The Problem with the RE in the FIRE Movement
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - This is part of my gripe with the FIRE movement.
00:00:09.040 | Now, I'll caveat, so I was in a documentary on it,
00:00:12.280 | this documentary playing with FIRE.
00:00:13.720 | I'm guessing you've seen it,
00:00:14.840 | 'cause a lot of the community has watched it.
00:00:18.360 | If anyone hasn't, I'll link to it in the show notes.
00:00:20.160 | But, you know, in the recent past,
00:00:22.560 | especially through your book,
00:00:24.280 | I really struggle with the RE part,
00:00:26.480 | like this idea that we should get all this money
00:00:29.080 | so that we can stop working and just kind of do nothing
00:00:32.380 | or travel or whatever it is.
00:00:35.160 | And I think the word retirement is too messy.
00:00:40.120 | And for me, it actually, you know,
00:00:41.580 | many people I think say, "Oh, retirement, no more work."
00:00:44.740 | For me, I think if we could reframe that concept
00:00:47.680 | as financial independence is just when money
00:00:50.080 | lets you do the thing you wanna do.
00:00:52.080 | And if you're already doing it,
00:00:53.120 | then you already are, you know, like you said,
00:00:54.520 | you know, if you had been a hospice doctor
00:00:56.340 | from the beginning,
00:00:57.180 | you would have been financially independent, you know,
00:00:59.280 | out of medical school,
00:01:00.520 | or maybe once you paid your medical bills, but maybe not.
00:01:04.180 | And so that stresses me out,
00:01:07.160 | thinking about people trying to have this goal
00:01:09.160 | of just doing nothing.
00:01:10.640 | What do you think?
00:01:11.480 | How do you feel about that RE part of the movement?
00:01:14.200 | - So I think that was both the greatest thing
00:01:18.800 | for the movement,
00:01:19.640 | 'cause it made it exciting and fun to talk about,
00:01:22.520 | but also the most detrimental to the real message.
00:01:26.360 | Because the real message is not retire early.
00:01:29.060 | Most of us got here
00:01:30.440 | because we actually enjoy some kind of work.
00:01:33.420 | And I think we find purpose in work.
00:01:36.680 | The point being is that what really matters
00:01:39.680 | is not whether you're working or not,
00:01:40.920 | because I think we work most of our lives,
00:01:42.560 | and I think most of us enjoy doing some kind of work.
00:01:44.840 | It's more about the autonomy,
00:01:47.200 | and the mastery, and the independence,
00:01:49.080 | all those things that make us feel good about.
00:01:52.120 | I think that's what,
00:01:53.040 | when we're talking about retiring early,
00:01:54.160 | we're not really talking about not doing things,
00:01:55.560 | we're talking about reclaiming our control
00:01:57.920 | of doing things that make us feel good.
00:02:00.480 | Those things may actually create money.
00:02:02.280 | Often they do,
00:02:03.120 | or create some kind of content or product, right?
00:02:05.200 | We build something, we make something, we write something.
00:02:08.400 | This is all very important to our sense of identity,
00:02:11.580 | and our sense of waking up in the morning,
00:02:13.160 | and feeling like we have something productive,
00:02:14.640 | and exciting to do.
00:02:15.900 | But what we're really looking for is control.
00:02:19.600 | Control and independence.
00:02:21.100 | And so it's really,
00:02:22.360 | you get to financial independence,
00:02:23.680 | and then you have control of what type of work you do,
00:02:27.920 | when you do it,
00:02:29.600 | and what the end goal of that work is.
00:02:32.080 | And that's something that most people feel is lacking
00:02:35.040 | in traditional employment today.
00:02:36.640 | - Yeah, I would challenge anyone listening,
00:02:39.800 | that feels like they want to achieve
00:02:42.320 | this kind of fire journey goal,
00:02:44.920 | to stop worrying about trying to save enough
00:02:47.320 | that you could stop working for the rest of your life.
00:02:49.640 | I think what you said about people often end up
00:02:52.000 | being able to monetize whatever they would do
00:02:54.240 | if they stopped working, is very true.
00:02:56.780 | So I try to challenge people to say,
00:02:57.920 | what if you just took a year?
00:02:59.720 | Took a year off, did the thing you love.
00:03:02.160 | I think for a good number of people, not everyone,
00:03:04.720 | but for a good number of people they'd find within a year,
00:03:08.080 | that thing that they love actually does generate income.
00:03:11.200 | And all of the math of,
00:03:12.760 | oh, I need to save enough to live on 4%.
00:03:15.380 | Well, that's true if you're not working.
00:03:17.640 | But that goal of maybe, if you're on the coast,
00:03:20.480 | maybe you think you need $10 million,
00:03:22.140 | but if you take a year off,
00:03:23.680 | find out that the thing you love doing makes more than $0.
00:03:27.360 | Well, then the amount you actually need to do that full time
00:03:30.280 | could be half of what you need.
00:03:32.080 | It could be nothing because it makes enough money
00:03:34.280 | to sustain your lifestyle.
00:03:36.040 | So I think that far too often we assume that in retirement,
00:03:40.440 | we make no money.
00:03:41.720 | When in reality, if your retirement
00:03:45.760 | is just doing something you would do for free,
00:03:49.100 | many of us can get paid to do that thing also.
00:03:51.420 | And it changes the entire equation.
00:03:54.240 | - When I have these conversations,
00:03:56.200 | I wanna be really clear about this
00:03:58.640 | 'cause people look at my story and even probably your story,
00:04:01.360 | a lot of our stories and people say,
00:04:02.720 | well, duh, it's really easy to say that
00:04:04.860 | when you have money, right?
00:04:06.200 | You have space, you've made money,
00:04:08.080 | you have savings, you have investments.
00:04:10.040 | It's really easy for you to say these things,
00:04:12.440 | but I'm a 22 year old out of college.
00:04:15.120 | I have just enough money to cover my rent.
00:04:17.280 | I'm barely putting food on the table.
00:04:19.920 | It might be easy for you,
00:04:20.980 | but for me, I don't have time to do all this stuff.
00:04:22.860 | And this is the conversation I really wanna have, right?
00:04:25.540 | Because again, it's easy for us in our 40s and our 50s
00:04:27.700 | when we have some savings to start talking about meaning
00:04:30.460 | and purpose and side hustling and monetizing things
00:04:33.420 | so that we can stop doing what we don't like.
00:04:35.300 | But the 20 year olds,
00:04:37.900 | the people who are struggling to put money on the table
00:04:40.180 | are looking at us and saying,
00:04:41.120 | yeah, that's a real privileged version of life
00:04:43.820 | that we don't have.
00:04:45.580 | But I wanna start thinking about those people too,
00:04:48.120 | 'cause I think it's really important.
00:04:49.960 | We talk about money as if it is the and only tool,
00:04:54.880 | but the truth of the matter is we have lots of tools
00:04:57.400 | that help us live a purposeful and meaningful life.
00:05:00.280 | So if you were 22, you just got out of school
00:05:02.840 | or you didn't go to school and you're just working
00:05:05.240 | that eight to six barely getting by,
00:05:08.160 | and you're like, I don't have space in my life
00:05:09.520 | for side hustles.
00:05:10.360 | I don't have space in my life for these things.
00:05:12.880 | I would like to look at those people and say,
00:05:14.600 | well, money is one tool, but again, you have other tools.
00:05:18.140 | You've got your energy, you've got your youth,
00:05:20.980 | you've got your communities, you've got your skills.
00:05:23.520 | So maybe you work your eight to six Monday through Friday,
00:05:26.500 | and then on Saturday night for three hours,
00:05:29.320 | pick something you're really passionate about
00:05:31.180 | and start a side hustle, right?
00:05:33.420 | Three hours on a Saturday.
00:05:35.120 | Let's see what happens with this.