richersoul_episode

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00:00:29.960 | Today, I'm going to have my first interview guest.

00:00:35.400 | Before we start, I have a few points I'd like to cover.

00:00:37.920 | First, I don't want you to focus on who the guest is when you see it pop up in your iTunes

00:00:42.560 | feed.

00:00:43.560 | I have access to some very smart, successful people, and my goal is to ask them the right

00:00:48.160 | questions to help us take a step further today.

00:00:51.880 | Since this is my first time, it did take a little time for me to get my flow going, and

00:00:56.440 | the second half of the show really starts to cover some great insights.

00:01:01.240 | I know this episode is very long, and I debated cutting it into two, but what I've chosen

00:01:06.840 | is to just release it as one and let you choose how to break it up and listen to it based

00:01:11.680 | on your schedule.

00:01:13.600 | Don't worry if it takes you a few different sessions to make it all the way through.

00:01:17.480 | There are going to be a lot of pearls that come out, and as we get to the second half,

00:01:22.160 | we will talk more about habits and mindsets.

00:01:25.960 | Since this is my first interview, I'm essentially leaping with a parachute.

00:01:30.040 | After all, what's the worst that could have happened?

00:01:32.160 | I could have just scrapped it and never released it.

00:01:53.280 | Today we're going to chat with Joshua Sheets at RadicalPersonalFinance.com.

00:01:58.560 | Joshua has a ton of letters after his name with regards to his financial credentials,

00:02:02.840 | and I'm going to let him tell you all about them.

00:02:06.000 | Joshua is the embodiment of someone who walked away from a lucrative career to live life

00:02:10.320 | on his terms.

00:02:12.040 | Joshua lives on far less than most of us and enjoys his life in Palm Beach, Florida, where

00:02:16.040 | he can spend the day with his kids at the beach and still have enough income to live

00:02:20.120 | the life he chooses to live.

00:02:22.600 | His podcast, Radical Personal Finance, is an amazing collection of in-depth knowledge

00:02:27.800 | on various financial topics.

00:02:29.960 | I encourage you to check it out.

00:02:32.400 | Without further delay, let's talk to Joshua.

00:02:37.040 | Hello Joshua Sheets.

00:02:38.560 | Welcome to Rich or Soul.

00:02:40.480 | Thank you for joining us today.

00:02:41.480 | Awesome to be with you.

00:02:42.920 | Hey, it's awesome to have you here too.

00:02:46.360 | I know that you have a lot of experience and background in finance, and you've got a lot,

00:02:52.960 | a lot of letters after your name.

00:02:54.960 | It's a little bit obscene, eh?

00:02:57.160 | Can you spout them all off?

00:02:58.720 | So the letters, if I can remember them all as I usually use them, is Joshua J. Sheets,

00:03:04.600 | MSFS, CFP, CLU, CHFC, CASL, RHU, REBC.

00:03:10.240 | And they stand for Masters of Science in Financial Services, which is a master's degree in financial

00:03:14.840 | planning.

00:03:15.840 | CFP is a certified financial planner designation.

00:03:18.880 | CLU is Chartered Life Underwriter, which is a life insurance designation.

00:03:23.600 | CHFC stands for Chartered Financial Consultant, which is similar to the CFP in terms of its

00:03:29.680 | scope.

00:03:30.680 | CASL is Chartered Advisor for Senior Living, which is a small kind of retirement planning

00:03:35.920 | specialty.

00:03:36.920 | What comes next?

00:03:38.320 | RHU is Registered Health Underwriter, which is a health insurance specialty.

00:03:42.080 | And REBC is Registered Employee Benefits Consultant, which is a specialization in employee benefits.

00:03:49.080 | So I don't think anybody has ever gotten all those details out from me.

00:03:53.720 | Oh, that's wonderful.

00:03:55.500 | So clearly, suffice to say, you understand money, you understand planning, and you understand

00:04:01.800 | how to do all of that.

00:04:03.360 | And you actually spent some time being a financial planner, working for a company.

00:04:07.700 | So what was that kind of background all about?

00:04:10.640 | Yeah, so I've always interested in money.

00:04:13.200 | Started when I was younger, when I was a teenager, reading books on personal finance and investing.

00:04:18.600 | And after college, I worked in the business world for a little bit, doing some marketing

00:04:22.240 | consulting as a low-level analyst.

00:04:24.120 | And I got laid off from a job.

00:04:25.680 | I didn't know what to do, but I knew I wanted to build my own business, but I didn't have

00:04:28.640 | any great ideas about what product to sell.

00:04:31.520 | And so finally, I figured out, well, if I go into the financial services business, I

00:04:36.440 | can run my own business as an entrepreneur, get all of the benefits of entrepreneurship

00:04:42.160 | without having to come up with a product.

00:04:44.280 | So for that, plus my longtime interest in finance, I joined a company called Northwestern

00:04:48.760 | Mutual.

00:04:49.760 | And I spent a total of six years with Northwestern Mutual from 2008 till 2014, working as a financial

00:04:55.880 | advisor.

00:04:56.880 | I learned a lot.

00:04:57.880 | It was a tremendous experience.

00:04:59.880 | I taught me a lot, which I then brought to the world of financial media, because I got

00:05:03.520 | so frustrated with all of the media options that were out there at that time.

00:05:07.040 | Well, so that's an interesting thing.

00:05:09.240 | So you have this lucrative career, in a sense, paid your dues, and you're probably turning

00:05:15.980 | a corner there, and you're about to make a lot of money, and you quit.

00:05:20.720 | There are two corners in the financial advice business.

00:05:24.440 | One is three years.

00:05:25.440 | It took me three years until I finally felt like, okay, I'm not going to die.

00:05:30.480 | And then after five years, if you can make it five years, the industry statistics say

00:05:34.280 | that you'll make it, everything's golden.

00:05:37.620 | The financial services business is a weird business.

00:05:41.020 | It's a very delayed, deferred compensation business.

00:05:43.920 | In the first few years, you are way overworked and underpaid.

00:05:49.280 | And then the goal is, in the back of your career, to get to the point where you're underworked

00:05:52.500 | and overpaid, if you can get there.

00:05:54.520 | But there's tremendous attrition, and it's tremendously challenging to start it as a

00:05:57.880 | business because you're basically combining the learning process that many professionals

00:06:03.680 | go to school for, law school, medical school, et cetera, you're combining the learning process

00:06:08.080 | with entrepreneurship, but building a business.

00:06:11.560 | And entrepreneurship is very, very challenging.

00:06:14.000 | And then because of the slow moving pace of financial services clients, it takes a long

00:06:19.640 | time to build it up.

00:06:20.640 | So yes, after five years, I was finally in a position to where I felt like I could really

00:06:26.080 | start to rest.

00:06:27.080 | I was doing well.

00:06:28.080 | My practice was established.

00:06:29.080 | I was working in an area specializing in retirement planning.

00:06:32.480 | I had done all those designations.

00:06:34.040 | I finally wasn't as scared going into client meetings as I was when I was 23 years old.

00:06:39.800 | And I was ready to do it.

00:06:40.800 | And I was making good money.

00:06:41.800 | I had passive income, I think $3,000, $4,000 a month of passive income, which since I'm

00:06:47.920 | good at living on low amounts of money, allowed me to have the flexibility that I had always

00:06:52.120 | wanted to not have to work in any given month if I didn't want to, if I just wanted to sit

00:06:55.800 | back and enjoy my renewals and my steady, again, passive income.

00:07:01.920 | And then I walked away from it all, which was a very expensive decision and not an easy

00:07:08.840 | one to make.

00:07:10.000 | So why did you leave?

00:07:11.760 | Why did you walk away from it all?

00:07:13.840 | I have this crazy idea that life and business and career can be really well integrated.

00:07:22.880 | And I would say that the financial services business for me was probably about a 75% good

00:07:30.760 | fit.

00:07:32.320 | There are some aspects of me and my interests that fit really well in the financial services

00:07:38.640 | business, but there's about 25% of it that didn't fit me very well and certain things

00:07:44.920 | about it.

00:07:45.920 | And I mean, there's lots...

00:07:47.480 | I know what those things are.

00:07:49.240 | Would you mind sharing?

00:07:50.240 | Sure.

00:07:51.240 | Yeah.

00:07:52.240 | The first thing that always dogged my heels in the financial services business is I get

00:07:55.840 | bored very easily.

00:07:57.280 | So all of those financial planning designations mean I'm good at taking tests.

00:08:02.440 | But there were other people who didn't take a single test and who just put their nose

00:08:07.320 | to the grindstone and saw client after client after client and made a lot more money than

00:08:12.920 | I did in six years.

00:08:15.280 | So I had this impressive string of designations after my name.

00:08:18.440 | Other people had more money because they worked harder.

00:08:20.960 | Well, me, I got bored stiff having the same conversation again and again and again and

00:08:25.680 | again, which is why I study.

00:08:26.960 | I like to learn.

00:08:28.280 | So I used to feel like if I have to sit down at one more kitchen table with another young

00:08:33.760 | couple and explain what term life insurance is and how the different options are for how

00:08:40.160 | term life insurance works and whole life insurance and here's what it is and here's how it works

00:08:45.080 | and disability insurance, I would get so frustrated.

00:08:47.400 | I don't want to do this.

00:08:48.400 | What on earth should I repeat the same thing a hundred times with a hundred people when

00:08:52.640 | I can just make a tape recording and say, here, listen to this and do it and fill out

00:08:58.200 | these applications.

00:08:59.200 | Like I don't want to repeat the same thing over and over again.

00:09:02.400 | And that is not a good character trait to have for success in the financial services

00:09:07.040 | business.

00:09:08.040 | You should be able to do the same thing over and over again.

00:09:10.360 | So I have a very restless personality.

00:09:12.600 | I like to learn.

00:09:13.600 | And so what that would mean is that basically about every two years or every year, two years,

00:09:18.200 | I would completely redesign my practice and I would say, okay, I'm going to go from life

00:09:22.320 | insurance.

00:09:23.320 | I'm going to become a long-term care insurance specialist.

00:09:24.720 | Now I'm going to move to disability insurance and I study everything there was to know.

00:09:27.600 | And now I'm going to go to invest in sound and go to retirement planning, et cetera.

00:09:31.020 | And so I knew that about myself that I couldn't conceive of having the same conversations

00:09:36.040 | for over the course of a 30 year career.

00:09:37.800 | I was bored stiff.

00:09:39.460 | And so I knew I needed to make a change.

00:09:41.640 | Now I was pretty, I had a lot of flexibility in that business, but when I worked out my

00:09:46.340 | master plan for the media business that I now run, I felt like it would give me, it

00:09:51.240 | would work with my personality because I love to always be learning something new.

00:09:55.360 | And for a learner, when you can put a learner into the role of a teacher and get paid for

00:09:59.600 | teaching that's basically heaven on earth for a learner.

00:10:03.000 | That sounds awesome.

00:10:04.000 | So I know a lot of people today are hopping into the internet business.

00:10:09.000 | There's tons of ads comes across my Facebook of how, you know, within three months you

00:10:14.420 | go from nothing to a million followers and money is just flying in the door and you're

00:10:19.760 | living in your fancy house with the Ferraris in the garage.

00:10:24.560 | What's the reality of this and what was the hardest part for you to make this transition?

00:10:29.920 | Well, let's start with the hardest part because that will go into the reality.

00:10:34.240 | The hardest part for me was I had no idea what the transition was be like.

00:10:40.120 | The analogy that I use is that for me to build what I wanted to build, which is a media company

00:10:44.800 | around financial education and I want to get rich doing it.

00:10:48.200 | For me to do that was basically like saying I'm going to get rich by writing a bestselling

00:10:52.960 | novel.

00:10:53.960 | I mean, it's possible in theory, like there have been people who've gotten rich by writing

00:10:58.700 | bestselling novels, but the ability to actually force that process to happen, to plan it out

00:11:04.160 | and to do it is complete.

00:11:05.760 | I mean, it's not possible to prove that.

00:11:09.620 | It's more of, okay, certain things come together at the right time and the audience responds.

00:11:13.840 | So when I was trying to build out a business plan in order to support my family, because

00:11:17.240 | I'm not financially independent and I wasn't in the place where I could just live on the

00:11:20.740 | income from my investments, I'd spent six years building this business and for me to

00:11:24.260 | walk away, I walked away from all of it.

00:11:25.960 | Like I walked away from two pensions.

00:11:28.220 | I walked away from all my clients, all my revenue.

00:11:31.420 | So I didn't know how long it would be until the new business made any money.

00:11:36.040 | So the big challenge was figuring out how can I do it?

00:11:40.020 | I didn't know, do I need to save $10,000 in the bank?

00:11:42.980 | Do I need to save $100,000 in the bank?

00:11:44.620 | Do I need to float my expenses for 10 years?

00:11:46.660 | How does this work?

00:11:47.800 | So the conclusion I came to as well, if I just work, find some job that doesn't require

00:11:53.660 | me to make any kind of long-term commitment, but it's sufficient for me to pay my bills

00:11:58.740 | and do that while building the business, then I'll be able to do it.

00:12:02.500 | So that was what I did and it took a year.

00:12:05.500 | It took me a year of hard work before I was able to support my family based upon the revenue

00:12:10.380 | and the income from the business.

00:12:11.780 | So to the question of internet businesses, is it possible to build an internet business

00:12:16.340 | that in a relatively short period of time?

00:12:18.660 | Yes, I've done it.

00:12:19.660 | In a year, my business was profitable enough to support my family and to make, I spend

00:12:24.740 | about $3,000 a month.

00:12:26.100 | So it was able to get to that point in about a year, which was good and it's continued

00:12:30.540 | to grow since then.

00:12:31.680 | But I would say that I think a lot of the dreams about internet businesses are certainly

00:12:37.100 | not anchored in reality.

00:12:38.380 | It's a business just like anything else.

00:12:40.940 | And yes, it's nice to sit at home and work from home, but there are a lot of days where

00:12:45.140 | you doubt what you're doing and you want to go get a job.

00:12:48.020 | I mean, entrepreneurship is days where you are thrilled about how phenomenal what you're

00:12:53.280 | doing is, and there's days where you just want to go get a job.

00:12:56.500 | And so it's a business like anything else with high points and low points and challenges.

00:13:00.500 | And the internet is just a medium, a different way for you to market and sell your products.

00:13:05.020 | There's no magic in it.

00:13:06.360 | And I'm sure there's people sitting at work now dreaming of having their own business.

00:13:09.940 | Hey, I've been there.

00:13:10.940 | I've been there.

00:13:11.940 | And I think that's normal.

00:13:12.940 | It's normal.

00:13:13.940 | My experience with entrepreneurs has been that is the normal process, even including

00:13:17.760 | internet people.

00:13:18.760 | If you talk to people who aren't trying to sell you a course on how to get rich online,

00:13:22.360 | you'll find that most of us will give the same answer.

00:13:24.700 | It's great.

00:13:25.700 | Now we love it.

00:13:26.700 | It works for us, but it's not perfect.

00:13:29.620 | Nothing is perfect.

00:13:30.940 | It's hard work.

00:13:31.940 | Absolutely.

00:13:32.940 | It's a lot of hard work.

00:13:33.940 | Trust me.

00:13:34.940 | I have bled and sweat and poured myself into what I've done.

00:13:37.820 | It has been many, many thousands of hours of hard work.

00:13:41.500 | So I was listening to one of your recent shows and you made a comment.

00:13:45.220 | You said, "Financial planners don't know how to write financial plans."

00:13:52.240 | And so I was wondering a little bit about that.

00:13:55.480 | What was that kind of about?

00:13:57.380 | I think it was maybe it's that they're salespeople or maybe there was something else.

00:14:03.620 | So all these terms are very nebulous and I'll break it down in a few ways.

00:14:08.460 | The whole financial industry is fundamentally broken because there's a major disconnect

00:14:12.740 | between how people talk and as far as how advisors and how experts talk versus what

00:14:18.500 | people actually do and how people act.

00:14:20.380 | So first let's talk about the word financial advisor.

00:14:24.820 | Financial advisor, if we didn't have any context from financial services, could mean many different

00:14:29.700 | things.

00:14:30.700 | Let's say that I'm helping somebody figure out how to write down a balance their checkbook.

00:14:34.460 | Well, I'm advising them on their finances, so I'm therefore a financial advisor.

00:14:39.020 | Or if I'm helping somebody get a good deal on a mortgage by selling them a mortgage,

00:14:43.380 | I'm advising them on a major component of their finances.

00:14:46.100 | I'm a financial advisor.

00:14:47.100 | But of course, we usually refer to the term financial advisor as somebody who sells stocks

00:14:53.500 | or sells securities.

00:14:54.660 | That's the technical industry term.

00:14:57.020 | And if your business card says financial advisor on it, you need to be registered with the

00:15:02.060 | SEC and you're going to be registered as somebody who's working in the world of securities.

00:15:06.300 | So let's zoom in.

00:15:08.540 | Just because somebody works in the world of selling stocks and bonds doesn't necessarily

00:15:12.340 | mean that they give good financial advice.

00:15:14.580 | Notice I said they sell stocks and bonds.

00:15:16.540 | So traditionally, most of us who come in our business cards say financial advisor.

00:15:21.080 | Most of us, what we do fundamentally is sell stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.

00:15:25.640 | That's where we make our money.

00:15:26.680 | And so traditionally, the industry has often simply used what I'll call financial planning

00:15:32.780 | or the delivery of financial plans, which is a good component of financial advice, as

00:15:36.920 | a sales tool to sell stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.

00:15:41.160 | Now that's all well and good.

00:15:42.440 | We all need to buy some stocks, bonds, and mutual funds from time to time.

00:15:45.580 | But now let's home in on the question of financial planning.

00:15:47.600 | So now there's a major growth and a major emphasis on financial planning as a discipline

00:15:54.400 | that's separate and disconnected from financial advice.

00:15:57.160 | I am an expert financial planner.

00:15:59.320 | I'm not a portfolio manager.

00:16:00.680 | I'm not an investment manager.

00:16:01.920 | I'm not a guru in those areas, but I'm a very good financial planner.

00:16:05.200 | But now we have a problem that the industry, the CFP board, et cetera, has this concept

00:16:10.520 | of financial planning that's built around this very traditional US American mainstream

00:16:17.160 | go work in a corporate job, save money, put money in a retirement account, allocate your

00:16:21.560 | money and retire at 65.

00:16:23.640 | And so that's what we who come from the industry are taught to do.

00:16:27.040 | Well, the problem is that those activities are not usually the things that lead to wealth.

00:16:33.120 | So most of the time, yes, you can save money and put money in a mutual fund.

00:16:37.600 | And if you wait 40 years, you'll wind up wealthy.

00:16:40.400 | But most people are drowning in debt.

00:16:42.600 | And what they actually need is budget coaching.

00:16:44.480 | And that'll make a bigger difference.

00:16:45.480 | Or many people, their careers are on, you know, stuck in first gear.

00:16:49.360 | And if they could get from first gear to fifth gear over the course of a few years and massively

00:16:54.800 | increase their income, they would be in a situation where they can make a ton of money.

00:16:59.040 | And so these are the aspects of financial advice that are very, very important.

00:17:03.000 | And this is where the industry is struggling, because you can plug many financial plans

00:17:07.160 | into a computer and have a computer spit out the proper thing, asset allocation, insurance

00:17:11.880 | planning, et cetera.

00:17:12.880 | That can all be done by a computer.

00:17:14.360 | But how do you motivate somebody?

00:17:16.000 | How do you motivate somebody to save money who's not saving money?

00:17:18.600 | How do you teach somebody how to earn better?

00:17:21.040 | How do you teach somebody their control?

00:17:23.000 | And so at almost every level, the way that we in the financial services industry try

00:17:29.520 | to help people, we're very good if you're rich.

00:17:33.920 | We're very good at telling you what to do with your money and how to keep it and how

00:17:37.360 | to protect it from the tax man and all that stuff.

00:17:39.760 | We're very good at that.

00:17:41.000 | But we're not all that good at taking people who are poor and helping them become rich,

00:17:45.920 | which is kind of what people want.

00:17:47.640 | And we're not very good at that.

00:17:48.920 | When you say people who are poor, can you define what you mean by poor?

00:17:54.200 | Do you mean in a lot of debt or are they actually poor poor?

00:17:58.040 | I mean, any of those things.

00:17:59.920 | You would think that the concept that the financial advisors sell is to say, "Well,

00:18:04.640 | you don't have a lot of money."

00:18:05.720 | Whether you're very poor or you're drowning in debt, or if you're just kind of normal,

00:18:08.520 | you don't have a lot of money, we're going to teach you how to have a lot of money.

00:18:10.880 | But the tool bag that the financial services industry has to solve that problem essentially

00:18:16.320 | consists of mutual funds that are put in a Roth IRA, buying some insurance policies,

00:18:23.480 | protecting yourself.

00:18:24.920 | These are very basic tools and none of them really solve the problem of how do you take

00:18:29.240 | people who aren't earning a lot of money and help them earn a lot of money?

00:18:31.800 | How do you take people who aren't saving money and help them to save money?

00:18:35.520 | But my evidence for that is just simply if you looked, if you go and you talk to a room

00:18:39.060 | full of financial advisors and you say, "How many of you have a target to work with people

00:18:43.360 | who earn six-figure incomes or who have half a million dollars of assets?"

00:18:49.080 | The vast majority of people who are financial advisors want to work with people who are

00:18:52.160 | earning high incomes or have big businesses or who have a lot of money.

00:18:56.080 | So the point is that financial advice is very well delivered to people who are wealthy already

00:19:02.040 | or who are going to be wealthy based upon things that are done.

00:19:04.840 | But we're not very good at helping people who are poor.

00:19:06.800 | Now, before people get all mad at that, I still don't know how to solve that problem.

00:19:12.460 | But for me, radical personal finance is my effort to say, "Let's try to use media and

00:19:16.780 | education and try to solve some of those fundamental problems to help people who are poor not be

00:19:22.860 | poor anymore so that they can be good clients for professional technical financial advice."

00:19:27.460 | That's kind of what I'm trying to do with media.

00:19:29.700 | Excellent.

00:19:30.700 | It's a secret plan.

00:19:32.060 | Shh, don't tell anyone.

00:19:33.060 | At Rich or Soul, we have a secret plan for wealth.

00:19:36.780 | It's three steps and it's got a bonus step.

00:19:39.860 | So step one is live on less than you earn.

00:19:44.180 | Step two is to save that money that you earn.

00:19:47.940 | And step three is to make that money that you saved grow.

00:19:52.700 | And the bonus step is to do your best to stay out of debt.

00:19:56.540 | Now, I know I've asked you this question before, but I'm going to ask you again for our audience.

00:20:02.420 | It's a real simple plan.

00:20:04.460 | It's real easy.

00:20:06.520 | It doesn't matter how much you make.

00:20:10.680 | Everyone could do it and yet hardly anyone does.

00:20:16.580 | Why?

00:20:18.300 | So I don't know that there's a single answer as to why.

00:20:23.020 | I think we got to attack the problem on a number of different levels.

00:20:27.460 | So a good first example would be many people have lives that are ruined by their own lack

00:20:35.100 | of character.

00:20:36.820 | So what you just laid out as a plan is very simple, but in order to follow it, you have

00:20:41.860 | to actually do it.

00:20:43.800 | In order to actually be able to live on less than you make, you have to know how much you

00:20:47.700 | make and you know how much your living costs.

00:20:49.580 | Well, that's going to require some fundamentals of sitting down with a checkbook and balancing

00:20:53.560 | a checkbook or sitting down and making a budget, whether it's as simple as a paper or running

00:20:57.980 | a piece of software, et cetera.

00:20:59.900 | But Rocky, you would have, I mean, I don't know if you believe me or not, but I've had

00:21:03.020 | so much trouble with so many people trying to get them to do the fundamentals of finance,

00:21:07.620 | just the blocking and tackling, the simple things of recording your expenses.

00:21:13.100 | It's remarkable how few people have the personal character and fortitude to actually do something

00:21:18.180 | as simple as track their expenses.

00:21:20.820 | And we talk about that in an earlier episode where the first thing you need to know is

00:21:25.420 | where are you?

00:21:26.660 | How much money do you have?

00:21:28.060 | How much money do you owe?

00:21:30.060 | How much stuff of real value do you have?

00:21:33.780 | And write that down.

00:21:34.780 | So here's where we are in the map.

00:21:37.340 | And then where do you want to go?

00:21:40.040 | And then it's a mathematical formula for getting from here to there.

00:21:43.660 | And then the second thing is you've got money coming in every month.

00:21:49.440 | We all ask that question at the end of the month, where did it all go?

00:21:52.580 | To sit down and figure out where did your money go?

00:21:57.540 | Nobody likes budgets.

00:21:58.660 | Nobody likes diets.

00:21:59.660 | I agree with both of those.

00:22:01.420 | My diet has bacon and ice cream.

00:22:02.900 | I love it.

00:22:03.900 | It works for me.

00:22:05.460 | I don't have a budget, but I know where my money goes and I make sure that it goes where

00:22:10.740 | I want it to go.

00:22:12.140 | So we talk about that is you have to know where you're at, where you want to go, and

00:22:19.700 | are your habits and your actions following what you want your money to do?

00:22:25.500 | I think I've heard it said, every dollar should have a job.

00:22:28.480 | So you need to give your money a job of where it should go and what you should do with it.

00:22:35.300 | And it's just surprising because this isn't rocket science.

00:22:39.500 | Right.

00:22:40.500 | But it's not rocket science, but I don't know the numbers.

00:22:43.340 | I'm just going to say basically that simple formula you just gave, it works every time,

00:22:50.220 | but you just wiped out 50% of the population, if not more.

00:22:53.380 | I'm picking that number up off of a gut instinct, but it's probably more just simply because

00:22:58.520 | people don't have the personal character.

00:23:00.420 | They don't have the personal discipline to do something.

00:23:02.640 | Now some people are not mentally competent enough to do it.

00:23:05.760 | Obviously there are people whose mental incompetence is severe and a handicap, but there are some

00:23:10.480 | people who just don't have, you know, who are freaked out by a column of numbers and

00:23:15.520 | who get scared of it.

00:23:16.520 | And there are just many people whose personal character is not strong enough to cause them

00:23:20.480 | to do that.

00:23:21.480 | Now I think there are solutions.

00:23:22.480 | For example, here's an example.

00:23:24.120 | Generally people are motivated either by pain or pleasure.

00:23:28.840 | Right.

00:23:29.840 | So if you have somebody who's in a situation where their personal character is not sufficient

00:23:33.520 | to allow them to exercise the simplest of financial disciplines, either something needs

00:23:39.080 | to happen to where the pain gets really bad.

00:23:41.760 | They're kicked out on their ear on the curb because they bounced their check to their

00:23:44.560 | landlord once again.

00:23:45.560 | Landlord said, that's it, you're out.

00:23:47.820 | And they're going to be embarrassed in front of all their friends.

00:23:49.440 | And they say, I got to fix this.

00:23:50.920 | And they start saying, how can I fix it?

00:23:52.680 | And they're ready.

00:23:53.680 | You know what they're looking for.

00:23:54.680 | They really catch a vision of it.

00:23:55.680 | Or they catch a vision of, you know what, I want to be financially secure.

00:23:59.160 | And they say, I'm going to go after it.

00:24:00.960 | I don't know how that, that transformation process happens.

00:24:03.760 | I really don't.

00:24:04.760 | I just know that it does happen for some people.

00:24:07.760 | And we actually talked about that in two separate episodes on mindset.

00:24:12.600 | The first one is the stories we tell ourselves, the things inside our head that prevent us

00:24:17.360 | from success.

00:24:18.360 | And then there's that outside influence that also comes upon us that makes us think that

00:24:24.920 | success is the fancy house or this car or this particular brand of something.

00:24:32.760 | And that's not necessarily so.

00:24:34.920 | And we need to make those choices for ourselves.

00:24:39.520 | You've met a lot of people.

00:24:41.000 | You've interviewed a lot of people.

00:24:42.720 | I think you've interviewed people.

00:24:44.600 | And actually when you worked, you talked to a lot of people, helping them with their financial

00:24:48.200 | plan.

00:24:49.200 | When I worked.

00:24:50.200 | When you worked.

00:24:51.200 | Yeah.

00:24:52.200 | When you worked for someone else.

00:24:53.200 | Is that the right answer?

00:24:54.200 | When you worked for someone else.

00:24:55.200 | When you worked for the man instead of yourself.

00:24:59.280 | Now it's enjoyable, right?

00:25:00.560 | You're working for yourself.

00:25:02.000 | It's love.

00:25:04.280 | So there's got to be certain habits that you've seen that differentiate one group of people

00:25:11.760 | from another group of people.

00:25:13.880 | Were there certain habits that you saw certain people had versus other people or mindsets

00:25:20.640 | that were different between the groups?

00:25:23.520 | Yes, there are.

00:25:25.320 | And let me cover habits in just a second.

00:25:26.760 | Go back to kind of reasons because you talked about mindset.

00:25:29.680 | I know that's a major area of focus for you.

00:25:32.360 | T. Harv Eker years ago wrote a book called The Millionaire Mind.

00:25:35.920 | And it was all about kind of the stories that we tell ourselves with money.

00:25:39.880 | It's a decent book.

00:25:41.840 | For people who have had a lot of questions or who didn't have good examples from their

00:25:48.200 | parents about money, I think they would benefit the most from it and realize some of the stories

00:25:51.840 | they tell themselves about money.

00:25:53.680 | But the big thing that I took away from it was the concept of a financial thermostat.

00:25:58.880 | And Harv's point was to say that each person has a different place where they're comfortable.

00:26:05.120 | A financial thermostat, a place where they see themselves as comfortable.

00:26:10.600 | And this has to do with how much money you earn, how much money you have, et cetera.

00:26:14.520 | There are some people who are comfortable having $7,000 of credit card debt.

00:26:20.040 | That's their comfort level.

00:26:21.040 | And if they start to inch above that and they start to have $9,000 or $10,000, they start

00:26:26.200 | to get really uncomfortable.

00:26:27.200 | And they start, "Hey, we got to cut back on our spending and pay things down."

00:26:30.480 | Other people have a number of $0 of credit card debt.

00:26:34.000 | Similar things happened with savings.

00:26:35.360 | Some people are comfortable as long as they have a positive balance in their checking

00:26:39.240 | account or maybe $100 of margin, that's good.

00:26:42.400 | Other people are not comfortable unless they have $10,000 in their checking account.

00:26:45.920 | And if they start to dip down below, they get very uncomfortable.

00:26:49.240 | So like a thermostat, where you set the thermostat at a certain point, and if the heat gets hotter

00:26:55.600 | than that, then the AC kicks on and cools it down.

00:26:58.740 | Or if it gets below that, the heat kicks on and picks it up.

00:27:01.380 | People do that with their money.

00:27:02.640 | They quickly spend money on things that are silly.

00:27:07.280 | I'm thinking of a former neighbor of mine, and they came from very humble beginnings.

00:27:11.760 | They came into an inheritance from a family friend that helped them, and they got an inheritance.

00:27:18.040 | The first thing they did was go out and buy this fancy riding lawnmower, but not like

00:27:24.640 | the cheapish kind that you get at Home Depot, like the John Deere sit-on tractor.

00:27:29.040 | They went and bought a zero-turn commercial level riding lawnmower, a zero-turn mower

00:27:34.600 | like the big commercial guys mow to mow their grass.

00:27:37.800 | And I'm thinking, "What?

00:27:39.800 | Why would anybody spend that much money on a zero-turn riding mower?"

00:27:43.760 | But from their background, that was an indulgence.

00:27:46.920 | The first thing they did when they got money was to go and spend it, and it was to be spent

00:27:50.840 | on something that they enjoyed, something that would be fun.

00:27:53.840 | And their lifestyle was such that having a big fancy lawnmower to mow their grass was

00:27:58.640 | important to them, and that made life easier.

00:28:02.240 | So as soon as they got into money, they quickly got rid of it all.

00:28:06.120 | And you see this happen all the time.

00:28:07.120 | And the example that Harvey used in the book, which I think is even better now, I think

00:28:11.480 | he used Donald Trump, now our president, Donald Trump.

00:28:15.040 | And he talked about if some people woke up and they found themselves with a million dollars

00:28:19.080 | in the bank, they would be so happy.

00:28:21.420 | They would just say, "Wow, I've got a million dollars.

00:28:23.480 | How fantastic."

00:28:24.480 | Well, if Donald Trump woke up and saw that he had a million dollars in the bank, he had

00:28:28.640 | a net worth of $1 million, would he be happy?

00:28:33.480 | The man would freak out, and he would say, "What happened to all my money?"

00:28:36.700 | And he would immediately go and start doing more deals.

00:28:39.240 | But he wouldn't go and get a job.

00:28:41.780 | He wouldn't go and start a corner shoe store.

00:28:44.720 | He'd say, "How can I go and borrow a couple hundred million dollars and build something?"

00:28:49.160 | That's what he knows how to do, because his thermostat is not set for a million dollars

00:28:52.560 | of wealth.

00:28:53.680 | He wouldn't be happy.

00:28:54.880 | And so each person has a different number and a different way that they see themselves.

00:29:00.400 | I remember when I was younger, and when we first got married, I had a friend and his

00:29:06.000 | wife, and I knew what they made.

00:29:08.480 | I knew what we made, and I think they made about $30,000 more than we did.

00:29:13.680 | And I thought to myself, "If only I made $30,000 more, life would be awesome.

00:29:20.240 | We'd be set.

00:29:21.240 | We'd be kings.

00:29:22.240 | And I would be thrilled beyond belief."

00:29:24.440 | A couple years later, that happened, and now we doubled that plus, and the happiness didn't

00:29:36.080 | change.

00:29:37.080 | It never does.

00:29:40.120 | And that's the thing.

00:29:41.120 | So do people just need to be content where they're at, or do they need to create a place

00:29:49.800 | to be content?

00:29:52.000 | How does that work?

00:29:53.000 | So the happiness, by the way, happiness doesn't change when you make more money.

00:29:57.120 | There's good research to show, with some exceptions.

00:30:00.240 | There's good research to show that once you reach a certain point, and there's debate

00:30:03.080 | on the number, but a lot of people think it's about $70,000 a year.

00:30:06.680 | Once you reach an earning level of about $70,000 a year of household income, beyond that, the

00:30:11.440 | happiness is not going to change all that much.

00:30:13.840 | It is tough.

00:30:15.080 | If you need new tires and you're worried about, "I can't go and buy new ones.

00:30:18.840 | I got to go to the used store and get them, and is this going to make it," et cetera,

00:30:22.160 | there is a major difference between that and $70,000 a year.

00:30:25.460 | But somebody who's making $70,000 a year has enough where beyond that, their marginal happiness

00:30:30.500 | is not going to change a lot.

00:30:32.320 | The other aspect is that the happiness does change when somebody gets out of a stressful

00:30:36.680 | situation.

00:30:37.680 | For example, they're behind on their bills, bill collectors calling all the time.

00:30:42.240 | If you can get from that to stability, that will change happiness.

00:30:45.500 | But going from $70,000 a year to $100,000 a year is not going to make a big difference

00:30:49.960 | in somebody's happiness level.

00:30:51.400 | Well, so I was going to say, let's talk a little bit more about happiness, because that's

00:30:56.480 | what we all want, right?

00:30:57.480 | We want to be happy, enjoy life, and maybe switch gears a little.

00:31:02.280 | I think earlier you talked about helping someone who's younger go from first gear to fifth

00:31:08.600 | gear.

00:31:11.600 | What exactly did you mean by that, and how does somebody go from first gear to fifth

00:31:17.940 | gear with their income?

00:31:20.960 | Something like first gear to fifth gear with their income would involve a mindset change

00:31:24.940 | and will involve changes in personal habits.

00:31:28.200 | Good friend of mine who works in the trades, and he comes from humble beginnings.

00:31:33.880 | When I was talking with this guy, his dream job was to get a good job, a good steady paycheck,

00:31:40.300 | and a good steady paycheck at the local big utility company.

00:31:43.380 | That was where he wanted to work for, and that was his dream job.

00:31:46.140 | Now, for him, that was, based upon his socioeconomic condition, that was his thinking big.

00:31:52.220 | It's great.

00:31:54.140 | He's got a steady income now.

00:31:56.460 | He's never going to be a millionaire unless he figures out how to live on a very small

00:32:00.300 | percentage of that income, because his mindset is built around, "How do I get this steady

00:32:05.500 | job where they pay me a guaranteed paycheck?"

00:32:08.300 | The way you go from first gear to fifth gear with your income is start to get around different

00:32:12.620 | people who have different mindsets.

00:32:14.760 | For me, I've chosen opportunity over so-called security.

00:32:20.020 | I don't believe that security exists in a world where other people write my paycheck,

00:32:24.220 | and so I've chosen opportunity.

00:32:26.420 | For me, that's very important to me, and I have that effect on other people.

00:32:30.240 | When other people listen to my show or they talk to me in person, I'm always thinking

00:32:33.540 | about opportunity.

00:32:34.540 | I see opportunity everywhere, and so that starts to change how people think.

00:32:38.300 | It starts to change people's mindset.

00:32:41.100 | Another thing that you can do is, in any context, it doesn't have to be entrepreneurism.

00:32:44.780 | It can be within the world of work.

00:32:48.260 | If you start to feed people with the idea that they can grow and become a different

00:32:53.940 | person and they start to pursue that path, they can rise up through the ranks.

00:32:59.980 | Just yesterday as we were recording this, I was with a friend of mine named Andy Sage,

00:33:04.620 | and I interviewed him for my show.

00:33:07.700 | Andy Sage started with Lehman Brothers on the ground floor of Lehman Brothers with basically

00:33:13.500 | an entry-level job, $50 a week, right out of the Army as a young man.

00:33:20.540 | Twenty-five years later, he was president and CEO of Lehman Brothers.

00:33:25.820 | Now that is unique, and one of the things that's unique about the American context,

00:33:29.940 | US-American context, is that we are filled with those stories.

00:33:34.540 | I can take that story and I can go to somebody who's an employee and I can say, "Look,

00:33:37.900 | here's this guy, Andy Sage, who did it, current president of Walmart, CEO of Walmart, started

00:33:42.540 | off throwing boxes on a Walmart loading dock when he was in college, and now he's the CEO

00:33:46.540 | of Walmart."

00:33:47.940 | This is something that's built into the American psyche, and that can help somebody to change.

00:33:51.820 | Now based upon that, then we teach them, "Well, what will you need to do differently?

00:33:56.460 | What kind of person would you need to be in order to command a higher wage?

00:33:59.980 | What would you need to know?"

00:34:00.980 | And we can start the process of education, and that process compounds over time.

00:34:04.780 | So you can move somebody from first gear to second gear and on up by changing their thoughts,

00:34:09.940 | changing their behavior, little things at a time.

00:34:12.620 | It may have to do with how they dress, it may have to do with how they treat people,

00:34:15.700 | it may have to do with their education, they may need to learn more, and it's just a

00:34:18.740 | continual process of enhancing their value in the marketplace.

00:34:22.800 | We talk a lot about that in two ways.

00:34:25.160 | One is the compound interest curve, and just the fact that it takes a while on that long,

00:34:30.980 | flat leg before it turns.

00:34:33.180 | And it's constantly taking those little steps, making little changes.

00:34:37.920 | You don't have to make a major change in your life, but small, teeny steps over time compound

00:34:44.100 | into massive change over time.

00:34:48.060 | And the other thing we talk about is the analogy of baking a cake.

00:34:52.440 | If you don't follow the recipe and you do things in the wrong order, and you put the

00:34:57.320 | frosting in first and throw some eggs on top and a little flour and bake it, and then take

00:35:02.040 | it out and mix it, it's not a very good cake.

00:35:05.200 | I think one of the hardest things, though, people may find is how do you find the recipe

00:35:10.420 | for you, and how do you take those baby steps?

00:35:14.660 | Do you have anything you could share in how people could figure out for themselves where

00:35:22.660 | do I start this whole process, or how do I continue to make it grow?

00:35:27.780 | If somebody's interested in financial success, the best thing to do is to find the person

00:35:31.460 | that they know in their own sphere of social contact, the person that they actually know

00:35:38.540 | who is more financially successful than they are, and go to that person and ask them, "How

00:35:44.220 | did you do it?"

00:35:45.220 | Or, "How are you doing it?"

00:35:46.940 | So this can apply in earnings, this can apply in wealth, this can apply in business.

00:35:52.140 | If you're in sales and you see somebody else who's selling more than you are, go to them

00:35:56.140 | and say, "How are you doing that?

00:35:58.060 | What are you doing differently?"

00:36:00.100 | And the key is by starting within your social contact, you're going to have people who are

00:36:05.540 | in similar circumstances to you, where you're going to be able to relate to them in some

00:36:09.560 | way or another.

00:36:10.820 | It's not like me saying, "I'm going to go and talk to Bill Gates.

00:36:13.340 | I don't know how to reach Bill Gates, and I don't know how to do what Bill Gates did."

00:36:17.060 | There's a major problem, I think, that we have an obsession with people who are at the

00:36:20.340 | top of the top.

00:36:22.020 | And sometimes they got there by coming into market conditions or something that we cannot

00:36:28.140 | repeat.

00:36:29.140 | So you cannot repeat Bill Gates' wealth.

00:36:31.200 | You cannot repeat Warren Buffett's investing prowess.

00:36:34.180 | Those are unique skills.

00:36:36.420 | Now some people you can model them in some ways, but if you're working as an entry-level

00:36:42.580 | plumbing apprentice, it's better for you to go to one of the older plumbers who's nearby

00:36:47.300 | and say, "Listen, how did you go from being an apprentice to being a master plumber?"

00:36:52.300 | And then once you're the master plumber, you'll be able to go to the business owner and say,

00:36:55.580 | "Wait a second, how did you go and do this?"

00:36:57.220 | And then if you know of a neighbor down the road from you who's involved in the meatpacking

00:37:00.780 | business, "How did you get involved in that?"

00:37:02.980 | And going and asking those people for advice.

00:37:04.940 | And my experience has been successful people love to tell people about how they got successful.

00:37:09.940 | It's a favorite thing that successful people love to do.

00:37:13.540 | And I think that's one thing people don't realize, that if you go ask, people will tell

00:37:18.460 | you.

00:37:19.460 | They will share.

00:37:20.460 | They're more than happy to do that.

00:37:23.620 | For some reason, and I don't know why, it seems culturally most of us don't do that.

00:37:29.140 | We don't go ask.

00:37:30.280 | We don't do that.

00:37:32.540 | Why?

00:37:33.540 | Fear.

00:37:34.540 | I mean, there are all kinds of reasons.

00:37:36.060 | And I'll tell you what's even worse from my perspective.

00:37:39.420 | Having been the successful...

00:37:41.020 | Well, to answer the question before I tell you, the reason people don't do it is either

00:37:45.260 | they never even thought of it or they're scared to do it.

00:37:48.620 | They've never had it shown to them.

00:37:49.900 | They never had it taught to them.

00:37:51.740 | Maybe they were taught, "Don't talk to strangers."

00:37:53.580 | Well, that's, I guess, useful as a parenting technique at some stage, but it's also really

00:37:58.560 | damaging as a success technique down the road because the most successful people often find

00:38:03.580 | themselves talking to a lot of strangers.

00:38:05.340 | But what's even more remarkable on the flip side, my experience, having been a successful

00:38:10.300 | person teaching things to others and also interacting, is I've come to believe that

00:38:14.700 | people just don't do anything with the advice that you give them.

00:38:17.180 | And I actually tell people when I'm giving them advice, "You're not going to do anything

00:38:19.900 | with this because people don't do anything with it."

00:38:21.980 | It's the most disheartening thing.

00:38:24.100 | When you know something that's great, you've found the pearl of great price, and you want

00:38:28.300 | someone to do it and you want someone to do something, and you get tired of saying the

00:38:31.040 | same thing over and over to people who come and ask and don't do anything.

00:38:34.140 | Yes, go and ask successful people, but if you actually do something with what they say

00:38:38.660 | and you come back and tell them, "Hey, I did something with what you said," the doors will

00:38:43.740 | be blown open for you and you'll have the keys of the kingdom.

00:38:47.860 | So I recently did that, and we're going to share that on an episode in a couple of weeks.

00:38:55.580 | And I'm going to tell you a story of how I went through the final stages of getting this

00:39:00.860 | podcast done, and a coach that I met who actually got me through those last couple of stages

00:39:08.740 | and how I attended an event.

00:39:11.820 | It was Seth Godin, and tickets for Seth Godin's event are 800 bucks.

00:39:17.020 | So people are paying a lot of money to learn from this guy.

00:39:22.140 | And there was actually a group that you could communicate on for people who attended the

00:39:26.940 | event.

00:39:27.940 | There were probably close to 500 of us there.

00:39:31.100 | And one of the people who was a coach said to the rest of the group, "Hey, I'm willing

00:39:36.740 | to help coach five of you.

00:39:39.820 | Whoever responds, you can have my time and I will help you with whatever you want in

00:39:45.220 | life."

00:39:46.500 | I don't know how many people responded.

00:39:48.780 | I know I did.

00:39:50.020 | I know someone else did, but I don't think he filled all five of his slots.

00:39:56.020 | All these people who paid all this money to learn, who were at the top of their game,

00:40:01.060 | didn't take that extra step.

00:40:03.380 | And I did take that extra step and I learned and I launched this and I went back to him

00:40:09.500 | and said, "Hey, I did it."

00:40:12.460 | And before I did it, I said, "Hey, will you be on my podcast?"

00:40:15.380 | And he said, "Well, let's see what you do first."

00:40:19.500 | And I went back and I did it and he goes, "Absolutely."

00:40:22.180 | So we're going to have a guest on in a few weeks.

00:40:25.640 | But that right there, that's the type of stuff that people don't do.

00:40:30.380 | People offer them the opportunity and they don't take it.

00:40:34.980 | And then when they do take it, they don't follow up.

00:40:38.900 | And if they do follow up and actually do what they're told to do, they don't always go back

00:40:44.220 | to that person and said, "Hey, I did what you told me to do."

00:40:48.900 | And they don't realize that for that person, that was just the first hurdle.

00:40:53.380 | You break the first hurdle, I'm going to open up the door wide.

00:40:58.300 | And unfortunately, I don't know why that's not taught more, but that's the kind of soft

00:41:03.800 | skills that aren't being taught and aren't being learned and aren't being practiced,

00:41:09.340 | which is a shame.

00:41:10.340 | I'll give a very practical example.

00:41:12.180 | When I was just starting right out of school, my senior year of college, in my junior year,

00:41:18.580 | I studied abroad the first semester and I came back and I was very confused and I wound

00:41:22.020 | up dropping out of school.

00:41:23.500 | And during that time, I took a job working as this entry level, my title was graphic

00:41:28.500 | developer, but that was a glorified name for basically make PowerPoint presentations for

00:41:32.140 | the company.

00:41:33.460 | And it was very entry level, basic job.

00:41:35.220 | I made 30, I don't know, 30 to 35,000, somewhere in the $30,000 range.

00:41:40.060 | But while I was there, I was interacting with people and I've always been an interested

00:41:45.260 | learner.

00:41:46.260 | And so the simple thing that I did was I went to, I just interact and try to do a good job

00:41:51.340 | at my job.

00:41:52.340 | First of all, if you're hired to do a job, do your job first.

00:41:54.860 | That's the good place to start with success.

00:41:57.020 | But I would talk to people and I would ask my bosses, I would ask them, "What book should

00:42:00.460 | I read?"

00:42:01.460 | And just simply say, "Hey," they could look at their bookshelves or just ask them, "What

00:42:04.980 | books should I read?"

00:42:05.980 | I remember one of the founders of the company, name was Bob, Bob Post, and he said, "Here

00:42:09.980 | are the five books that made a big difference."

00:42:13.180 | I went, I bought the books and I read the books and I told him about it.

00:42:16.340 | He was blown away that I had actually read the books.

00:42:20.380 | He couldn't believe it.

00:42:21.380 | Now, I went on from there and that year, similar interactions with other leaders, the president

00:42:26.780 | of the company, the CEOs who were managing, and then one of the executive vice presidents

00:42:30.900 | who was in charge of me, similar interaction.

00:42:33.820 | And later that year, they asked me, "Okay, you want to go back to school?"

00:42:36.980 | And they wound up giving me extra money, scholarship income to go back to school in exchange for

00:42:42.220 | thinking about working with them when I came back after out of college.

00:42:46.020 | They paid me extra money that I didn't have to do any extra work for simply because I

00:42:49.700 | had taken an interest in learning.

00:42:51.620 | More importantly, when I went on from there, when I got out of college, I went back and

00:42:55.540 | I worked at that company for a year and I had good relationship with people and I just

00:42:58.860 | would be an interested learner, read the books that were on their shelf, talk about them.

00:43:02.740 | And we're talking very, very minor contact.

00:43:05.180 | I was a low level employee.

00:43:06.660 | Well, they laid me off a year after I graduated from college, but when I was being laid off,

00:43:13.940 | both of the men said, "We'll help you with anything that we can."

00:43:16.980 | Well, it was two weeks later, I was having lunch with my boss, one of the guys, and he

00:43:22.340 | said he was the one who gave me the idea to go into financial services.

00:43:26.140 | He was the one who helped me with the initial introduction there, still friends with him.

00:43:29.820 | The president of the company went on and I was friends with him for a very long time.

00:43:35.140 | He helped me with some very valuable connections and interactions.

00:43:39.060 | And the other gentlemen still have a warm relationship.

00:43:41.860 | And so it can be as simple as simply observing the books that are on your boss's shelf and

00:43:46.940 | reading them and asking him, "Hey, what would you recommend I read?"

00:43:50.660 | Very simple, but it resulted in a tremendous amount of personal gain and also financial

00:43:54.660 | gain for me.

00:43:56.540 | I think you're working on writing a book, right?

00:43:58.900 | Yeah, I have the outline and I can't seem to get the manuscript done, but yes.

00:44:03.380 | It takes a long time and a lot of work, doesn't it?

00:44:06.620 | And for under 20 bucks, you can probably buy a book and learn hours upon hours upon years

00:44:14.340 | of work of someone's genius.

00:44:18.300 | It's probably one of the best investments out there.

00:44:20.820 | I have a whole big bookshelf over there.

00:44:22.620 | It's overflowing with books.

00:44:24.500 | I've got a stack waiting to be read.

00:44:27.100 | It's one of the things, unfortunately, people don't do.

00:44:29.620 | If you look at the averages, the average person doesn't read and unfortunately they don't

00:44:35.220 | learn beyond college.

00:44:36.220 | And the people who take that small little step have so much more success in life, which

00:44:42.580 | is just incredible.

00:44:45.740 | So continuing on, I think in the past, the mantra has always been, "We work till 65,"

00:44:53.900 | because that magic number is somehow when we're supposed to retire.

00:44:59.140 | And I guess in the US it came out because that's when Social Security started paying

00:45:05.780 | out, which of course was when I think back then 80% of the people were already dead.

00:45:10.900 | So I didn't have to pay too much out, so it was a good number.

00:45:15.740 | And yet you struggle that whole time and when you finally get to 65 and you're finally ready

00:45:21.580 | to enjoy life, your back hurts and you can't walk and your health isn't the greatest and

00:45:30.900 | you don't get to enjoy it so much.

00:45:33.540 | You've decided to take a different path.

00:45:36.620 | So tell us about how to live life now instead of waiting till some arbitrary number.

00:45:47.260 | We're going through some incredible changes in this country and all over the world.

00:45:53.540 | And it's going to be, the coming decades are going to be monumental in terms of the social

00:46:00.420 | disruption and the impact, tremendous.

00:46:03.500 | And so the only way that I see to get out ahead of that is to be the one who's leading

00:46:09.260 | in the change, which is what I've chosen to do and what I'm seeking to have other people

00:46:13.020 | to do.

00:46:14.060 | And so yes, the fundamental old-fashioned retirement model is broken.

00:46:19.180 | Now the secret is that it really never worked.

00:46:21.620 | As you alluded to, Social Security retirement age was set for a time that men at that time

00:46:27.260 | had a life expectancy that was shorter than the Social Security age.

00:46:30.000 | So it was set under different models and different assumptions.

00:46:33.720 | And it definitely doesn't really work going forward in the future.

00:46:36.260 | Not that people can't retire.

00:46:37.260 | You can save millions of dollars and be able to retire at 65.

00:46:40.700 | It's just simply that for the vast majority of people that won't work because they don't

00:46:43.820 | earn enough, they don't save enough.

00:46:46.260 | And all of the social programs, Medicare especially, but also Medicaid and Social Security are

00:46:52.520 | fundamentally broken.

00:46:54.180 | They'll be changed and people will think they've been fixed, but they're really broken.

00:46:59.100 | I think the secret is to get out ahead and build a life that you wouldn't want to retire

00:47:03.260 | from.

00:47:04.460 | The reason so many people want to retire and are desperate to retire is they don't like

00:47:08.020 | their lives.

00:47:09.780 | And retirement for them is something fancy and different that they think they'll like

00:47:14.940 | more.

00:47:17.060 | If you build a life that you don't want to retire from, then everything changes.

00:47:24.540 | And there are a lot of ways to do that.

00:47:25.980 | Now we have this misconception, this misunderstanding about work, where somehow we think that work

00:47:33.380 | is a bad thing or that work is not something that we want to do.

00:47:38.500 | Well, if work is something that's not suited for you, if it's type of work that's not well

00:47:43.020 | suited for your personality, your skills, your abilities, then yes, it's something you're

00:47:48.900 | going to want to get away from.

00:47:49.980 | But when work is well suited for you and when you're doing something that you care deeply

00:47:54.540 | about for reasons that are important to you, then you can build something that you won't

00:47:59.820 | want to retire from.

00:48:02.180 | It's very powerful when you start thinking this way because it completely changes your

00:48:07.180 | approach to life, where you look for the opportunities, the things that are going to be good fits

00:48:12.540 | for you.

00:48:13.540 | Now along the way, you also want to make sure that you're very financially productive and

00:48:18.260 | that you're a very good saver and that you set aside a lot of capital because ultimately

00:48:22.420 | the ultimate freedom is going to come from when you can take a dollar for a salary if

00:48:26.580 | you want it, if they take as a token gesture, but at the end of the day, you're not doing

00:48:31.140 | what you're doing for a direct salary.

00:48:33.920 | But this has never been more possible in the history of the world.

00:48:37.540 | In the past, you lived where you grew up, you did the work that your parents and your

00:48:41.980 | community did, and the opportunity was much more limited than it is now.

00:48:48.100 | But we live in the best time to be alive in the history of mankind and there is more opportunity

00:48:54.060 | all around the world for people to look for ways to serve others and to build businesses

00:48:59.980 | around serving others.

00:49:00.980 | That's the fundamental basis of it.

00:49:03.100 | So if you start by building a life that you wouldn't want to retire from, it'll dramatically

00:49:08.320 | shift your perspective on retirement.

00:49:12.180 | So we talk about that in our second episode, basically in the fact that you need to understand

00:49:20.380 | what your purpose in life is.

00:49:22.620 | You need to know where you're going and how you're going to get there.

00:49:28.100 | And just a quick question of how many people that you've helped with financial advice have

00:49:37.700 | a life plan and a purpose that they've got written down and they know where they're going

00:49:43.780 | and what they want to do and they come to you and say, "Here's where I'm going.

00:49:47.180 | Here's what I want to do.

00:49:48.180 | Can you help me financially get this in place?"

00:49:52.260 | Not many.

00:49:53.260 | Not many.

00:49:54.260 | And that's one of the ... And the ones who have it don't really need me.

00:49:57.460 | So I'll tell you a story.

00:49:59.460 | When I was first working as a financial advisor, the business is a very outward focused business

00:50:05.380 | where you got to figure out how do I go and get clients?

00:50:07.860 | You got an empty office and no one's sitting there wanting to buy from you, so how do you

00:50:10.740 | go get a client?

00:50:11.740 | So you spend a lot of time going out and marketing towards other people.

00:50:15.380 | And that's a very painful process because most people don't want to talk about their

00:50:18.500 | money.

00:50:19.860 | One day I go to this networking event in town and it's a bunch of old Palm Beach socialite

00:50:27.780 | rich people who come together and they host all kinds of Congress people and whatnot.

00:50:31.900 | I decided it would be fun to go to this luncheon meeting.

00:50:34.520 | And I sit down and guy next to me says, "What do you do?"

00:50:37.940 | And I tell him I'm a financial advisor.

00:50:39.340 | He says, "Oh, wow."

00:50:40.340 | He says, "Awesome."

00:50:41.340 | He said, "I'd love to have you take a look at my stuff sometime."

00:50:45.380 | You could have knocked me off my chair with a feather.

00:50:47.520 | No one had ever said to me, "Wow, you're a financial advisor.

00:50:50.380 | Man, I would love to have you take a look at my stuff."

00:50:52.780 | And no one had ever said it to me.

00:50:54.580 | And I said, "Yeah, absolutely.

00:50:56.020 | I'd love to."

00:50:57.020 | And like, "Here, I got my calendar right here.

00:50:58.700 | Why don't you come into my office and let's sit down and do it."

00:51:01.660 | So the next week he comes into my office and he takes a piece of paper and he slides it

00:51:05.420 | across the table to me and he says, "Okay, so I got this much money here.

00:51:09.980 | I own this financial product here.

00:51:11.420 | I live here.

00:51:12.420 | Here's my assets.

00:51:13.420 | Here's what I'm living on.

00:51:14.420 | Here's how much money I spend.

00:51:15.420 | Here are my income sources, et cetera."

00:51:17.340 | He's got everything laid out on a simple one page piece of paper.

00:51:20.660 | And he says, "You see any problems?

00:51:22.260 | You see any ways to improve that?"

00:51:25.260 | So I start going through my mental checklist and I think about his insurance coverage and

00:51:28.740 | I look at his investments and I think about his income and I gave him one little suggestion

00:51:34.180 | that we talked about for a minute and I basically like, "You're covered.

00:51:38.300 | Everything that ... You're good to go."

00:51:40.340 | Now here's why that's a big deal.

00:51:42.740 | As a financial advisor, I'm really good at poking holes in people's plans.

00:51:46.500 | That's what we do professionally.

00:51:48.780 | It's very rare for you to put a financial plan in front of me that I can't find some

00:51:52.140 | way to improve it.

00:51:54.220 | And yet here was somebody that I couldn't do that with.

00:51:57.100 | And this was the one person who had said, "Hey, I'd love it if you take a look at my

00:52:01.060 | stuff."

00:52:02.340 | I've never forgotten that lesson.

00:52:04.060 | It made a big, big impact on me.

00:52:07.300 | That's impressive.

00:52:08.300 | So it's constantly taking whatever your plan, it doesn't even have to be financial.

00:52:14.000 | Whatever you want to do and constantly showing it to people and saying, "How can you help

00:52:19.020 | me improve this?"

00:52:20.620 | And when you do that enough times, you eventually are going to have a plan that's bulletproof,

00:52:26.220 | that's going to work, and then you go implement it.

00:52:29.180 | You said something, and I've heard it many times, and I'd like to get your opinion on

00:52:33.860 | it.

00:52:34.860 | Why don't people want to talk about money?

00:52:36.820 | I mean, we go to school, kindergarten to 12th grade, so that we can go to college, so that

00:52:44.180 | we can get a job, so we can make money, but nobody wants to talk about money.

00:52:50.740 | Why?

00:52:51.740 | So the big reason is most people don't have any.

00:52:54.620 | And when people don't have any, they don't want to talk about money unless they're complaining

00:52:58.380 | about money.

00:52:59.380 | They don't want to talk about money in a positive sense because they don't have any and they're

00:53:02.620 | embarrassed about it.

00:53:03.620 | They don't want to tell people how much money they have or they don't have.

00:53:06.260 | So most people don't have any money, and so they don't want to talk about what they're

00:53:09.860 | embarrassed about.

00:53:10.860 | For the people who do have money, the people who do have money have to be very careful

00:53:15.460 | about who they talk about money with.

00:53:17.620 | So people who have money don't want to talk about money with people who don't have money

00:53:22.820 | because they're concerned about two things.

00:53:25.300 | One, the people who don't have money will judge them for having money in a negative

00:53:30.500 | social light or think less of them, or those people will come and just try to get money

00:53:36.540 | and ask for money, which is very difficult to know how to say no to friends.

00:53:40.700 | The only people who like to talk about money are the ones who have money and they're talking

00:53:44.900 | to someone else who has money.

00:53:46.380 | Then it's really fun and they love to do it.

00:53:49.820 | That was a little bit too circuitous, wasn't it?

00:53:52.900 | No, but I mean, even if you live in a middle class neighborhood, these people, they have

00:54:01.300 | money.

00:54:02.300 | Now, they may not have a couple million dollars, but they've got some money and yet they still

00:54:08.660 | don't want to talk about how to better use their money.

00:54:13.340 | Well, there's also a social heritage in the US American culture.

00:54:17.180 | It's generally considered impolite to talk about money.

00:54:20.100 | It's impolite to talk about politics.

00:54:21.780 | It's impolite to talk about religion.

00:54:23.660 | Those are three of the big topics that are generally off the table.

00:54:27.580 | I think one of them just got put on the table after this election.

00:54:31.140 | It seems like a lot of people are talking about politics right now.

00:54:35.660 | So maybe next they'll talk about money.

00:54:38.340 | Well, maybe so.

00:54:39.340 | And I think that that is changing and that does change.

00:54:42.180 | I don't know the full answer for any people.

00:54:43.860 | I just have learned when I was a financial advisor.

00:54:47.740 | So doing the work that I did is very strange because I would basically walk in.

00:54:52.780 | I worked based upon what's called in the business called referred lead prospecting, which means

00:54:57.500 | that if I were sitting down with you, I would work with you and then I would say, "Hey,

00:55:01.020 | Rocky, who are some people that you think highly of that you think might enjoy meeting

00:55:04.700 | me?"

00:55:05.700 | And you would say, "Well, my buddy Tom at work and Joe down the road and Susie, my neighbor.

00:55:09.340 | She's really good.

00:55:10.340 | And I don't know if they need anything, but here's their number.

00:55:11.820 | And yes, you have my permission to call them."

00:55:13.380 | So I'd call them up and walk into Tom's office and sit down and give about a three minute

00:55:18.140 | interruption introduction.

00:55:20.220 | And then basically we're talking about money.

00:55:22.700 | And what I learned, that's a very unusual skill to develop where 20 minutes after meeting

00:55:28.540 | somebody I'm asking him how much money they have and how much money they make.

00:55:31.620 | Like it takes a little while and you develop some decent bedside manner.

00:55:35.860 | But in the beginning I was very, when people didn't tell me that when people didn't answer

00:55:41.500 | my questions, I generally thought it was my fault.

00:55:45.900 | But I learned with skill and with experience that generally if somebody didn't want to

00:55:51.900 | tell me how much money they made or how much money they had, it was usually because they

00:55:55.500 | didn't make much or they didn't have much.

00:55:57.780 | And it sounds terrible.

00:55:58.780 | I know I'm being a little bit over generalizing, but that was my experience.

00:56:03.980 | I always could tell the difference.

00:56:05.700 | If I were speaking with somebody who was wealthy, who'd be like, "Wait a second.

00:56:09.100 | Hold on a second.

00:56:10.100 | Let me ask you a few questions."

00:56:11.100 | And in the conversation I could get a sense of where things were.

00:56:13.700 | But if somebody just shut down and didn't want to talk about money, I came to realize

00:56:17.860 | it was because they were embarrassed about their financial condition.

00:56:21.500 | They didn't want to talk about money.

00:56:24.860 | That's a shame.

00:56:25.860 | Which is because those were the people that I could help the most, right?

00:56:29.460 | I never solved that answer.

00:56:31.260 | I don't know how to fix the problem.

00:56:33.380 | Well, we'll keep trying.

00:56:37.460 | One last thing I'd like to explore and then we'll wrap up.

00:56:41.680 | I know you're very big about understanding your worldview, living your worldview.

00:56:48.820 | I think you've even said you have your financial plans, life plans.

00:56:54.060 | They're in a notebook.

00:56:55.100 | They're up on a shelf.

00:56:57.580 | And so when you come to a decision point, you can open up your book and say, "This is

00:57:04.580 | the decision.

00:57:05.660 | This is where it fits in with my worldview, life plan, financial plan, and it makes it

00:57:12.820 | a lot easier to just take that next step."

00:57:17.740 | I think you're aware in having that.

00:57:20.800 | Most people don't seem to have that mapped out so well.

00:57:25.380 | If people wanted to learn more about or explore how to put their life in such a simple process

00:57:34.740 | that if I have a question about what to do, I can go look at my life manual and it makes

00:57:42.900 | it much, much easier to make that decision.

00:57:46.400 | What advice would you give people for how to start building that or what resources to

00:57:53.060 | learn from to take that next step?

00:57:55.580 | It may be a bigger question than I think you're asking.

00:57:59.780 | When you use the word worldview, I use that term for a comprehensive understanding of

00:58:08.420 | life which is driven first and foremost by religious doctrine, how somebody approaches

00:58:16.900 | their life.

00:58:17.900 | If you see, for example, that ... Let's use two worldviews.

00:58:22.300 | Let's talk about humanism and I'm a Christian, so I'm not a humanist.

00:58:28.980 | So the primary essence and worldview of humanism would say that personal happiness is the greatest

00:58:34.620 | gain in life.

00:58:36.300 | So therefore, under a worldview of humanism, the filter is very simple.

00:58:41.180 | You approach a decision and you say, "Well, what's the greatest happiness?"

00:58:46.020 | Now if you don't approach that as a ... If that's not your fundamental operating worldview,

00:58:50.660 | then you have to look at it differently and you have to say, "What are my personal values

00:58:54.440 | and how do they actually get ranked?"

00:58:58.300 | If somebody believes that service is the highest good, then they'll approach things and they'll

00:59:04.580 | say, "Well, how does this impact my ability to serve or not to serve?"

00:59:10.120 | Most people are not philosophically self-aware.

00:59:14.000 | Most people have not tested their own understanding of the world in a comprehensive way and tested

00:59:19.980 | it to see, "Does my worldview have strength?"

00:59:23.460 | Most of us simply operate based upon a program that we've adopted unconsciously from society

00:59:29.220 | around us based upon the values and actions of people around us.

00:59:36.020 | So yes, that makes a huge difference.

00:59:39.320 | Now of course, you can home in a little bit more.

00:59:42.000 | And so a simple example, worldview can be very big in terms of happiness or service

00:59:47.380 | or it can be very simple.

00:59:49.140 | As a Christian, the Bible teaches that if a man doesn't take care of his own family,

00:59:54.340 | then he's worse than an unbeliever.

00:59:56.740 | And so that brings to someone like me, a disciple of Jesus, it brings a place where you simply

01:00:02.720 | have to say, "Well, I have to take care of my family."

01:00:06.420 | And so since I know that is one of the highest priorities, I can look at any decision and

01:00:13.220 | say, "Is this gonna allow me to take care of my family or not to allow me to take care

01:00:16.940 | of my family?"

01:00:17.940 | I don't have to be a Christian to care for family.

01:00:20.140 | That's silly.

01:00:21.140 | That's a common universal thing, but it will dramatically affect the type of career that

01:00:24.780 | I would take.

01:00:25.780 | A simple example, I've always wanted to be a truck driver.

01:00:28.180 | That to me would be a perfect job.

01:00:30.020 | I'm not gonna be a truck driver 'cause it would destroy my family.

01:00:33.100 | I wouldn't go in the military, it would destroy my family among other things.

01:00:36.460 | I'm not gonna go and take a sales job where I'm on the road six days a week and get home

01:00:40.500 | on Saturday morning or Friday afternoon and leave on Sunday afternoon on an airplane.

01:00:45.780 | Destroy my family and destroy my life.

01:00:47.620 | So I can wipe away all of these jobs pretty quickly based upon that worldview.

01:00:53.420 | Now bringing it down further to a financial plan, a simple thing like identifying, "Am

01:00:58.700 | I somebody who is seeking security or am I somebody who's seeking opportunity?"

01:01:04.500 | So for me, I'm seeking opportunity, not security.

01:01:09.340 | So therefore when I approach something, I'm gonna ask myself, "Is this something that's

01:01:12.900 | trying to...

01:01:13.900 | Am I choosing this because it's secure or am I choosing this because it has opportunity?"

01:01:17.820 | I'll walk away from something that's secure as long as it has opportunity.

01:01:21.100 | Now I won't do that if it's going to cause me to not be able to fulfill my obligations

01:01:27.380 | to care and provide for my family.

01:01:29.100 | I'll take a job that has security if that's the way that I can provide for my family to

01:01:35.140 | make sure that they're well taken care of and I'll walk away from opportunity because

01:01:39.660 | caring for my family is a higher value.

01:01:42.000 | But if I can care for my family in a world of opportunity, I'll choose that.

01:01:46.440 | So from the big to the little, the way that we approach life, if we can become philosophically

01:01:53.580 | self-aware and understand why we believe what we believe, then we can start to look and

01:01:59.760 | say, "Here's how I approach things."

01:02:02.840 | I don't think that's as simple as having a manual on the shelf.

01:02:05.700 | I mean, I have goals, I have plans, things like that.

01:02:09.040 | I think it's more of a thought process.

01:02:11.200 | And I'll give you two examples.

01:02:13.320 | Years ago, I read about the impact and the importance of business plans.

01:02:16.400 | I forget the source, so I can't cite it.

01:02:18.600 | But they were saying that the much higher percentage of businesses who have business

01:02:25.100 | plans succeed versus businesses who don't start with business plans.

01:02:30.640 | And so they were researching this topic and they asked the business owners, "How many

01:02:34.040 | times in the last year of your startup have you gone and looked at the business plan?"

01:02:37.900 | And the business owner said, "We haven't actually looked at that since we made it."

01:02:42.620 | And what they found was that the business owners would make the business plan, but then

01:02:45.860 | they just toss it in a drawer and they'd never go back and look at it.

01:02:48.940 | But yet the people who had gone through the mental exercise of creating the business plan

01:02:55.200 | were much more successful than those who hadn't, even if they didn't look at the plan every

01:02:59.500 | day because they were aware of why the business existed and what their goals were for it.

01:03:04.300 | Same thing with the military.

01:03:05.300 | There's a saying, "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

01:03:09.060 | So why does the military still, when a military strategist or tactician is sitting down and

01:03:15.500 | saying, "What's our battle plan?"

01:03:17.060 | They're sitting down and making seven possible battle plans, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, all the

01:03:21.140 | way down.

01:03:22.140 | Well, they know that it's not going to survive the contact with the situation, but it's the

01:03:26.100 | diligent process of thinking and considering if this, then that, if this, then that.

01:03:31.020 | And that's what you and I as individuals can apply to our lives.

01:03:33.660 | So from the big to the little, what's the ultimate meaning of life?

01:03:37.460 | Question that men have struggled with for a long time, down to what do I do tomorrow?

01:03:42.300 | What I do tomorrow is going to be driven by my worldview and by my goals.

01:03:47.300 | And so becoming as self-aware as possible will go a long way towards having that answer.

01:03:53.100 | And that's a perfect answer.

01:03:54.700 | I think that's exactly what I was looking for, is people need to know where they're

01:03:59.340 | going, what they want, and then it just becomes so much easier to achieve it because you've

01:04:05.340 | actually thought through and you don't end up at 50 years old going, "How did I get here?

01:04:11.580 | And this isn't what I dreamed of."

01:04:13.940 | And I think for too many people, that's what happens.

01:04:16.060 | But if you sit down and you think it through, and that takes time, you figure out what you

01:04:21.260 | want and what you need, and then you start plotting that out.

01:04:26.620 | Everyone has the opportunity to do great things and live the life that they choose.

01:04:30.900 | And that's kind of what this journey here is on this podcast, is helping people become

01:04:36.340 | enlightenment and taking those steps forward.

01:04:40.480 | So last question, is there something else that I should have asked you that you'd like

01:04:44.780 | to share?

01:04:45.780 | Is there just something that you would like to share as we wrap up that we haven't chatted

01:04:49.700 | about?

01:04:50.700 | Probably my closing thoughts would simply be this.

01:04:54.840 | Human beings are the most remarkable creatures because there's no other creature that can

01:05:06.900 | create out of nothing.

01:05:10.020 | So the Bible teaches that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

01:05:15.060 | And there's an important doctrine that says that God creates ex nihilo, which means out

01:05:20.340 | of nothing, from nothing to something, which is remarkable in and of itself.

01:05:26.540 | Now human beings are made in the image of God.

01:05:31.340 | One of the most important aspects of that to me is that we are creators.

01:05:36.940 | We are unique among all of the creatures.

01:05:40.920 | There is no animal who can visualize something abstract in their head and then go out and

01:05:46.620 | make it.

01:05:48.420 | Animals are driven by instinct.

01:05:50.220 | Animals are driven by their genetic code.

01:05:52.100 | Animals are driven to do what all of their forefathers have done before them.

01:05:58.020 | Now there may be minor variations over time, but pretty much animals do what their parents

01:06:02.460 | did.

01:06:03.460 | But humans are not that way.

01:06:05.780 | Humans can see something that someone else is doing and can do it differently.

01:06:09.860 | And that's why in the history of mankind, you have a son or a daughter who comes from

01:06:15.080 | a drunk parent and says, "I'm not going to do that.

01:06:18.660 | I'm going to choose differently."

01:06:20.980 | You have people who come and they look at the examples of other people that are negative

01:06:25.620 | and they say, "I'm not going that way."

01:06:27.860 | And they look at the examples of people who are positive and say, "I'm going that way."

01:06:33.180 | And there is nothing, nothing that requires that a human being can't do that.

01:06:41.800 | So yes, we may have certain predispositions.

01:06:44.780 | I may be genetically different from you.

01:06:48.140 | I may be very apt to be like my parents, but at any point in time, I have the ability to

01:06:55.620 | choose.

01:06:57.160 | And so when you come to finance, when you come to lifestyle, when you come to life design,

01:07:01.820 | it's important to recognize that we are not the victims of our circumstances.

01:07:06.740 | We can choose no matter the case.

01:07:09.540 | Tremendous book.

01:07:10.540 | Dr. Frankel wrote a book, "Man's Search for Meaning," and he talked about the experience

01:07:15.140 | of he was a tremendously renowned doctor, a psychologist, and then he was put in a concentration

01:07:22.380 | camp, a Jewish concentration camp as a prisoner during World War II.

01:07:26.980 | And he was observing the fellow prisoners and studying them psychologically.

01:07:32.180 | And his conclusions were just amazing.

01:07:35.260 | Now I can't summarize the whole book, but the meaning that I took away from it is that

01:07:40.460 | we have the ability to choose no matter our circumstances, and we have the ability to

01:07:45.220 | create, to create from nothing in the sense that not that we can start without matter.

01:07:51.540 | We've got to use God's matter to build our projects.

01:07:54.740 | We can't create ex nihilo, but we can look and see something that hasn't been done.

01:08:00.620 | Artists in their mind, they see something that haven't been done.

01:08:02.940 | Some people build art with a paintbrush.

01:08:04.920 | Some people build art with business, and for them it's their art.

01:08:08.980 | And some people just simply build art or create things differently in their life.

01:08:13.260 | It's the most powerful ability that we as humans have.

01:08:17.760 | And it's important not to disregard that ability.

01:08:21.860 | It's important to pay attention and to take full advantage of it while we're here on the

01:08:25.740 | earth.

01:08:26.740 | I think that's an excellent way to close.

01:08:28.780 | Life is not what happens to you, but how you choose to react to it and what you choose

01:08:35.240 | to do going forward.

01:08:37.520 | And that's a perfect way to take that next step on the journey.

01:08:41.040 | So if people would like to listen to you more, learn more about what you do, where's the

01:08:45.520 | best place for them to find you?

01:08:47.000 | You can find me at radicalpersonalfinance.com, or if you're interested in listening to my

01:08:50.240 | show, I do a show five days a week.

01:08:52.120 | Tagline of Radical Personal Finance is how to live a rich life now while building a plan

01:08:56.220 | for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

01:08:59.020 | And so there's a free daily podcast in any podcast application that you currently use

01:09:04.040 | to listen to Richer Soul, or there's also a free Radical Personal Finance in the app

01:09:08.920 | store on every phone and device.

01:09:10.520 | Well, thank you.

01:09:11.520 | And thank you for joining us today.

01:09:13.520 | It's a pleasure.

01:09:14.680 | I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

01:09:17.040 | There are many pearls here about how to live life differently with an abundance mindset.

01:09:22.760 | Noah planned a way to live a life he is never going to have to retire from because it's

01:09:26.860 | so enjoyable for him.

01:09:28.380 | I leave you with this one question.

01:09:30.840 | Do you dread going to work on Monday?

01:09:33.420 | Then how about doing something about it and creating a life where you enjoy the work you

01:09:37.300 | do?

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