RPF0678-Live_Rich_Now_By_Cultivating_Gratitude_For_Your_Trials
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00:00:30.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:34.000 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while
00:00:38.900 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. Today I'm going to share with
00:00:43.460 | you some stories and some ideas that I hope will enrich your life so that you can appreciate
00:00:53.040 | today, and gain more from it than you otherwise would.
00:01:02.160 | One of the things that I have been guilty of in my life, one of the regrets that I have,
00:01:08.640 | is always looking toward the future. It seems to me that some people are very good at looking
00:01:14.540 | to the future, some people are not so good at looking to the future. Many people that
00:01:19.800 | I've talked to, you ask them, "What do you think you want to do in the future? What are
00:01:23.000 | your goals?" And they don't have goals, they don't have ambitions. And for me, that's almost
00:01:30.480 | anathema to me. I can't even imagine not having goals or ambitions. I don't know whether it's
00:01:35.280 | personality type, I don't know whether it's a cultivated personality, or whether it's
00:01:40.680 | just simply an inborn personality trait. All I know is that I'm a very future-oriented
00:01:46.120 | person. And I think that has really distinct advantages. One of the most reliable indicators
00:01:52.320 | of wealth, in terms of whether a person will actually build wealth or not, is their level
00:01:56.440 | of future orientation. Are they able to sacrifice now and delay gratification now for the future?
00:02:02.880 | And so this personality that I have has served me well.
00:02:07.080 | But there has also been a flip side to that personality. It seems to me that almost every
00:02:14.000 | personality trait has a positive and a negative. And there are dangers to almost any trait.
00:02:21.720 | And while there are many benefits to being a future-oriented person, I can easily see
00:02:26.640 | the future to some degree, I can easily sacrifice now for rewards later, and that's really helpful.
00:02:34.120 | The flip side is I can often forget about the present. And I can often be so fixated
00:02:39.560 | on what I want in the future that I neglect the present. And friends, that's really bad.
00:02:46.600 | That's really harmful. And as I grow older and look back upon my life and reflect upon
00:02:53.120 | the things that I feel like I've done well and things I feel like I haven't done well,
00:02:57.440 | one of the themes that I can see in my own journey is that I've often not taken full
00:03:02.620 | advantage of enjoying the process. I'll give you a simple example. I'm a very competent
00:03:10.960 | financial planner with a long list of letters after my name indicating a lot of study. I
00:03:18.520 | have a master's degree in financial planning. I formerly was a certified financial planner,
00:03:23.800 | although I no longer maintain that designation. I'm a chartered life underwriter, a chartered
00:03:28.780 | financial consultant, a registered employee benefits consultant, a registered health underwriter,
00:03:36.480 | a chartered advisor of philanthropy, and CLU, CHF, CCP. I think there's one or two more
00:03:45.340 | that I just can't think of. Maybe not. I don't know. Anyway, if I go in my attic where I
00:03:50.200 | have all the stuff stored of my old life, I could produce a box that has about nine
00:03:56.480 | or ten framed big fancy-looking diplomas in the financial planning world. And that's served
00:04:03.660 | me well. I learned something along the way, and I passed a lot of tests. Basically, all
00:04:10.320 | it says is I'm good at passing tests. I'm very good at academics. I've never struggled
00:04:14.580 | with academics. It's a skill set that I have that some people don't have, but it's served
00:04:18.980 | me well. Unfortunately, I feel like I cheated myself along that journey because I was so
00:04:29.200 | aggressive and so fast that I didn't take the time to learn everything that I wanted
00:04:35.800 | to learn. And this is especially painful to me now because it's so clear as a parent,
00:04:40.500 | as I work with my children and their education, it's so obvious to me that I don't want them
00:04:45.740 | just to tick boxes, check boxes, "Look, you've done it. I did the work." I want them to really
00:04:50.820 | do the work. I want them to really gain experience from the work. And one of the regrets that
00:04:57.080 | I have is that I went so fast through all the academics of financial planning, I don't
00:05:02.420 | feel like I learned what I should have learned. Sometimes I'll be in a situation and realize
00:05:07.160 | there's a weakness in my knowledge here. I don't quite know this thing here. And I've
00:05:14.800 | got all the books and I can go and read them, but I didn't get what I should have gotten
00:05:19.120 | from the experience. I would have been better served if instead of racing through all those
00:05:27.040 | dozens and dozens of financial planning classes and financial planning textbooks the way I
00:05:30.720 | did, I would have been just to finish them and get all these impressive looking credentials,
00:05:35.120 | I would have been better served to slow down, take it easy, take more time and really dig
00:05:40.720 | into the material. And that's often been a hallmark of my life. I did some shows somewhat
00:05:49.540 | recently on reading. You know, it's good to be a big reader and I think there's real value
00:05:54.720 | in reading a lot of books. But you know what the flip side of that is? I think it's better
00:06:01.440 | to read one book that you implement in your life fully than it is to read 10 books that
00:06:08.400 | you don't. Now you can read 10 books and implement ideas from all 10. It's not either or. I'm
00:06:15.720 | simply trying to draw out the importance of actually doing the work and gaining from this
00:06:23.240 | experience now what there is to gain. I don't want that personality trait to continue. I'm
00:06:31.480 | working hard to change it in myself. I don't know any objective factors that I could use
00:06:36.960 | to see how I'm doing. I'm starting to just being aware of it. But I don't want to always
00:06:40.280 | be looking at the future. And this is especially poignant to me now as I raise four small children
00:06:47.600 | because if you're always looking to the future, then you miss out on the joy of now. And it's
00:06:52.960 | easy, especially with little children. They're tough. They're a lot of work. And you got
00:06:56.920 | all these annoying little habits that it's your duty as a parent to train out of them.
00:07:01.600 | And it makes it easy to get frustrated and to grow short with them. And then you go and
00:07:05.320 | you look at somebody else's picture of how cute their children are. And you think, "What
00:07:10.200 | am I missing? Am I so focused on where I want my children to be that I'm missing where they
00:07:14.960 | are?" I'm not going to live my life like that. I am intensely focused on benefiting from
00:07:27.960 | today, on enjoying today, on appreciating today. Not because today is perfect, but because
00:07:38.400 | today is. And something doesn't have to be perfect for you to appreciate it. Now let's
00:07:46.240 | turn this to finances, specifically the pursuit of financial freedom. As I get older, it's
00:07:56.840 | easier for me to look back and appreciate the hard times that I have experienced. Now,
00:08:03.840 | I can't imagine that any of us would say that we want a hard time. I don't think any of
00:08:10.320 | us would intentionally sign up for something that's just going to be hard without knowing
00:08:14.160 | if there's a payoff at the end. But all of us go through hard times. All of us go through
00:08:22.160 | difficulty. And those hard times have a way of shaping us and forming us. The problem
00:08:30.240 | is a lot of times in the middle of those hard times, it's hard to appreciate them. Unless
00:08:34.240 | you're extremely wise, it's hard for most of us to appreciate them. So you look back
00:08:38.440 | later and you recognize them. I value many of the financial mistakes that I have made,
00:08:47.200 | many of the hard times that I have made, the hard times that I've gone through. Even the
00:08:52.440 | times in my life where I feel like I've made big mistakes, I value a lot of things about
00:08:57.960 | them. You know, there have been times in my life where I've been really broke and made
00:09:02.920 | big mistakes. And I didn't like it. It was humbling. But a lot of times, so much good
00:09:11.480 | has come from those. I couldn't do what I do today if I didn't have some empathy and
00:09:16.760 | some humility and some hard-fought battle scars from some of those mistakes. Now I wouldn't
00:09:23.480 | say that you should go and make those mistakes intentionally, but at least I can appreciate
00:09:29.160 | them more. Or in relationship challenges, whether it's difficult friendships or difficult
00:09:34.720 | family relationships or difficult romantic relationships, a lot of times when you come
00:09:39.080 | out the other side, you can look back and appreciate how something difficult affected
00:09:44.240 | you and it formed who you are.
00:09:48.280 | Let's talk about practical application. When I developed the slogan that I lead every show
00:09:58.680 | with, "How to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial
00:10:03.280 | freedom in 10 years or less," I developed it organically. I tried to put into words
00:10:12.160 | what I cared about. And interestingly, I've looked around and I've been looking at other
00:10:16.560 | financial brands in the marketplace and it seems like that slogan is everywhere. And
00:10:20.760 | I have no idea whether everyone out there is copying me. You're right. Maybe everyone's
00:10:25.960 | just copying me and my fantastic language or whether they were all out there and I subconsciously
00:10:31.040 | copied them. I don't think I plagiarized anybody, but with ideas you can't control.
00:10:36.080 | But everyone's focused on that financial freedom in 10 years or less, or at least most of what
00:10:41.680 | I see. And I want that, right? I'm working on that. I want to help you with that. But
00:10:49.320 | more than that, that rich and meaningful life now is the key because it would be a great
00:10:59.520 | horror to push and to rush so frantically for your early retirement that you missed
00:11:08.340 | out on today. Now let me use some rather obvious examples to try to start with things where
00:11:16.680 | I'm sure you'll agree with me and then perhaps some less obvious examples. Let's say that
00:11:21.960 | you are so focused on financial success. You're so determined to retire early and you know
00:11:29.920 | the path to do that is to raise your income very high, cut your expenses very low, and
00:11:34.980 | invest the difference wisely. And so you take a very high paying, very high stress job that
00:11:40.440 | requires you to travel, to be a road warrior. You have young children, but you say, "No,
00:11:45.080 | you know what? My dream is to be financially retired very quick, independent, early retired
00:11:50.240 | very quickly, and I'm going to be a road warrior." And so you're there on Saturday, you fly in
00:11:55.960 | on Friday night and you fly out on Sunday night. And your children grow and you hire
00:12:01.400 | professionals to train them because you're not there. And you make your goal, you're
00:12:05.760 | making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. But on the flip side, you're also very
00:12:09.160 | frugal. So when somebody says, "Can we do this?" You say, "No, we don't have the money."
00:12:13.880 | Or "Can we experience that?" "No, we're not going to spend the money, we're saving for
00:12:17.120 | early retirement." And then five, ten years gets there and you are, you've made it. Except
00:12:27.080 | you don't have much of a relationship with your children. They're not that interested
00:12:32.200 | in you. And let's just make it even worse, you die. Or you get a diagnosis of cancer.
00:12:37.560 | What are you going to do? You're going to go spend all your money to try to go and experience
00:12:41.360 | something and be together. It sounds like a cliche because you know it in your bones.
00:12:46.640 | You know that would be a life of failure. You know that instead of your children standing
00:12:53.720 | up at your funeral and honoring you about what a blessing you were, they would say,
00:12:57.680 | "Well, dad sure liked to work a lot. Made a lot of money, left us rich." You know it.
00:13:04.200 | That's why it's a cliche for me to even say it. You've seen the bucket list. You've followed
00:13:09.680 | people who've done that. So you know that's not the case. Now, I can't imagine that you're
00:13:15.840 | doing that. I can't imagine that you're neglecting everything.
00:13:22.480 | Let's bring it to a slightly more realistic experience. Can you imagine somebody who,
00:13:31.480 | yeah, they have a job and they work their job during reasonable hours, but they're so
00:13:35.960 | intent on getting out of their job that they just, "I really don't like it. I really don't
00:13:42.160 | like it." And they learn to hate all their time at work because they're so excited about
00:13:48.360 | getting out of work. You can at least imagine that, right? There are people out there like
00:13:58.480 | that. And yet, what a tragedy. What a tragedy for you to go and work a job for 10 years
00:14:06.760 | and all you can think about is quitting instead of actually gaining something from that job.
00:14:11.200 | Now, there's a balance here. If you're not well suited for your job, then go somewhere
00:14:18.280 | and go get different work that you're well suited for. But don't hate your job. Even
00:14:23.400 | in the middle of a job that you're not well suited for, embrace it and be grateful for
00:14:28.080 | it. Be thankful for it.
00:14:30.280 | Years ago, I used to listen to, when I was a teenager, I bought a bunch of Zig Ziglar
00:14:35.720 | motivational CDs. And I really loved Zig. I still love Zig. I should go and dig those
00:14:42.480 | out and listen to them. But Zig Ziglar would tell a story about a woman that came up to
00:14:48.920 | him and he was talking about being grateful for what you have. And she said, "Well, I
00:14:54.080 | just hate my job." And he said, "Well, there's got to be something you like about your job."
00:14:57.320 | She's like, "No, it's all the worst in the world." He said, "Well, they pay you, right?"
00:15:01.080 | "Yeah, they pay me." "Well, you like getting paid, don't you?" "Yeah, I like getting paid."
00:15:07.480 | And he had the lady as an exercise. He had the lady make a list of all the things that
00:15:12.400 | they, that she liked about her job. They paid her for working there. So she went to work
00:15:17.480 | and she got a paycheck and she liked getting a paycheck. She had nice coworkers. She had
00:15:21.960 | a comfortable office. It wasn't very far from her house. And she made a list of all these
00:15:25.480 | things that she liked about her job.
00:15:31.640 | And as the story went, when she came in on the first day, she just talked to him at a
00:15:36.680 | seminar. She hated her job and everything about it. And his answer was, "Well, they're
00:15:41.880 | about to fire you. It's going to get worse because they're about to fire you." Because
00:15:44.240 | she was so toxic that nobody would want to be around her. Well, he had her make this
00:15:49.080 | list. I forget, 25 things or something about that she loved about her job. And he said,
00:15:53.640 | "Go home every day and look yourself in the mirror and say, 'I love my job because they
00:15:58.240 | pay me. I love my job because it's close to me.'" He said, "Look at yourself in the mirror
00:16:01.600 | and say it every day." It's an affirmation. And it revolutionized her experience. She
00:16:10.160 | came to his next seminar, next time he was in town, and said, "I love my job. I've gotten
00:16:15.560 | paid. I got a promotion. I got a bigger paycheck and a raise, etc. It was a total success."
00:16:20.600 | Not because anything external to the job changed, but because she changed. Because she came
00:16:25.960 | to appreciate what she had.
00:16:29.840 | By the way, if you don't love your job, start there. Start with that. Not necessarily looking
00:16:37.640 | for another one, but looking to appreciate everything that you can about your job. What
00:16:43.080 | about your wife? Can you learn to appreciate something? "Oh, mine's terrible. I got a bad
00:16:48.400 | one." Well, an exercise that I've heard, I've done it, and I've heard other people talk
00:16:54.440 | about it. It's transformative. I recommend it to you. Even right here in Thanksgiving,
00:16:57.440 | going into Thanksgiving tomorrow. Get a journal, notebook, something, and start keeping a journal
00:17:07.040 | of things that you appreciate about your wife. Every day, write down something that you appreciate.
00:17:14.600 | I've heard stories of people who had very terrible marriages, and this suggestion was
00:17:20.720 | given to them, "Just write one short journal entry every day." And they found out that
00:17:28.360 | within a few months, their entire relationship had changed. Because instead of looking for
00:17:31.560 | all the things that were wrong with their wife, they started looking desperately for
00:17:36.160 | all the things that were right. And all the other stuff just fades away.
00:17:42.760 | You can do this with almost anything. For me, one of the most... I've always had a fairly
00:17:48.000 | good marriage relationship, but never really had really bad jobs. But one transformative
00:17:52.760 | thing that I experienced was when I was in college. And when I was in college, my first
00:17:58.280 | two years, my teachers were dumb. They didn't know what they were talking about. I wasn't
00:18:02.080 | learning anything. Then I went and studied abroad, came back, and all of a sudden, something
00:18:06.400 | had changed. My teachers were totally different. They actually knew something, and I was learning
00:18:10.200 | things as I was in school. Well, long story there, but nothing about the school changed.
00:18:16.360 | Nothing about the teachers changed. I changed. I came to appreciate what I had.
00:18:24.440 | And these are some of the things that are at the heart of gratitude. The first thing
00:18:29.160 | is resolve not to miss the joy of today. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow. You're not
00:18:38.760 | guaranteed tomorrow. Your wife is not guaranteed tomorrow. Your children are not guaranteed
00:18:43.840 | tomorrow. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow. All we have is today. Now, if we embrace today,
00:18:54.520 | and we appreciate what today offers, we can learn and be filled with gratitude for the
00:19:00.600 | great things that we have today.
00:19:03.640 | There's a viral video going around the internet world at the moment that was put out this
00:19:08.760 | year, 2019, by some church somewhere. I don't know where. It's kind of a Christmas video.
00:19:15.800 | And their point was, "Appreciate what you have today." And it shows this father waking
00:19:22.280 | up and going into his bathroom and turning on the sink and just being overjoyed at the
00:19:27.720 | fact that you could go and water would come out of the sink, or playing with the light
00:19:32.880 | switch and being overjoyed that you can push the light switch and the light would come
00:19:35.520 | on. You probably experienced that at least once, right? Your lights go out, your water
00:19:39.960 | goes out, and you realize, "I'm going to take that for granted." Goes down and opens the
00:19:45.120 | cupboard. "We have food! This is exciting!" Walks out the front door to go to work. "I
00:19:49.200 | have a car that I can drive! Exciting!" Nothing changed. It's just to appreciate the things
00:19:54.360 | that you do have.
00:19:55.760 | That's why one of the exercises I think we can do from time to time that's extremely
00:20:00.360 | valuable is simply put ourselves into positions of hardship. You pick how you do it. Go and
00:20:08.360 | get a cardboard box and sleep on the street with the homeless people in your town so you
00:20:12.000 | can appreciate what they face, or go camping, or go traveling, or put yourself in some kind
00:20:17.520 | of situation regularly. Don't shy away from difficulty because you'll come back and you'll
00:20:21.360 | appreciate your house, you'll appreciate your bed, you'll appreciate your family. Gratitude
00:20:28.480 | makes all the difference. And gratitude starts with your attitude. When you change your attitude,
00:20:33.000 | you can start to feel grateful, feel thankful. And truly, you and I are so blessed. If nothing
00:20:42.920 | else, we are so blessed to live in the time that we live in. In the 21st century, there
00:20:50.440 | has never been a time in human history where there was more opportunity available to an
00:20:56.120 | average person than today. There's never been a time in human history where there were more
00:21:03.680 | conveniences available than today, more comforts available than today, more access to the world,
00:21:12.080 | the things that you and I take for granted would have been unimaginable a century ago.
00:21:18.720 | And even the problems that we face, the hardships, the trials, in so many ways, there's never
00:21:24.360 | been a time where those hardships and trials have been more easily surmounted. We truly
00:21:34.680 | live in an incredible time. And no matter what the personal challenges you're facing,
00:21:42.840 | it's easier for you to face them today than it would have been 30 years ago. We live in
00:21:48.880 | such an incredible, abundant time, an incredible, abundant place. Now, what about the things
00:21:55.720 | that are hard? What about the things that are really difficult? You face a difficult
00:22:00.680 | job. You face a difficult home life. You're broke. You're in debt. Or whatever other difficulties.
00:22:07.960 | I try to focus on these financial-related difficulties. But whatever difficulties you're
00:22:11.640 | facing, if you will dig in to your situation, you don't need to hide from the emotion of
00:22:23.480 | it. You don't need to pretend that everything is good. I can't stand lack of honesty. Everything's
00:22:28.720 | good. No, dig in to it. But let the situation work in you. And if you let the situation
00:22:37.640 | work in you, it will change you. And then on the other side of it, you'll be grateful
00:22:46.320 | for that change that has been wrought. When you allow that process to work its course
00:22:53.000 | through you, you'll look back at the situation and you'll appreciate it for what it did in
00:22:59.400 | you. Think about something like boot camp in the military. Is it fun to go through boot
00:23:04.600 | camp? I don't know that anyone thinks it's fun. But everybody acknowledges that it's
00:23:09.080 | useful. The military hires up, all acknowledge that, "Hey, this is useful because it's
00:23:16.160 | molding people into soldiers." And then the people that go through it recognize it's useful
00:23:20.400 | as a crucible. It's useful, even though it's difficult. And if you just look at your life
00:23:25.560 | and say, "How can I get out of all these hardships as quickly as possible?" You might miss the
00:23:29.520 | lessons. Now, get out of the hardships if possible, but while you're in it, don't reject
00:23:35.040 | them. Don't say, "Oh, these aren't, these are useless." Don't miss the lessons in the
00:23:42.360 | moment. Be thankful for them. I can't share this message with you without clearly denoting
00:23:53.040 | the origin of these ideas. And so, let me just share that with you. One of the most
00:23:58.720 | important passages in the Bible, I think, is the passage where it talks about being
00:24:07.080 | thankful in all things. It's the end of a book called 1 Thessalonians, written by the
00:24:11.480 | apostle Paul, but there's a little verse in 1 Thessalonians 5 where Paul says this. He
00:24:16.800 | says, "Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ
00:24:24.200 | Jesus. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for
00:24:30.760 | you." Now, I don't know whether you belong to Christ Jesus or not. I hope you do. But
00:24:36.120 | regardless, be thankful. Be thankful in all circumstances. Now, the thing that is most
00:24:45.800 | impressive to me is the man who wrote those words had a brutally difficult life. When
00:24:56.280 | he wrote those words, he was headed for execution by the government in prison. Prison wasn't
00:25:02.680 | very nice. Still not nice, but wasn't very nice at the time. Had faced tremendous personal
00:25:07.920 | difficulties, but still wrote, "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will
00:25:14.920 | of God in Christ Jesus for you." If I'm ever talking with somebody and counseling, they're
00:25:20.080 | saying, "What's the will of God for me? What is God's will for me?" One of the difficult
00:25:24.000 | questions to discern oftentimes. Well, we know for certain that the will of God for
00:25:28.480 | you right now is to give thanks in your current circumstances. Now, there's more. I love that
00:25:39.680 | passage. "We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle." God's will is not that you be idle.
00:25:46.960 | God's will is that you be industrious, not idle. "Encourage the faint-hearted." I'm seeking
00:25:53.980 | to do that here today. If you're struggling, I hope that my words are encouraging to you.
00:25:58.460 | Encourage the faint-hearted. "Help the weak." If you see somebody who's weak, go and help.
00:26:06.660 | Be patient with them all. "See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek
00:26:12.920 | to do good to one another and to everyone." Don't ever repay evil for evil. Always seek
00:26:18.980 | to do good to one another and to everyone. "Rejoice always." Always rejoice. Rejoice
00:26:27.340 | always. "Pray without ceasing." Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will
00:26:34.040 | of God in Christ Jesus for you. "Do not quench the Spirit." Do not despise prophecies, but
00:26:41.740 | test everything. "Hold fast what is good and abstain from every form of evil."
00:26:54.860 | Appreciate in yourself gratitude. Gratitude to God for the circumstances that he has put
00:27:02.380 | you in. I guess I'll also just share with you about where does the philosophy of appreciating
00:27:11.860 | the circumstances that you're in. My favorite book of the Bible is the book of James, written
00:27:18.600 | by the half-brother of Jesus. And the first one of the earliest chapters of scripture
00:27:24.540 | I remember memorizing, I'm sure there were others, was James chapter 1. And let me just
00:27:29.580 | share it with you because it encapsulates this message. And in my mind, it's always
00:27:37.180 | the right answer. "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various
00:27:42.900 | kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness
00:27:50.540 | have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of
00:27:56.980 | you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it
00:28:01.620 | will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting. For the one who doubts is
00:28:06.780 | like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not
00:28:11.680 | suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He's a double-minded man, unstable
00:28:15.940 | in all his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exultation, and the rich in his humiliation.
00:28:25.580 | Because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching
00:28:30.700 | heat and withers the grass. Its flower falls and its beauty perishes. So also will the
00:28:36.700 | rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under
00:28:43.940 | trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God
00:28:49.860 | has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being
00:28:54.660 | tempted by God." For God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one. But
00:29:00.100 | each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when
00:29:07.460 | it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth
00:29:13.100 | death.
00:29:14.900 | Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
00:29:19.660 | coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to
00:29:25.060 | its change. Of His own will He brought us forth, by the word of truth, that we should
00:29:29.820 | be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. Know this, my beloved brothers, let every
00:29:35.460 | person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. For the anger of man does not produce
00:29:43.020 | the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and
00:29:48.740 | receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers
00:29:56.620 | of the word, not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and
00:30:02.900 | not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks
00:30:08.140 | at himself and goes away, and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into
00:30:12.340 | the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who
00:30:21.500 | acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not
00:30:28.380 | bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion
00:30:36.100 | that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows
00:30:42.340 | in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
00:30:48.860 | You can go ahead and read the rest of the book of James if you want. It goes on to talk
00:30:53.620 | about people with gold rings and fine clothing and riches, etc. But I guess those two scripture
00:31:03.300 | passages would encapsulate what I'm trying to share. Simply, give thanks in the circumstances
00:31:08.700 | that you're in. And when you develop that heart attitude of gratitude, it will change
00:31:15.540 | your experience of those circumstances. And second, be steadfast in your circumstances,
00:31:23.340 | no matter what they are. Because the test will produce something in you if you allow
00:31:31.220 | it. Military officers don't put prospective soldiers through boot camp just for fun. Teachers
00:31:42.140 | don't give tests just for fun. Parents don't give their children hard things just for fun.
00:31:51.540 | If somebody wants to be a soldier without going through boot camp and training, or if
00:31:55.620 | somebody wants to be a student without ever facing a hard exam, or if somebody wants to
00:31:59.900 | be a child with the ambition to grow into maturity without ever having to face something
00:32:04.740 | hard, they're fooling themselves. You don't get strong muscles without lifting heavy weights.
00:32:15.180 | And it's the same in every part of life. So don't get so focused on getting rich now as
00:32:24.380 | fast as possible that you forget to live rich now. There's a proper balance. You will regret
00:32:36.780 | it if you spend all of your time and all your energy just desperately working to save money
00:32:43.580 | and get rich so that you can get out of where you are if you don't appreciate where you
00:32:48.260 | are. If you don't focus on embracing the challenge of where you are. You can change. You should
00:32:56.740 | change. If things aren't well suited for you, there's no reason to continue them unnecessarily.
00:33:01.620 | But don't miss the lessons. Don't be as dumb as I have been to rush through things so you
00:33:08.780 | can get all the impressive credentials and qualifications and not learn the material.
00:33:16.580 | That's something that has affected me for far too long. I'm not willing to let it affect
00:33:22.860 | me for any longer. Embrace the challenges. Embrace the struggle. Embrace the difficulty.
00:33:31.180 | Embrace the things that aren't quite how you want them to be. Give thanks for those things.
00:33:36.380 | And as you're working to improve, you will gain the lessons that you need to gain.
00:33:43.460 | As I go today, I want to just simply share with you I'm running a sale. I'll come out
00:33:47.980 | with more info on Monday. But just right now, everything that I have to offer right now
00:33:53.980 | is on sale for using the coupon code Christmas 2019. If you have been interested in purchasing
00:34:00.360 | my credit card course and or my how to survive and thrive during the coming economic crisis
00:34:04.940 | course is a good time. I haven't been in the habit of frequently running sales. Maybe I
00:34:08.420 | should do it more. But right now, that's a great discount. 20% discount. Use the coupon
00:34:12.660 | code Christmas 2019 and that is value valid through Christmas Day 2019. Again, go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/store
00:34:22.020 | and go to enter the coupon code Christmas 2019. Come back bright and early with me on
00:34:31.100 | Monday morning. We're going to be starting on Monday morning a series on goal setting.
00:34:36.380 | I'll also be sharing with you a series on getting out of debt as well as a series on
00:34:42.380 | a large comprehensive look at how to actually achieve financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:34:47.580 | As you are enjoying, if you're in the US American market, as you're enjoying the Thanksgiving
00:34:52.380 | holiday or if you just wherever you are as you're looking forward to the end of 2019,
00:34:58.340 | take some time and reflect on the decade. Decades are pretty cool. As human beings,
00:35:04.540 | our brains are wired for round numbers, right? 20, 30, 40, 50. These are pivotal years, not
00:35:12.180 | because anything actually changes, because in our heads, it's easy for us to think in
00:35:16.980 | big pictures. Same thing with calendar years, decades, millennia. All of these make a difference
00:35:23.280 | to us. And there's a good chance that you won't be able to achieve everything you want
00:35:31.540 | to achieve in 2020. Because when you lay out your goals, you'll probably be too aggressive
00:35:38.140 | and too optimistic. You'll probably lay out for yourself far too much. I've certainly
00:35:44.100 | done that. But if you give yourself a decade, you can do a lot in a decade. And I'm going
00:35:53.380 | to be talking with you next week about how to set financial goals and talking to you
00:35:58.020 | about goals that you can set. But this coming decade from 2020 to 2030 could very well be
00:36:05.040 | the very best decade of your life. Certainly, it can be the best decade of your life financially.
00:36:13.620 | But that doesn't have to come at the cost of other important areas of your life. It
00:36:18.420 | can be the best area of your life in every facet of your life. And if you pull back and
00:36:27.820 | allow yourself to think about a decade, it's such an abundant amount of time that it'll
00:36:33.500 | probably free you from the restrictions that you've imposed on yourself in the past. Because
00:36:39.100 | in the past, you've tried things for a year and you failed in February. We all have. In
00:36:43.940 | the past, you probably said, "Well, I could get a little bit better in a year and then
00:36:52.020 | failed." But a decade is long enough that you can imagine making changes. Again, we'll
00:36:58.260 | talk about this next week when we talk about goal setting. But a decade is long enough
00:37:02.660 | for you to enter and master an entirely new career. Starting today, no matter where you
00:37:10.100 | are, you can lay out a plan to change from your current career and to move into an entirely
00:37:17.820 | new career and even master it within the decade. By the way, you should be thinking about that
00:37:27.020 | because chances are pretty good that your entire career is going to change around you.
00:37:34.500 | The only way to predict that change is to make it. We'll talk about some career goals.
00:37:41.020 | A decade is long enough for you to 10x your income. You can absolutely 10x your income
00:37:49.260 | in a decade. Take a moment. Here I am getting into it. I said I was going to do it Monday.
00:37:54.140 | Take a moment and just stop and think for a moment about what your current income is.
00:38:00.580 | How much income are you going to declare on your tax return for 2019? Now, add a zero
00:38:06.860 | to that. A decade from now, that can be the amount of income that you declare on your
00:38:14.660 | 2029 tax return. We'll talk about some savings goals. We'll talk about a financial freedom
00:38:21.700 | plan. But a decade is enough for you to achieve total financial abundance and total financial
00:38:28.420 | freedom without sacrificing everything else that's important to you. I will achieve financial
00:38:38.500 | independence within the next 10 years. It should be significantly less than that, but
00:38:42.420 | within 10 years, I don't mind giving myself extra time. It's one of the biggest mistakes
00:38:48.180 | that I made when I was younger. I think that, well, everything's got to happen right on
00:38:51.980 | schedule. If you set a goal and you don't hit it right on schedule, so what? Give it
00:38:56.420 | a little bit more time and work at it again. The only thing that makes it impossible for
00:39:01.340 | you to fail, sorry, impossible for you to succeed is quitting. But when you just don't
00:39:05.820 | quit, give yourself a little bit more time to achieve the goal. Go for it. You have a
00:39:09.860 | goal to become financially independent in five years, but the stock market turns upside
00:39:13.740 | down. You waste a bunch of money. You lose a bunch of money. You make bad investments
00:39:16.780 | and it takes you 15 years. So what? You get there eventually. The numbers in some ways
00:39:23.100 | aren't really meaningful. Back to the point. You can achieve total financial independence,
00:39:27.420 | total financial freedom in the next decade. So many people have done it. The methods of
00:39:32.060 | doing it at this point are practically scientific. There are a few things that can't be controlled.
00:39:38.740 | Most of those things can be insured for. But you, no matter where you're from, you can
00:39:45.780 | learn what you need to learn. You can develop the habits that you need to develop. You can
00:39:50.300 | do the things that you need to do to achieve total financial freedom in the next decade.
00:39:57.300 | We'll talk about that throughout the month of December. Spend some time, as perhaps you
00:40:04.700 | enjoy a holiday weekend, spend some time reflecting on where you'd like to be a decade from now.
00:40:11.580 | Lay out a vision because a decade is long enough for you to achieve anything that you
00:40:19.260 | have set for yourself. You can lose 300 pounds and become a bodybuilder in a decade. Can't
00:40:27.220 | do it in a year, but you can do it in a decade. You can pay off a million dollars of debt.
00:40:33.540 | May or may not be able to do it in a year, but you can do it in a decade. You get the
00:40:38.100 | point. Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. Go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/store. Use the
00:40:43.500 | coupon code CHRISTMAS2019 to save 20% on how to borrow money safely and never pay interest
00:40:48.260 | using credit cards. If you have a credit card or if you think you'll ever have a credit
00:40:51.820 | card, you need that course. If you have credit card debt and you're paying off debt, you
00:40:55.380 | need that course. And then how to survive and thrive during the coming economic crisis
00:41:00.620 | also is available for you. If you are worried about the future, if you're worried about
00:41:04.440 | economic crisis, you need that course as well. It's really good. You'll enjoy it. Radicalpersonalfinance.com/store.
00:41:12.020 | Coupon code CHRISTMAS2019, valid through December 25, 2019. Happy Thanksgiving.
00:41:17.820 | Big Boyz Comedy Kings is coming to Yamaha Resort and Casino Saturday, December 9th with
00:41:22.700 | D.L. Hughley. That sweater so tight, look like a snap between the legs. Cedric the Entertainer.
00:41:27.700 | Once we start running, I'll find out what it was we was running about. And Paul Rodriguez.
00:41:31.700 | What is it about old Mexican men? They could be missing a leg, they still want to get into
00:41:35.700 | a fight. Hosted by my man Eric Blake and a special performance by Mario. Big Boyz Comedy
00:41:40.700 | Kings, December 9th at Yamaha Resort and Casino. Tickets can be purchased at AXS.com. This
00:41:45.700 | is a 21 and over event.