RPF0552-How_to_Achieve_Your_Adventure_Fast
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00:00:14.840 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you
00:00:18.480 | with the knowledge, skills, insight and encouragement you need to live a rich
00:00:22.160 | and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:27.520 | My name is Joshua. I am your host.
00:00:29.200 | And today, let's talk about living a rich life now,
00:00:33.000 | enjoying a component of financial freedom by planning an adventure.
00:00:37.400 | Things are busy around the Radical Personal Finance headquarters these days.
00:00:42.520 | We have most of our furniture sold.
00:00:44.800 | Most of it is being stored on Craigslist.
00:00:46.760 | We have most of our small things packed up, been working to get the final
00:00:51.560 | broken things fixed on the rig.
00:00:54.560 | And my family and I are getting ready to head out on the road.
00:00:58.440 | It is a lot of work.
00:01:00.520 | Don't let anyone ever tell you that planning an adventure and disrupting your life
00:01:04.400 | isn't a lot of work.
00:01:06.040 | It absolutely is.
00:01:08.160 | But I know that this is something that's important to many people.
00:01:11.200 | And I want to share a little bit along the way of some of the lessons that I have
00:01:15.040 | learned, having spent an obsessive amount of time thinking about, planning about
00:01:19.240 | such things, talking to other people, interviewing, giving advice and consulting
00:01:23.440 | work to people who are enjoying various adventures.
00:01:26.880 | I am a quasi expert in this space, and in the future, I will be an expert.
00:01:31.840 | And I'll tell you all the things I was wrong about as I learn whatever things they
00:01:35.800 | are wrong. But today I want to tell you how to plan one.
00:01:37.920 | And I'm going to give this to you in a very simple, straightforward approach that
00:01:42.120 | you don't need to take any notes.
00:01:43.200 | You just need to stop and think about your situation.
00:01:45.840 | I'm not going to give you any details for your situation.
00:01:48.280 | I'm going to tell you how to approach it, because here is my conviction.
00:01:53.680 | Most people put off the adventures that they want to live for far too long.
00:01:58.080 | And that's not some kind of silly approach to got to live it now.
00:02:03.280 | You know, you might miss out. Got to live it now.
00:02:04.640 | You're going to die. Yes, that's all true.
00:02:06.000 | But it's just simply that most people's adventures are far easier to achieve than
00:02:09.960 | they ever recognize.
00:02:11.160 | And the reason they don't ever achieve them is because they don't sit down, put pen
00:02:14.600 | to paper and make a plan.
00:02:15.640 | Really don't. I spent years working as a professional financial advisor, and during
00:02:21.440 | that time, I asked so many people about retirement.
00:02:24.200 | And one of the most common things that I heard that people wanted to do in
00:02:27.920 | retirement, of course, retirement here is this dream that someday it's this hazy,
00:02:33.200 | golden future.
00:02:34.160 | Someday I'll achieve this great stuff.
00:02:36.040 | Someday I'll be able to be in this situation and someday I'll be able to travel.
00:02:41.600 | You've heard it. You know, you have.
00:02:44.360 | You've said it yourself.
00:02:45.760 | Well, when I retire, I want to travel.
00:02:49.400 | When I'm rich, I want to travel.
00:02:52.200 | Now, I really don't think that most people actually want to travel.
00:02:55.720 | I really don't because most people don't travel.
00:02:57.920 | Now, if they did want to travel, if they did want to travel, they would figure out a
00:03:01.760 | way to travel, but most people don't.
00:03:02.960 | So I think that actions speak louder than words.
00:03:05.320 | It's fine to listen to what somebody says, but it's also important to watch what
00:03:08.360 | they do. Actions speak louder than words.
00:03:10.800 | So most people don't actually enjoy traveling.
00:03:13.440 | There are a few people who are confident enough in what they like and what they want
00:03:17.040 | to do where they just simply say, I don't want to travel.
00:03:19.320 | Travel is inconvenient.
00:03:21.160 | It's annoying.
00:03:22.120 | I have to sleep in other people's beds.
00:03:23.880 | I don't know where anything is.
00:03:24.960 | I'd just rather be at home in my home that I love.
00:03:27.280 | That's great.
00:03:27.880 | Some people are self-aware enough to know that and to declare it without reservation.
00:03:33.200 | But most people say, I want to travel.
00:03:36.080 | Well, if you do want to travel, I want to tell you how you can do it.
00:03:39.200 | And you can take this and apply this to anything else that you want to do.
00:03:41.640 | So here's step one.
00:03:43.240 | Step one.
00:03:43.760 | What do you want to do?
00:03:45.600 | Clarify.
00:03:46.120 | What do you want to do?
00:03:48.960 | Take a pen, a piece of paper, record your thoughts into your phone, tell a friend, sit down with your husband, your wife, get clear.
00:03:58.000 | What do you want to do?
00:03:59.200 | And be as specific as possible.
00:04:00.360 | Because when many people say, I want to travel, they haven't put any granularity to it.
00:04:05.200 | They just say, I want to travel.
00:04:06.640 | So what do you want to do?
00:04:07.800 | What do you want to do?
00:04:09.120 | And then they say, I'm going to travel.
00:04:10.640 | What do you want to do?
00:04:11.520 | What do you want to do?
00:04:12.400 | And when they say, I want to travel, they haven't put any granularity to it.
00:04:16.520 | So that idea of traveling just simply means, well, someday I want to have the freedom and flexibility to go where I want to.
00:04:23.480 | But for some people, traveling means spending thousands and thousands of dollars per week on a European vacation.
00:04:30.200 | For other people, traveling means loading up a tent and hiking into the backcountry and spending weeks climbing rocks.
00:04:38.400 | What does traveling mean to you?
00:04:39.800 | What do you want to do?
00:04:41.720 | Step two, ask yourself why.
00:04:44.720 | Why do you want to do this?
00:04:47.320 | Why do you want to travel?
00:04:50.320 | Do you want to travel to visit friends and family that you haven't seen in a long time?
00:04:56.720 | Do you wish to travel in order to hike every mountain above a certain elevation?
00:05:03.720 | Do you want to travel because you've been intent on wanting to study Italian and you'd like to spend time in Italy practicing your Italian?
00:05:11.720 | Why do you want to travel?
00:05:12.720 | To the best that you are able, sketch out why.
00:05:17.720 | Now here's the magical third question.
00:05:21.720 | Number three, what is the bare minimum of circumstances for which you are willing to settle?
00:05:31.720 | What is the bare minimum way that you could accomplish doing what you want to do for the reasons that are important to you?
00:05:42.720 | What's the bare minimum you're willing to settle for?
00:05:47.720 | Now I don't think there's anything particularly unique about my first question, "What do you want to do?"
00:05:51.720 | Or my second question, "Why do you want to do it?"
00:05:53.720 | But I do believe I have something unique to offer you in a discussion of the bare minimum.
00:06:00.720 | I think it's great to go for the maximum.
00:06:03.720 | I think it would be super fun to travel the world in an executive jet.
00:06:08.720 | Super fun. Someday I intend to do it.
00:06:12.720 | But you bet your buttons.
00:06:16.720 | Is that a saying? I made that one up.
00:06:18.720 | You can bet your bottom dollar that I'm not going to wait until I have an executive jet to travel the world.
00:06:28.720 | If I wanted to travel the world and I had a compelling reason and I had no money, you know what I'd do?
00:06:36.720 | I'd put my belongings in a handkerchief.
00:06:39.720 | I'd strap them onto a stick.
00:06:42.720 | I'd walk out my front door and I'd turn left and I'd start walking.
00:06:47.720 | Because you possess the ability right now to travel.
00:06:54.720 | Not to travel in an executive jet. You might not be in a financial situation where you can do that.
00:07:00.720 | But you do possess the ability to travel.
00:07:03.720 | You have the ability to put your belongings in a handkerchief, to strap it onto a stick, to walk out your front door and to turn left and to start walking.
00:07:13.720 | That is traveling.
00:07:18.720 | Now that may not be the style of traveling that you wish to engage in, but recognize that is traveling.
00:07:26.720 | Are you willing to accept that as travel?
00:07:32.720 | Is that your bare minimum?
00:07:35.720 | You say, "Well, Joshua, I don't like to walk that much and I'd like to move a little bit faster."
00:07:40.720 | Great. Can you walk down to the local pawn shop, spend $50 on a used bicycle, get a backpack or a duffel bag,
00:07:47.720 | go to a garage sale, pick up a cheap kid's bike trailer, toss a few backpacks and duffel bags and tents in the bike trailer,
00:07:54.720 | and set off on your bicycle across your country?
00:07:57.720 | That's traveling.
00:07:59.720 | Total budget in? A few hundred bucks.
00:08:02.720 | Total cost on the road? The cost of food.
00:08:07.720 | That's traveling. Are you willing to settle for that?
00:08:13.720 | "So, Joshua, you're being absurd?" No, I'm not.
00:08:17.720 | Because there are lots of people who travel just that way.
00:08:22.720 | If you're willing to accept that as your method and your mode of travel,
00:08:30.720 | the world's open to you and you can go on your adventure quickly.
00:08:35.720 | I'm sick and tired of seeing people sit around and say, "Well, I've got to have a million-dollar RV."
00:08:40.720 | Or some -- my favorite, I like what's called overlanding.
00:08:44.720 | I like the idea of people who jump in their rigs and go and travel to cool places in fancy four-wheel-drive vehicles, etc.
00:08:52.720 | But here's what I've observed.
00:08:54.720 | Every country I've been in where people in the United States would sit around and think,
00:08:58.720 | "Oh, I need to have some high-ground-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle."
00:09:02.720 | Every country I've lived in, you know what most of the locals drive?
00:09:05.720 | Something like a Toyota Corolla.
00:09:07.720 | And you know what they do when they get stuck?
00:09:10.720 | They get people to come and push them out of the mud hole because they don't have a winch on the front.
00:09:15.720 | U.S. Americans have this weird disease of affluenza where you sit around and assume that to go and drive somewhere,
00:09:21.720 | you've got to spend $50,000 on a lifted Jeep with a fancy go-behind trailer.
00:09:26.720 | You don't.
00:09:28.720 | Just get in your Toyota Corolla and go.
00:09:33.720 | If you don't want to travel that way, that's fine. Sketch out what for you is the bare minimum.
00:09:39.720 | For example, for many of the people in the overlanding community, part of their love of overlanding is the gear.
00:09:48.720 | And part is the travel.
00:09:52.720 | They enjoy the collection of the gear.
00:09:54.720 | They enjoy the installation of the gear.
00:09:56.720 | They enjoy the purchasing of the gear.
00:09:58.720 | They enjoy the showing off of the gear.
00:10:00.720 | That's part of their fun.
00:10:02.720 | I'm not going to tell you it's wrong.
00:10:04.720 | If you're into that, if you're into the gear, then lay that out on your particular list of things that are important to you.
00:10:11.720 | So your list of what do I want to do would not just be traveling.
00:10:16.720 | It would be traveling in a cool four-wheel drive rig.
00:10:22.720 | That might be important for you.
00:10:24.720 | That might not be important for someone else.
00:10:26.720 | So what is your bare minimum?
00:10:30.720 | Here's the trick.
00:10:32.720 | The lower your minimum, the easier your goal is to achieve.
00:10:39.720 | Let's talk about retirement.
00:10:41.720 | It is really hard, really hard to accumulate enough money so that you can retire on $100,000 a year income.
00:10:52.720 | Don't let anybody lie to you and say that it's not.
00:10:56.720 | Now, it'll be hard in different ways.
00:10:58.720 | I have many listeners of Radical Personal Finance who earn half a million, a million dollars a year.
00:11:04.720 | For them, it's relatively easy to accumulate the money because of their high income.
00:11:09.720 | But do you know how hard they worked to build that income?
00:11:13.720 | Years and years of study, focus, dedication, practice, self-development.
00:11:21.720 | It's hard to accumulate enough money to retire on $100,000 a year.
00:11:29.720 | You need millions of dollars, and that is not easy.
00:11:34.720 | Relatively easy to retire on $5,000 per year.
00:11:39.720 | You can retire on $5,000 per year if you can accumulate the amount of money that most people spend on a couple of cars.
00:11:50.720 | $100,000, $150,000, that's enough income to draw $5,000 a year on.
00:11:57.720 | Anybody can accumulate $100,000, $150,000.
00:12:01.720 | Anybody.
00:12:04.720 | You could accumulate $100,000, $150,000, but can you retire on $5,000 per year?
00:12:10.720 | Not easy, but there are people who do it.
00:12:13.720 | So the point is, you get to choose.
00:12:17.720 | Really easy to accumulate enough to spend $5,000 a year.
00:12:22.720 | Really hard to accumulate enough to spend $100,000 a year.
00:12:26.720 | So where in that range are you going to be comfortable?
00:12:30.720 | It's probably not going to be $5,000.
00:12:33.720 | It's probably going to be a little bit more.
00:12:38.720 | But you could do it on $5,000.
00:12:40.720 | You really could.
00:12:42.720 | So the question is, what is the bare minimum for you?
00:12:47.720 | Now, zoom in on that question and ask yourself, "How much will it cost for my bare minimum?"
00:12:54.720 | The cheaper you can get that cost, the faster you'll be able to achieve your goal.
00:13:01.720 | But you got to make sure that you're willing to -- that you're at least able to satisfy your bare minimum.
00:13:07.720 | I love this story.
00:13:08.720 | I read a story about a guy named Jim one time.
00:13:10.720 | And Jim grew up up in -- based upon the story that I came across.
00:13:17.720 | Jim grew up in rural Idaho.
00:13:19.720 | And he was half white, half Shoshone.
00:13:23.720 | And he grew up kind of in a very rural context.
00:13:27.720 | He went in the Army, wound up being a Special Forces fighter in Vietnam, et cetera.
00:13:33.720 | And then he was injured in the war, lost an eye, came back injured, back to the United States.
00:13:39.720 | Back in the early 1990s, Jim decided that he was done with just the normal workaday world.
00:13:45.720 | He wanted to spend more time out traveling the country and seeing the United States of America.
00:13:50.720 | So he had been previously teaching, using his military experience and his rural experience to teach survival courses to interested students.
00:13:59.720 | So his students got together and helped him create for himself what he needed to travel in.
00:14:04.720 | Everything in their entire project was either scavenged from junk that was lying around or just bought cheap used.
00:14:12.720 | He put together for his vehicle -- he bought an old Nissan pickup truck that had been rolled upside down.
00:14:19.720 | And the engine and the transmission had been pulled from it.
00:14:22.720 | So they took off the body from the frame.
00:14:25.720 | They kept the hydraulic brake system and the parking brake on it.
00:14:29.720 | And then they built a wooden wagon seat on the front.
00:14:33.720 | And they made a wooden pedal to activate the brakes.
00:14:36.720 | They bought a bunch of used scavenged lumber and some corrugated roofing metal.
00:14:41.720 | And they built onto the old pickup frame -- they built a kind of a gypsy wagon type of thing.
00:14:49.720 | They put in the old gypsy wagon.
00:14:51.720 | They put an old wood stove.
00:14:52.720 | They built a bed in, some storage.
00:14:55.720 | They put in a deep cycle battery with a small solar panel to run it with to give them a small automotive light inside the wagon for light at night.
00:15:05.720 | Put in a CB radio, an AM/FM radio.
00:15:08.720 | And then they put together for -- to pull the rig, he put together a team of three burros just side by side.
00:15:16.720 | They made the harnesses from old discarded fire hoses.
00:15:19.720 | They would -- for rolling tires, they would use just old thrown away car tires that would never, of course, be useful on a vehicle traveling at road speeds.
00:15:30.720 | But, hey, if you're at a burro walking pace, that will last you about forever.
00:15:34.720 | And then they -- he built the second wagon.
00:15:38.720 | So he put together a little trailer using some bicycle rims and tires to tow behind the gypsy wagon.
00:15:44.720 | They turned that trailer -- the whole thing was a chicken coop.
00:15:48.720 | So he carried some small bantam chickens in there to lay eggs for himself.
00:15:52.720 | He kept a container of chicken feed and some bales of hay up on top of the chicken coop for whenever there wasn't a lot of grass for his burros to eat.
00:16:02.720 | And then he lived -- he went off.
00:16:05.720 | He went off to see the country.
00:16:08.720 | And based upon the accounts, he spent years traveling across the United States at a grand speed of, what, two miles an hour?
00:16:16.720 | But he constantly was out seeing the country.
00:16:21.720 | Now, if you think about a guy like that, he has skills that perhaps you and I don't have, growing up in the woods, having the ability to glean food from the land.
00:16:31.720 | But he was willing to go out and live an adventure.
00:16:34.720 | And what did he need?
00:16:35.720 | He had a dry place to sleep.
00:16:37.720 | He had a means of going down the road in his wagon.
00:16:41.720 | He had an AM/FM radio for a little bit of entertainment.
00:16:44.720 | I'd imagine he got some plenty of books along the way.
00:16:49.720 | I'm sure he met all kinds of interesting people that brought him in and fed him dinner just to help him to -- just to hear his stories.
00:16:58.720 | His burros could eat grass anywhere he went.
00:17:00.720 | He had some chickens for fresh protein, and he could take fruits and vegetables from the side of the road, probably with his wild crafting skills.
00:17:09.720 | That story, I love that story.
00:17:11.720 | Because it's just -- it's so true about somebody who can go and do what many people -- other people want to do because they're not constrained by the expectations of other people.
00:17:27.720 | Now, I don't have any burros.
00:17:29.720 | I'm not planning to build a gypsy wagon.
00:17:32.720 | But that story inspires me to say, "What is my bare minimum?
00:17:38.720 | What am I willing to go for, and how much will it cost?"
00:17:41.720 | I don't know what Jim's budget was.
00:17:43.720 | This was back in the late '80s, early '90s, something like that, maybe mid-'90s, that Jim was out doing this.
00:17:50.720 | But, man, I'd be shocked if he was spending more than a couple hundred dollars a month.
00:17:54.720 | What does he have to spend money on?
00:17:57.720 | When you can find all the things of your life for free, why do you need money?
00:18:07.720 | So how much will your adventure cost you?
00:18:10.720 | Think about that least minimum and figure out how much will it cost you.
00:18:17.720 | I have a good buddy of mine who's obsessed with doing things the best.
00:18:22.720 | And we have an ongoing argument where he says, "Well, I want to go and travel down to Central America.
00:18:28.720 | So in order to travel down to Central America, I need a giant four-wheel drive vehicle, et cetera."
00:18:33.720 | I just tell him, "Just get in your car and go."
00:18:36.720 | You know what? If your car breaks down, they've got mechanics everywhere.
00:18:41.720 | Load up your minivan, toss a mattress on the floor, and go.
00:18:45.720 | If you run out of food, they've got jobs everywhere.
00:18:49.720 | Run out of money, they've got work everywhere.
00:18:52.720 | There are people everywhere. Go.
00:18:56.720 | Now, back to your bare minimum.
00:18:59.720 | There are things that are important.
00:19:00.720 | If you're single and it's just you and you're just trying to figure out,
00:19:03.720 | "Well, I'm going to go and do whatever I want," you are in the most flexible situation of your life.
00:19:08.720 | Again, put your boots on and just start walking.
00:19:11.720 | You can do that.
00:19:12.720 | If you want to drive, great.
00:19:13.720 | Ride a bicycle, great.
00:19:14.720 | Ride a motorcycle, great.
00:19:15.720 | Buy a motorhome, great.
00:19:18.720 | If you are married, of course, you'll have different considerations.
00:19:23.720 | I bet you my wife, if I worked really hard and made it into the country,
00:19:26.720 | I bet she would go traveling in a gypsy wagon with burros.
00:19:30.720 | That's not the choice that I've made.
00:19:32.720 | But it has been very important to me that I want to get out on the road
00:19:35.720 | and do my adventure with a bare minimum.
00:19:39.720 | And that buys you a number of things.
00:19:41.720 | If you commit to your adventures with a bare minimum,
00:19:44.720 | it buys you freedom where you're not so invested in your adventures that they have to work.
00:19:49.720 | A lot of people buy a big fancy RV, buy a big fancy sailboat,
00:19:52.720 | they get out there and they find out they don't like it.
00:19:56.720 | Don't put yourself in a situation where you're forced to like it.
00:20:00.720 | Don't put yourself in a situation where you may lose tens of thousands of dollars.
00:20:04.720 | Start with a minimum and then upgrade from there.
00:20:09.720 | Now, how do you pay for it?
00:20:10.720 | Step four, you've got to figure out your income source.
00:20:14.720 | So step four and five is look at your income and look at your assets.
00:20:17.720 | Let's start with five.
00:20:18.720 | I should have switched that.
00:20:19.720 | Let's switch the order here.
00:20:20.720 | Let's start with assets.
00:20:22.720 | First of all, you do currently possess assets that you could turn into adventure.
00:20:30.720 | So sit down and make a list of all of your assets and see,
00:20:35.720 | "Is there a way that I could turn these assets into adventure?"
00:20:40.720 | You own a home currently.
00:20:43.720 | If you sold that home, you would probably wind up with money,
00:20:47.720 | and you could turn that money into adventure.
00:20:50.720 | You could swap out your house that you live in currently,
00:20:54.720 | and you could buy an RV.
00:20:57.720 | You could take money from your 401(k) and buy a burro.
00:21:04.720 | You could do it.
00:21:06.720 | So make a complete list of your assets and figure out what do you have.
00:21:10.720 | And don't ignore your human capital.
00:21:15.720 | You currently have human capital.
00:21:17.720 | You have the ability to work.
00:21:21.720 | The venerable way for a young man of action and adventure to go and have his action and adventure
00:21:29.720 | was to go get a job.
00:21:31.720 | A lot of guys went and got a job with the Army, with the Navy, travel the world, right, on Uncle Sam's dollar.
00:21:36.720 | Go get a job on a tramp steamer.
00:21:38.720 | Go get a job servicing a bus that does overland adventure tours through Africa.
00:21:45.720 | A buddy of mine was a pilot.
00:21:47.720 | He got a job in Africa flying airplanes for an African airline.
00:21:50.720 | He loved it.
00:21:51.720 | Did it for a few years, quit, went and became a financial advisor.
00:21:55.720 | So use what you have.
00:21:56.720 | Use your human capital.
00:21:58.720 | That's an asset that you have.
00:22:00.720 | Use your inside knowledge.
00:22:01.720 | That's an asset that you have.
00:22:02.720 | Use your training, your education.
00:22:04.720 | That's an asset that you have.
00:22:06.720 | Want to go and travel around the Australian outback?
00:22:08.720 | Guess what?
00:22:09.720 | There are jobs there, just like there are jobs in Chicago, Illinois.
00:22:17.720 | Use what you've got.
00:22:19.720 | Turn your money into adventure.
00:22:23.720 | Spend your money.
00:22:25.720 | Sell your car.
00:22:26.720 | Turn it into a year on the road if that's what you want to do.
00:22:31.720 | If you interact with travelers, frequently people who travel constantly are used to being asked,
00:22:38.720 | "Well, how do you afford to travel?"
00:22:40.720 | And frequently the person who is asking the question, they're not a stupid person.
00:22:47.720 | They're just not particularly self-aware of the fact that they're sitting at a coffee shop
00:22:52.720 | and they're talking to a traveler who's nursing a black coffee they bought for $1.35
00:22:58.720 | so that they could sit at the cafe and write on their laptop and use the Wi-Fi.
00:23:03.720 | Meanwhile, the person asking--and they've been on the road for eight months--
00:23:06.720 | meanwhile, the person asking, "How can you afford to travel who's nursing a $5.35 coffee?"
00:23:13.720 | and then walking out and getting into a $50,000 car.
00:23:16.720 | And they don't particularly reconcile the fact that the traveler may be sitting there with that $1.35 coffee
00:23:22.720 | and doesn't even own a car.
00:23:23.720 | They turn their car into adventure.
00:23:28.720 | The point is if you wanted to turn your car into adventure, you could.
00:23:33.720 | So do it.
00:23:36.720 | You study people, normal people, and all of a sudden you find that when they decide,
00:23:39.720 | "I'm going to have an adventure," they stop spending money.
00:23:43.720 | They sell all their expensive stuff.
00:23:45.720 | They work extra hours and they save.
00:23:47.720 | There's no fancy investment strategy.
00:23:49.720 | There's no building up of an Internet business or a real estate portfolio.
00:23:53.720 | They just save money.
00:23:56.720 | And then when they have enough money saved, they go travel.
00:24:00.720 | That's it.
00:24:06.720 | But you may have more options than other people do.
00:24:08.720 | So look at your assets and ask, "How could I turn these assets into income?"
00:24:12.720 | Because in order for you to travel, you need some income.
00:24:16.720 | You can either take your income from your savings or you can take your income from other sources.
00:24:22.720 | Can you turn your house, instead of selling it, turning it into cash, can you rent it out?
00:24:27.720 | Can you turn that into an income stream?
00:24:30.720 | Many people can.
00:24:32.720 | Can you rent your car out?
00:24:34.720 | Some people could.
00:24:36.720 | You've got to figure out, "How do I build income?"
00:24:39.720 | Do you speak a foreign language?
00:24:41.720 | Turn that into an income.
00:24:44.720 | I don't know how to give you any more personalized advice other than to say, "What assets do I have?
00:24:49.720 | What skills do I possess?
00:24:52.720 | How can I turn these skills into assets and income that will provide for me on the road?"
00:25:01.720 | Last point for you to consider.
00:25:04.720 | Don't be scared to buy the things of life that you need to provide for yourself on the road
00:25:13.720 | or to provide for yourself on your adventure.
00:25:16.720 | If your dream is to go and hike across all the wild places of the earth,
00:25:21.720 | hike the Appalachian Trail, go and spend your time in Patagonia, cross Africa by foot,
00:25:29.720 | well, you can turn your rent payment into a tent.
00:25:38.720 | Your tent payment might be higher up front than your rent payment,
00:25:43.720 | but that tent payment will provide for you your shelter, your housing.
00:25:49.720 | That's useful.
00:25:51.720 | You can turn your electric bill into, by buying a source of electricity, generation and storage,
00:25:58.720 | into covering your need for electricity.
00:26:04.720 | You can spend a little bit of money and just simply change your living expenses, change your living style.
00:26:12.720 | Years ago, I first encountered--there are a lot of people throughout the United States that are van dwellers, live in a van.
00:26:18.720 | Years ago, I encountered my first one.
00:26:20.720 | I remember this guy, he was an older guy.
00:26:22.720 | I've lost track of him. His name was Fred.
00:26:24.720 | But he was an older guy, kind of the typical--if I just said to you, kind of an older guy, van dweller,
00:26:30.720 | he's probably what you would imagine.
00:26:32.720 | He was white hair, white beard, overweight, kind of unkempt, kind of scraggly hair and whatnot.
00:26:39.720 | His van was a mess.
00:26:41.720 | It was just stacked with stuff.
00:26:43.720 | I don't get why people have--I like stuff clean and neat, so I don't understand why people sometimes do this.
00:26:53.720 | But Fred didn't bother Fred if he looked like a van dweller.
00:26:56.720 | The front of his van, the front dashboard stacked with books, stacked with papers, stacked with magazines.
00:27:04.720 | But the thing about Fred, he just lived in his van and he found places to park it.
00:27:09.720 | And he would come down to Florida and the place I encountered him was at a friend's house.
00:27:13.720 | Friend had an acre and a quarter and the deal was Fred could just park out under a pine tree.
00:27:17.720 | He didn't have anything out there, he just parked under a pine tree.
00:27:19.720 | And every few days he would move his van to, I assume, go get gas or dispose of his stuff, I don't know.
00:27:25.720 | But then he would come back and he just parked out under the pine tree.
00:27:29.720 | But when you look at something like that, he had just a small social security payment that was his source of income.
00:27:36.720 | You realize that what Fred's actually done is he's just changed his standards.
00:27:41.720 | My closing point is this. You and your standards are the impediment to your adventure.
00:27:53.720 | You could today go and live like Fred did.
00:27:59.720 | But your standards will probably not want you to live that way.
00:28:06.720 | If you want to, go for it. But your standards of living are what are keeping you from your adventure.
00:28:16.720 | I'm not opposed to standards of living. I would have no problem living in a van, but I wouldn't have all the junk.
00:28:23.720 | So I'm a fan of standards. But most standards are negotiable.
00:28:31.720 | Comfort. Comfort is a relative thing. You might say, "Well, I only sleep well when I have a really comfortable mattress."
00:28:41.720 | That might be true for you. But that might also be something that's just a standard that you've unconsciously adopted.
00:28:49.720 | A number of years ago, I had the privilege to spend some time traveling in Asia. I spent about a month there.
00:28:55.720 | And I was traveling with local people. It wasn't tourism. And so I wasn't staying in any tourist places.
00:29:00.720 | And one of the things that I learned on that trip was I could sleep just about anywhere.
00:29:04.720 | Because the standard place that I slept was on a wooden floor.
00:29:07.720 | Now, a couple times, a wooden floor was nice. It was made of bamboo, which is at least flexible enough that it gives you a little bit of springiness.
00:29:16.720 | But a couple times, the wooden floor was not nice. It was literally a plank wooden floor.
00:29:23.720 | And I learned that I could sleep on a plank wooden floor. I never knew that before.
00:29:27.720 | But I learned I could sleep on a plank wooden floor. I was sore. But after a few days, well, it just kind of goes away.
00:29:36.720 | One thing I remember on that particular trip, I was traveling with some children and a bunch of families together.
00:29:43.720 | But we were moving from one town to another. And we were moving from a place way, way, way back in the mountains.
00:29:49.720 | So, I mean, the literal boondocks, that word boondocks, if you're familiar with it, boondocks comes from a Filipino word.
00:29:57.720 | And it was the U.S. soldiers, I think, World War II started to use it.
00:30:05.720 | And then it's become a fairly common word in the U.S. and in the English lexicon now.
00:30:11.720 | But we were literally in the boondocks, way, way, way back in the mountains, way in a remote place where there was nobody.
00:30:16.720 | And so we were moving from one town to the next. And the way we got there was by walking.
00:30:21.720 | And all the families that we were with, they didn't have cars. They didn't have any beasts of burden.
00:30:28.720 | It was pretty tough, would have been tough for anything except a very sure-footed beast of burden to traverse the place we were going.
00:30:36.720 | So we went walking over the mountains from one place to the next.
00:30:39.720 | And when we got to the next place where we were, the little town where we were, we were staying with the family for dinner.
00:30:45.720 | And because we had been traveling, it was late. And we were getting there, they were making dinner for us.
00:30:52.720 | And as I was sitting there eating dinner, all of a sudden I realized that all the children had kind of disappeared.
00:30:57.720 | And I looked over in the corner of the room, basically a one-room house.
00:31:01.720 | And in the corner of the room, there was just a gaggle of children kind of lying on the floor, sleeping.
00:31:07.720 | And I looked at this gaggle of children and I thought, "Wow, children sleeping is negotiable.
00:31:19.720 | Children can learn to sleep in a diverse place."
00:31:23.720 | Now, if you're a parent in the United States, we U.S. American parents spend a lot of time thinking about how we get our children to go to sleep.
00:31:30.720 | There are books written, new parents expecting their first child. It's all about how do I get my child to go to sleep.
00:31:36.720 | And I learned, you know what, a lot of the world doesn't really worry about that.
00:31:41.720 | They just expect children to sleep. And look at these children.
00:31:44.720 | They didn't have their perfect jammies. They didn't have their perfect beds.
00:31:47.720 | They didn't have everything just so. They didn't have their perfect stuffed animal, their perfect routine.
00:31:52.720 | They just were tired and they lay down in the corner of the room after they were tired of playing on a hard wooden floor and they all went to sleep.
00:32:00.720 | And after dinner was done, the parents went and collected their various children and kind of dispersed to their houses.
00:32:07.720 | But the point was, these realities are negotiable. The things that we think are kind of iron laws often aren't.
00:32:16.720 | So remember, my parents, my dad, when he was growing up, my grandparents were from California.
00:32:24.720 | And yet, when my dad was growing up, they lived in Colorado.
00:32:28.720 | And on occasion, they would travel back and forth for a vacation to see family.
00:32:35.720 | But the standards at that time were that they didn't have the money and there wasn't even the infrastructure for them to stay in a hotel.
00:32:43.720 | And so what they would frequently do is they would be driving on the long roads from Colorado to California out in the desert.
00:32:49.720 | And when it became late at night and they were tired, they would pull the car over to the side of the road.
00:32:56.720 | My grandmother would sleep in the back seat and the men would go and lay down a blanket on the desert floor and just lie down and go to sleep.
00:33:05.720 | That wasn't 300 years ago. That was 70 years ago.
00:33:14.720 | And it wasn't considered that unusual.
00:33:19.720 | But today, would you conceive of doing that? I sure wouldn't.
00:33:26.720 | I would feel like an abusive husband if I told my wife, you know, stay in the back seat here and I'm going to go and just lie down on the ground with the children.
00:33:35.720 | But that's a negotiable thing. That's not an iron law. That's not a truism that's true throughout eternity.
00:33:41.720 | That's just a negotiable practice, a custom, a personal standard that we're used to.
00:33:50.720 | I don't know about you, but I find it very freeing to challenge those standards.
00:33:55.720 | Whether or not I actually physically do something different, at least the mental experiment of am I willing to do that? Could I do that?
00:34:04.720 | That's really valuable.
00:34:06.720 | And then I find that consistently whenever I challenge those things, it puts within me a great degree of confidence.
00:34:13.720 | One thing I never want to personally lose is the willingness to challenge conventional norms, to see what it's actually like.
00:34:22.720 | I think it's really good to sleep on the ground. Not that I want to sleep on the ground every day.
00:34:27.720 | But to know that I could sleep on the ground and be perfectly happy sleeping on the ground gives me a huge degree of personal confidence.
00:34:33.720 | And I commend it to you. Try living like you're poor sometimes, even if you're not.
00:34:40.720 | Challenge yourself to cut your expenses drastically in one area. Challenge yourself to do something you're uncomfortable with, and it'll build increasingly confidence, self-confidence.
00:34:52.720 | And once you have that, you see the world as a place of opportunity.
00:34:59.720 | Because you know you could do it. Then you're no longer constrained in challenging and planning your own adventure.
00:35:05.720 | You're no longer constrained by thinking, "I need millions of dollars."
00:35:08.720 | You might choose to wait until you have millions of dollars, but then you'll wait with confidence, knowing that that's your plan.
00:35:18.720 | You've chosen that path. That's what you've decided.
00:35:24.720 | But you won't feel like a victim of circumstances. "I can't go and do this until I have millions of dollars."
00:35:34.720 | So if you'd like to plan your own adventure, clarify. What do you want to do? What does it look like?
00:35:40.720 | Why do you want to do it? Why is this important to you?
00:35:45.720 | What is the bare minimum necessary to fulfill this vision?
00:35:51.720 | How much will it cost? What assets and income do you have?
00:35:56.720 | And how can you rearrange those assets and the income in order to help you achieve your adventure quickly?
00:36:04.720 | The clock's ticking.
00:36:07.720 | If you have an adventure that you want to pursue, it is achievable. And it's achievable far faster than you might think.
00:36:21.720 | The key variable is how creative are you going to be in planning and executing your adventure.
00:36:29.720 | Thank you for listening. You've honored me with your time and attention, and I'm grateful for that.
00:36:35.720 | And I hope that I've effectively served you today with some ideas and strategies and tactics and techniques and tools that will help move you towards your goals.
00:36:45.720 | Before you go, three simple requests.
00:36:48.720 | One, if there's an idea that's been helpful to you in today's show, make a plan to take action on it.
00:36:55.720 | Listening does lead to learning, but learning in and of itself doesn't automatically lead to a life change.
00:37:03.720 | It's action that leads to a life change. So take action.
00:37:09.720 | Two, take something that was helpful to you in today's show and share it with somebody that you care about.
00:37:16.720 | I'm depending on you to be a co-laborer with me in helping me to propagate the message that I'm seeking to share.
00:37:26.720 | That helps the person that you are engaging with, and it also helps you because teaching others is one of the most effective ways for you to learn and for you to cement your learning.
00:37:39.720 | Three, if there's an idea that's been specifically helpful to you, and if you're gaining financial benefit from Radical Personal Finance,
00:37:46.720 | I'd be grateful if you'd consider paying me for this work voluntarily.
00:37:51.720 | Come by RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron and you can sign up there to support the show at whatever level you feel is right for you.
00:37:58.720 | This is a voluntary support. That's my Patreon page.
00:38:02.720 | You can support me with a dollar a month, five dollars a month, ten dollars a month, any number that seems right to you.
00:38:08.720 | But if you're gaining financial benefit from this show, and if it's achieving financial results in your life, I'd be grateful for your financial support at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
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00:38:52.720 | [MUSIC PLAYING]