composer-4f53iem9q_editor-clip_clip_sam-dogen-financial-samurai-brad-stulbe_2023-aug-10-0437pm_financial_samurai_p
00:00:00.000 | Hello, everybody.
00:00:01.000 | It's Sam from the Financial Samurai podcast.
00:00:04.000 | And in this episode, I have a special guest with me, Brad Stolberg, author of his newly
00:00:10.080 | written book, Master of Change.
00:00:12.040 | Welcome to the podcast, Brad.
00:00:13.320 | Sam, it's great to be here.
00:00:14.960 | Thanks for having me.
00:00:15.960 | Well, thanks for coming on.
00:00:17.960 | The reason why I wanted you on was initially because I read your previous book, The Practice
00:00:22.440 | of Groundedness, which was very helpful during the pandemic.
00:00:26.840 | Because during the pandemic, it was quite chaotic.
00:00:28.800 | You didn't really know what was going on.
00:00:30.600 | And I read the book, and you were with Portfolio Penguin Random House at the time, as was I.
00:00:36.040 | And I thought, wow, this made me feel pretty good.
00:00:39.120 | So I'm excited to talk to you about your new book, Master of Change.
00:00:42.700 | Why did you decide to write Master of Change?
00:00:46.560 | I think that it started off as just a personal inquiry and curiosity around change and conventional
00:00:55.720 | ways of thinking about change and stress testing those.
00:00:59.560 | So over the past five years in my own life, I've undergone all sorts of change.
00:01:05.680 | I became a father for the first time, moved across the country, suffered an injury that
00:01:11.680 | led to pretty significant orthopedic surgery that ended my career in a sport that had been
00:01:16.560 | a real outsized part of my identity.
00:01:19.960 | I was doing some contract work with large corporations, and I decided that I'm ready
00:01:23.840 | just to go at it on my own completely as an author.
00:01:27.640 | And then became a father again for the second time.
00:01:30.880 | Oh, congrats.
00:01:31.880 | Yeah, thank you.
00:01:33.280 | Within the last five, six years, it just seems like there was all of this change that was
00:01:37.880 | very compressed.
00:01:38.880 | And I was talking to other people, and they're like, yeah, it's just like things just feel
00:01:42.360 | like they happen fast, and they never stop.
00:01:45.620 | And then, of course, this is against the backdrop of the pandemic, which is a significant disorder,
00:01:50.800 | disruption, chaos, change, whatever you want to call it, that we all live through and was
00:01:56.960 | a challenge for all of us in many similar ways and also in unique ways.
00:02:00.360 | And I distinctly remember when I decided that I wanted to dive deep into change.
00:02:05.320 | I was in my kitchen here in Asheville, North Carolina, and it was midday, and I was just
00:02:11.360 | doing what I do midday, which is sometimes taking a break to read.
00:02:14.760 | And went to the New York Times.com, and the headline was about getting back to normal.
00:02:18.960 | Went to the WallStreetJournal.com.
00:02:20.440 | The headline was about getting back to normal.
00:02:22.480 | Saw The Economist.
00:02:23.840 | When are we going to get back to normal?
00:02:25.040 | And it occurred to me that getting back to normal is probably never going to happen.
00:02:30.520 | And why do we conceive of change as something that we want to get back to where we were?
00:02:35.280 | And this was about three, three and a half years ago, and that started this – what
00:02:39.480 | started off as just a personal project and then became a book into looking at some of
00:02:43.760 | the historical roots of why we think about change the way that we do and exploring if
00:02:47.520 | there are alternative, better models.
00:02:49.320 | >> Right.
00:02:50.320 | In your book and in your previous book, you actually talked about going through a session
00:02:56.320 | of OCD, severe OCD for eight months, and then what you call secondary depression.
00:03:02.940 | Can you talk about how that came to be?
00:03:06.440 | Was it a sudden onset or have you been feeling this kind of OCD lingering for a while?
00:03:12.080 | And how did that motivate you to write this book and try to help others?
00:03:15.600 | >> That's right.
00:03:16.720 | So that's a big part of the practice of groundedness, which is the book that came
00:03:21.160 | prior to this.
00:03:22.840 | And let's see, right around – that was what, 29, 30?
00:03:29.360 | So this is almost seven years ago now, over seven years ago.
00:03:32.440 | It was a very stark onset.
00:03:34.040 | I didn't have a history of mental illness.
00:03:37.920 | I was wired to be a pusher and I am probably a very – I'd score high in conscientiousness
00:03:44.280 | in terms of a personality test or temperament.
00:03:47.280 | But it was always something that was productive for me.
00:03:48.880 | I was always able to channel that.
00:03:51.160 | And for whatever reason, things went haywire and I descended really quickly into a very
00:03:56.680 | rough, utterly debilitating, to be honest, spot with obsessive compulsive disorder and
00:04:02.520 | then secondary depression.
00:04:04.760 | And when I was going through that, there was no thinking about writing books.
00:04:09.160 | Like my whole goal was just to survive.
00:04:11.680 | I was so fortunate that I had great care from a psychiatrist and a therapist.
00:04:16.000 | However, when I got to the other side of that, I of course did look back and say like, "Huh,
00:04:22.240 | I want to explore more about why this happened and how this happened and also some of the
00:04:25.960 | tools that I learned in my journey in recovery and how these tools can apply more broadly
00:04:30.840 | to people that aren't even necessarily struggling with clinical mental illness."
00:04:34.640 | And I didn't mention that because that was like seven years ago.
00:04:39.040 | But talk about another big life change, cruising along, performing really well, just completely,
00:04:44.960 | utterly upended by mental illness.
00:04:49.200 | Go through that and then recover and have that perspective.
00:04:52.400 | So I guess we can just add that to the list of these pretty significant changes that I
00:04:56.400 | underwent.
00:04:57.400 | I feel like there's been a lot of discussion on mental illness since the pandemic began,
00:05:03.080 | especially loneliness, mental illness.
00:05:06.240 | I feel like society, at least here in the United States, is really a striving culture,
00:05:11.720 | go, go, go.
00:05:12.720 | You're seeking accolades, achievements and so forth.
00:05:16.560 | How much do you think that part of achievement and success drove you to have this episode
00:05:22.880 | of OCD?
00:05:23.880 | It's a good question and I think about that a lot.
00:05:27.480 | And the short answer is I don't think at all, to be totally frank and honest.
00:05:32.560 | I think the experience of true clinical OCD is so far removed from what I thought being
00:05:40.560 | neurotic or anxious was.
00:05:42.960 | I mean, it is just a 24/7, your brain is broken.
00:05:47.560 | It's like living in a different galaxy.
00:05:50.480 | And whether or not striving and pursuing success kind of primed the pump for that, I can't
00:05:56.560 | say.
00:05:57.760 | I think that there's all sorts of challenges and issues that are wrong with our striving
00:06:02.040 | culture.
00:06:03.040 | But I don't think that that was part and parcel of OCD, particularly because I kind of got
00:06:06.880 | off that hamster wheel long before I got sick.
00:06:11.000 | I wasn't in a place when I got sick that I was striving for the next thing.
00:06:15.200 | I was actually pretty content with how things were going.
00:06:18.320 | And so yeah, it's not as tidy of a narrative to say like, "Oh, I was burning the Midnight
00:06:23.840 | Oil and I wasn't sleeping and I was just striving and chasing and therefore I got OCD."
00:06:29.920 | I think that, and I'm careful with this, I think that true significant clinical mental
00:06:34.320 | illness, while it can result from that, it often feels just like otherworldly levels
00:06:40.000 | of different.
00:06:41.000 | Well, I'm glad you got out of it.
00:06:44.000 | What were some of the steps you took to get out of it and move forward?
00:06:48.100 | So the most important thing was finding a therapist who practices evidence-based third
00:06:56.160 | wave clinical therapies.
00:06:57.600 | For me, what was most helpful was something called acceptance and commitment therapy.
00:07:03.800 | And then working with that therapist for the better part of a year.
00:07:08.000 | And I also took medication for the better part of a year, for more than a year.
00:07:11.960 | And seeing a psychiatrist that specialized in treating obsessive compulsive disorder.
00:07:16.880 | So the tools that I learned in therapy, it's so hard to know if these medications for psychiatric
00:07:22.560 | conditions, whether or not they actually do anything, because the evidence is somewhat
00:07:26.920 | mixed and you're kind of throwing the kitchen sink at the problem, right?
00:07:30.360 | You're doing therapy, you're making sure.
00:07:31.900 | So I always had pretty healthy habits.
00:07:33.240 | So I'm still exercising, I'm still trying to eat well.
00:07:36.320 | And yeah, when you're really sick and you're suffering, you just do anything.
00:07:40.940 | And it's hard to isolate what variables actually made a difference, but I'm sure I got some
00:07:44.520 | help from the medication as well.
00:07:46.280 | Right.
00:07:47.280 | I feel as a fellow author, writing is therapy as well because it forces you to be very clear
00:07:53.480 | and concise with your thoughts.
00:07:55.840 | Sticking to the book, because there are a lot of terms that I really appreciated and
00:07:59.640 | I wanted to delve deeper into.
00:08:02.120 | One of the terms is tragic optimism.
00:08:06.440 | Can you talk about how tragic optimism can help us be happier and live less stressful
00:08:12.080 | lives?
00:08:13.080 | It's one of my favorite parts of the book.
00:08:16.760 | So I'm glad that you keyed in on this.
00:08:19.980 | Tragic optimism was coined by Viktor Frankl, who is a Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst.
00:08:27.420 | He's most well known for his book, Man's Search for Meaning, which has sold gazillions of
00:08:32.160 | copies and is just absolute must read if you are into psychology, personal development.
00:08:38.920 | He's lesser known though for this essay that he published after Man's Search for Meaning
00:08:42.820 | came out, which is called The Case for Tragic Optimism.
00:08:46.420 | And in it, Frankl says that life is full of inevitable tragedy and suffering.
00:08:53.460 | And he gives three reasons for that.
00:08:55.660 | The first is that we humans are made of flesh and bone and we are going to age and we're
00:09:00.220 | going to experience illness and injury and nobody escapes life without going through
00:09:04.980 | this.
00:09:05.980 | And that's a cause of pain and suffering.
00:09:08.300 | The second reason is we're one of the few, if not the only species that can think ahead
00:09:14.180 | and make plans.
00:09:15.320 | Some people argue that elephants and dolphins can do this, but humans are at least the most
00:09:19.540 | advanced species that can think ahead and make plans.
00:09:22.580 | And because we can think ahead and make plans, occasionally, if not often, things aren't
00:09:26.780 | going to go like we thought they would.
00:09:28.540 | So we're going to experience frustration and disappointment.
00:09:31.580 | And then the third great tragedy of life that Frankl identified is that everything changes.
00:09:36.820 | The things that we love, the people that we love, our skills, our capacities, our talents,
00:09:41.060 | our youth, all of that is impermanent.
00:09:43.820 | So we have these three insurmountable, inevitable tragedies that we all face.
00:09:48.340 | And even though it wasn't a term then, what Frankl would say is toxic positivity or delusional
00:09:52.780 | optimism is so stupid because part and parcel of being a human is going through pain and
00:09:58.060 | suffering.
00:09:59.060 | So that's where the tragedy comes from.
00:10:02.080 | But what Frankl said is in spite of that or because of that or knowing that life is finite,
00:10:07.560 | we also can take that tragedy and accept it and not delude ourselves, but combine it with
00:10:12.660 | resolute, reasonable optimism, which simply means trudging forward with a positive, hopeful
00:10:19.380 | attitude nonetheless.
00:10:20.380 | And I love this because there's such a dichotomy in modern thinking, especially on the internet,
00:10:27.060 | where there's one camp that is what I'm going to call the Pollyanna, bury your head in the
00:10:31.300 | sand, everything is great, don't worry about anything camp.
00:10:35.360 | And I think that's pretty dumb and not realistic.
00:10:37.900 | And then the other camp is the despair, nihilism, everything is so broken.
00:10:43.660 | Let's just like despair all the time.
00:10:45.220 | And I think that's a dumb approach too.
00:10:47.740 | But in between that is a huge chasm.
00:10:50.340 | And I think that's where tragic optimism lives, which asks you to say, yeah, like there is
00:10:53.820 | a lot that sucks.
00:10:54.820 | It is hard to be a human.
00:10:56.580 | There is a lot that's broken about the world.
00:10:58.860 | And yet we don't have to become broken people.
00:11:00.860 | And we can still find so much joy and meaning in life, even in spite of all those things.
00:11:05.980 | Right.
00:11:06.980 | It sounds like if we can manage our expectations to just accept that there will be tragedy,
00:11:12.500 | that we will go through it, but we will experience better things ahead.
00:11:17.500 | Can you talk about toxic positivity?
00:11:19.280 | Because I've heard this term more and more recently, and I don't quite understand what
00:11:23.980 | it means.
00:11:24.980 | You know, it's definitely like a cultural term.
00:11:27.980 | I'm not sure it made it into the dictionary.
00:11:30.300 | So maybe I'm contributing to this mess.
00:11:33.020 | But when I talk about toxic positivity, I simply mean it is a type of optimism or positivity
00:11:41.740 | that borders on delusional.
00:11:43.540 | So it refuses to acknowledge challenges.
00:11:47.860 | It suppresses negative emotions.
00:11:50.340 | It only focuses on what's happening within arm's length from you and completely shuts
00:11:55.500 | down to the challenges that family members or friends or colleagues might be going through.
00:12:00.460 | And it trudges along and says, you know, everything is absolutely fine, even though clearly that's
00:12:07.060 | not the case, because nothing is ever absolutely fine.
00:12:10.700 | So I view it as like this polar opposite to despair.
00:12:14.420 | And I think that neither of these emotions or neither of these mindsets are helpful,
00:12:19.380 | because they both absolve you of doing anything.
00:12:21.940 | So they're cop outs.
00:12:22.940 | They're freaking lazy.
00:12:24.380 | Because if you are a toxic positivity person and everything is great, well, then you're
00:12:29.340 | never going to need to do anything to improve or to make things better.
00:12:33.340 | But if you're also suffering from despair, well, then there's no reason to do anything,
00:12:38.420 | because by definition, despair is a loss of hope.
00:12:41.060 | So it's so funny, because I think what you see is you see these two camps, again, like
00:12:44.660 | the Pollyanna people and the despair people.
00:12:46.540 | And I actually think both of those mindsets are just lazy cop outs.
00:12:49.940 | >> Yeah.
00:12:50.940 | Why do you think – how does one become a Pollyanna and a toxic positivity person?
00:12:56.140 | Because I would think that if you look at the Belker, most are not that way.
00:13:00.020 | Maybe these are tail end folks.
00:13:01.700 | >> I think these are tail end folks, and I think that they get amplified on the internet,
00:13:04.900 | to be totally honest, because it's provocative, and that's – especially on social media,
00:13:10.660 | that's what sells.
00:13:11.660 | I do think that all of these concepts have some nuance, right?
00:13:15.340 | So there's a difference between completely shutting down to the world and to other people's
00:13:20.620 | problems and to your own problems, but also not just over indexing on them and focusing
00:13:25.700 | on them all the time.
00:13:27.460 | So – and there's all sorts of research that shows that this kind of tragic optimism
00:13:30.460 | is associated with better well-being and resilience.
00:13:34.060 | Because it does two things at once.
00:13:35.060 | It is optimistic and it is hopeful, but it is in a way that also acknowledges that things
00:13:40.820 | aren't always great, and that's okay, too.
00:13:43.260 | >> Right.
00:13:44.260 | One of the equations in your book I thought was interesting was suffering equals pain
00:13:48.380 | times resistance.
00:13:51.180 | I feel like a lot of us resist change a lot, especially as we talk about in Master of Change
00:13:56.900 | book.
00:13:57.900 | Can you talk about that equation and was this something that you discovered or how did you
00:14:02.180 | come about it?
00:14:03.800 | >> So this equation comes out of pain science and cutting edge rehabilitation practices.
00:14:13.940 | I think that change is painful for a lot of people.
00:14:16.820 | So I took this thing that is rooted in really clinical medicine and applied it more broadly.
00:14:23.460 | But I'm going to use a more clinical example to make the point really clear.
00:14:28.320 | So pain equals suffering – excuse me.
00:14:32.260 | Suffering equals pain times resistance.
00:14:34.460 | So Sam, let's assume that you pulled your back, okay?
00:14:38.860 | And your back is really sore, your low back.
00:14:40.460 | >> Yeah, I've done that before.
00:14:42.220 | >> And as a result, you have six units of pain.
00:14:45.300 | >> Yep.
00:14:46.460 | >> So currently, you've got suffering equals a six.
00:14:50.540 | But now let's say that because you pulled your back, you start freaking out and you
00:14:54.300 | start saying, "Oh my God, I'm not going to be able to sit in this chair and record a podcast.
00:14:59.220 | I might not even be able to sit in this chair ever again.
00:15:02.100 | I was supposed to go out with friends this weekend and I'm not going to be able to do
00:15:05.940 | that.
00:15:06.940 | And I just took Motrin and Advil and it's not even working yet.
00:15:10.100 | Oh my gosh, am I going to need to go on painkillers and then I could get addicted to painkillers
00:15:13.620 | and on and on and on."
00:15:16.000 | So all of that is resisting the pain, right?
00:15:18.660 | So now let's say that your resistance is also six units.
00:15:21.980 | So six times six equals 36.
00:15:24.580 | So now you've got 36 units of global suffering.
00:15:26.820 | >> Sounds like a lot.
00:15:28.460 | >> Whereas if you just had the back pain and you just said, "This sucks.
00:15:31.260 | I pulled my back.
00:15:32.340 | It really hurts.
00:15:34.620 | I don't know what's going to happen next, but I'm probably going to be okay.
00:15:38.420 | I'm going to seek out the resources to help me.
00:15:40.900 | I'm not going to catastrophize and I'm just going to let the pain be there because it's
00:15:44.460 | okay to have some pain."
00:15:46.420 | You're still suffering.
00:15:47.420 | You still have six units of suffering, but six is a lot better than 36.
00:15:51.940 | So I took that concept and I broadened it to say that when change occurs, especially
00:15:59.420 | negative changes or things that we didn't foresee that we didn't want to happen, there
00:16:03.580 | is going to be some pain associated with it.
00:16:05.440 | But the more that we freak out and catastrophize and resist or pretend it's not happening or
00:16:10.100 | delude ourselves, the more that we suffer.
00:16:13.480 | So much like the example of a pulled back, when an unexpected change comes up, the best
00:16:17.660 | thing that we can do is just say like, "This is what's happening right now.
00:16:21.420 | I don't want it.
00:16:22.500 | I don't necessarily like it.
00:16:24.080 | It's not necessarily something that I'm happy about, but it is what it is and I need to
00:16:28.380 | accept it because only when we accept it can we start taking action to make it better."
00:16:34.340 | >> Right.
00:16:35.340 | I'm glad you brought up the back pain thing because I had terrible back pain, sciatica.
00:16:39.580 | I couldn't really drive for more than 10 minutes.
00:16:41.720 | This was back in maybe 2010, 2009 and it was really bad.
00:16:48.540 | TMJ as well.
00:16:49.900 | Couldn't sit at my office table for more than 5 minutes.
00:16:53.620 | It was bad.
00:16:54.620 | And then I read a book called Healing Back Pain by Dr. Sarno and I love that book.
00:16:58.580 | I think the best book ever for anybody who has chronic pain and it just talks about recognizing
00:17:03.700 | the anger and the frustration you have inside you, bringing it to the forefront, accepting
00:17:08.100 | it and telling yourself you don't need to manifest this chronic physical pain.
00:17:12.420 | You already get it.
00:17:13.500 | And actually yell at yourself and say, "It's okay.
00:17:15.500 | Just leave me alone."
00:17:16.820 | And then three months later, my back pain went away and it's been gone for about 15
00:17:20.980 | years.
00:17:21.980 | And I look back to that time in 2009, 2010.
00:17:24.580 | I mean, what was happening then?
00:17:25.860 | Well, I was sitting on the training desk at Credit Suisse and it was the global financial
00:17:30.060 | crisis and Lehman Brothers was going bankrupt.
00:17:32.700 | And there was just so much stress back then.
00:17:35.460 | So there's definitely a mind-body connection.
00:17:38.140 | What are your thoughts on that?
00:17:39.140 | Ryan Neuhofel: Yeah.
00:17:40.140 | I think that I – I'm hesitant to say anything too definitive because it's outside of my
00:17:45.700 | area of expertise.
00:17:48.100 | There's absolutely a mind-body connection.
00:17:50.740 | I think pain comes in all sorts of flavors and no two people have the same experience.
00:17:56.420 | I think that sometimes what we experience as physical pain is probably more psychosocial
00:18:00.700 | and it's just manifesting as physical pain.
00:18:03.700 | I think other times, it's more organic and biological.
00:18:07.580 | You herniate a disc in your back.
00:18:09.380 | Well, that's probably what's driving it.
00:18:11.100 | But even then, if you've got all kinds of other life stress or you can't accept what's
00:18:16.020 | going on, you're going to suffer more.
00:18:18.180 | So in a way, you can think of this equation and maybe what Dr. Sarno would say is that
00:18:24.180 | the resistance is all the emotional, psychological, social stuff around the pain.
00:18:29.300 | If you can just dampen that resistance and get it from six units to four units to two
00:18:34.740 | units to ideally one unit, then eventually the pain is going to subside.
00:18:40.700 | But everyone has their own experience of chronic pain.
00:18:42.740 | I will say that this is the evidence-based model that is used at the Mayo Clinic's
00:18:48.100 | Pain and Rehabilitation Center, which is probably the best in the world.
00:18:51.060 | People from all over the world come there to treat chronic pain.
00:18:55.060 | For the book, I got to report and explore their methods.
00:18:59.860 | It's fascinating because the first thing that they do is they try to help patients
00:19:03.500 | understand that the goal isn't to get rid of their pain.
00:19:08.700 | So stop trying so hard because trying to get rid of it is its own form of resistance.
00:19:13.020 | It's like this Zen cone.
00:19:15.660 | The goal is to get them to accept their pain.
00:19:18.460 | Once they accept it, it tends to dissolve or at least get much better.
00:19:22.740 | Dr. Seheult: Right.
00:19:23.740 | No, that's absolutely true.
00:19:24.740 | Dr. Sarno is talking about, "Well, if you go to the chiropractor and the physical therapist
00:19:28.580 | and all that, you're accepting the pain and you're kind of resisting the pain.
00:19:32.260 | Just accept it."
00:19:33.660 | So I do believe in that and I do believe there is a really strong mental and physical connection,
00:19:39.300 | at least based on my own experience.
00:19:40.780 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I think we have to separate and then I'll say one more thing
00:19:44.380 | then we can move on because it's important for listeners.
00:19:46.580 | I think we have to separate chronic pain from acute injury.
00:19:49.420 | Dr. Sarno: Okay.
00:19:50.420 | Yeah.
00:19:51.420 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So if you tear your ACL–
00:19:52.420 | Dr. Sarno: Of course.
00:19:53.420 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –and you like rupture a disc, you know, no amount of mindset is
00:19:56.220 | going to heal that.
00:19:57.460 | Like you need–
00:19:58.460 | Dr. Sarno: Right.
00:19:59.460 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –surgical repair or PT.
00:20:00.460 | Dr. Sarno: Right.
00:20:01.460 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But if after you tear your ACL and got the surgery or after you
00:20:03.740 | did all the PT–
00:20:04.740 | Dr. Sarno: Yeah.
00:20:05.740 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –and the MRIs and the x-rays, structurally things are "fixed"
00:20:10.540 | but then you're still experiencing a lot of pain, I think that's where some of these
00:20:14.140 | psychosocial aspects come in.
00:20:15.780 | And it's not to negate the pain.
00:20:17.460 | I hate this.
00:20:18.460 | Like pain is all in your head.
00:20:19.460 | Everything's all in your head.
00:20:20.780 | That's where our brain is.
00:20:21.940 | So like of course, your experience is–is derived or mediated through your brain.
00:20:26.940 | So it doesn't make the pain any less real.
00:20:29.580 | I think it just says that the tools we have to treat it need to change.
00:20:32.660 | It can't always just be what we think of as traditional medicine.
00:20:35.380 | Dr. Sarno: Right.
00:20:36.380 | I hear–I hear in your voice you're pretty fired up.
00:20:39.260 | Did–did this bring back memories of that injury that derailed your sports career?
00:20:43.980 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I've had so many injuries.
00:20:46.580 | I think I'm just fired up about this because I think it's this area where there's so
00:20:50.940 | much judgment, right?
00:20:52.860 | People are like, "Oh, you're in pain.
00:20:53.860 | Like it's all in your head."
00:20:54.860 | What a shitty thing to say to someone that's in chronic pain.
00:20:58.500 | Dr. Sarno: Sure.
00:20:59.500 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I think that we can talk about this in a much more compassionate
00:21:02.740 | way.
00:21:03.740 | Realizing that if it was as easy as like, you know, saying, "Oh, I'm gonna accept
00:21:07.660 | this pain and have a growth mindset," then everyone would do that.
00:21:10.780 | So these are like hard, nuanced topics and I think that we can be both kind to ourselves
00:21:15.380 | and to other people that are going through this at the same time as we teach these skills.
00:21:19.940 | And I don't think because, you know, it doesn't show up on an x-ray, it makes the
00:21:24.780 | pain any less real.
00:21:25.780 | Again, it just means that we might need to bring different tools to bear.
00:21:29.500 | But our culture in the West is so like freak out, catastrophize, worry, try to fix everything
00:21:35.980 | right away.
00:21:36.980 | And you know, that has its limits and that also fires me up.
00:21:43.180 | You could argue that the opioid epidemic is in no small part born out of convincing people
00:21:50.820 | that all pain should be minimized and go away immediately and that led to a lot more suffering
00:21:56.060 | than just accepting the pain.
00:21:57.700 | Dr. Sarno: Yeah.
00:21:58.700 | Why do you think we've got to this stage in society?
00:22:03.860 | It seems like there's just this crazy amount of anxiety and strive to do better and one
00:22:11.940 | up everybody.
00:22:12.940 | What's going on here?
00:22:13.940 | Matthew Fossum You know, I think that it's twofold.
00:22:17.980 | One is I think that consumerism itself runs on an engine of people feeling like they need
00:22:24.300 | problems to fix or they need to do more to be enough.
00:22:29.040 | Because if everybody felt like they were enough and everybody felt like they didn't have
00:22:32.380 | problems to fix, then they wouldn't buy stuff.
00:22:35.460 | So I think some of it is just the consumer model.
00:22:38.220 | And I am not a monk.
00:22:41.300 | I don't practice renunciation.
00:22:42.940 | I own a nice watch.
00:22:43.940 | I live in a nice house.
00:22:45.700 | I wear clothes.
00:22:47.180 | So I'm not here to like bash consumer capitalism.
00:22:50.380 | But I am here to point out that the entire system, especially like consumer products
00:22:55.620 | and goods, the fancy car, the fancy house, the bigger house, the gold, the diamonds,
00:23:01.500 | that's really there to make you feel like you are enough.
00:23:04.920 | But it's an illusion because like feeling like you're enough is an inside game.
00:23:08.440 | So I think a lot of it is just it's kind of like the sea that we swim in.
00:23:11.880 | And this has extended more recently, talk about change, into the internet where everything
00:23:18.160 | is quantifiable now.
00:23:19.820 | So how many downloads does your podcast have?
00:23:21.560 | Where does it rank?
00:23:22.560 | How many followers do you have on Instagram?
00:23:24.120 | How many followers do you have in Twitter?
00:23:25.420 | How many people commented on your LinkedIn post?
00:23:27.840 | So it almost takes ourselves, our very personhood, and like makes us commodities on a personality
00:23:33.400 | marketplace.
00:23:34.400 | So of course, that's not a great way to attain mental health.
00:23:38.920 | And the last thing that I'll say is we have experienced accelerating change societally.
00:23:45.480 | So in America, the Overton window on our politics has shifted by a million percent in the last
00:23:51.840 | eight years.
00:23:53.200 | We've gone through a pandemic.
00:23:55.200 | The emergence of the internet is still, you could argue, in the historical scheme in its
00:23:59.520 | infancy, and your artificial intelligence is knocking on the doorstep.
00:24:03.780 | So we have all of these massive changes that are affecting just about everyone.
00:24:08.960 | And I think that like it can feel like the ground that we're on is really shaky.
00:24:13.760 | And if we don't have the skills to navigate that shaky ground, then it's easy just to
00:24:18.240 | latch on to buying something or to having something to make us feel secure.
00:24:24.160 | No, I totally hear you.
00:24:27.000 | It's funny you talk about bigger house because I'm thinking about getting a bigger house
00:24:29.560 | myself.
00:24:30.960 | And I have a lot of doubt in my mind because I'm thinking, "Well, what if I buy the bigger
00:24:34.720 | house and I'm not happier?"
00:24:36.920 | And I kind of use tragic optimism to say, "I probably won't be happier.
00:24:40.400 | I'll be happier for maybe a month or two or three months."
00:24:42.760 | But then it's like, "Eh, it's just another bigger house with more maintenance."
00:24:46.560 | That consumerism thing is really a big one.
00:24:49.400 | I'm pretty frugal by nature.
00:24:50.920 | That's kind of how you have to be to try to retire early or achieve financial independence.
00:24:55.160 | You got to save aggressively.
00:24:57.440 | So I hear you on that and it definitely sounds like social media is not a good thing for
00:25:02.920 | most people's mental health.
00:25:05.600 | Yeah, and I have to be careful here because like social media can have very real benefits.
00:25:13.800 | I think that people just overlook the cost and they aren't intentional.
00:25:19.000 | I think that you could take so many of the principles from the financial independence
00:25:23.480 | movement, which I know you're one of the founding pioneers of, and apply it to just about anything
00:25:28.840 | because at the end of the day, it's really about how much intentionality are you bringing
00:25:32.640 | to your actions.
00:25:34.280 | So my understanding is the financial independence movement says, it doesn't say never spend
00:25:38.360 | money, but it says be really intentional and ask yourself, "How does this fit into a broader
00:25:44.360 | plan and what are going to be the downstream effects of this and how is this going to make
00:25:47.840 | me feel two years from now?"
00:25:50.440 | I think that we should bring that kind of intentionality to how we interact on the internet,
00:25:55.920 | to the people that we surround ourselves with, to how we take care of our health because
00:26:00.520 | I think that like all of this, the biggest risk is going on autopilot because if you
00:26:04.800 | go on autopilot, you're just going to get swept up wherever society wants to take you
00:26:08.880 | and maybe 80 percent of the time, that's fine, but 20 percent of the time, it's not.
00:26:15.320 | Yeah.
00:26:16.320 | So mental health, there's this great highlight in your book called The Psychological Immune
00:26:22.120 | System by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert.
00:26:24.640 | Can you talk about that because I never heard about it and it makes a lot of sense to me.
00:26:28.560 | All right.
00:26:29.560 | So let's start with the physical immune system because that's going to be a concept that
00:26:33.680 | everyone's heard of.
00:26:34.680 | So our physical immune system, we get sick or we get injured and the job of our physical
00:26:40.360 | immune system is to marshal the appropriate resources in our body to help us heal and
00:26:46.360 | to move on from that.
00:26:48.520 | The more aggressive the insult, which is just science speak for saying the more we get hurt,
00:26:54.760 | the bigger the injury, the more severe the disease or the illness, the harder it is for
00:26:59.760 | our immune system and the longer it takes.
00:27:02.640 | So to simplify even more, a small cut, if you're healthy, generally heals within a
00:27:08.480 | day or two.
00:27:10.040 | A big gash in your arm could take a month to heal.
00:27:13.560 | Why?
00:27:14.560 | Because the bigger gash takes your immune system more time.
00:27:16.440 | The inflammatory process, the white blood cells that come and rush into the area, it
00:27:20.320 | takes more time.
00:27:21.880 | So we don't wonder why bigger injuries take longer to heal than small injuries.
00:27:27.160 | We just know our immune system needs more time.
00:27:30.160 | But we also have this psychological immune system and its job is to help us heal and
00:27:36.120 | make sense of big changes that occur in our lives.
00:27:39.760 | And much like our physical immune system, the bigger the change, the longer it takes
00:27:44.520 | our psychological immune system to help us integrate it into our narrative.
00:27:49.760 | So small change.
00:27:52.480 | You think that you're going to record this podcast with me and your dog has diarrhea
00:27:56.600 | on the carpet and your kid has strep throat, so you have to cancel.
00:28:00.240 | Kind of messes up your day.
00:28:01.560 | Maybe you're frustrated for a while, but my guess is by tomorrow, you're totally fine.
00:28:05.720 | Like your psychological immune system says no big deal.
00:28:08.120 | Like, you know, that's a paper cut.
00:28:09.640 | These things happen.
00:28:11.240 | That's very different than a cancer diagnosis or a divorce or the loss of a close friend
00:28:17.000 | or a family member.
00:28:18.560 | For those things, the psychological immune system takes so much more time to find meaning
00:28:23.440 | and to integrate it into our narrative.
00:28:25.880 | So when we undergo these major disruptions in our life, we all want a quick fix.
00:28:30.600 | We want our immune system to work really fast.
00:28:32.240 | We want to find growth and meaning and move forward.
00:28:35.680 | But we can't rush that process because the bigger the change, the longer it takes.
00:28:39.720 | And I think this is such an important expectation to have because we can show ourselves some
00:28:44.400 | grace in the middle of all the grit that we have to bring to these big changes.
00:28:48.800 | Right.
00:28:49.800 | No, that makes a lot of sense.
00:28:52.520 | In terms of, you know, you work out a lot.
00:28:56.200 | You say you're at the gym a lot.
00:28:58.120 | And I'm assuming you're trying to maintain strength or increase strength.
00:29:03.000 | So what about increasing our immune systems, our physical and psychological immune systems?
00:29:08.480 | Can we do things to increase and strengthen those?
00:29:11.720 | Or it is we're born with what we have and that's it?
00:29:15.080 | We can absolutely.
00:29:16.080 | That's a question I think you probably know the answer to.
00:29:18.280 | We can absolutely do things to increase our physical and psychological immune systems.
00:29:25.180 | So our physical immune system, the most important things that we can do is sleep, move our bodies
00:29:32.320 | regularly.
00:29:33.320 | So it doesn't have to be super strenuous, but just engage in regular physical activity
00:29:37.120 | and then do what we can to eat a relatively nutritious diet, which today means avoiding
00:29:42.800 | ultra processed foods.
00:29:45.440 | Those are the big three.
00:29:47.080 | And I would also add eliminate tobacco products.
00:29:50.600 | So if you're someone that smokes or uses a vape pen, I think it's really important to
00:29:54.320 | try to get help quitting if you care about your health.
00:29:57.320 | And then alcohol is the elephant in the room because it's such a part of culture.
00:30:01.120 | And the research is pretty clear that any more than five drinks per week, alcohol starts
00:30:06.520 | to have negative effects.
00:30:09.280 | Now there are trade-offs.
00:30:10.320 | Some people say I'd rather drink five drinks a week because we're all going to die anyways.
00:30:14.640 | So if it has a slightly negative effect, that's fine, but less is more.
00:30:18.560 | Now that's the physical immune system.
00:30:21.200 | The psychological immune system, to me, this is a little bit more interesting because it's
00:30:25.800 | not as clear cut.
00:30:26.940 | It's harder to study.
00:30:28.920 | Where we do have research, what it tells us is that the best things that we can do to
00:30:34.400 | strengthen our psychological immune system are kind of work on these two polar opposite
00:30:39.680 | ends of a spectrum or of a barbell.
00:30:42.560 | So on one end, we can gain sources of ruggedness and strengthen our lives.
00:30:48.480 | So we can strengthen our relationships because the people are ultimately what's going to
00:30:53.200 | hold us when we fall, when things are hard.
00:30:55.520 | We can develop really good daily habits and practices that are portable, that we can take
00:31:00.680 | with us even when things around us change.
00:31:03.680 | So that is having some sort of anchor or stability in your life regardless of what else is happening.
00:31:10.240 | And then we can also strengthen our psychological immune system by developing these tools to
00:31:14.680 | navigate change skillfully.
00:31:17.640 | And I think the most important one that I go into great detail in the book is this skill
00:31:22.880 | of responding, not reacting.
00:31:25.920 | So when a change happens, there's two roads we can go down.
00:31:30.360 | We can react, which tends to be rash.
00:31:32.400 | It's a very hot emotion.
00:31:34.120 | It's often infused with anger or panic.
00:31:37.480 | Or we can respond, which is thoughtful.
00:31:40.420 | It's deliberate.
00:31:41.720 | It's planful.
00:31:43.140 | We use our prefrontal cortex, the more evolved parts of our brain.
00:31:47.160 | And the more that we can respond to the disruptions and the changes in our lives, the more we
00:31:52.760 | develop what psychologists call self-efficacy, which is this confidence that's based on evidence
00:31:58.840 | that regardless of what life throws at us, we can endure and we'll be okay.
00:32:04.880 | And that is ultimately the definition of a strong psychological immune system.
00:32:09.240 | So it's these two rungs, right?
00:32:10.720 | It's doing what you can to build these anchors and these sources of ruggedness and stability
00:32:15.240 | in your life, particularly relationships and these portable routines on the one hand.
00:32:20.000 | And then on the other hand, it's when change happens, because as I said, it comes for all
00:32:23.560 | of us, practicing this skill of responding, not reacting.
00:32:27.560 | Right.
00:32:28.560 | No, responding, not reacting.
00:32:31.120 | That's a tough one because let's say you drive a car and someone cuts you off or honks at
00:32:36.320 | you or yells at you.
00:32:38.200 | The instant reaction, at least for me, is to yell at them back and I don't know, mow
00:32:42.840 | them down.
00:32:43.840 | And then I have to think, "Well, I've got a family now.
00:32:46.760 | I don't want a lawsuit.
00:32:47.760 | Let's just try to let it go."
00:32:49.880 | But I don't succeed all the time and it gets me and I think a lot of drivers riled up when
00:32:55.120 | something bad happens on the road.
00:32:56.680 | I mean, how do we counteract that?
00:32:59.920 | It's a practice.
00:33:00.920 | It's not a switch that we can flip.
00:33:02.920 | And I think that practicing in those smaller scale examples, driving is like a perfect
00:33:08.000 | place to practice, is really helpful.
00:33:11.340 | So I think the most important part is just pausing.
00:33:15.360 | So when someone cuts you off or when someone edges into your lane and you hit the horn
00:33:20.960 | because that's what you need to do for safety, after that, when you feel your blood boil,
00:33:25.160 | when you feel that visceral reactionary thing in your body, just try to use that as a cue
00:33:32.680 | to take four deep breaths, maybe even just two deep breaths, maybe even just one.
00:33:40.880 | And then you can process what happens and you can make a plan.
00:33:44.440 | And maybe your plan will be, "I'm going to mow that guy down."
00:33:46.720 | But odds are, after you've taken a deep breath and you've said, "All right, that just happened,"
00:33:52.520 | generally speaking, it's easier to calm down.
00:33:54.480 | And in that particular instance, something that I found helpful, because I'm a human
00:33:57.960 | too, I'm not this Jedi master.
00:33:59.720 | I also get pissed off when people cut me off.
00:34:02.560 | But I try to remind myself that I don't know if that person just got served divorce papers
00:34:07.520 | or I don't know if that person is rushing to the hospital to see their child who's in
00:34:11.240 | a pediatric intensive care unit.
00:34:13.400 | I have no idea what's going on in that person's life.
00:34:16.560 | And I don't know if that person just missed me in their blind spot, because I don't know
00:34:20.080 | about you, but I've cut people off before completely by accident.
00:34:23.440 | Never done that.
00:34:24.440 | Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:34:25.440 | But so I think this is part of the practice, right?
00:34:28.440 | It's like taking this broader perspective, because all of these ways of zooming us out
00:34:37.240 | from this acute, visceral, hardwired, reactionary thing helps us to create some space to respond.
00:34:44.560 | And the more that we go through this cycle, the more that we succeed in responding, the
00:34:47.800 | easier it becomes in the future.
00:34:49.800 | Yeah.
00:34:50.800 | It's interesting with Financial Samurai since 2009.
00:34:53.080 | Do you have kids, Sam?
00:34:54.080 | Oh, do I have kids?
00:34:55.080 | I do have two kids.
00:34:56.840 | So that's another great place to practice, right?
00:34:59.560 | Because kids are constantly – and how old – are your kids young or old?
00:35:02.680 | Three and a half and six and a half.
00:35:04.800 | Perfect.
00:35:05.800 | So I got kids in the same age range.
00:35:07.120 | They are sometimes the best thing in the world, but they can be annoying little devils, right?
00:35:12.960 | And that is great practice.
00:35:14.880 | So like how often do you probably get angry or almost maybe you're tired or you're
00:35:19.080 | hungry and like you want to snap on your kids?
00:35:21.520 | Those are the best and most important times in daily life to practice just responding,
00:35:26.160 | not reacting.
00:35:27.160 | So just remembering like this is not a small adult.
00:35:29.340 | This is a child.
00:35:30.340 | And yes, this child is being really annoying, but they're probably doing the best that
00:35:33.800 | they can and me yelling or showing aversive body language is not going to help the situation.
00:35:40.720 | So then when we have these massive changes in our life, when we get laid off or we put
00:35:44.960 | out a new project and it doesn't do as well as we thought or really good things happen
00:35:48.760 | to us, we hit a bestseller list, our podcast becomes ranked number one, we get a big promotion
00:35:53.320 | at work, we just get practice in kind of riding these waves instead of getting swallowed by
00:35:58.920 | them.
00:36:01.000 | So kids and traffic are two great places to practice.
00:36:04.120 | >> Yeah.
00:36:05.120 | Well, I've had a lot of practice being a stay-at-home dad for six and a half years.
00:36:08.600 | I've heard crying multiple times a day for six and a half years in a row every single
00:36:13.920 | day.
00:36:15.160 | And that is a lot of practice and a lot of patience.
00:36:17.840 | And it's part of the reason why I was thinking to myself, "I need to get a day job so I can
00:36:21.960 | take a vacation from being a father for 10 hours a day."
00:36:26.080 | I don't know if parents really realize who have day jobs how actually nice it is to take
00:36:31.920 | a break and recharge from family for 8 to 10 to 12 hours a day versus always being at
00:36:38.400 | home.
00:36:39.400 | It's a tough balance.
00:36:40.400 | >> It is.
00:36:41.400 | >> I have a question for you in terms of seeing the world a little differently because I was
00:36:47.760 | saying I started financial assignment in 2009 and over the course of 14 years, I've seen
00:36:52.320 | it grow.
00:36:53.320 | And as it grows, you have more opinions, good and bad.
00:36:57.960 | And what I really enjoy is actually reading fired up comments because it means that somewhere
00:37:04.600 | the motions have been tickled.
00:37:07.480 | And what I've found is if I start realizing that everybody has something going on in their
00:37:13.280 | head, some problem, some stress, and just the comments are just kind of like a sounding
00:37:18.360 | board or reflection, it makes me feel at peace.
00:37:21.280 | I'm like, "Oh, man, I'm sorry you feel so angry."
00:37:24.680 | Do you feel this is a healthy way to look at things where you don't know what kind of
00:37:29.160 | mental issues or challenges each person has and you just kind of accept and empathize
00:37:35.680 | or do you think that's just not a healthy way to look at things?
00:37:39.200 | >> I think it depends.
00:37:41.960 | I think if you're going to read the comments, then yeah, that's a really healthy way because
00:37:46.040 | like anger plus anger just equals more anger.
00:37:49.400 | So I'm very similar.
00:37:51.000 | I don't – where I'm different is I don't tend to engage with these people that often
00:37:55.640 | because I just find it's a time and energy suck.
00:37:58.120 | But when I do and I'm the best version of myself, I don't go back at people.
00:38:04.960 | But I sometimes will point out and I'll just say like, "I'm sorry you're so angry."
00:38:08.000 | Or like, "Why does everything make you so angry?"
00:38:11.520 | Or maybe I don't even type that.
00:38:12.760 | But maybe in my head I'm like, "Man, like it would stink to be this person on social
00:38:18.320 | media who just gets so angry about everything."
00:38:20.880 | >> Yeah, it's interesting.
00:38:24.160 | But I actually like to dig a little bit deeper because sometimes, maybe 30% of the time,
00:38:29.880 | I uncover something that's going on in their lives that's really tough and then you just
00:38:35.680 | kind of make a connection.
00:38:36.800 | As a writer, it's always interesting to hear people's stories and personal stories and
00:38:40.720 | then share it if they allow me to and then maybe we can learn from that as well.
00:38:45.920 | >> Yeah, I think that that's right.
00:38:47.520 | It takes a lot of patience though to do on the internet.
00:38:49.480 | I found that it's so much easier to do that in in-person forums and even over email.
00:38:57.200 | But like on a comment section, it can just be hard because you don't know someone's situation
00:39:02.000 | but you also don't know their motivations.
00:39:04.120 | And sometimes it's just to be a troll.
00:39:06.440 | Sometimes it's they know that the more provocative stuff gets more attention.
00:39:11.700 | So it's a tricky balance I think for anyone on the internet is when to engage because
00:39:16.600 | you don't want to just be in an echo chamber where you only surround yourself with people
00:39:21.040 | that think the same way.
00:39:22.640 | But you also don't need to be a masochist and expose yourself to people that are like
00:39:26.840 | just out there to rile you up or hurt you or are struggling with their own insanity.
00:39:32.800 | >> Yeah.
00:39:33.800 | No, it's interesting, the journey of the internet.
00:39:37.860 | So actually, tell me, why did you decide to move across country?
00:39:42.160 | Why go through all this change?
00:39:43.160 | What was going on with you?
00:39:44.920 | >> Yeah, it's a couple of reasons.
00:39:47.480 | The predominant reason, so we used to live in Oakland, California.
00:39:52.360 | And now we live in Asheville, North Carolina, which is a smaller mountain town in the west
00:39:56.880 | part of the state.
00:39:58.680 | And the driving force was my wife's family is all on the East Coast.
00:40:02.680 | >> Oh, perfect.
00:40:03.680 | >> And she's really close with her family.
00:40:06.080 | And I love my wife and I want to support her.
00:40:08.120 | And it felt really hard for her to be this far from family, especially when we had our
00:40:12.000 | young kids.
00:40:13.000 | >> Yeah.
00:40:14.000 | >> But that was hard for me at first because I loved living in the Bay Area.
00:40:16.680 | I had a big network there.
00:40:17.680 | >> How long were you here?
00:40:18.680 | >> 10 years.
00:40:19.680 | >> Okay.
00:40:20.680 | >> I had a large network there.
00:40:23.360 | As an author, it's a great place.
00:40:25.240 | There's great bookstores.
00:40:26.240 | It's a huge market of people.
00:40:28.000 | There's a lot of other intellectual people.
00:40:30.680 | The weather is great.
00:40:31.680 | I mean, do you live in the Bay Area?
00:40:33.320 | >> I live in San Francisco.
00:40:34.680 | >> Yeah, so you know, like there's a lot that's good about it.
00:40:37.680 | So it was a big change and it was hard.
00:40:41.120 | Now of course, my psychological immune system has kicked in.
00:40:43.760 | I found meaning and growth and I couldn't imagine living anywhere else and Asheville
00:40:47.520 | squarely feels like home.
00:40:49.760 | But at the time, it was challenging.
00:40:51.440 | And then I think the other reason gets to our own goals of financial independence.
00:40:56.640 | And it's just easier to attain that in a place like Asheville than in the Bay Area.
00:41:02.360 | >> Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
00:41:04.720 | Where are your parents?
00:41:06.480 | >> My parents who I'm not very close with are in Michigan.
00:41:09.840 | And my brother who I'm extremely close with is in Utah, Salt Lake, although he's moving
00:41:14.480 | to Philadelphia.
00:41:15.480 | So he'll be a lot closer.
00:41:16.480 | >> Okay.
00:41:17.480 | Yeah, I've struggled with relocating for a while now.
00:41:21.760 | I've been here since 2001 after living in New York City for two years.
00:41:25.920 | And I love the place.
00:41:27.120 | And it's a great place if you can afford it.
00:41:29.160 | But my parents are getting older and they live in Hawaii.
00:41:31.040 | And the one better place than San Francisco, in my opinion, is anywhere in Hawaii.
00:41:36.200 | So, and the funny thing is Hawaii is actually about 25% cheaper than San Francisco, anywhere
00:41:41.160 | in Hawaii.
00:41:42.360 | So that's good that you made a move.
00:41:44.520 | How long did it take for you to say, "Okay, I'm willing to move to Asheville from Oakland"?
00:41:50.060 | >> That was a process that took, I don't know, three years.
00:41:53.400 | >> Three years.
00:41:54.400 | Wow.
00:41:55.400 | >> Well, in multiple conversations, you know, the most important conversations today in
00:42:00.040 | our marriage, to be honest, about like, what's it going to take for us to be happy?
00:42:03.480 | How do we find a solution that is best for us?
00:42:06.160 | Not for me or you, but what's best for us?
00:42:09.560 | Where are the various places that we think we could be happy?
00:42:12.240 | Let's go visit these places.
00:42:13.520 | Let's also like really try to envision what it would look like to buy a house outside
00:42:18.040 | of Oakland or in Berkeley.
00:42:19.880 | And like, let's go look at houses and let's see how that feels.
00:42:22.680 | And let's really be methodical.
00:42:23.680 | >> Yeah.
00:42:24.680 | >> And ultimately, we reached a point where just like, the path to living in Oakland was
00:42:29.400 | one or in the Bay Area more broadly, I should say, was one that particularly my wife just
00:42:35.480 | like could not get excited about.
00:42:39.400 | And I always loved mountain towns.
00:42:42.520 | So like, you know, even the biggest decisions in marriages are sometimes like, you know,
00:42:46.920 | quasi negotiations to get to what's best for us.
00:42:49.920 | So I remember saying like, "I don't think I really want to move to D.C. where your family
00:42:52.960 | is because that's just a big East Coast city."
00:42:56.120 | But man, there are some great small mountain towns in the mid-Atlantic and I bet we could
00:43:00.320 | both get really excited about one of those.
00:43:02.080 | >> Right.
00:43:03.080 | >> So we did a little tour of these mountain towns and we fell in love with Asheville and
00:43:07.120 | now I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
00:43:09.560 | I really couldn't.
00:43:10.960 | >> What's the median home price in Berkeley nowadays versus Asheville?
00:43:16.520 | >> So without getting into too granular of details, I can broadly say that you can triple
00:43:27.520 | to quadruple the price of a house in the Oakland Hills versus Asheville.
00:43:35.440 | So a $1 million home in Asheville is going to get you one of the nicest homes in Asheville.
00:43:39.660 | That would be about $4 million.
00:43:41.280 | A $500,000 home in Asheville is probably looking like a $2 million home in the Bay Area.
00:43:46.080 | >> Yeah.
00:43:47.080 | >> Although we haven't done this, we haven't played this game in four years so I'm sure
00:43:49.720 | it's changed because we moved, we made this decision prior to the pandemic so it wasn't
00:43:54.240 | a pandemic move.
00:43:56.320 | So I'm sure these numbers have changed.
00:43:58.160 | >> Yeah.
00:43:59.160 | No, it's definitely the geo-arbitrage folks.
00:44:01.960 | I mean, one of the things I talk about a lot is move to a place that you can better afford
00:44:07.160 | and have a better lifestyle.
00:44:08.160 | You don't have to stay stuck anymore thanks to the internet.
00:44:10.560 | >> Yeah.
00:44:11.560 | And Asheville has its quirks.
00:44:14.320 | So like there's no big airport.
00:44:16.440 | It's two hours from the biggest airport.
00:44:17.840 | I mean, it's a much smaller town.
00:44:19.840 | And for us, it made a lot of sense but I think when I talk to people about this, I think
00:44:24.480 | there are a lot of like middle grounds, you know, where it's not such a drastic change
00:44:28.480 | from a place like the Bay Area or New York City but it still affords people a lot more
00:44:32.840 | autonomy.
00:44:33.840 | >> Actually, one of the things, do you know what the demographic, the racial makeup is
00:44:38.440 | of Asheville?
00:44:39.440 | >> I don't know off the top of my head but I can promise you it's not nearly as diverse
00:44:44.280 | as the Bay Area.
00:44:45.280 | >> Yeah.
00:44:46.280 | >> And that's something that we miss.
00:44:47.840 | >> One of the blind spots that I have, that other people have is that, oh, just move anywhere
00:44:53.200 | that's lower cost and you'll save a lot of money and you'll get to financial independence
00:44:57.160 | sooner.
00:44:58.160 | But you might not be comfortable living in a place where nobody looks like you, right,
00:45:01.780 | for example.
00:45:02.780 | And it might be easier for other people to go to a place where everybody looks like them,
00:45:06.640 | right?
00:45:07.640 | So it's something to consider as well.
00:45:08.640 | >> I think that's really important and that is probably the thing that we miss most.
00:45:12.120 | You know, in Oakland I'd go into a coffee shop and as a white guy I'd be like the minority
00:45:16.600 | and here I'm the majority.
00:45:19.240 | And that is something that I don't know if I'll ever get fully used to but when we first
00:45:24.720 | moved here it was definitely a bit of a shock.
00:45:27.640 | >> Right, right, right.
00:45:29.160 | So try before you buy, folks.
00:45:30.820 | Go visit it.
00:45:31.820 | Maybe take a two, three week vacation.
00:45:33.120 | >> Oh, you have to.
00:45:34.120 | Yeah.
00:45:35.120 | >> And it's not going to be like, you know, manic sight unseen.
00:45:38.400 | I mean, where you live has such a profound impact on who you are.
00:45:44.240 | Gets back to the book, right?
00:45:45.240 | There's this section in the book on identity and how we think of ourselves as our Myers-Briggs
00:45:51.560 | score or our Enneagram number and we think of ourselves in the confine of our skin and
00:45:56.040 | skull but ourselves are actually completely wholly shaped by our environment.
00:46:02.000 | So where you live is going to have a huge impact on who you become.
00:46:06.000 | So if you want to guide your own personal evolution and you want to do what you can
00:46:11.720 | to guide the way that you, your identity changes over time, it's so important to consider things
00:46:17.320 | like where you live and what kind of person you'll become living there, who you surround
00:46:22.920 | yourself with, what kind of job you do, who you keep as really close friends and like
00:46:28.400 | what does that mean for who you'll become.
00:46:30.720 | Because it's a very Western thing to just think of our identity as just independent
00:46:35.600 | and I can exert control and it doesn't matter if I live in Asheville or New York or Oakland.
00:46:42.120 | Like I'm me.
00:46:43.800 | And all sorts of research shows that's just like patently an erroneous view.
00:46:49.080 | >> Right.
00:46:51.560 | In terms of I guess success and money or – well, this is a personal finance podcast or thematic
00:46:59.360 | podcast or at least site.
00:47:02.000 | What does success mean to you and how much is enough for you as the author, the coach,
00:47:07.520 | the father?
00:47:09.020 | >> So I define success as knowing my core values and the things that I really value
00:47:15.400 | in life and being able to live in alignment with those.
00:47:21.600 | And one of those things is autonomy.
00:47:23.560 | So being able to spend time and energy on the people and things that mean the most to
00:47:28.880 | me, that is my definition of success.
00:47:32.600 | And the truth is if we stayed in the Bay Area, I'd have less autonomy than I do now.
00:47:38.200 | I probably would still be doing all sorts of contract work with large corporations just
00:47:43.080 | to be able to afford to live there.
00:47:46.400 | So that value definitely drove some of this.
00:47:49.520 | But I really think it just comes down to like being able to spend your time and energy on
00:47:52.840 | the things that matter to you and not necessarily being like utopian about it.
00:47:57.960 | I think part of being a mature adult is realizing that there's always going to be some stuff
00:48:02.040 | that you don't like to do that you have to do.
00:48:04.560 | Like if you own a cat, you got to scoop the litter and I think that's a really important
00:48:07.560 | metaphor for life.
00:48:09.440 | But you don't have to create more complexity if it's not needed.
00:48:13.400 | >> Yeah.
00:48:14.400 | That's a good perspective.
00:48:16.840 | And it really hammers home the point.
00:48:18.680 | I wonder how much of living in big cities like San Francisco, New York, LA really grinds
00:48:25.680 | people down because of the cost of living.
00:48:28.040 | But it's not just the cost of living.
00:48:29.780 | It's surrounding yourself with super motivated successful people that you see constantly
00:48:34.880 | and that remind you, "Oh, maybe you got to be doing more, trying harder."
00:48:39.560 | >> But it's the double-edged sword, right?
00:48:41.420 | Because like there's such an intellectual energy that comes from those places too.
00:48:46.200 | And I think that there's a lot of nuance here.
00:48:49.440 | So I'm not arguing for people to live any particular place.
00:48:52.600 | I think like you said, it takes a lot of knowing yourself and if you're in a family, knowing
00:48:57.120 | what's best for your family and experimenting.
00:49:01.120 | But I do think that there's a lot of energy and that's the benefit.
00:49:04.760 | But as you said, like the cost is there's a massive keeping up with the Joneses.
00:49:08.560 | I'm close friends.
00:49:09.560 | One of my mentors is a prominent venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.
00:49:14.920 | And he does very well financially and he jokes that like he hates Halloween because all his
00:49:20.200 | neighbors are handing out like iPads and iPhones.
00:49:23.920 | And that's a joke but I think that there's some truth to that.
00:49:28.040 | >> Sure.
00:49:29.040 | How much stress, okay, what would you rate your stress out of 10, 10 being the highest
00:49:34.840 | when you're in Oakland versus now in Asheville if you could kind of solve for the variables?
00:49:41.680 | >> If I'm being totally honest, the biggest source of distress is I knew that my wife
00:49:46.800 | wasn't happy there.
00:49:49.200 | So now she's happy.
00:49:50.200 | She's far from her kids and now she's happy.
00:49:52.120 | So my stress level was very high because like she's the most important person in my life
00:49:55.680 | and to see her unhappy and then to get into a dynamic that most people don't talk about,
00:50:00.520 | but I think happens often in marriages to young people where you're deciding where to
00:50:03.960 | live is I didn't want her to resent me for being happy in the Bay Area.
00:50:10.680 | But she didn't want me to resent her for moving.
00:50:13.680 | So we kind of got into like this double bind where at the heart of it, we're really just
00:50:16.840 | caring about each other.
00:50:19.480 | And that caused a lot of stress.
00:50:21.320 | And it took some time and maturity to really unpack that.
00:50:25.320 | And then once it was unpacked for me to say like, if we move, I'm going to be sad because
00:50:29.560 | I'm going to leave my best friend in the world who's like a brother to me, who's an emergency
00:50:33.520 | medicine doctor.
00:50:34.520 | He works for Kaiser Permanente, a big health system in Oakland.
00:50:37.160 | So he's not moving.
00:50:38.160 | I'm going to leave him, I'm going to leave the coffee shop that I wrote three books at.
00:50:42.520 | I'm going to leave all my other good friends.
00:50:45.240 | So I'm not going to be happy.
00:50:46.320 | I'm going to be sad, but I'm not going to resent you.
00:50:48.280 | Like I want to do this because I want to do this for us.
00:50:52.040 | And it doesn't mean I'm going to move to DC and live in a suburb right next to your sister.
00:50:57.160 | Let's find a place that I can get excited about that's closer to DC.
00:51:01.840 | And that was really like the process that led us to move where we did.
00:51:05.280 | Yeah.
00:51:06.280 | And in this worst case, you tried for one, two years, you can always move back and say,
00:51:09.320 | Hey, you tried.
00:51:10.320 | That's right.
00:51:11.320 | And we also kept that open.
00:51:13.960 | But it's funny because now that we're here, you know, I joke like my wife would not want
00:51:17.400 | to live in DC.
00:51:18.780 | And I probably if I, if someone offered me to move back with Caitlin being stoked about
00:51:24.160 | it, I'd still say no, I'd be like, nah, we should stay in Asheville.
00:51:28.320 | But our minds are interesting.
00:51:29.600 | So like how much of that is just the psychological immune system, you know, doing its thing versus
00:51:34.080 | now I've built a life here versus it really is better.
00:51:36.720 | And it's probably some combination of all those things.
00:51:39.480 | Right.
00:51:40.480 | Now it's life's a great adventure full of compromises, twist turns and unknowns.
00:51:45.480 | Well, Brad, it's been great chatting with you and congrats on your book, Master of Change.
00:51:51.680 | Can you tell listeners where they can buy a copy of your book?
00:51:55.680 | Thank you.
00:51:56.680 | It was really nice chatting with you too.
00:51:59.160 | The book is available pretty much everywhere.
00:52:02.600 | So you can definitely get it on the Internet, Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
00:52:07.480 | If your independent bookstore is something that you want to support, that's great.
00:52:10.960 | They should all have it.
00:52:12.160 | It's in audio, Kindle and of course hardcover.
00:52:15.600 | And if you dug this conversation, I think you'll love the book.
00:52:18.280 | So I encourage folks to pick up a copy and check it out.
00:52:21.240 | Great.
00:52:22.240 | And if people want to check out what you're doing, I know you have a podcast as well and
00:52:25.080 | you have a website.
00:52:26.080 | Where can they find you?
00:52:27.920 | That's right.
00:52:28.920 | My podcast is called The Growth Equation Podcast and my website is just my name, www.bradstahlberg.com.
00:52:34.240 | Great.
00:52:35.240 | All right.
00:52:36.240 | Thanks so much, Brad.
00:52:37.240 | Thank you, Sam.
00:52:38.240 | This was a pleasure.
00:52:39.240 | All right.
00:52:40.240 | Take care.
00:52:40.240 | pleasure. Alright, take care.