plausible deniability without direct confrontation.
00:46:25.900 | This I think is the sweet spot.
00:46:28.220 | Spend most of your time, if you think about it, in almost every area, there's a workaround.
00:46:34.020 | And number three, engage in direct confrontation of the fashion, but do it very advisedly.
00:46:42.180 | Be careful.
00:46:43.180 | There are some people who are megastar athletes or who are megastar rock stars or who are
00:46:48.980 | megastar actors or who are megastar accountants.
00:46:53.580 | And because of their ability to prove their megastar-ness, people will put up with their
00:46:59.620 | antics.
00:47:01.980 | But if you're not a megastar, they may not put up with yours.
00:47:07.560 | The antics aren't the causal factor in success.
00:47:13.140 | It's the megastar-ness or the ability to demonstrate megastar capability that leads to success.
00:47:21.260 | As we close, remember, you know what?
00:47:22.660 | I should do this without the music.
00:47:26.700 | As we close, let me read to you again just these few paragraphs from the Dr. Seuss story.
00:47:37.540 | Just because it, and think about this now that I'm done with my show on strategies.
00:47:42.000 | Think about this now in the context of just the silliness of our society and the silliness
00:47:49.020 | of our spending.
00:47:50.940 | Then quickly, Sylvester McMonkey McBean put together a very peculiar machine.
00:47:57.500 | And he said, "You want stars like a star belly snitch?
00:48:00.900 | My friends, you can have them for $3 each.
00:48:05.500 | Just pay me your money and hop right aboard."
00:48:08.540 | So they clamored inside.
00:48:09.860 | Then the big machine roared.
00:48:11.860 | And it clonked and it bonked and it jerked and it burked and it bopped them about.
00:48:15.740 | But the thing really worked.
00:48:17.740 | When the plain belly snitches popped out, they had stars.
00:48:21.500 | They actually did.
00:48:22.840 | They had stars upon thars.
00:48:25.500 | Then they yelled at the ones who had stars from the start.
00:48:28.460 | "We're exactly like you, you can't tell us apart.
00:48:31.580 | We're all just the same now, you snooty old smarties.
00:48:35.220 | And now we can go to your Frankfurter parties."
00:48:37.580 | "Good grief!" groaned the ones who had stars at the first.
00:48:40.740 | "We're still the best snitches and they are the worst.
00:48:44.580 | But now how in the world will we know they all frowned if which kind is what or the other
00:48:49.920 | way round?"
00:48:51.980 | Then up came McBean with a very sly wink.
00:48:56.100 | And he said, "Things are not quite as bad as you think.
00:48:59.940 | So you don't know who's who.
00:49:02.020 | That is perfectly true.
00:49:04.140 | But come with me, friends.
00:49:06.060 | Do you know what I'll do?
00:49:07.860 | I'll make you again the best snitches on beaches and all it will cost you is ten dollars each."
00:49:18.780 | "Belly stars are no longer in style," said McBean.
00:49:23.020 | "What you need is a trip through my star-off machine.
00:49:27.860 | This wondrous contraption will take off your stars so you won't look like snitches who
00:49:33.380 | have them on thars."
00:49:35.740 | And that handy machine, working very precisely, removed all the stars from their tummies quite
00:49:42.260 | nicely.
00:49:43.260 | Then, with snoots in the air, they paraded about.
00:49:46.980 | And they opened their beaks and they let out a shout, "We know who is who.
00:49:51.500 | Now there isn't a doubt.
00:49:52.940 | The best kind of snitches are snitches without."
00:49:55.900 | Then, of course, those with stars all got frightfully mad.
00:50:00.900 | To be wearing a star now was frightfully bad.
00:50:05.700 | And of course, old Sylvester McMonkey McBean invited them into his star-off machine.
00:50:13.620 | Then of course, from then on, as you probably guess, things really got into a horrible mess.
00:50:21.100 | All the rest of that day and that century, on those wild screaming beaches, the Fix-It-Up
00:50:27.420 | Chappy kept fixing up snitches.
00:50:30.180 | Off again, on again, in again, out again.
00:50:34.260 | Through the machines, they raced round and about again, changing their stars every minute
00:50:39.780 | or two.
00:50:40.940 | They kept paying money.
00:50:43.760 | They kept running through, until neither the plane nor the star bellies knew whether this
00:50:48.980 | one was that one or that one was this one or which one was what one or what one was
00:50:52.540 | who.
00:50:53.860 | Then, when every last cent of their money was spent, the Fix-It-Up Chappy packed up
00:51:06.060 | and he went.
00:51:08.300 | And he laughed as he drove in his car up the beach.
00:51:12.220 | They never will learn.
00:51:15.060 | No, you can't teach a snitch.
00:51:22.300 | This is a story that's about to change your life.