RPF_0008_-_Updates_for_the_Show_and_a_Conversation_on_The_Problems_and_Solutions_Facing_Our_Consumption-Based_Society
00:00:00.000 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast, Episode 8.
00:00:05.240 | I'm your host, Joshua Sheets.
00:00:07.920 | Today's show is going to be a conversation.
00:00:09.480 | I want to give you an update on the show, an update on some of the technological components
00:00:15.520 | of the show, and then I want to give you a little bit of a vision into some of the ideas
00:00:19.560 | and some of the places where I'm hoping that this show will go.
00:00:23.520 | Thank you for listening this morning.
00:00:24.520 | I hope you enjoy this morning's show.
00:00:27.320 | I'm going to walk through a couple of ideas that are compelling to me.
00:00:32.400 | First of all, updates on the show.
00:00:33.560 | Thank you so much to those of you who are listening.
00:00:35.880 | I've been having a blast putting this thing together.
00:00:39.200 | Be patient with me.
00:00:41.200 | I'm learning as I go.
00:00:43.120 | There are so many things that need to be done for this show, and I'm doing them little by
00:00:47.800 | little just to give you a little insight into what's going on with the show.
00:00:54.320 | Trying to get some of the technological stuff worked out.
00:00:57.640 | Finally got the logo updated and put into iTunes.
00:01:01.400 | That feels good to get done.
00:01:03.040 | I know I've got lots of work to do.
00:01:07.180 | One of the things that's on my list of things to do is figure out how to improve my audio
00:01:12.600 | quality.
00:01:13.600 | I need to get a better microphone set up.
00:01:16.560 | I will do that as soon as I'm able to.
00:01:18.960 | I also need to bring, I'm hoping to bring a little bit more professionalism to the,
00:01:25.440 | bring in some theme music and some of the intros and the outros and things that make
00:01:30.000 | these types of podcasts more interesting to listen to.
00:01:35.120 | I'm learning as I go.
00:01:37.220 | First of all, I hope that that's not too big of a turn off for most people.
00:01:42.920 | I personally love consuming podcasts and I enjoy the ones that are incredibly professionally
00:01:47.960 | well done.
00:01:48.960 | I think that's awesome and I hope to get this show to that level in the future.
00:01:53.920 | But I also enjoy great content talking about great ideas and I hope that today I can provide
00:01:59.680 | some great content and talk about good ideas.
00:02:04.240 | And I hope this can be valuable for you.
00:02:05.640 | I hope you enjoy the interviews that I've been doing.
00:02:07.960 | I hope some of the ideas and things that we discussed and the education is helpful.
00:02:12.280 | So I'll try to provide great content and then improve the production quality over time.
00:02:19.720 | I'm learning as I go as well.
00:02:21.480 | It's interesting.
00:02:22.480 | I'm learning what to do and what not to do.
00:02:25.840 | I was listening the other day to one of my shows that I recorded last week and many of
00:02:31.040 | these shows, most of these shows, I'm recording them early in the morning.
00:02:34.320 | For example, at this moment as I record this, it's 4.59 AM and I get up and do these about
00:02:40.360 | four in the morning.
00:02:42.360 | I listened to one of the shows the other day and right at the beginning I was, I couldn't,
00:02:48.320 | I could hardly stand the first 30 to 60 seconds of it because I was speaking so slowly and
00:02:54.240 | the reason was that I was recording it at about 4.06 AM and I had woken up at four.
00:02:59.480 | I was just sitting down with my first cup of coffee and I would start hit record and
00:03:06.240 | I said I got to get the show done.
00:03:07.920 | As I started recording I realized it's not good to record at 4.00 AM.
00:03:13.080 | I need some time to wake up, get a couple of cups of coffee, get my energy level up.
00:03:17.240 | I was, it was boring and slow to listen to so stick with me.
00:03:20.920 | I'll learn how to do this quickly and better as time goes on.
00:03:26.120 | So this morning I waited an hour and worked on some other stuff, got my mind cranking,
00:03:32.240 | got my creative juices flowing and have a couple of coffees.
00:03:35.440 | I have a couple of cups of coffee.
00:03:38.400 | You'll hear me often times if I pause for a moment and take a sip of coffee.
00:03:41.400 | I hope it's not too annoying but definitely doing that.
00:03:48.400 | Coffee makes me think better in the morning.
00:03:50.940 | So this morning I want to talk about some of the connecting themes.
00:03:57.560 | As I build this show out, as I've stated in previous episodes, I'm running a balance in
00:04:07.360 | my head of how much to, of the type of content to bring you.
00:04:15.040 | I don't want to just bring, you know, this show is called Radical Personal Finance.
00:04:20.080 | I'm going to bring you technical content that I hope is interesting and educational but
00:04:25.720 | I don't want this to be the financial planning textbook show.
00:04:29.920 | It's way too boring.
00:04:32.040 | But on the other hand I don't want it to all be fluffy so I'm trying to run a balance between
00:04:36.520 | those two things.
00:04:37.520 | And I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to strike the balance.
00:04:40.520 | I've got some shows planned about some fundamentals that I think are valuable, fundamentals of
00:04:46.480 | financial planning.
00:04:47.480 | And I've also got lots of philosophical concepts and ideas and things that occur to me that
00:04:54.440 | seem like smarter ways to do things.
00:04:56.720 | So kind of winging it as we go forward over the coming days, weeks and months.
00:05:02.400 | And I hope that this content ultimately becomes coherent and cohesive but just working on
00:05:09.680 | it as it goes.
00:05:12.520 | As far as the interviews, there are going to be interviews, my plan, from all across
00:05:17.440 | the spectrum.
00:05:18.760 | From people who are just killing it, doing awesome.
00:05:21.960 | People who are struggling.
00:05:24.280 | People who have achieved all their goals.
00:05:26.000 | People who are just getting started.
00:05:27.760 | People with radically diverse and different backgrounds.
00:05:32.080 | I'm doing that intentionally and I'm hoping that as time goes forward that speaking with
00:05:39.160 | other people and hearing their story and hearing about the things that they're doing and their
00:05:45.920 | successes and their failures will help you figure out what's right for your financial
00:05:50.080 | plan.
00:05:51.920 | I find that just learning from other people's experiences is so valuable.
00:05:57.880 | It's wise to learn from our own experiences and not repeat our own mistakes again and
00:06:03.640 | again but it's so much wiser I think to learn from other people's experiences.
00:06:09.600 | Why repeat all the mistakes that they've made?
00:06:12.080 | Why not simply learn from the things they've done well and the things that they've done
00:06:15.640 | poorly?
00:06:16.640 | After all, that's why we have parents in the initial stages of our life to guide us
00:06:20.480 | through the pitfalls and the traps that are available for us.
00:06:28.320 | Also by learning from other people's experiences we can have hope and encouragement when we
00:06:32.680 | see people that are facing more difficult circumstances than us and we hear their thoughts
00:06:38.760 | and their attitudes and that encourages us when we're struggling.
00:06:42.760 | Then also when we hear people that are struggling that helps us to realize that it builds empathy
00:06:49.400 | in our hearts where our hearts go out to other people and we can reach out to them and realize
00:06:54.360 | that our own situation is probably pretty good.
00:06:59.640 | We can try to look to how to encourage them.
00:07:03.040 | The human heart is one that when we're encouraging others that helps us to be encouraged ourselves.
00:07:08.680 | I'm also trying to figure out how to balance the tone between my ideas and the things that
00:07:14.560 | I'm interested in for my personal life and being objective.
00:07:22.720 | I don't know how to strike this balance so bear with me as I learn.
00:07:28.120 | I think that what I love about the world of podcasting is the authenticity of a host.
00:07:35.000 | I love being able to listen to somebody and understand who they really are and have it
00:07:40.340 | come out unfiltered by the 11 minute segment on commercial radio and unfiltered by the
00:07:50.280 | polished professionalism of the show.
00:07:52.840 | To me that's a major benefit of podcasting but on the other hand I don't want to just
00:07:57.400 | be hammered sometimes with a host's opinion on something.
00:08:01.960 | My opinions are going to change over time so I also think that if we're just purely
00:08:05.640 | doing opinion shows and things like that, that can be a bit pigeonholing.
00:08:11.460 | But this morning I am going to share some of my opinions and some of the things that
00:08:15.440 | I look at.
00:08:17.320 | Some of this is going to include my dreams, my ideas and these things are largely in flux.
00:08:24.120 | You'll get a concept of this morning a little bit more of who I am and the types of things
00:08:29.520 | that I'm into.
00:08:34.400 | I hope that it's helpful and I hope that it challenges you.
00:08:37.200 | I hope that some of the ideas that I talk about are ideas that frankly when you hear
00:08:43.160 | them they grate against you because they're out of the ordinary.
00:08:48.120 | To me that's good.
00:08:49.120 | That means that those ideas will germinate and you'll figure out maybe some variation
00:08:53.800 | of that idea and it might be helpful to you.
00:08:56.080 | Again, this is the Radical Personal Finance, not the mainstream personal finance show.
00:09:04.380 | When I look also with respect to all of the international listeners that we do have and
00:09:12.400 | I'm sure we will have in the future, I live in the United States of America and this show
00:09:19.200 | will have a US-American focus but I don't think that the concepts are only able to be
00:09:25.200 | implemented in the US-American context.
00:09:27.280 | It's just that this is what I know best even though I've been privileged to travel more
00:09:32.200 | than many people.
00:09:35.080 | Each culture is unique and you can't necessarily apply what works in one culture to another
00:09:39.600 | but you can apply kind of a similar design process to multiple cultures.
00:09:46.640 | When I look at US-American society I see so many things that are just wonderful.
00:09:55.440 | I am a diehard optimist.
00:10:02.000 | This may sound like a contradiction but I promise it's not so hear me out.
00:10:05.400 | I am a diehard optimist.
00:10:08.840 | I believe that's fact-based.
00:10:11.680 | It's not coming just simply from some pull the wool over my eyes and look to see what
00:10:18.440 | -- and look to see -- it's not let me blind myself to the facts.
00:10:24.640 | By looking at the facts I am a diehard optimist.
00:10:28.200 | Here's what I mean.
00:10:30.120 | I believe that things have never been -- life has never been better in the United States
00:10:36.960 | of America than it is now.
00:10:39.560 | Now if that statement shocks you I'll get to the flip side because in many ways I think
00:10:44.880 | that life has never been worse than it is now but hear me out.
00:10:48.920 | There's never been a time in the history of the universe where opportunity has been greater,
00:10:56.840 | freedom has been greater, technology has given more access to information that can be life
00:11:03.360 | changing than right now.
00:11:06.360 | Wealth in the United States of America is extremely high.
00:11:10.320 | Opportunity is extremely high.
00:11:13.480 | Without question some of the ancient barriers that keep people divided whether that's religion
00:11:20.840 | or race or any of those things that keep people divided those walls are lower than they've
00:11:29.600 | ever been.
00:11:33.840 | Technology has been an incredible game changer.
00:11:36.880 | Even though the far-reaching scope of government gets consistently larger and larger freedom,
00:11:44.920 | personal freedom is incredibly high.
00:11:50.320 | This is going to sound like a cliche but the internet has been absolutely just a phenomenon
00:11:56.520 | that has changed every aspect of society and is just getting started.
00:12:01.120 | It's an absolute baby.
00:12:03.840 | There's more technology in the cell phone on your hip than existed in the world when
00:12:10.800 | they put a man on the moon.
00:12:12.900 | Think about how great the future is.
00:12:14.720 | Think about the wonderful ways that we can apply these technologies to the future.
00:12:21.400 | On the same hand, even though I believe that the facts show that life spans are longer,
00:12:29.560 | we know more about the working of the human body, more and more people are coming out
00:12:35.600 | of poverty all around the world, millions of people coming out of poverty in formerly
00:12:43.000 | extremely poor countries.
00:12:45.360 | Now there are still millions and millions of people in poverty but those people are
00:12:49.400 | coming out.
00:12:50.400 | Innovation is high.
00:12:51.400 | In the United States of America, what's a person who is defined as poor, those definitions
00:12:59.480 | of poor are better than a poor person in the United States of America today usually has
00:13:06.560 | according to the government data line and the numbers that they use.
00:13:12.000 | A poor person usually generally has a place to live in that's reasonably safe, transportation
00:13:18.460 | that's amazing, color television, air conditioning.
00:13:25.880 | Go back to the richest person in the world 100 years ago, 200 years ago.
00:13:31.680 | The richest person in the world couldn't buy air conditioning, couldn't buy entertainment
00:13:36.400 | from all over the world, couldn't buy instant access to information and education and inspiration
00:13:42.880 | and now it's freely available, absolutely 100% free down at the local library.
00:13:47.720 | The knowledge of the world at any person's fingertips.
00:13:52.100 | So with the tools that we have now, money is becoming less and less relevant as a barrier
00:14:00.080 | to people's learning.
00:14:04.960 | Think about the breadth of experience that comes from the internet.
00:14:10.080 | Think about the fact that somebody, pretend you're homeless and you don't have a dollar.
00:14:15.680 | Think about the fact that today you can walk into any public library, every public library
00:14:20.640 | that I'm aware of has today a large bank of computers that are available for the use,
00:14:26.400 | completely for free.
00:14:28.280 | Run into a computer, get a pair of headphones, you can pull up a free online, you can pull
00:14:35.800 | up YouTube and access information from all around the world, free.
00:14:42.340 | You can see what somebody in China is doing, filming it on their iPhone and putting it
00:14:46.480 | on YouTube.
00:14:47.480 | That's incredible, absolutely incredible.
00:14:53.400 | And a lot of times all this information to me doesn't seem like it's being applied
00:14:58.120 | as efficiently as it could be.
00:15:00.360 | Now I'm more optimistic about the future than I ever have been, but at the same hand, look
00:15:06.040 | at the reality of the current situation and we're not applying the technology as broadly
00:15:15.320 | as we could to improve our situation.
00:15:18.400 | Financial stress is high.
00:15:21.120 | Why is financial stress in our country so high?
00:15:24.560 | Why do many people live paycheck to paycheck?
00:15:28.080 | Well, obviously there's lots of reasons.
00:15:31.160 | Part of it could just be that no one's taught them how to not live paycheck to paycheck.
00:15:35.720 | Part of it could be that their circumstances seem overwhelming.
00:15:38.600 | Part of it could be that their income is very low.
00:15:41.220 | Part of it could be that they've been wracked with personal tragedy, disability, death,
00:15:50.800 | sicknesses.
00:15:54.360 | But why is it that so many people are in such financial stress?
00:16:00.480 | Why is it that so many people are in such heavy debt burdens?
00:16:05.520 | Now the facts show that the debt burden in America is much lower than it was 10 years
00:16:10.440 | ago.
00:16:11.440 | That's the facts.
00:16:14.400 | The economic challenges of the last five years have been great for people to realize that
00:16:20.880 | it helps to pay off debt.
00:16:24.520 | People are more aware of it than any time in the past.
00:16:27.240 | But yet still, why is it as high as it is?
00:16:32.000 | There's so many, what's the term for it?
00:16:37.600 | Maybe, it's a word, kind of like dichotomy, where it just doesn't seem to be, it seems
00:16:46.080 | to be conflicting, where one fact on one side and one fact on the other side seem to say
00:16:53.360 | exactly the same.
00:16:54.820 | The facts seem to be woefully different and you can't really reconcile them.
00:17:01.840 | How happy are most Americans?
00:17:06.120 | To me that's a major question.
00:17:07.640 | How happy are most Americans?
00:17:09.600 | I think in reality, many Americans are pretty happy.
00:17:13.600 | But yet, ask yourself, as I ask myself, are they as happy as they could be?
00:17:20.880 | You know, I went through in preparation for this show, I was trying to think through and
00:17:23.840 | try to browse the interwebs, coming up with statistics and things.
00:17:29.800 | As far as, what percentage of people love their jobs and love their lives and are totally
00:17:34.940 | happy and totally fulfilled with what they're doing?
00:17:38.640 | Problem with statistics is you can make them say everything that you want them to say.
00:17:42.480 | I literally found two studies, I found a Gallup poll that was recent, I've got it right here,
00:17:48.640 | reading the PDF from the Gallup organization, this one is 2013.
00:17:54.000 | The state of the American workplace, employee engagement insights for US business leaders,
00:17:59.640 | this is 2013, no this is 2011, it looks like, it was their data.
00:18:07.040 | It shows that 70% of American workers are not engaged or actively disengaged at their
00:18:14.000 | work.
00:18:15.000 | Now on the same hand, I was Googling around and I found a CNBC study that shows that 70%
00:18:22.360 | of Americans are satisfied with their work.
00:18:26.000 | So who do you believe?
00:18:28.560 | The title of the article is Americans don't want to shove their jobs, survey says.
00:18:33.880 | So what do you believe?
00:18:37.000 | I've got no idea.
00:18:39.760 | But these economic challenges are entirely 100% solvable, but yet we've got to change
00:18:47.720 | the way that they're solved and I'm going to go over some of my ideas and some of my
00:18:50.640 | strategies for that today.
00:18:53.720 | What about the health?
00:18:55.960 | Health of Americans seems like in some ways it's better than it's ever been.
00:19:02.200 | After all, look at the facts, people are living longer than they've ever lived.
00:19:08.080 | That's a fact.
00:19:11.600 | Lifespans are incredibly long and yet more people are suffering from ongoing chronic
00:19:18.240 | illnesses and more people die from preventable causes than anything else.
00:19:26.960 | I was looking at some statistics on the CDC website.
00:19:34.720 | 25% of Americans on average, 25% of Americans die from heart disease.
00:19:44.080 | So in 2008, CDC website, percentage of all death caused by heart disease in 2008 across
00:19:52.440 | all ethnicities, 25%.
00:19:55.720 | My understanding, if you ask most physicians, my understanding is that heart disease would
00:20:02.000 | be almost entirely preventable.
00:20:06.760 | Almost entirely preventable.
00:20:08.480 | I'm sure that there are some aspects that are not, but it seems to me it's almost entirely
00:20:14.600 | preventable and yet 25% of Americans die due to heart disease.
00:20:20.280 | Stress related illnesses are incredibly high.
00:20:24.000 | So anyway, enough of the problems.
00:20:25.960 | I'm so optimistic, but enough of the problems.
00:20:28.800 | Let's talk about some of the solutions.
00:20:30.200 | I believe that good sound financial planning can solve some of these problems.
00:20:37.760 | That financial planning, I'm going to apply that more broadly than here's the percentage
00:20:41.880 | that you should put into a retirement account.
00:20:46.640 | Our lives, our financial lives are stressed out needlessly and we bring it on ourselves.
00:20:54.760 | These are choices.
00:20:55.760 | There are many influencing factors.
00:21:00.480 | You always know you're getting dumb advice or you always know, in my opinion, you always
00:21:04.960 | know you're getting dumb advice or a dumb perspective when somebody says this is the
00:21:08.400 | one cause.
00:21:09.400 | There's never one cause.
00:21:10.400 | Why do you get cancer?
00:21:13.000 | I don't know, but it's not just from this one cause.
00:21:20.280 | The example I think that most people could relate to because you probably have spoken
00:21:23.240 | with people is smoking causes lung cancer.
00:21:26.320 | Well, is that true?
00:21:29.040 | I don't think so.
00:21:30.480 | Now, do many people smoke get lung cancer?
00:21:33.280 | Absolutely, but we all know that story of the 98 year old lady in the Tennessee mountains
00:21:39.680 | that smoked a pack a day and drank whiskey for breakfast and lived to 98 years old and
00:21:46.200 | died a happy death of old age and was totally healthy.
00:21:50.480 | Can you say that smoking causes cancer?
00:21:52.560 | Yeah, but that's not the only factor.
00:21:56.160 | You have to look at it a little bit deeper.
00:21:58.360 | Here would be how I'd look a little bit deeper.
00:22:00.460 | If somebody is highly stressed, overweight, lives in a toxic environment, lives under
00:22:05.080 | a state of perpetual stress where their body is frustrated and upset, is dramatically overweight,
00:22:10.480 | takes a lot of drugs for various conditions, and that person smokes cigarettes on a daily
00:22:16.640 | basis, I think, going out on a limb here, it's more likely that their bodies would not
00:22:23.920 | be able to fight off the cancer cells than the person, the proverbial old lady in Tennessee
00:22:32.040 | who wakes up in the morning, walks outside with a cup of coffee and a cigarette, looks
00:22:37.560 | at the mountain, totally stress-free, relaxed, surrounded by friends and family.
00:22:44.000 | I'm painting a utopia, I understand.
00:22:46.200 | But relaxed, surrounded by friends and family, has clean air to breathe, clean food to eat
00:22:52.320 | from her garden.
00:22:54.720 | Her body is able to keep those cancer cells in check.
00:22:59.160 | So it's never just one thing, never just one cause.
00:23:03.200 | And so there's never just one solution.
00:23:06.800 | There's so many things that are brought together.
00:23:13.600 | In general, this is a generalization, but in general, my observation is that most Americans
00:23:20.080 | don't seem to be so incredibly satisfied with what they're doing.
00:23:24.200 | And I believe that they should be.
00:23:26.720 | Many people love their work, they love their jobs, but many people seem to exist in this
00:23:31.800 | state of in-between.
00:23:32.800 | Well, there's two extremes.
00:23:36.320 | So many people love their work, love their jobs, are living their passion.
00:23:40.760 | We hear a lot these days about living your passion, and I'm into that.
00:23:44.520 | Cool, I get it.
00:23:45.520 | Why do you think I'm up at 5.20 right now when I could be asleep?
00:23:50.960 | This is fun, I enjoy this.
00:23:53.320 | I value it, I enjoy this time spent talking to you.
00:23:57.600 | I want it to be valuable to you.
00:23:59.280 | So that's an example of me kind of living my passion.
00:24:02.960 | So many people do that, and those people are inspiring to us.
00:24:05.600 | Those people are people that we hear them talk at a speech, and our lives are impacted
00:24:10.920 | because of them.
00:24:12.880 | Many people exist in absolute desperation, completely fed up with their lives, completely
00:24:21.720 | fed up with their circumstances.
00:24:23.880 | And those people, because they're desperate, because they're changing, they take action.
00:24:29.640 | Some of them take negative action, they commit suicide.
00:24:33.520 | There is an epidemic of teen suicide going on in this country right now.
00:24:36.920 | This is a by-point, but it's a major social problem that's got to be improved.
00:24:42.640 | But many people commit suicide.
00:24:44.800 | That's action.
00:24:45.800 | It's action because they're so fed up, they can't take it anymore.
00:24:49.360 | Some people take action and they change their job.
00:24:53.200 | I quit, they move.
00:24:54.760 | Some people get so fed up that they leave the country, they go on a trip, they do something,
00:25:00.200 | they change something.
00:25:01.760 | But it comes at the point of such extreme pain.
00:25:06.400 | But many people exist right in this in-between state, where it's not so bad that I have to
00:25:10.680 | change, but it's not so good that I would keep doing it if I didn't have to.
00:25:17.000 | How else do you explain the popularity of bucket lists and the sites and blogs and things
00:25:23.920 | that are associated with that?
00:25:25.640 | Now, usually, the sites and the blogs are written by people who are doing it, but what
00:25:32.280 | about all the people that are drawn to that without doing anything?
00:25:34.880 | So there's an epidemic of just general malaise.
00:25:39.280 | I think that financial planning is a tool that can get people there.
00:25:43.280 | Now, here's my evidence.
00:25:45.920 | I can't prove this with numbers, but when you talk about things like retirement with
00:25:53.080 | people, most people want to retire.
00:25:59.760 | But I question that sometimes.
00:26:01.920 | And I try to ask people and talk to them and say, "What would you do if you were retired?
00:26:09.520 | What would you do?"
00:26:10.520 | And a lot of times, as people get closer to that magic date, they tend to make different
00:26:19.080 | choices.
00:26:20.800 | "Well, why wait to make those choices until you retire?"
00:26:28.560 | I ask people sometimes, "What would you do if money were not an object?"
00:26:31.720 | And usually, we're conditioned to respond first in our society with some sort of consumption-based
00:26:38.800 | answer.
00:26:39.800 | "I'd buy this kind of car.
00:26:41.760 | I'd do this expensive thing."
00:26:44.000 | That's fine.
00:26:45.720 | But once you get past all that consumption, ultimately, there's usually an answer.
00:26:53.240 | I should look it up, but I'm not going to because we don't need the statistic.
00:26:59.280 | Such a high percentage of people say that they would love to write a book, yet they
00:27:04.320 | don't write one.
00:27:07.760 | Such a high percentage of people say that they would love to produce art, yet they don't
00:27:12.720 | produce it.
00:27:16.720 | How can we fix this?
00:27:17.720 | How can we produce the art and produce the...I guess just the...I don't know how to say it.
00:27:31.800 | Produce the art.
00:27:32.840 | Produce the things that bring more lasting fulfillment.
00:27:39.840 | The dots connect in my mind.
00:27:41.320 | I'm going to try to connect them for you.
00:27:43.400 | There's so many aspects to it, but I'm going to try to connect some of them and tell you
00:27:46.920 | where my mind goes and how I would achieve it.
00:27:51.320 | I don't know how to communicate this perfectly.
00:27:53.960 | This is rambly.
00:27:54.960 | I know that.
00:27:56.280 | But here are my thoughts.
00:27:57.940 | First of all, we've got to see through the illusion of happy consumption.
00:28:03.840 | I'm going to paint two pictures for you.
00:28:07.000 | This is a straw man argument.
00:28:08.560 | I recognize that.
00:28:09.560 | It's never going to be this extreme.
00:28:10.560 | But I'm going to paint two pictures for you and you tell me which one appeals to you.
00:28:16.840 | And I'm going to...these are not mutually exclusive, but go with me for a moment.
00:28:24.160 | See in your mind's eye a beautiful, expensive, perfectly designed beauty of architecture
00:28:36.440 | house that you live in.
00:28:37.440 | The house is large.
00:28:40.320 | It's in the finest neighborhood in your town.
00:28:43.080 | It's well landscaped.
00:28:44.400 | It's manicured.
00:28:46.160 | You don't have to do that.
00:28:47.760 | Somebody else does that for you.
00:28:53.360 | The house has beautiful furnishings from all the bright brand names.
00:28:58.200 | The house is well appointed in every way.
00:29:00.320 | It's comfortable.
00:29:01.320 | It's beautiful.
00:29:02.320 | And the driveway is parked.
00:29:05.840 | The most ideal vehicle for your situation and status in life.
00:29:12.240 | Your dream car is parked right in the driveway where you can see it every day and all your
00:29:16.440 | neighbors can see it.
00:29:19.880 | House is freshly painted.
00:29:20.880 | The grass is green.
00:29:22.160 | There's grass.
00:29:23.600 | The flowers are beautiful.
00:29:25.200 | It's large.
00:29:26.200 | You have plenty of room for family to stay with you.
00:29:28.480 | You have plenty of room for friends to stay with you.
00:29:33.160 | See that in your mind's eye.
00:29:35.280 | Okay, now on the flip side, picture a different house.
00:29:43.000 | This house is on the edge of town, whatever your town looks like.
00:29:47.480 | Maybe that's a semi-rural neighborhood.
00:29:52.960 | Maybe it's just a small, it's on the edge of town.
00:29:56.840 | House is small.
00:29:57.840 | It's a cottage.
00:29:58.840 | I don't know, 500, 800, 1000 square feet.
00:30:03.440 | Just got just enough bedrooms.
00:30:04.800 | Maybe one or two or three depending on how many you need for the number of people.
00:30:09.800 | Has a simple living room, simple furnishings.
00:30:12.640 | It's simple.
00:30:13.640 | It's not dirty.
00:30:14.640 | It's not run down.
00:30:18.320 | It's not dangerous, but it's simple.
00:30:22.280 | Now question, which house would you rather live in?
00:30:29.200 | And there's not a wrong, right or wrong answer here.
00:30:31.480 | Just an interesting thought experiment.
00:30:33.240 | Which house would you rather live in?
00:30:36.280 | Now you pick the answer to that and let's go on.
00:30:38.680 | Now house A.
00:30:43.240 | You get up in the morning feeling tired because you went to sleep late the night before because
00:30:49.080 | you had to stay up late working on a work project.
00:30:52.280 | Your work is something that is very challenging, that drains you.
00:30:57.280 | You stayed up until midnight and you had to get up at about 6am to get into the office
00:31:03.560 | early.
00:31:04.560 | Now you know you're supposed to work out in the morning, but you don't quite have time.
00:31:09.860 | So you grab a cup of coffee, several cups of coffee to keep you awake and you rush out
00:31:16.860 | the door.
00:31:17.860 | You jump in the car.
00:31:18.860 | You don't have time to see your family in the morning, but right as you're leaving,
00:31:22.400 | your spouse or your children, if you have them, mention something to you that is just
00:31:27.280 | even more stressful.
00:31:28.280 | They mention to you about a financial expense that's coming up or a problem at school or
00:31:35.160 | something.
00:31:36.160 | So you rush out the door to a job and you're there at the job and you're stressed out.
00:31:40.020 | You didn't have time for an enjoyable breakfast.
00:31:42.380 | You're stressed out and you rush to the job and as you're at the job, things come all
00:31:47.500 | day long.
00:31:48.500 | This problem, that problem, the third problem, the fourth problem.
00:31:52.140 | You're working with people you don't like.
00:31:54.300 | You hit traffic on the way to work.
00:31:56.100 | You sat in traffic for maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour.
00:32:00.420 | You got to the office.
00:32:01.420 | You worked all day.
00:32:02.420 | You escaped for a few moments at lunch to regain your sanity.
00:32:06.660 | Scarf down some food.
00:32:08.260 | You get home late at night, 7.30, 8 o'clock.
00:32:11.260 | There's no dinner there.
00:32:13.100 | So you had to pick up something on the way.
00:32:14.900 | You sit down.
00:32:15.940 | You have just a few minutes with your family.
00:32:18.540 | Your spouse is upset with you.
00:32:20.200 | Your kids are upset with you.
00:32:21.600 | You don't see each other.
00:32:22.600 | You don't speak to each other.
00:32:24.340 | And you drown your sorrows in a, I don't know, a glass of alcohol.
00:32:30.700 | Now that's option A with a nice house.
00:32:32.300 | But you got the nice house.
00:32:34.180 | Option B. You wake up in the morning without an alarm clock.
00:32:40.860 | Sun comes up.
00:32:41.860 | Your body naturally wakes up.
00:32:44.140 | You feel good.
00:32:45.140 | You had a good night's sleep.
00:32:47.260 | You get up.
00:32:48.300 | You get breakfast if you're into that.
00:32:50.180 | You have a cup of coffee.
00:32:51.600 | You walk outside, look at the flowers sitting.
00:32:54.300 | If you're a coffee drinker or a tea or whatever your morning routine is, you look at the flowers
00:33:00.020 | and you just admire the beauty of the day.
00:33:04.940 | Spend an hour over breakfast with your family like you would on a Saturday.
00:33:08.380 | Maybe eat blueberry pancakes.
00:33:10.820 | That's your family tradition.
00:33:14.380 | You spend that hour together.
00:33:18.060 | Then you go and you sit down at your work.
00:33:20.500 | Your work is meaningful to you.
00:33:21.660 | You don't need to drive anywhere.
00:33:23.140 | Your work is right there.
00:33:26.580 | There's no need to go anywhere.
00:33:28.340 | There's no need to face traffic or commute.
00:33:32.460 | You get to work on work that matters to you.
00:33:34.420 | You get to be close to your family and those that you love.
00:33:37.860 | You have time throughout the day to take the call from an old friend.
00:33:41.860 | You have time to walk outside and go for a walk at lunchtime.
00:33:45.140 | You have time to eat healthy food.
00:33:49.140 | Life is peaceful.
00:33:50.140 | It's lower stress.
00:33:52.940 | You have time to exercise.
00:33:56.620 | You have time just to be a human being.
00:33:59.580 | You finish the work that you need to do for the day and you work on some sort of artistic
00:34:03.580 | project and expression of your creativity.
00:34:08.500 | In the evening, some close friends come over.
00:34:11.220 | Maybe you visit with your neighbors.
00:34:14.820 | You have a relaxing evening.
00:34:16.260 | Maybe read a book, watch a movie.
00:34:19.420 | Be with people that you love.
00:34:21.180 | Play a game with your kids.
00:34:23.900 | You go to bed at a healthy time.
00:34:26.580 | Now I know I'm painting two pictures but here's the question.
00:34:29.820 | Which of those days would you choose?
00:34:34.500 | I got to believe that whether or not I did a good job describing it, many people would
00:34:39.180 | be drawn towards the second option.
00:34:43.100 | I feel pretty confident about that because when I talk to people or when I read online
00:34:48.740 | of what people write about what they would like to do, it's usually going to sound more
00:34:54.380 | like the second option than the first.
00:34:57.660 | So my question is, is it the big house?
00:34:59.460 | Is it the car that is really motivating or is it the lifestyle?
00:35:04.660 | Now big houses and cars are great.
00:35:06.460 | That's awesome.
00:35:07.460 | Good for you.
00:35:08.460 | But that doesn't bring the happiness.
00:35:10.300 | You got to get the happiness first.
00:35:12.860 | Let the big houses and cars come with time.
00:35:18.420 | Consumption doesn't make us happy.
00:35:22.580 | Consumerism is not the answer.
00:35:26.300 | Now the mansion is awesome if you want to live there and if it's easy for you to live
00:35:30.220 | there and you can live that kind of lifestyle.
00:35:31.700 | I know people who live in mansions and their life is exactly what I laid out in the second
00:35:38.380 | day but they do it in the first type of environment.
00:35:41.820 | That's awesome.
00:35:42.820 | But don't stretch for the first type of environment and get the life that's associated with that.
00:35:47.780 | There are options where we can do it differently.
00:35:51.100 | So one of the things that my guiding principles, consumerism is not the answer.
00:35:55.420 | Production is the answer.
00:35:56.420 | A lot of times what people view as pain is not actually pain.
00:36:02.380 | Consumption doesn't ultimately bring us happiness.
00:36:06.980 | Having extra unused rooms that we heat and cool every day by working at a job that we
00:36:11.860 | don't like is not what brings happiness.
00:36:16.700 | Having rooms that are comfortable for us to live in, that are spacious enough for us
00:36:20.740 | to be in and doing work that we enjoy will kick us farther down that road.
00:36:27.220 | Now I have a personal bias towards minimalism.
00:36:31.620 | Not because of any specific amount of stuff that's right or wrong but here's my example
00:36:36.700 | that makes sense to me.
00:36:38.700 | Do you enjoy going on vacation, walking into a nice hotel room, looking around at the furniture,
00:36:44.380 | looking around at the bed and just simply existing?
00:36:48.900 | Which of these two things gives you a greater sense of peace?
00:36:53.540 | Picture yourself walking into a well-appointed hotel room.
00:36:58.260 | Not opulent, not expensive, just well-appointed.
00:37:01.780 | It's a beautiful Saturday morning, you walk in with a small bag of your clothes.
00:37:09.140 | You set that bag down in the corner and you turn to your family or the people that you
00:37:13.980 | love that you're with and you ask, "What should we do today?"
00:37:20.060 | Or scenario B is you walk into your garage.
00:37:28.380 | Need I go further?
00:37:29.620 | Now for those whose garage looks like it could be on the cover of a book about garages, you're
00:37:37.380 | already doing it so why listen to me?
00:37:39.740 | But for many people, the garage would probably be a source of stress.
00:37:42.660 | You got all your stuff in the garage in the hotel room, you don't have your stuff.
00:37:47.460 | So because you don't have so much stuff in the hotel room, you can be.
00:37:51.220 | You can go, you can explore, you can go to eat, you can be with your family.
00:37:56.100 | So does the stuff make us happy?
00:37:58.820 | I would say it doesn't but that's my opinion.
00:38:01.420 | I would say that the right stuff helps life to be a little bit better.
00:38:05.700 | Living with 32 things that you own may be great for some people, for some people it's
00:38:09.380 | not but I would say less clutter and minimalism is a big factor.
00:38:17.260 | I think doing work that you love and are passionate about is a big factor.
00:38:23.620 | I try, I look and I look and I look and I never see people that just simply quit life
00:38:28.020 | that are really happy.
00:38:31.380 | If you wanted to quit life and that's what makes you happy, you can do it today.
00:38:34.580 | There's homeless bums in every city in the country.
00:38:38.660 | They don't work.
00:38:39.660 | Are they happy?
00:38:40.660 | Some of them probably are.
00:38:44.540 | Many of them probably aren't.
00:38:46.100 | But I see a lot of people who could quit that don't.
00:38:55.340 | They continue working at things that they're interested in, that they enjoy, that they're
00:38:59.180 | passionate about and they continue working at these things long after they have to.
00:39:05.900 | So why not understand that early on?
00:39:09.980 | I'm going to try to sell you in this show on the concept of getting out of debt.
00:39:16.700 | Not that it's not something that you don't, many people don't intellectually grasp but
00:39:20.900 | that it's such a greater lifestyle and there's almost nothing worth borrowing for.
00:39:28.900 | Especially nothing consumption related that's worth borrowing for.
00:39:33.820 | Picture this, picture the difference.
00:39:38.060 | Think first about your situation.
00:39:40.780 | If you had no debt, no payments to anybody for anything including no monthly bills, no
00:39:50.220 | monthly utility bills, no monthly bills which most people aren't going to believe is possible
00:39:55.660 | and it's probably not possible but I'll come back to that in a second.
00:39:59.100 | Say you have no debt and no bills.
00:40:05.860 | How much stress would you have every month?
00:40:12.660 | How much stress?
00:40:14.260 | Now also pretend that you have no debt but you just have some ongoing bills.
00:40:22.100 | How much money would you have every month?
00:40:25.300 | Quite a bit, right?
00:40:28.560 | To me that's the reason to get out of debt.
00:40:31.900 | There's nothing that's worth bringing that stress into your life.
00:40:35.940 | Now I have a mortgage.
00:40:38.900 | I'm not walking away from the financial realities of life but conceptually that's got to be
00:40:44.700 | motivating.
00:40:48.380 | To me it's very motivating.
00:40:55.020 | I hope to sell you on the concept and why that's something that's worth striving for.
00:41:02.820 | I hope to sell it to you as something that is desirable rather than something that is
00:41:11.060 | self-sacrifice.
00:41:13.140 | If you view getting out of debt as pain, having to curtail your spending and being unhappy,
00:41:19.900 | you won't do it.
00:41:21.540 | But if you view it as something that's worth achieving because it ultimately brings you
00:41:24.760 | greater peace and satisfaction and happiness, you'll work towards it.
00:41:32.540 | It's not a sacrifice.
00:41:33.540 | It's a pleasure.
00:41:37.540 | I think there's great value in having lower expenses.
00:41:40.100 | Let me paint again these two concepts for you.
00:41:43.340 | Forget about the numbers.
00:41:45.980 | Pretend that you have three scenarios.
00:41:49.780 | Scenario A or scenario 1 is you earn X dollars and you spend 105% of that number.
00:42:04.060 | Just 5% more than you bring in.
00:42:06.980 | Scenario B is you earn X dollars and you spend 100% of that number.
00:42:17.180 | Scenario C is you earn X dollars and you spend 50% of that number.
00:42:29.500 | Which of those budgets would feel more comfortable?
00:42:34.260 | Most people are at maybe spending somewhere between 90 and 110% of their money.
00:42:40.820 | It's hard to spend 110% on an ongoing basis but it's easy to spend 100% on an ongoing
00:42:45.020 | basis.
00:42:46.540 | Many people save.
00:42:47.580 | Most people save.
00:42:49.660 | I reject a lot of the statistics that show that nobody saves money.
00:42:52.860 | That's not true.
00:42:53.860 | Lots of people save money.
00:42:54.860 | It depends on how it's calculated.
00:42:58.020 | Most people save something.
00:42:59.660 | What if you had 50% expenses?
00:43:02.940 | So I believe it's possible and it's possible without sacrificing much lifestyle.
00:43:10.340 | Now we've got to apply some different technology and some different ideas to the question.
00:43:17.980 | And this show is about exploring ideas.
00:43:20.460 | There's so many great ideas and so many great technologies that are available to us.
00:43:27.420 | If we were designing lives, if we were designing financial lives, would we design them the
00:43:32.980 | way that they happen or would we design them differently?
00:43:36.460 | I think we'd design them differently.
00:43:38.620 | And there are technologies available today that have never been available before.
00:43:44.700 | And we can access those technologies and we can profile them and we can see them from
00:43:47.900 | all over the world.
00:43:50.620 | Take all of your expenses and there's technologies for eliminating them or for improving them.
00:43:55.540 | I'm personally passionate about making housing a smarter choice.
00:44:00.980 | So I love, you know, we can have a standard looking American house or we can have a standard
00:44:07.460 | looking American house that works well for us.
00:44:10.380 | Why do our houses suck money out of our budgets?
00:44:13.740 | Why don't our houses keep money in our lives?
00:44:17.820 | So why don't we improve the efficiency of our houses?
00:44:20.820 | Not because of some environmental guilt trip but because it's simply better.
00:44:27.660 | Why are our houses not more efficiently run, more efficiently made, more efficiently designed?
00:44:33.100 | Why do they cost so much to build?
00:44:37.100 | The technology exists for us to build and create houses that are, provide for us.
00:44:48.780 | There's so many non-traditional options for housing.
00:44:53.380 | There's the tiny house movement.
00:44:54.660 | There are people who live in RVs.
00:44:55.660 | There are people who don't own houses because they travel whole time.
00:44:59.420 | There are houses that you build with your hands out in the woods.
00:45:01.980 | There are houses that you build with your hands in the city.
00:45:04.780 | There's so many options for housing.
00:45:06.540 | Why is it that I have to have a 30 year mortgage for a house?
00:45:12.860 | Why is it that we have to pay for all of our food a la carte?
00:45:15.300 | Why don't our houses make food for us?
00:45:18.380 | Why are all the medians in our highways and our towns planted with non-productive trees?
00:45:24.260 | Why not replace some of those with fruit trees?
00:45:27.500 | Why do we pay for things like apples?
00:45:31.220 | Why do you buy apples if you're in a place where you can grow apples?
00:45:34.920 | Apple trees are easy to plant.
00:45:36.340 | Just plant them out on the street and go out and pick some.
00:45:39.020 | I live in the south here.
00:45:40.180 | We don't grow apples, but why do people buy avocados and mangoes?
00:45:44.380 | Why aren't the roadsides decorated with avocado trees and mango trees and orange trees and
00:45:51.220 | everything that's freely available for all to come and get it?
00:45:56.060 | The reason why is because people may or may not pick it up and the maintenance people
00:46:01.300 | don't want to deal with the "trash" of the fruit under the tree.
00:46:07.220 | Seems a little silly, but that's the reason.
00:46:10.740 | Why can't it be better?
00:46:12.540 | Why can't ... I guess I'm going off on a tangent here, but I probably should do a whole show
00:46:24.540 | about this.
00:46:25.540 | Technology exists today to provide for all of our needs cheaper and better.
00:46:32.100 | There's zero reason for all of our budgets to be consumed with buying food and energy
00:46:40.380 | and water and transportation and all these things.
00:46:43.500 | All of these things have solutions, and we're going to profile those solutions.
00:46:47.700 | There's zero reason why our houses have to be such a money pit, why we have to use these
00:46:53.340 | expensive technologies when there's simpler solutions.
00:46:58.580 | You can heat water with an electric hot water heater, with a gas hot water heater, and with
00:47:04.740 | the sun.
00:47:06.500 | Why do all of our homes not have a solar hot water heater on the roof?
00:47:09.980 | Again, I'm not coming at it from the perspective of to save the Amazon rainforest.
00:47:15.220 | I'm coming at it from the perspective of dollars and cents.
00:47:18.380 | One of my projects is I'd like to build a solar hot water heater in my home.
00:47:22.420 | I haven't done it yet, but I've seen the technology.
00:47:26.540 | It's so doable.
00:47:28.700 | Why do we not use the energy that's raining on the house all day long to heat our water?
00:47:32.700 | Why do we pay for it?
00:47:34.180 | For that reason, why do we pay for water?
00:47:37.500 | Water falls freely in most parts of the United States.
00:47:41.660 | Why do we not capture that water and use it?
00:47:43.540 | Why do many people pay $100 a month for their water?
00:47:47.100 | I was talking with a friend of mine.
00:47:48.620 | I asked him.
00:47:49.620 | I don't have a water bill per se.
00:47:51.220 | I live on a property with a well, so I have an electricity bill for the well.
00:47:56.180 | I was talking with a friend who's on the municipal water supply.
00:48:00.580 | His water bill is about $100 a month.
00:48:01.900 | I said, "Why on earth do you pay that?
00:48:03.340 | I live in Florida.
00:48:04.340 | We have more rainfall than ... We have a lot of rain."
00:48:10.340 | If you step back, it seems crazy that anybody in Florida would ever pay for water.
00:48:15.900 | Why don't we have a home that captures the rain, stores it for us to use?
00:48:20.660 | Well, you say, "We'd have to have a way to do that."
00:48:24.860 | Yes.
00:48:26.420 | Why don't we?
00:48:28.420 | Some people do.
00:48:29.420 | I think we all could.
00:48:33.540 | Why do we have ... Go on and on.
00:48:37.380 | I don't mean to, but why do we have houses that have to heat, have to cool?
00:48:43.180 | It's possible.
00:48:44.180 | The technology is out there.
00:48:45.180 | If you live in a place where it gets cold in the winter, I have seen ... There is technology
00:48:49.980 | out there.
00:48:50.980 | I hope to profile it, but the technology exists where you never have to use any kind of outside
00:48:59.140 | heat other than the solar heat that falls, even in the middle of winter, in some of the
00:49:04.140 | coldest places.
00:49:06.300 | I've never lived up in the Arctic tundra, so maybe you'd have to have some supplemental
00:49:10.580 | heat there.
00:49:11.580 | I've certainly seen houses in snow country that you never have to heat, 100% on solar
00:49:18.020 | heat.
00:49:19.020 | Why aren't all houses designed like that?
00:49:24.700 | There are houses that are designed to be very, very cool.
00:49:27.900 | This to me seems more challenging, but the technology exists.
00:49:31.660 | What if we actually applied our heads to it and provided it and said, "We're not going
00:49:35.620 | to go with the ... I live in Florida.
00:49:38.380 | $125 a month AC bills."
00:49:40.660 | Why doesn't the house cool itself?
00:49:42.620 | If we put our head on that and we put our brains around that, our houses should be able
00:49:46.860 | to do that, whether it's geothermal, whether it's natural air drafts.
00:49:51.700 | I don't know what it is, but there are options.
00:49:54.940 | We're going to explore some of those options.
00:49:57.540 | Why don't our houses make energy for us?
00:49:59.260 | Instead of having to pay the electric bill, why don't our houses just simply make energy?
00:50:03.060 | Whether that's solar panels on the roof or whether it's some other form of energy production.
00:50:09.060 | I love the fact that I don't have any solar panels at the moment and they're very expensive
00:50:12.900 | as per cost of electric hour.
00:50:16.460 | I get that.
00:50:17.460 | I love the fact that prices are dropping.
00:50:19.780 | I love the fact, my prediction at 10 years, it'll be standard.
00:50:24.740 | Let's get going.
00:50:25.740 | Let's make it happen.
00:50:26.740 | Why do we have to pay anywhere from $200 to $1,000 a month for food that's not very good,
00:50:35.340 | that makes us sick?
00:50:36.740 | Why don't our houses create food for us?
00:50:39.420 | Why don't we have computer controlled growing systems in our houses that provide the optimal
00:50:44.900 | growing environment for the fruits and vegetables and plants that we need?
00:50:51.940 | There's so many solutions and I want this show to be about solutions.
00:51:02.900 | Solutions exist.
00:51:03.900 | I'm passionate about finding them for me and for my family and I'm passionate about profiling
00:51:08.700 | them for you and yours.
00:51:12.380 | These things don't often seem like, it doesn't seem like a financial topic.
00:51:17.980 | And yeah, I could talk through about how do you, and I will, but how do you create this
00:51:23.280 | from an investment plan, things like that.
00:51:25.100 | But let me ask you a question.
00:51:28.060 | What ultimately is the purpose of having a large investment portfolio that provides income
00:51:32.020 | for you?
00:51:33.020 | Is it not to pay for your daily living needs?
00:51:36.580 | To me that would seem to be the answer.
00:51:41.060 | Investment portfolios purpose is to provide income for you.
00:51:44.100 | Now there are a couple ways to achieve it.
00:51:47.980 | You can build the portfolio that provides income or you can just simply provide the
00:51:53.700 | needs that you would spend the income on.
00:51:58.620 | Now the right answer is probably a combination of the two.
00:52:03.340 | We got to talk always about the combination of the two.
00:52:07.580 | You can either buy a house that gives you a place to live or you can build an investment
00:52:12.860 | portfolio that pays you income over time.
00:52:20.060 | Either one is okay.
00:52:21.060 | They both do the same thing.
00:52:22.460 | You either have to pay rent or you own a place to live.
00:52:27.500 | So there are multiple ways of solving this.
00:52:30.500 | There's lots of options that we can do and we're going to talk about those.
00:52:34.580 | But just realize there's always a couple of choices.
00:52:36.900 | Now the right answer is again a combination of the two.
00:52:40.900 | I don't think most people would ever really want to have where 100% of their needs are
00:52:46.660 | provided.
00:52:47.660 | You can build a completely self-sufficient little piece of property somewhere and never
00:52:51.380 | go anywhere and never do anything beyond that but your property provides you with heat and
00:52:55.780 | cooling and food and water and that's great.
00:52:58.820 | But it sounds a little boring to me.
00:53:00.980 | I'd want to go some places.
00:53:01.980 | But on the same hand, if you don't have to come up with X thousands of dollars per month
00:53:06.820 | to provide for those living expenses, you have more money to pursue to do the other
00:53:10.780 | things that you can't provide for yourself.
00:53:14.300 | So a little bit rambly but I'm going to wrap up.
00:53:17.980 | That's kind of the concept that I want to explore.
00:53:22.700 | I want to explore the concept of just building systems, systems that work, systems of support,
00:53:32.620 | systems that provide for our needs.
00:53:35.420 | I want to talk through building those things in a flexible way.
00:53:39.020 | So many cool options.
00:53:40.020 | I've got tons of ideas of ways to do things.
00:53:43.140 | I'll try to sell you on my ideas and I want to hear your ideas back.
00:53:46.700 | We'll try to find the people that are doing radical, interesting things and figure out
00:53:51.140 | how we can apply what they're doing to our situation.
00:53:55.060 | I think that's it for today.
00:53:59.300 | I'd love to hear some feedback from you.
00:54:03.980 | Leave a note in the show notes.
00:54:05.700 | Again, this is episode 8 of the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:54:08.740 | Shoot me an email, joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.
00:54:12.060 | I'd love to hear from you exactly what you're interested in.
00:54:17.900 | I'd love to profile all of the interesting technology you can find.
00:54:22.780 | I'll be clear.
00:54:24.740 | I can't say to you that I'm out ahead forging the path and having it all done.
00:54:29.500 | I guess I am out ahead forging the path.
00:54:32.020 | I don't have all this stuff done but I'm fascinated by it and I really feel that this is, even
00:54:37.580 | though I've struggled to communicate it this morning, I really feel that this is an underlying
00:54:43.100 | theme.
00:54:45.740 | I really feel like using the techniques that we have, such cheap technology, such cheap
00:54:55.620 | options for how to live, combined with good understanding of investments and financial
00:55:05.580 | planning and taxes and the different vehicles that are available to us, combined with never
00:55:12.580 | before better opportunities to improve our income and make and earn high dollar amounts,
00:55:19.420 | combined with opportunities to provide systems that provide for our needs.
00:55:24.100 | There's such amazing options available and we can craft lives that are free of the stress
00:55:31.940 | of providing for those daily needs and that are where we just simply enjoy living the
00:55:38.260 | way that we're meant to live.
00:55:44.340 | Come on by the blog.
00:55:45.340 | Leave show notes.
00:55:46.340 | Leave a comment in the show notes.
00:55:47.820 | Shoot me an email.
00:55:49.820 | Hope this is helpful.
00:55:50.820 | Look forward to another conversation tomorrow.
00:55:53.700 | Again, with that, Joshua Sheets.
00:55:55.980 | This has been episode eight of the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:55:59.980 | Have a great day.