♪ California's top casino and entertainment destination is now your California to Vegas connection. Play at Yamaha Resort and Casino at San Manuel to earn points, rewards, and complimentary experiences for the iconic Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. ♪ Two destinations, one loyalty card. Visit yamaha.com/palms to discover more. - Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

Today I have one very simple, but important topic to discuss with you. Disaster is not a strategy. One of the things that I have found shocking over the past year or so, is how many people find themselves looking at the future with a sense of bleakness and blackness because, well, it's just all bad and it's just gonna get worse.

Friend, disaster is not a strategy. If you find yourself looking at the world and looking at something that you believe is catastrophic, something that you believe is an impending disaster, and you find yourself just sitting and saying, "Well, this is certain," do not stay there. Make a plan and take action on it.

There is not a single bad thing that you can tell me today that you're worried about, that I cannot help you make a plan for. There is nothing that you are concerned about that cannot be planned for. And as human beings, we are endowed with the power of creativity.

We are endowed with the power of creativity. Hopefully you understand the double meaning. We can think creatively and we can create what we think about. And so you must always train your thoughts to go from problem to solution. Do not dwell on the problem. Simply look around and say, "Hey, look, here's a problem.

Here's something I'm concerned about. Here is something that I think is going to be difficult in the future." And then pull out a piece of paper, grab a pen and make a list of things that you can do about it. In theory, there might be something that you cannot actually do anything about.

There might be something that is outside of your control, in theory. I have a hard time coming up with anything that I can't do anything about. But we all acknowledge that you and I are not sovereign over the affairs of this world. You and I are not sovereign over what happens to us.

But if you will stop and think about even the worst case scenario that you're concerned about, and then simply say, "Well, if this did happen, what would I need to do?" And start taking action on it, you will feel a lot better than if you sit and mope and stew and grumble and complain and whine online about this thing that you're concerned about.

Friend, things are not as bad as you think they are, and you have so many options in front of you. Disaster is not a strategy, but you can build a strategy for any disaster that you are concerned about. Disaster is not a strategy, but you can build a strategy for any disaster that you are concerned about.

And I want to challenge you. It is unhealthy. It's stupid to live in a sense of blackness where you just think everything is bad. Everything is gonna get worse. This is crazy. You will find yourself feeling far better if you will get up and start doing something about whatever it is that you are concerned about.

Struggling with whether I should give you example after example after example. Let's do a few, okay? Let's say that you say, "Joshua, listen, "I can't control everything that happens to me." Let's start at the worst, like weakest, impotent thing you can do. I can't control what happens to me.

And so because I can't control what happens to me, after all, what if I'm driving to work today and a car jumps the curve, or a truck jumps the curve, smashes me, and I'm dead, sitting right in my seat? All right, let's start there. That's pretty bad, right? You're dead.

So what do you do? Well, you begin by assessing your spiritual condition and make sure that when your body is dead, your spirit is not dead. There's no reason whatsoever for your physical death to be the end of your life, except you don't choose to partake of the gift of life that has been offered to you by the creator of this universe.

So first, assess your spiritual state, repent of your sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, and receive the Holy Spirit, be born again. Then at your death, your family can come together and can rejoice about your life, knowing that for you to die is gain because you're with the Lord.

Pardon the moment of preaching, but I can't resist. What else can you do? Well, you could think about how your death would impact the world around you. I'd say the first question is, would anybody care about your death? If nobody would care about your death, then why does it matter?

You're dead, they're not, your life didn't matter. Go on with things, they're not gonna go on. So build a life where they're actually gonna care and they're actually gonna care. Think about how short life is and make sure that you're living today as if you knew that two years from now that truck was gonna hit you.

Make today count, don't waste today, don't waste this week, don't waste this month. Make today count. Then as you're living today and making today count, then systematically move yourself in the direction where you take action to protect those things that would be harmed by your death. Make sure that your loved ones have your passwords to all of your online accounts so that they can close out your affairs with a minimum amount of problems, so they can turn your Facebook profile into a memorial.

Make sure that you have money to care for your family. Make sure you leave them in a good situation, buy life insurance, so that if you're dead and gone, all of your dreams can still come true. Just go down the list and start solving the problems one by one.

What else is out of your control? Global warming, okay? The world is headed for a climate catastrophe. It's a climate emergency. We're all gonna die, all right? Well, start working on it, right? Start planting trees, start planting green stuff to take some carbon out of the atmosphere. If you think the sea levels are gonna rise, move from Florida to Colorado because I can promise you that Colorado is not going to be inundated with rising sea levels.

If you think temperatures are gonna rise, move from Mexico to Canada. Canada could be quite lovely if temperatures rise. If you are concerned that agricultural production is going to cease, then stockpile food, stockpile seeds, build a resilient property, right? I always think back to Ben Falk, the permaculture designer, who always, in his permaculture designs, always plants crops for a couple of different climate zones.

Let's say you're in a climate zone seven. He'll plant crops for a six and a five and an eight and a nine. That way, if the earth warms, his zones eight and nine crops will flourish, and if the earth cools, his zones six and five will flourish. So, start, do something, right?

If you're concerned about global food supplies, then start growing food. What else can you do? Let's say you say, well, my school is going down. They're making my kids wear masks. They won't open schools. They're teaching my children a bunch of crazy stuff that I don't believe in. Well, pull 'em out.

Pull 'em out and go find a better school. You say, I don't have money for a better school. All right, well, go make more money. Don't sit around and reflect on the fact that you're broke. Say, I'm broke. This sucks. I'm gonna go make more money, and sit down and start brainstorming every single day plans as to how you can make enough money to get your kids into a decent school where they're not gonna be indoctrinated with stuff that you don't believe in.

You say, well, my country is just headed down the tubes. My country is in a bad shape. Everything is just getting worse, and can you believe these politicians? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, get out. Leave. You're not stuck. You're not a slave. Pick up and go. Go find somewhere better.

Maybe it takes you five years to find somewhere better. Okay. Better than sitting around whining for five years realizing disaster is certain. It's nonsense. I could go on and on with example after example. If you ever find yourself just reflecting on how disaster is certain, everything is bad, immediately catch yourself and stop, and say, what can I do about this?

If you're convinced that hyperinflation is inevitable, then get rid of all your assets that are denominated in the currency that you're worried about. Go buy farmland. Go build a business that sees to someone's needs, whatever it is. But don't fall victim to thinking that disaster is certain. There's a sense in which disaster is certain.

You and I will undergo many disasters, but so many people spend years of their lives thinking about disaster, and they lose those years of their life that they'll never get back. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a disaster. I am more, I talk more about disaster than virtually anyone I know, at least in the finance space.

I do it so that I can plan for it and move on with life. But I've studied it enough to know that the majority of the disasters that you and I are concerned with simply won't happen. And it's not that hard to prepare for them if they did. So I wanna close this out with a very simple charge.

Disaster is not a strategy, but you can build a strategy for almost any disaster that you're concerned about. Even if it's only in your head. All right, what is your worst fear? Maybe your worst fear is falling off your motorcycle and being paralyzed. All right, well, let's tackle that.

First, maybe you can adjust it. Maybe you stop riding motorcycles. Maybe when you ride a motorcycle, you wear all the safety gear. Maybe you ride more carefully, whatever, right? But let's assume it did happen. There are lots of people in the world who live happy, fulfilled lives, totally paralyzed.

So face it. Maybe your biggest fear is getting Alzheimer's disease. Okay, well, let's make a strategy. Do everything you can not to get Alzheimer's disease. Study all the latest science, but then put in place the legal system, the financial preparation so that if you did get Alzheimer's disease, you would be transformed.

And then fix your worldview so that you actually can trust that if I get Alzheimer's disease, I can still trust a God who does all things well. And if you get Alzheimer's disease, maybe you can take joy in the fact that you forget the bad stuff and the good stuff.

And you can live a happier life. I mean, I don't wanna go on and on with disaster after disaster. I just wanna say that disaster is not a strategy, but you can build a strategy for any disaster. So if there's something that you're worrying about, articulate it to yourself, write it down.

Start thinking about how could I plan for this? I guarantee that somebody else has put together a pretty good plan for that particular disaster. If you're that concerned about it, implement the plan and move on. And don't spend days, weeks, months, years wallowing around in your black despair over a disaster that probably won't happen.

Move on and build a better life. I promise you, it's a better path.