Welcome back to Ask the Compound, where we have the smartest audience in all of finance YouTube. Ask the Compound show at gmail.com is the email we get tons of emails every week. Very smart questions. We have a great show for you today. We have not one, but two great guest experts.

First, today's show is sponsored by Future Proof. Yesterday, Michael and I recorded a podcast with Matt Milton from Advisor Circle. Matt is one of the architects of Future Proof Festival. We discussed how it all came together, the evolution of finance conferences. Over time, what makes this event so special.

I even gave a few secrets of conferences. I gave the icebreaker that everyone uses at every single conference you've ever been to. You've got to wait for Monday to listen to that. If you haven't signed up yet, it's futureproof.advisorcircle.com. When we talked about it yesterday, it got me all excited again.

I think it's like 50 days away, so I can't wait. Make sure to listen to Animal Spirits this Monday for some more background on it. Again, I share some of my conference secrets. It's going to be fun. Cool. Ben's top 10 secrets. Cameras, shooting video. We'll be doing a live podcast.

It's going to be awesome. Yeah. Looking forward to it. It's beautiful. All right. Let's get into some questions. Up first today, we have a question from Joel from the YouTube comments. "I feel like you guys get very similar questions in the realm of what should I do with my money next.

Do you recommend an order of operations that people should follow, like emergency fund, money match, high interest rate debt, etc.? Would love to hear you talk about this." As a man of the people, I do dive into the YouTube comment sections. I pulled this one out myself last week.

Great question, Joel. The textbook personal finance answer would go something like this. First, you get the match from your 401(k). If you have one from your employer, that's 100% ROI. You can't really turn that down. Then you'd pay down high interest rate credit card debts. I think the average credit card debt rate right now is something like 25%, 27%.

That's like 1950s Warren Buffett couldn't even beat that hurdle rate. So, pay that off next. Then, once that high rate debt is paid off, you do three to six months emergency fund. After that, then you move back to the 401(k), max that out. I think for 2023, it's $22,500.

After that, then you go to the Roth IRA. That's another $6,500 for 2023. Then maybe HSA, 529s. Then finally, after all that's taken care of, then you can open a taxable brokerage account. I'm sure some experts might quibble, but that's like the stuff you find in most boring personal finance books.

Here's my problem with this advice. First of all, not everyone has the ability to save this much money, right? Some of these buckets would never get filled because you just simply don't have that much money. Not everyone is that well off. For most people just starting out, I think the three to six months of expenses and emergency funds sounds awesome, but it might take them years to get to.

So, it's just unattainable as a goal. Then maybe 2% of the population has the ability to save and invest like a robot like this. I'm going to check this off and check this off and check that off. I think it just doesn't take into account the human element. I think the actual hierarchy is different for people depending on their circumstances.

Plus, there's the psychological effects of small improvements and building financial habits, especially early on in your financial life cycle. Let's say you have a bunch of credit card debt, which is a bad place to be because it's the biggest compounder against you. Let's say you have a Macy's card, a Target card.

Do people still shop at Banana Republic, Duncan? Maybe a Banana card, a Gap card? Sure. I'm just kidding. If I'm being honest, I still shop at Banana Republic. Who am I kidding? Maybe a Chase Sapphire Reserve. I thought you were more of a J.Crew guy. Yeah, I guess this is probably J.Crew.

Let's be serious. I'm so mid. So, let's say then a Chase Sapphire Reserve because you want that sweet sign-up bonus and you have all these balances and you're falling behind. Textbook theory would say you take the highest rate and you pay that down first because that's math, right? But researchers at Northwestern looked at this and they looked at the debt snowball thing, which I guess is originally Dave Ramsey's idea.

He hasn't had great investing advice, his personal finance advice is pretty good. Did he steal it from someone? I don't know. I'm giving it to him. So, they looked at 6,000 people at Northwestern who paid off their credit cards and they figured out what was the one guiding light here for these people.

And they found the people who paid off small balances first and got those small wins actually were the ones who stuck with it and paid off all their larger balances later, regardless of the size of the debt and regardless of the size of the rate. So, it's like this idea of finding these small little victories that give you the confidence to stick with your plan.

And so, I like that idea for a psychological boost. I think that's a lot of what this is. One of my greatest accomplishments this year has nothing to do with finances. It's getting my twin six-year-olds to make their bed every morning, okay? It took a long time. And I'm a guy who wakes up every single day, I make my bed first thing in the morning, right?

My wife has to love me. I don't think that will surprise anyone. No. But you start the day out with a small win. You set the tone, right? And I think the same applies to your finances. If you're starting small, I don't think you try to go through this checklist.

I think you start small in some of these, and you build up small victories in each of these buckets, so you build good habits. No one starts out running 26.2 miles marathon right away. Are you training for a marathon, Duncan? No, my wife. She's a marathoner. Okay. So, I think you start small, and it's daunting for most people, again, to get to the three to six months and the 401(k) and all that seems so unrealistic.

And I think most people just throw up their hands and give up. Well, I'm never going to get to that point. So, I think you start small, especially when you're young. I opened up an IRA in my 20s well before I started. I had three to six months of emergency funds, because I knew that was just unrealistic.

So, I think that's how I would think about it. Slowly but surely, reach your goalpost. Don't try to do it all at once. That makes sense. That's the hierarchy for me. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of off-putting. If it's something that seems unattainable, people will just give up. The Carlson's hierarchy of needs is not as pretty as the Maslow's, but I think it works.

I agree. Another question. Okay. Up next, we have a question from John. I love this question before you even get to it. This is a great question. Yeah, this is a good one. "I find myself in a situation I know I shouldn't be in. I've recently returned to living in the U.S.

from a country with a lot of U.S. tax treaties. My equity investments had to be sold or taxed as if I sold them, as part of an exit tax before departing. I sold some years-long holdings and index funds with substantial gains, not to brag. Let's just say the amount would buy Michael many modern renovations.

This money is now in cash or T-bills. Why is it so hard to avoid market timing and just dive right back into the same holdings? It was so much easier paycheck to paycheck." Alright, great question from John here. This is all psychological here, right? This has nothing to do with math.

This is totally psychological. So, let's bring in two of my favorite market psychologists, Josh Brown and Phil Perlman. I think Phil has an actual PhD. Hey, boys. What's up, fellas? Great answer to number one, by the way, Ben. Great job. Thank you. And beautiful shirt. I love that shirt.

Thank you. I just learned last week from Doug Bonaparte that it's called a camper. It's a camper. I just want to say, I am also a marathoner who makes his own bed every morning. So, how about that? So, one of the pieces of advice that you get when you're young is, before you start trading stocks, start a paper portfolio.

Or, let's think about this hypothetically. I always thought that was a great idea at first, until you actually put real money to work, and then you realize, "Oh, wait. The paper portfolio is useless." Once you feel the emotions of making money or losing money, you can't describe that and recreate that on a spreadsheet.

The other thing is, one of the hypotheticals people will say is, "Pretend your portfolio was starting from scratch today. You are in all cash. You have none of the same decisions or tax consequences you had before. What would you do?" And I think that hypothetical is worthless, too, because there are all those things that are embedded in how you created the asset allocation and holdings.

But this person actually has that. And I think their problem is, obviously, the siren song of market timing. Like, "Wait a minute. I'm in cash. What if I just waited a little longer, and the market pulls back 5% or 10%, and then I could get in?" And I think that's the problem here, because they are starting from zero, and you don't get this opportunity very often.

So Phil, I'd like to ask you a question. Yeah, we'll go to Phil. I just want to say what's so interesting about the way this question is phrased, Ben, and I agree with you, it's a great question. This is not like somebody that got out of the stock market during the financial crisis and then sat in cash.

This person was forced to sell, and they just did it. So it's like, "Why can't I just buy back the thing I sold? I had to sell technically. I didn't want to sell. Why is it so hard to just put the thing back on the shelf that I just took off the shelf?" That's a really interesting framing of this that you don't hear very often.

Yeah. So Phil, what's the psychology behind this? Because this person, the greatest thing is that they know that they have a problem. They've admitted it. "I know my emotions are getting in the way here. How do I overcome them?" So here's the thing about this, is the brain is so complicated, right?

We're just learning a little bit about it. And so you're going to get answers from neuropsychologists, behavioral economists, especially the ones with the big egos that have really big words, ego, dystonic, or whatever they're saying. And all of that stuff is nonsense. So there really is no good answer to that question.

Why is it so hard not to be a marketer? We don't know. As a matter of fact, probably the best answer comes from Fisher Black, Black-Scholes. And he wasn't even an economist or psychologist. He was a mathematician. And he just said, "People just love the action. Maybe people just love the action.

We just love the excitement of it." So there's an answer, but that answer actually does you no good at all because it doesn't give you any practical advice. So what I would say is to reframe, to do this cognitive reframing, which is, "Sorry, I just used fancy words. I said don't use fancy words, but I just did it." Cognitive reframing is just reframe sort of what the problem is.

And so the way that I would think about this is I would say, "Well, let's say that I was part of a club that not so many people were a part of." And this club is the Rational Actors Club. Nobody is a part of this club. Everybody is crazy out there.

Everybody's chasing. Everybody's FOMO. But if you're part of the Rational Actors Club, it's an exclusive club. And you write down on a piece of paper what would be the rational thing for the rational actor to do. You keep it super, super stupid simple. One, for me, if it was me, it would be one, buy a lot of VTI.

Just stuff my accounts with VTI. Two, buy more of it. Read Nick's book and buy more of it. And then three, never sell. And then if you think about that, if you frame that as, "I'm doing something that's special, not I'm missing out or I'm doing a boring thing." Back in the day, if you heard about a band before everybody else did, you were part of the cool crowd.

You saw U2 at a club in 19-whatever. That would be the way to think about, "Hey, I'm doing this thing that is actually, it sounds boring, but it's actually the special thing that nobody else is doing." - My favorite behavioral quote, I think from you, was, "The thing about behavioral finance is people are crazy." Was that your tweet?

- Everybody's crazy, yeah. Everybody's crazy, right. - But I think the great thing about this person is they realize they're crazy and they still are having a hard time doing it. I think that's the first step. Some people don't realize, "Oh wait, I don't realize that I'm making an irrational decision." So that's the first step for most people, is like, "Okay, how do I force myself to make good decisions ahead of time so I'm not making them under an emotional state?" - I have a question.

Is it still market timing if you're just like, "The market, the S&P is up 2% today. I'm not gonna put it all to work today. I'm gonna wait for the next." Is that market timing? - It is. - Yeah. - It's a less egregious form. - Okay. - I think the way to do this, the way I make a lot of decisions like this is, and I would have just as much of a hard time like, "Wait, now I'm all in cash and it's like, the slate has been wiped clean.

Do I really want to put all this money back in the stock market with the S&P up 20% year to date, the NASDAQ up 40% year to date, and interest rates and all this? Do I really want to do that?" So I would have the same issue. But what I would do, and we've helped clients with this over the last, I don't know, nine or 10 years.

We've heard different versions of this. I would not write it down, but mentally write it down. Okay, which would be a worse outcome? Outcome one, you put all the money in, and there's a 20% S&P 500 correction. It starts an hour later. It could happen. And Ben actually did a famous post about, "Let's pretend you are the world's worst market timer." And I think you did that in response to all the people that were in cash thinking the minute they buy, it's 2008 again.

- All right, what if I invest at the top? - What if I buy at the top? And your work suggests, actually, forget dollar cost averaging, even on a lump sum basis, actually, even if it's a worst case scenario, you get back to even way faster than you think, historically, which is my takeaway from your piece.

But so I would say, okay, what's worse? That I buy it, and the correction starts that night, which I suppose is conceivable. It's a low probability bet, but fine. Or B, I don't buy back my holdings, and then three years from now, the stock market is 30% higher, and I capitulate and buy back then.

My point is, unless you're 70, choice A is worse. So if we're saying, like, this is choosing between two not great options, obviously, you know, it's way worse to watch the market keep going without you, and then you buy higher anyway. So I would take the risk that today is the start of a new Great Depression, and I'm the last asshole to buy stocks going into that.

Take that risk. That's probably not the risk that's going to hit. - Yeah, it's a rare minimization. - Yeah. I get it, though. Listen, I'd be the same way. - Good question. Alright, Duncan, let's do another one. - Okay. Up next, we have, "I'm 26 and have been studying the market since I was 19.

I realize the safest way is probably holding low-cost index funds in an IRA. However, I recently opened a Roth IRA with the idea of purchasing quite a few small caps and hoping for them to potentially 20 or 50X in 30 years. Since the Roth is a major tax shelter," oh, yeah, that's why they use that, "I've talked with a few people who think it's a good idea and others who think I should just stack ETFs and let compound interest take control.

Am I wrong for wanting to swing for the fences and what some would call gambling? With my timeline, even if all the companies go to zero, I think I'd be able to recover with proper position sizing. For context, I own a condo and contribute to my 401(k)." - I like this guy.

Send him a laptop sticker. - Okay. - Phil, what do you think? - Another smart way of thinking about this, but they're thinking, they're asking for permission to gamble. - Are they? Is that what they're asking? He's not looking to day trade. He wants to make long-term investments. He just wants to bet on smaller companies that he thinks have the ability to outgrow the S&P.

Is that the same as gambling? - He's a dreamer. - It's not crypto shit. He wants to invest in companies. I really don't hate this that much. - I would just have him add up all of his assets on one spreadsheet in one column. So he says, "I have a condo, I have 401(k)," and then he gets a number down at the bottom.

And then from that number, he makes a pie chart. And he says, "Okay, the majority of the money, I'm just going to put in ETFs and forget about it and keep piling in," and "stacking" was the word he used. "And then I'm going to take a small part over here and I'm going to buy those small, you know, I'm going to buy a higher risk stuff with that and play." And you know, two things could happen.

One, he really does get super rich and he hits all and he has 100 baggers and 10 baggers or whatever. And two, he learns that this is a very hard thing to do, picking stocks like this and there's a lot of sharks out there and there's a lot of irrationality and our emotions get in the way.

Either way, he learns and either way, he does the wise thing with the majority of his money. And with that small part, he also has this opportunity to gamble or as Josh says, you know, make good risky investments. Yeah, the fund account has to be sized correctly. It's 10% of my portfolio and I'm going to leave it at that.

I just think that 20 to 50X hope is like bringing your expectations a little bit. That's my only worry. That's why I'm thinking it's gambling, because if that's your expectation, then you're bound to be disappointed. He might be amazing. I suppose if you pick a few biotechs, you could get a 20X, 30X, 40X.

Like if you pick a few biotechs that somehow miraculously get a pharma partner, drug, gets FDA approval. Just think of it like a VC portfolio that the other nine of them are going to go out of business and one might hit big. Well, that's what I was going to say is like some of these might be zeros, but if you have a few that 50X, you should more than offset that.

And if that's like what you need to scratch that itch, there's probably way worse ways to do it. And we have no idea. This could be 94 for AI right now. You know what I mean? Like this could be like the early, early days of AI. And there's going to be a few companies that are like Intel or whatever that become these gargantuan, or Microsoft, they become gargantuan companies.

We could be at the beginning of that bubble right now. Just size it correctly. If all of these stocks that he picks go to zero, then he just switches strategy and starts shorting all of the stocks he wants to buy? I still follow stocks. My first year as a stock broker, like the late 90s, I still follow the stocks.

There's a bubble crossing. I still follow the stocks that we were pitching and we like most of them are zero by now. It's been 25 years. But I remember there was a company called Cooper Companies. If you pull up, I think it's COO. If you pull up this chart, I think the stock's up thousands of percentage points.

They make contact lenses like that. And that was the pitch in 98. We were cold calling and pitching. And the pitch was they make contact lenses like what? What else do you need to hear? And that's still what they do. There are those opportunities that exist. But I remember that one because it's still trades.

I don't remember all the ones that went to zero. That's a $396 stock now. $396. I swear to God, I think I was selling this at $5 a share. I swear to God. Now, most of the ones I was selling at $5 a share are gone. But I'm just saying, it's not impossible that you're going to get a few Cooper Companies-type home runs, but just don't count on it.

But if we're going back to the hierarchy question from before, this sounds like this guy's already checked off some of the other things and he's left himself some room. So, yeah. Pick a size for this part of your portfolio and then don't mess with it. Alright, let's do another one.

Okay, so that question was from Evan, by the way. So, this one's from Peter. "My girlfriend and I have been living off my salary while she's in grad school, and we've been together for almost nine years. I'm financially literate, have a 401(k) and contribute to other investment accounts with any leftover savings.

She is now making substantial money, and we would like to include part of her pay as a contribution to these funds. Do you have any recommendations on how to navigate these situations? She's not nearly as financially educated, so to her it's difficult to understand where the money is going.

I feel added responsibility investing her/our money on her behalf, so I find myself in a strange place of trying to navigate relationships and our finances." I have more questions. Me too. Are we engaged? Yeah. That's true. Nine years. This guy's like her/our money, which is gangster, but like are, you know, did we buy a ring?

That's true. Trying to put them together. That could be, that's a big part of it. Nine years is a while. Nine years is a while. It's a while. Yeah. Her mom is asking questions. He feels responsibility about investing her money. I feel responsibility to know if you're investing that money as though it's going to be yours.

Yeah, he better show her the fund that's saving for an engagement ring here. I've told this story before. Where are you registered? Before my wife and I got married, we were engaged. I sat her down with a literal PowerPoint presentation to show her how we're going to invest our money, and it didn't go over well.

She's like, "What are we doing here?" She shut it down pretty quickly, but I was trying to have the conversation. I just went about it the wrong way, but this is a conversation that can be difficult if one person is really into this stuff and the other person is either just starting out or is not into this stuff.

This is honestly one of the harder conversations to have, I think, for a person who is nervous or scared of investing in the stock market or just is overwhelmed by what to do. It can be a tricky conversation to have. I don't really think they should have a conversation.

I think he should just give her a few index funds and have her do that, and if he wants to log into the account with her and do it with her, but to sit down and explain investing to somebody who's clearly focused on their own career and making money.

It almost feels like, let her, when she wants to learn, say, "I'm going to dedicate some time to learning." I don't think he should sit there and be like, "Okay, this is a P/E ratio." Right. Give her a target date fund in her 401(k) and make sure she gets a match and call it good.

And maybe go to sales, guy. You know what I mean? I've heard these conversations before. Sometimes people who are totally financially illiterate or don't care at all about it, they see this and they're like, "Wait, I can't touch this money for how long? I'm putting money into what? I can't do anything with it?" So I think that might be part of what he's talking about.

It's kind of difficult to get across. You get across that by opening an account at a brokerage firm that she would have seen an ad or a commercial for. Not even joking around, Fidelity or Schwab is probably where you would want to have her investing. And every time she's watching like a tennis match or a golf tournament, she'll see Charles Schwab.

That's the added comfort. It sounds silly, but it's real. So if that's what we're talking about, it's just like, "I don't know about putting my money in this thing and I can't touch it." It's like, "Well, this company actually exists and they've existed for 100 years and many generations of people have saved this way." And also one last thing, we were joking and Josh was joking about the relationship and the nine years, but more seriously, you do want to define what this relationship is.

Is this somebody you're planning to spend your whole life with? You're going to be planning to get married or maybe you're younger, maybe you're never going to get married, but you are going to be, you don't have to get married to be with somebody for your whole life and have kids together and bing and bang.

And so you want to define, but you do want to define that relationship because if that is your plan and it's a strong plan there and you feel like you're on firm footing, then you want to be focusing the money together and making it a big pot so that you can allocate it that way, the most rational way.

That's a good point because the first part of the conversation is, are we going to actually put our money together? Are we going to have a shared checking account? Are we going to pay the bills together? Who's going to pay what of rent or whatever it is if they're living together?

I think that's the personal finance stuff is way more important off the bat. How much are we spending on stuff before we ask, is this too much to spend? Those kind of questions. - It is rare though for people to cohabitate and live a whole life together, never get married and co-mingle their accounts.

I mean, I've seen it before, but I'm just saying for the most part, most joint accounts are a married couple. It's fairly rare, even for people that live together their whole lives to take that next step and co-mingle all the money. But I suppose it's something that you do see from time to time.

It's just, it's a little bit trickier if God forbid things don't work out. - Is there a rule of thumb for joint versus separate accounts for like married or in this case long-term couples? - It's subjective. It depends on the relationship, I feel like. It's probably no rule of thumb would really apply to everyone.

- I've heard people who do the separate thing and it works for them. I've heard way more people who say we do joint and that's, I think that's probably 90% of it, but I have heard people who say-- - But they're married though. - Yes. - For the most part.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, but most people keep it together. - You know where I see a lot of separate stuff with guys where like the wife is real, comes from a really wealthy family and her family is like giving her money all the time for various reasons.

And it's not that there's like a secret, it's just like, you know, this is my dad helping us. You know, you see that with young couples in their 20s even though they've gotten married. You see that there are women whose family, and I've seen it with one of my friends, a male friend also, so I don't mean to say that it's one or the other.

But in that case, you see separate accounts for married people because there's just some cash or some source of financing that's not necessarily coming from the job. - Well, that's another question, another point of conversation. I had a friend who had signed a prenup because his wife's family was very wealthy.

And he was fine doing it, but that could be a problem, right? Going into the marriage. Not a bad problem to have. - Oh, no. I always say you sign that prenup because there are a lot of loopholes a lot of ways around it. - Yes. - The most romantic part of the relationship.

- Get your foot in the door. We'll figure out how to deal with the prenup later. - All right, we've got one more question. - Okay. - Okay. Last but not least, I used to fall for the trope that personal finance was just like health when it comes to changing bad behavior.

Investing isn't necessarily easier, but technology allows you to automate good decisions ahead of time for things like contributions, investing, rebalancing, et cetera. When it comes to working out or dieting, you can't automate that. So how do you go about changing behavior when it comes to your health? - All right, I'm not going to lie.

I had planned this question for you. - I was about to say, this question says Ben. - This is a fantastic question because- - I'll handle this. - Yeah. - There are so many parallels between health and wealth, and they are so similar, and health is wealth. There is the planning aspect.

There is the future self aspect, and you're doing things for your future self that your future self will look at you and say, "Hey, I love that you're doing that. You're putting money away, or you're exercising and taking care of yourself." But they're not the same exact thing, so there are some differences.

And one of the differences is exactly what this question asks, that one, you can automate, but you can't fully automate it, so you can't exaggerate that because there still is emotions involved. I mean, you could have a completely automated market crashes and you're selling at the bottom. You can override, manualize the automation.

That's one side point, but the thing is you're exactly correct, and I've thought about this before. One difference between health and wealth is that you can automate a lot. You can have this direct deposit automatically. You know, one of the greatest inventions of all time in the financial space is this automatic 401k, whatever it is, automatic direct deposit was genius.

It was the greatest nudge of all time, right, to use a Thaler term. On the other hand, exercising, you have to do it all the time. You have to stay with it. Eating well, you have to do it all the time and stay with it over a very long period of time, and you slip up and you can really get away from it, and that's why we see so much weight yo-yoing in our society.

- Well, I think the set I heard in one of the books I read was like 95% of all diets fail. Like, you get on it and it works, then you fail. So, Phil, you've kind of made this transition into health and wellness. I'm curious, because I think giving that sort of advice is even harder than giving financial advice, so I'm curious how you've navigated that idea.

- Here's what you do. You find your gateway drug, in the positive sense. You find the one thing that's healthy that you love to do, and that will generalize over time. Maybe when you were a kid, maybe when you were 15 or 14, you loved to play tennis. You'd always go out and play tennis.

You know what? Go out and buy yourself a racket, because chances are there's a part of you that still loves doing that. And then once you start doing that one healthy thing, it can generalize. Like, "Hey, I'm playing tennis now, and you know what? If I want to get better at tennis, I maybe have to start sleeping better the night before I'm playing, because I don't want to be tired.

Or maybe I need to take off a few pounds, because I want to be lighter and I want to have more mobility on the court." And so, a lot of times, finding that one thing that we love. Our 12-year-old selves were our real selves. That's what we were just doing.

We were just out there having fun and doing things we enjoyed. Or maybe it's something different. Maybe you love grilling. If you're creating a lot of animal protein to consume, that's really health food. I mean, don't believe what you hear in the media. Health food is beef and chicken, and it's on the grill, and it's really clean.

But anyway, find that one healthy thing you love to do. That becomes your gateway drug, and it becomes a path for you to start doing more and more healthy things. I agree with that. You know what I just started doing? Very manually, make my own sundae. That was what I loved to do.

So, I'm putting in the work. I'm not just rolling up at Carvel and having them do it. So, listen, it's really good advice. I think that's a really interesting question I had never thought of before. Ben said, "Is it harder to give nutrition and/or fitness advice than it is to give financial advice?" I would say way harder.

It's people's lives, literally, on the line. You agree with that? You've given versions of both. One other thing that you can do related to that is, and this works for wealth and health, and as a matter of fact, a lot of RIAs use this type of thing with their clients, is imagine your future self vividly.

So, think about, "Hey, you know, when I turn 65, close my eyes. What do I want to look like? How do I want to move? How do I look? How do I move my body? How do I feel when I wake up in the morning?" Imagine those things vividly and get really tuned into your future self the same way that you might do with your wealth and say, "Hey, I want the leg caps." Is there a non-depressant way to do that, though?

Here's the way it did for me. You can imagine really positive things. It could be aspirational. When I had twins on the way, I knew I was going to be getting a lack of sleep and I was going to need energy. I've always eaten crap. I've worked out my whole life because of sports, but I've always eaten junky.

So, you pick up a bunch of Nerdos. No. So, I decided to change my diet a little bit to give myself more energy because I knew I was going to need it for having three kids and two twins. That was the thing that set me on the path, using them as the goal.

What did you do? What was the change? The Phil's thing of just, it's protein and veggies, basically. It's more, and that's the automation. Less carbs, less sugar, added sugar. That's the automation, is eating the same stuff over and over again and then giving yourself a cheat day or two.

That's my dieting automation. How much time do we have? Can we do a very, very fast health lightning round with Phil? Go for it. We have a couple of minutes. Let's just fire stuff at him. All right. So, give us short answers so we can keep going. Okay. Verbose.

Like, just habits. All right. I'll start. Butter in my coffee. Good? Bad? I got no problem with that. Okay. You're good with it. Okay. Ben, go ahead. How about no coffee ever? That's great, right? Yeah. You know, every person is an N of one, and if you like having coffee and you can sleep at night, drink it.

And if it keeps you up at night, even if you drink it at nine in the morning, don't drink it. I've got one. Do you think that alcohol will be seen like tobacco in 20 years? Yes. And I also think sugar will be seen that way too. Yeah. I just listened to Huberman's alcohol episode from August of last year.

It's a year old now. It's great. Honestly, I feel like I might never drink again. I mean, I'm going to drink tonight, but I'm saying- Besides tonight. The links between alcohol and cancer that he gets into toward the end of that are like the first thing that's really scared me.

Like, I don't care that much about my liver. I definitely don't like the things that he was ending the episode with. Neurodegenerative stuff. I have new clients who are sort of kindaholics, you know, like functional alcoholics. I give them that episode immediately. And then what? Well, different people respond to it.

You're a big protein guy. Bacon, end of the world? Great. It's great. It's fantastic. Eat bacon. It is listed as a carcinogen, man. Lay off a beer, eat bacon. All right. Nah, it's not. Wait, wait. Salt, unlimited. Salt is fine. Salt is great. As much as you want? Especially if you're schvitzing.

I mean, if you have high blood pressure, you talk to your doctor and, you know, if you have any health problems, talk to your doctor. Here's a question I've gotten from people. Why do you get benefits from intermittent fasting where you eat for like a six hour period of the day?

What are the benefits from that? It's great. Well, first of all, it limits how much you're eating because you're eating in less of a window. Phil only eats at midnight. Only eat at midnight and I only have one egg. That's what I do. That's my secret. I eat one egg at midnight and then I cluck like a chicken and then I go to bed.

But seriously, that's one part of it. It condenses the time you're eating, so you're not like always snacking. This whole thing about eating six small meals, horrible. Whoever made that up, you know, probably Hostess Twinkie or General Mills made that up. Terrible advice. So you condense it. The other thing is that it gives your body a chance to rest.

And when your body is resting, it can do other important functions like autophagy, which is really just a fancy way of saying it can clean your body, it can get rid of dead cells, get rid of damaged cells and create new cells. So if you're always busy digesting, you don't have time to do autophagy to clean out your cells.

What window do you recommend? Is it feasible for a regular person who needs enough energy to get through a full day to eat inside of a six hour window? Is that too restrictive? It's going to fail, right? The great thing about intermittent fasting is pairing it with high protein, low carb.

Because when you do that, what happens is your body learns to burn fat more efficiently. You become fat adapted. And when you burn fat more efficiently, you don't need to eat as often and you don't run out of energy. Here's the way it works for me. I do it during the week and I eat probably a little bit more during that window.

And I don't count calories and I eat just the same amount of food. What's your window? How many hours during the week? Probably like six hours like Phil. So what is that, noon to dinner? Noon to six, call it. But I eat just as much food and sometimes more maybe.

And then your body gets used to it eventually. If you stop eating earlier in the evening and you're eating high protein, you will just shed weight. That is an early way to formula. If you stop eating around 6, 7 o'clock. Oh, stop eating, okay. And I've never counted a calorie in my life.

Looking at the nutrition facts, that's too detolerant. Calorie counting is terrible. Eating high protein is fantastic. Should we have Phil back sometime? I love the lightning round. Yeah, lightning round is cool, right? See how I'm innovating? He's a food and market psychologist. All right, I love it. If you have a question here, askcompoundshow@gmail.com.

Thanks everyone for tuning in live. Pleasure to be here. Appreciate it. By the way. Thanks to Phil and Josh for coming on as always. See you next time. Hey Michael. If you're watching on YouTube, leave us a comment. Appreciate it. Thank you. We'll see you all next week. Adios.

See you everyone. Was that fun?