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S-U-I-T-E-H-O-P.com. It's more than just a ticket. Radical Personal Finance, Episode 11. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast, your daily finance adventure. I'm your host, Joshua Fiennes. Today is July 1, 2014, and today's show, even though it's Episode 11, today's show is actually going to be the new first episode of the show.

So stick with us to find out what is the Radical Personal Finance Podcast and how can we serve you today. Thank you for being with us again. I am thrilled to have you here with us, and I am excited to be back in front of a microphone. Well, excuse me.

That's not true. I'm not back in front of a microphone. I'm in front of an actual microphone for the first time. If you go back and you listen to the first 10 episodes that I recorded of the Radical Personal Finance Podcast, you will quickly realize, at least I hope, if everything is working correctly and all this equipment is working correctly, you'll quickly realize that the audio is a little bit better now because I actually have a microphone.

For the first 10 shows, which were pretty much kind of a trial run to see if I could do this whole podcast thing, I was using a $10 MP3 recorder held in my hand, and I was trying to lay down a comforter on the table in front of me to kind of minimize the amount of echo in the room to try to make the audio a little bit better.

And then with the Skype recordings, I was recording Skype with just the built-in microphone of my laptop on the desk. So I think there's some really great information there. I hope you go listen. But please make allowance for the poor audio quality. You have to look past the audio and listen to the content.

And this show, I'm sure the audio is not perfect, but I'm excited. And I will improve it in the future, but hopefully it's, in my opinion, it's a world better. So we'll see if you agree. Today's show, the new Radical Personal Finance podcast, "What is it? Why should you care?

Why are we here?" So today, we're going to explain all the details of the show. I'm going to explain who I am, what I'm doing, and I hope that you will follow along for the ride. It's been a year since I recorded those first 10 episodes. The first episode was recorded in July of 2013.

I didn't actually intend for it to be a year. I intended it to be -- well, I intended to be plugging along in July of 2013, August of 2013, et cetera. But here we are a year later. And today, all will be clear. And as far as the difference between them and the difference between then and now.

So first, let me introduce myself to you. In case you don't know, my name is Joshua Sheets. I live here in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, which is right next to West Palm Beach, Florida. And I am actually a former financial advisor. And the former financial advisor is the key bit of data that you need to understand the year of -- the year without shows.

Now, those shows weren't really released publicly, but I did share them with a few of you guys in the past. And so that's the reason for the year of no shows. A little bit about my background. Then I'm going to talk about the show and what is going to make this show different.

So the design of the Radical Personal Finance podcast is going to be important. And I think my background is going to be important. I won't start with the "I was born at such and such a date at such and such a place." Although I was born 29 and some years ago here in West Palm Beach, Florida, in case you care.

But the key aspect for the show, obviously, is the connection to finance. So I am a finance -- personal finance junkie and have been for a very long time. When I was in high school, all the way back to the time when I was 13 years old probably and I should have been out playing football with my friends and getting some exercise, I was sitting in the house reading books on investments and finance because I had always been fascinated by it and always wanted to be rich, always thought that was just cool and always thought that money and economics was really interesting.

And thankfully I didn't lose that love of money and economics in the school system and I just have always enjoyed that. My favorite section in the bookstore at Barnes & Noble was always the personal finance section and my favorite section of the library was always the personal finance section of the library.

So I was the nerd that was sitting around reading, I don't know, Ben Graham's securities analysis when I should have been out playing. That was over my head. But I did get it because I said, well, good enough for Warren Buffett is good enough for me. And I tried to read it.

Never applied enough of it to my life as much as I could have and should have. But I did enjoy that stuff. And so over the years I read every bit of finance literature that I could get my hands on. I would subscribe to personal finance magazines, would listen to personal finance or the finance radio shows, would read every book I could get, subscribe to various newsletters, spent way too much money on personal finance programs, audio programs and how to get rich plans and had business ideas and all kinds of things that I was pursuing.

And all of these things, in my opinion, were really good and really helped shape who I am. After college, probably the important parts for at least this show without going through a whole biography of my life, the important parts of this show were after college I was in college.

I spent some time working for a corporate company. And I worked in the marketing and brand management consulting business for a company here in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. And really enjoyed it to some extent. And this was kind of the cushy -- my degree in college was in international business.

And this was kind of the cushy corporate job that I had always dreamed of. When I started college I wanted to be a Fortune 500 CEO and work in the corporate world. And this was a good start for me. But I learned over the course of a year or so that I wasn't a big fan of the corporate world and the cubicle and the 9 to 5 and kind of all of that stuff.

But I was working at it. And this was -- let's see. So this would go back to 2008 that I was at that point in time. But I knew quickly that it wasn't going to be the long-term fit for me. I knew quickly that it wasn't going to be my career dreams and my career goals.

So I was making plans to somewhere around to work at the company I was working at through the end of 2008 and then in 2009 to leave and to go on to something else. And so I was working on kind of what that something else was. But I got surprised in June of 2008.

And I got surprised by being laid off. And at that point I was young and brash. And I'm still pretty young and probably still too brash. But I had the opinion that getting laid off was something that you did if you were bad at your job. And I didn't think I was bad at my job.

I thought it was good at my job. I had just gotten a very nice pay raise a couple months earlier. And I had just gotten -- I was involved in some projects. And I was getting good feedback. And my performance reviews and all that were good. But the company that I worked with made a management decision to adjust their, I guess, employee structure.

And they eliminated my job position, laid me off and everyone else who was in my job group. And was pretty surprised by that. Caught me pretty flat-footed. And I learned something through that. I definitely learned that you don't only get laid off. And I kind of corrected that theory.

You don't only get laid off if you're bad at your job. There are lots of reasons for layoffs. Which is a good reason for a plan B. So thankfully I had done a pretty good job with my own financial planning through circumstances that I'm sure I'll share in the future.

But at that time I was completely debt-free. I had paid off -- I had worked really hard. I had saved money. I had paid off all of my credit cards. Paid off all of my student loans. And I had saved my emergency fund. And again, I always paid attention to the books that I read.

I was the nerd who on my 18th birthday I remember sitting at my parents' kitchen table. And I applied for my first two credit cards to start building my credit score. And I opened my Roth IRA. And at that point in time, I think -- yeah, it was USAA that I was banking with.

And USAA was offering a new program for young adults that they could waive the minimum amount requirements for a mutual fund. And so I started buying shares of a mutual fund. And I should have done it before that. But whatever. I waited until I was 18. But I just have that distinct memory.

So by the time I got laid off, I had done good financial planning. I had my emergency fund. So I was in pretty good shape. I was probably a little bit ungrateful at the interview. I guess I was nervous and taken aback by the whole thing. And I just said, "Oh, great.

I'm laid off. Awesome. How big is the severance?" I made a really crass joke that I probably shouldn't have. But anyway, it all worked out. So at that point in time, here I was fresh out of college and ready to try to figure out what on earth do I want to do.

And I had a whole long list of business ideas and different aspects of a business that I thought would be neat. And I had different things that I wanted to do, different things that I had thought about doing. But I wasn't exactly sure what the winning idea was going to be.

So a couple weeks after being laid off, I was having lunch with my former boss. And he was very kind and was helping me out. And said, "If I can give you any career advice or information about what you'd like to do and help you out with any connections." Again, just kind of helping me out any way that he could.

So I laid out for him kind of what I wanted in a business. I didn't want to be paid for my time. I wanted to be paid for my results. I didn't want to work for a corporate world where I had to put in a certain number of hours.

I wanted to run my own business. I wanted to build ongoing equity over time instead of just receiving a straight paycheck. And there are a couple of things. I wanted to be able to work from anywhere. So at the end of my list, he said, "It sounds a lot like a career in financial services.

Have you ever considered about working in financial services?" At that point in time, I was very opinionated. Again, brash young man saying, "Nah." And my opinion was, after all of the reading that I had done, financial advisors are out to -- brokers are out to make you a broker.

And insurance is a scam and a waste of money. It just makes the insurance agent rich. And I could do better on my own. I was always a do-it-yourself investor. And I can figure it out on my own. And so he said, "Listen, that may be true, but you ought to at least consider it." His son had actually interned in the financial services business and had a good experience.

And so he said, "I'm a client" -- he was a client actually at that time of a company called Northwestern Mutual, which is an old, traditionally life insurance company out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And he said, "Go look at Northwestern Mutual." And he was a client of theirs. And so he gave me a referral to his financial advisor.

And his financial advisor was a person who his son had actually interned with in years past. So I went and said, "Fine." I didn't expect anything to come of it. But went and interviewed with the financial advisor. And probably one of the more difficult interviews that -- recruiting interviews that the advisor had ever conducted.

But I had tons of questions and very strongly unsure about my opinions and beliefs. But I liked him. And I liked the aspect. I liked the financial planning atmosphere that he created. And I just really liked it. And so it kind of opened my eyes. And I said, "I wonder if I could achieve my goals in working in the financial services business." So I started interviewing, started researching, interviewed at a couple different companies, researched various compensation programs, looked at the wire houses, looked at local small advisors, looked at insurance companies kind of across the basis, and kind of laid out my goals as far as what I wanted in a financial planning practice.

After all of that, I wound up back at Northwestern Mutual and opened a practice there. And this would have been 2008. About fall of 2008. And started my practice. And I started primarily working with insurance products. That's the simplest way to get started in financial services. And I'll explain.

At some point in time, I'll share some thoughts that I have as far as different models for succeeding as a financial services professional for anybody else that's interested. And I hope that it will help people who are researching the business. I would have liked to have had more information at that time when I was researching the business.

I'll share the thoughts and the ideas that I have on that at some point in the future. But for now, I started with insurance. Life insurance, disability income insurance, long-term insurance, and health insurance. And then as I was able to get my licenses squared away and grow in ability, I started working with the investment business and became primarily really built into having a goal with being an investment advisor.

And I enjoyed the technical aspects of financial planning. So I tried to focus my practice on working a lot with business owners and with retirees because I enjoyed all of the complex technical aspects of financial planning that those types of clients can present. And over the years as I've watched it, I learned a lot.

I learned a lot about financial planning. And I learned a lot that there are many aspects to the advice that's needed. And there's good technical advice that's needed. And then there's good behavioral advice that's needed. And many times, one of the problems that financial advisors face and that clients face is that sometimes they're looking for a technical solution when in reality what's needed is not a technical solution but a -- what's the term for it?

Maybe an imaginative solution or a psychological solution. I always compare financial planning to dieting. Dieters don't fail for lack of adequate diet plan. And people don't fail with their finances for lack of an adequate financial suggestions. They fail for other reasons that go beyond whether or not the diet works or whether the financial planner works.

And I've always been a consumer of financial media. I always have enjoyed financial blogs. I always have enjoyed financial radio shows and books. And I always enjoyed reading as many personal finance books as possible. And I just -- over the years I've noticed a disconnect. And there's a disconnect between the personal finance side and then the professional finance side.

And I don't -- I never understood why there should be a disconnect. But the experiences that I had was that a lot of times many of the personal finance pundits were not coming from the professional side of having worked with clients. And many of the professional side just had this air of superiority in some ways that is almost like the technical solution is going to solve everything.

And I've seen them both as incredibly important. So I thought, well, with my background, why don't I start a show? And I thought -- I tried writing various articles and things. But writing has always come -- it's been difficult for me. And I can talk for a long time, as you'll find out.

Hopefully it's interesting talk. But I can talk much more easily than writing. So I said I'll create a podcast. So I started creating a podcast. And I recorded the ten episodes, which I'm now releasing publicly, recorded those ten episodes with a goal of using it as a -- using it as a test bed to be able to release them publicly.

And really enjoyed it. And was -- was not -- was not able to publish them. And market them extensively because I was in the business. But using it as kind of a test platform. So then I started working through the ropes of getting them approved by my company and all of that.

Basically, long story short, we weren't able -- wasn't able to get it done. The problem, one of the reasons -- and you may not be aware of it. But one of the reasons why you won't hear many professional financial advisors publicly in the media is that any time a financial advisor makes a public appearance -- and there are exceptions to this.

But generally, the general rule is that if you see an article written by someone who is a practicing advisor, that this person has a team of attorneys that have probably read through it to make sure that it's okay. And different companies will allow different things. But it ranges from companies.

And especially if you work at a broker-dealer, you have a lot of challenges. Because the laws are fairly stringent. And there's a lot of liability for the broker-dealer. And rightly so. The broker-dealer generally is slow to approve outward-facing media content. And this is right. If I were running a broker-dealer, you have a responsibility to your owners, whether it's your stockholders or your shareholders or whoever owns the company.

You have a responsibility. And that is right and that is proper. But it's challenging for the individual advisor. So I always just had these frustrations about I see the good that the financial blogger world or the financial pundit world brings. And I also see the good of where the financial advisor world brings in.

And I think that they should be working together. And I really want to bridge that gap. Because it's a win-win-win. The best educated customer -- excuse me. My best clients when I was a financial advisor were always the clients that had the most financial knowledge and were the most financially literate.

That was who I felt was my best client. And it was a lot easier to work with someone who was extremely financially literate than to work with somebody who didn't have a high degree of financial literacy. And so I want to create. I want to help bridge that gap.

So my show -- a little bit of my philosophy. As I've watched for the last six years of working as a professional advisor and still consuming financial media, I have learned from a lot of my mistakes years ago. And I hope I continue to learn from my mistakes. But one of the things that I have learned is that there is actually very little that is right or wrong in financial planning.

And what's right or wrong has much more to do with an individual situation with one's perspective than some kind of existential, eternal, perfect financial planning truth. I think of the maxim of the blind men trying to describe an elephant. I'm sure you're familiar with it. But there's three blind men that are all standing by an elephant trying to describe it.

And one of them says, "It's like a snake. Thick and like a snake." And the next person says, "It's like a trunk of a tree. It's tall and thick and strong. And it feels like a tree trunk." And the third says, "No, it's like a rope. A rope that's fraying." And you look back and you say, "Well, there are three standing at different places on the elephant.

The one is at the front touching the trunk. The other is at the leg touching the leg. And the last is pulling on the tail." They're not right or wrong. The person who can actually see and more accurately describe the elephant is the seeing person who's 30 yards away.

And that person can describe what the elephant actually is and can integrate those close-up descriptions. And so this is what I've learned with financial planning. There is fact in financial planning. And fact is usually found in the area of law. If I can give you a fact about tax law, and that is fact.

There is right and there is wrong. Although even that's on shaky ground because tax law changes frequently. So the tax law that you would have relied upon as fact in 1983 is very different in 2013. And tax law can be challenged. So you may have tax law and the tax law is interpreted differently.

And that's why one taxpayer interprets it in one way and makes certain planning decisions based upon that interpretation. The other interprets it differently. And the IRS gets involved and then we go to tax court. And then the judge in tax court says this is what is correct. Or the IRS issues a private letter ruling or something, an opinion on the application of that.

So even though the law is fact, it's not always clear cut. But when you get beyond law, there is very little that is right or very little that is wrong in financial planning. It has much more to do with the application. That's a good example. So an example that comes to mind is I'll pick on the number one kind of financial pundit in the industry is Dave Ramsey.

So Dave Ramsey says you should always pay off your debts in the order of a debt snowball. And a debt snowball is the idea of list your debts smallest to largest and pay the littlest balance first. And ignore the interest rates and just put everything on the littlest balance.

And to the opponent of that would say, well, that doesn't work because the interest rate is real money that you're paying. So the cheapest way is to pay it with the highest interest rate first. And to Dave's credit, he's very clear that it's not about interest rates. It's about behavior.

Well, you have these two things. You then are getting into behavioral advice versus technical advice. And they need to be integrated because behavior modification is unquestionably valid in my opinion. It's unquestionably valid. It's unquestionably a very important part of financial planning. But so are interest rates. Don't tell me that if you have one interest rate at 1% and that's a deductible interest rate on an unsecured asset and you've got another interest rate of 20% of non-deductible interest on a secured asset, making these dramatic examples to prove my point, kind of creating a straw man argument here.

But I'm aware of that. But don't tell me that doesn't matter. That matters. So when you get in the real world, you need to understand this background and integrate the two and look at it in an actual situation. Do you have somebody who is very highly motivated independently of the interest rates?

Or do you have somebody who has kind of bumbled their way through life and never paid attention to their debts? And now they've woken up and said, hey, I'm deeply in credit card debt. I'm going to pay off my credit card debt. So it's not right or it's not wrong.

It has to do with the individual situation. Consider another example. Should I go to college or not? Or how should I save for college? Should I go to college or should I open an IRA and invest that money instead? Should I go to college or start my own business?

After all, there's lots of billionaires that dropped out of college and started a business. Is one right? Is the other wrong? No. It has to do with the situation. Without knowing the individual situation, you can't give good advice. And so I'm sick and tired of the dogma that exists in the financial planning world of saying this is right and that's wrong.

I used to be subject to the dogma. And I used to -- I used to repeat the dogma. I used to say this is right and this is wrong. And then I've learned through screwing a lot of things up over the years that the dogma is not really true.

Let me just -- if we Google -- if we look at dogma, here is Wikipedia entry on dogma. First sentence of Wikipedia entry on dogma. Dogma is a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. It serves as part of the primary basis of an ideology or belief system.

And it cannot be changed or discarded without affecting the very system's paradigm or the ideology itself. That's good enough for me. Whoever this Wikipedia contributor was, they were pretty good. That's good enough for me. That's my issue with dogma. Okay? It's laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.

And so we're going to talk about a lot of dogma. And we're going to try to show the areas at which it -- we're going to show the areas at which it's useful and the areas at which it's not. I think principles, a belief system and principles, these are useful.

It's useful to have philosophies and belief systems and principles. And they're useful. But it doesn't help just to have them as dogma. So we're going to talk about that. There are so many examples. And I'm sure you can tell from my voice, I get a little passionate about this, just because I've had to learn the hard way to unlearn dogma.

I've had a lot of strongly held ideas. And this is right and this is wrong. And working as a financial advisor has given me unique insight into working with hundreds of people. This works in this situation, but doesn't work in another situation. And you'll find this stuff everywhere in the financial planning business.

One guy says, "Only invest in stocks and real estate is a waste of money." Another person says, "Stocks are a sham and real estate is the only way to make money." Are they right? Well, it depends on how you look at it. They each have advantages and disadvantages. One person says, "Only buy passively managed index funds." And the other person says, "I only buy actively managed mutual funds." Is one right?

Is the other one wrong? Depends. What are we talking about? We'll go into that another time. One person says, "Only buy term life insurance and invest the difference." Another person says, "Only buy permanent life insurance." Why? What's the difference? One person says, "Debt snowball. Lowest balance first." The other person says, "Debt avalanche.

Highest interest rate first." One person says, "Roth IRA." The other person says, "Traditional IRA." One person says, "Pay for college." The other person says, "Forget college. Start a business." One person says, "Use a financial advisor." The other person says, "Do it yourself." One person says, "Save money and be frugal." And the other person says, "Design your ultimate lifestyle." I'm just so sick and tired of these things because every single one of them is right in the situation.

And so one of the things that this show is going to do is we're going to talk about what makes them right so that you can actually look at your situation and you can decide what is right for me. Because that, in my opinion, try not to be dogmatic about it.

That's what matters. Although, if you want to know what I'm dogmatic about, it's the fact that it's your money, you live your life how you want to live it, and you're the only one who can decide what's right for you. I'm dogmatic about that. I'm also dogmatic about the fact that everything has to be done in the context of a personal financial plan.

I've been a financial advisor and I've learned a lot. And I've learned that there are lots of different situations. And to me, when you help people get clear on their goals, not your goals for them, but on their goals, the answer, the appropriate financial planning answer, will generally just simply present itself.

"Okay, I want to save for college." Or, "I want to go to college." "Why do you want to go to college?" "I want to party and have fun." Okay? Maybe a good course of action for you not to spend $200,000 on the Ivy League education if your primary goal of college is to party.

Maybe better for you to save that money and have more money for partying. Now, on the other hand, I want to pursue a liberal arts education and blah, blah, blah. Okay? That may be something where a college experience might be really good and this specific university might have a really great program for you.

And we all know this intuitively because this is what we do. But we've got to bring that into the financial discussion. Why are you going to college? Are you going to college because you want a liberal arts education? A liberal arts education has nothing to do with job skills.

Or are you trying to build job skills? They're two radically different things. And so, the idea that I'm going to get a liberal arts education so it makes more money for me, that's antithetical to what a liberal arts education is. But on the other hand, does that mean that a liberal arts education has no value?

You know, me personally, I have a liberal arts education. I ascribe a lot of value to it. But I don't say it helped me make more money because I had a college degree. Same thing with technical financial planning. You know, all people should buy a Honda Civic because it's, you know, Tom Stanley says it's the most driven car by millionaires who are engineers.

Is that right? I mean, what if you have six kids? You know, obviously, you're not buying a Honda Civic. So, whether it's a Honda Civic versus a 15-passenger van or whether it's term life insurance versus whole life insurance. If you are--give me an example. You're buying a business, you have a note for five years to buy out the business and your business partner to protect the note says, "I need life insurance for five years." Guess what?

Term life insurance in that situation every single time. No question about it. Now, on the other hand, the majority of your wealth is made. You're establishing an ILA, an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust, and this is intended to be a wealth replacement trust so that the bulk of your assets can go to charity and it can replace the wealth of your family.

You don't anticipate putting further assets in that other than the life insurance policy. Are you going to buy a term policy in that trust? Never. Never. Every single time, that's got to be a permanent life insurance policy. You know, should I--should I do a charitable lead trust or a charitable remainder trust, you know, or a charitable annuity trust or a charitable remainder annuity trust?

I don't know. Let's talk about what you want. Who needs the income? Who doesn't need the income? Does the charity get the money? Who doesn't? You know, should I do a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA? Well, it depends. Let's talk about how they work and let's discuss your situation, what you're trying to accomplish.

Should I own a business? Should I establish a 401(k) for my employees or should I do a money purchase pension plan or a SEP IRA or, you know, a solo 401(k) or a profit sharing plan or a cash balance pension plan? You know, and by the way, if you don't understand all these technical lingo words, stick with me.

That's what the show is going to be about. We're going to talk about it. So I'll explain what a charitable lead trust is. I'll explain what the idea of a wealth replacement trust is, which is not any kind of, you know, technical trust. It's just simply the idea of a trust, you know, and money set aside so that the bulk of the assets of the estate can go to someone else and we can replace the wealth for the heirs.

I'll explain the technical and the non-technical aspects of this. And that's why I'm doing this show. So my overriding principle is that there is a rational approach to money. And the rational approach to money is probably going to be found in getting rid of dogma. Here's an example. You would expect a financial advisor in a financial show to say that you should save money, right?

Okay. But should you always save money? So to use an extreme example, you've just been diagnosed with a terminal illness and you have no more than 12 months to live. You have no family members. You have no heirs. You have no charitable inclinations. You don't care about necessarily spending or giving the money to anybody at your death.

You've been saving money towards a retirement, but you've now discovered you have 12 months. And there's no chance that you're going to live past 12 months. You have a million dollars in the bank. Is it at all rational for you to continue saving money? So what about my medical costs?

Okay. You have insurance. It's completely irrational in that situation that I described. And I'm kind of building a straw man here. But it's completely irrational for you to save money. I would be spending every dollar I had and enjoying it. And I would set up a strategy in place to make sure that I could not live it.

But I would be spending every dollar I have. That's a situation where it's completely irrational to save money. Now, are there a lot of situations where it's totally rational to save money? Absolutely. I personally am in the wealth building stage of my life. I value what savings means for me.

It buys me freedom to be able to close businesses and start new ones. It buys me freedom to be able to close and stop working as a financial advisor and being able to start a financial planning podcast that has no income potential at all. But that's also rational. So even dogma that you would say this is always correct is not always correct.

I'm going to do my best to sell you on saving money. But the only rational reason to save money is because you value what the saved money can buy you in the future more than what you value what the money can buy you today. That's it. So if you're a saver and investor, you value the fact that your money will be worth much more in the future with successful investing than it is today.

And you'll be able to buy more of what you value, whether that's stuff or lifestyle or freedom or from work or whatever, than you do today. My wife and I are pretty frugal generally. I value frugality. I don't care that much about appearance. I value personally. My highest money values are freedom, financial freedom.

And I feel that money buys me freedom. So I don't put a big value on stuff and having a fancy car and a fancy house and all that stuff. So usually we try to save a good percentage of our income. However, we're reworking some things on our house right now.

So we're making a rational decision to spend money on our house. And the reason is very simple. We value more what spending the money on the house will buy us as far as current lifestyle. We value that more than what having more money in the future will buy us at that point in time.

Simple as that. Right? When you have these ideas of the rational decisions behind you, you can apply it to your financial plan. And you can understand how to make better decisions. I'm making a business decision. I've walked away from a moderately lucrative practice to pursue a different business that I'm interested in building because I feel called to do it.

I want to do it. So I'm willing to take less money of compensation because I value the freedom and the ability to pursue something I feel a great desire to do, which is build this podcast. Same thing with retirement. When you face that retirement decision, what do you do?

You're making a decision that you value your free time and freedom from work more than you value the income that you earn from that work. It's as simple as that. So why the name "Radical Personal Finance"? Well, I'm intensely curious in everything. And you'll learn that as the show goes on.

I personally am fascinated by life. And I think it's, on one hand, I think it's so interesting just to learn from extreme examples. I think it's so fun to learn from how do you live on the street if you're a homeless person? And also from how do you live as a billionaire?

What's the differences? And what are the strategies? And I just think about what are all the ways that I could bring in someone else's strategy into my life? Always keeping in mind my personal goals. But the strategy of how homeless people live may be extremely useful to you at a stage in life when you're starting a business.

And then when that business starts as a -- transforms you into a billionaire, the knowledge of how billionaires manage their finances may be extremely useful to you in those beginning years when you don't have any money, when you're establishing things using the proper entities and structures, which are going to save you a lot of tax money down the road.

So just because you're homeless doesn't mean you can't learn from the billionaire. Just because you're a billionaire doesn't mean you can't learn from the homeless. I love the ideas of -- what's it called? The philosophies like Marcus Aurelius and kind of the stoic philosophies. I love the idea that from time to time live as though you're broke just to see what it's like so you're not scared of it.

And if you're a billionaire and you're not scared of being broke and homeless, you'll probably be willing to take that -- or excuse me, if you're a millionaire and you're not scared of being broke and homeless, you'll probably be willing to take the risk that would transform you into being a billionaire.

And all of these are just basically just life choices. You can -- my thought and feeling is this. You can learn from people without feeling threatened as to the decisions that you made. So at the end of the day, just learn from situations. And then apply it to your own goals.

I'm not homeless. I don't necessarily plan to be homeless, although I can appreciate certain aspects of it. And I don't particularly want to be a billionaire. So -- but I can still learn from them. And they have advantages. And I can understand the advantages of being a billionaire and the advantages of being a homeless person.

And then I can more appreciate my present reality. You know, I want to cross this chasm. So I've got a lot of goals for this show, but I want to cross the chasm between the professional world of financial advisors and the nonprofessional world. And I personally believe both are valuable.

My hope is that the people who haven't -- who are laypeople -- I don't know the words to say. I hate these classification words. But my hope is that people who are just learning about advice or financial planning can contribute to the conversation. And then people who are very expert in financial planning can contribute to the education.

I think my show will be a little different because it's coming from the world of being a professional financial advisor. I think we'll help -- we'll make a little bit of a difference. Most of the people who are working in that world can't speak out publicly, can't be as radical or as -- I don't know -- can't be as strong and passionate as I may be.

So that's why a lot of us get frustrated -- a lot of us have gotten frustrated by media personalities. When I was a practicing financial advisor, if I said some of the things that media pundits say continually, I would be -- I'd have my pants sued off of me and I would be out of a job in about two seconds.

But does that mean the media is good? I mean, bad? No, absolutely not. It's so valuable because it keeps advisors accountable. There's a lot of scumburgers in the world of financial advice. Money seems to attract people. But there's also a lot of scumburgers that are doctors. There's a lot of teachers that are really bad.

And there's a lot of religious priests that have abused kids. It's natural to people. It's not necessarily unique to the world of financial advice. So I think coming from that world helps to give me a little bit of perspective. You know, one comment. I was never the best financial advisor.

I happen to think personally I'm a pretty darn good financial planner. And you'll have to judge for yourself. And I did pretty well my first few years as far as leading my firm in terms of production numbers and things like that. But nobody would look at my production record and say, "Oh, Joshua, you're the world's leading financial advisor." I never was that interested in that.

At least me personally, my lifestyle decisions, I'd rather take two months off than work that two months and earn extra money. But that's me. So I'm not making a claim to being the world's greatest financial advisor as far as the most successful, having the biggest firm, any of that stuff.

I do enjoy financial planning. And I've always really enjoyed the close personal relationships I've built with clients. And I do feel like I would be -- I'm really proud of my record with clients. I've served some really well and I've served some not so well. There's a few clients where I've made mistakes and I've wished I'd done things better.

But that's life, right? I guess that's not unique to me. But when you're a financial advisor, I've always taken that duty pretty seriously. And I've always wished I'd done a better job with everyone. But we learn. But I do -- I'm really proud of the work that I've done.

But I'm not trying to say I'm the world's greatest financial advisor. My hope is just to give you ideas that you think will be helpful and to learn along with you. This is a creative outlet for me. This is something -- I love studying this stuff. I love talking about ideas.

I love debating with people and learning about the things I'm wrong about. So I will screw some stuff up, I guarantee you. And I'm going to tell you when I screwed it up. And then -- but if I -- just because I think something is controversial, if I think it's right, I'll argue with you but we'll be friends.

I don't personally -- opinions are one thing. But so many of these opinions that you have are -- feel free to disagree with me. In fact, if you agreed with me, I would think there was something -- on everything, there would be something wrong. So feel free to take what you find valuable and discard what you don't.

Moving on. What's the show going to be like? First of all, it's going to be a daily show. Plan to come here every day. Monday through Friday. I'm sure I won't get every day. Holidays, et cetera, and vacation and whatnot. But it's going to be a daily show. And we are going to be willing to go into in-depth topics here.

So we're not scared by depth. Feel free to skip any show you don't care about. If I do a show on grantor retained annuity trusts, skip it if you don't care about that stuff. But if you're sitting in front of your estate planning attorney and he's saying, you know, Tom, you really should consider establishing a grantor retained annuity trust, you might want to listen because you might learn something.

And if you ever have any desire of having wealth or working in the business, you know, listen. I'm going to do my best to make it interesting. I'm not exactly sure what order I'm going to tackle the financial planning topics, but I have a personal goal of I would like to cover at least the equivalent of the CFP curriculum here.

So some of my shows are going to be opinion shows and some of them are going to be more fact-based shows. And so over time I'd love to at least cover the CFP curriculum. It's a little bit tricky because I got to make sure that I cover it with general knowledge and don't plagiarize off of somebody's book and just read a textbook.

But I'm going to try to at least give a cursory knowledge that could help somebody, you know, allow a lay person. My personal goal is I'd love to create content that's compelling enough and interesting enough and detailed enough to allow somebody who didn't use anything else to take my show or at least the necessary episodes of my show, listen to them, and sit and pass the certified financial planner exam.

To me that's kind of a good foundation to start from. Beyond that, I don't think I would want to go much deeper than that because it gets pretty boring once you get deeper than the CFP exam. But it's a good, you know, that's a personal goal I have. I'd like to do a lot of interviews and I'd like to do a lot of in-depth interviews and especially enjoy them with people who disagree with me.

I think that obviously I'll bring on a lot of people who I would agree with, but I would enjoy discussing things with people who disagree with me. I think a lot of times there can be a lot of--there's a lot of value in conversations where the interlocutors, you know, the people talking agree with each other, but there's also a lot of value in when they really disagree.

And I'm not scared of a good debate. I think it's really fun and it's a good stretching exercise to debate the issues. So let's debate the issues of, you know, all of the stuff that people are interested in financial planning. I want to increase the financial literacy of the general American public.

That's my mission. I always found when I was an advisor, I always found that, you know, Cy Simms with the Simms Clothing Stores used to have a saying on his bags, on their bags. It said, "Educated consumers are best customers," is what their saying was. And I always found that to be true as an advisor.

My favorite clients were the clients who--the easiest to work with clients are the clients who are the most financially literate. The toughest clients were the clients who are the least financially literate. And so, if I can improve--help people improve their financial literacy, I would--I'd be thrilled with that result.

I plan to provide commentary on issues, in-depth commentary on, you know, my opinions. I plan to do teaching on issues. I plan to do a lot of different things. Now, I will be interested in your feedback as far as what works well. I don't--as we get going here, in the beginning, it's going to be a little bit--a little bit slow.

Excuse me, it's going to be a little bit varied as far as the topics. But as we get going, as far as my weekly schedule, you know, I imagine something like this. Maybe Monday, I'll do a commentary on current events or a commentary on markets or a commentary on what's going on in the world or, you know, riff off of a news story of some kind.

Tuesdays, maybe I'll do an in-depth interview. Maybe Wednesday, I'll do a teaching session. So, we'll take a specific topic and try to present it in a, you know, in a straightforward way, whether this is how to, you know, what are the various types of ways to save for college and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each or things like that.

Thursday, maybe another interview. Friday, maybe listener questions. You email me questions or call in questions or things like that and I'll answer them and I'll try to talk about--not less about what someone should do but rather how I would think about it. Because to me, I think the biggest value of working with a financial planner is hearing how a financial planner is going to think about--think about--think about things.

And over time, you know, some of this content will be specific to a specific point in time but I'd like some of it to be really evergreen content, meaning just always available. I've got a personal dream and I'll share it with you. My vision is in the world going forward, it's my assumption that everybody has or will have a smartphone.

And it's my assumption that data will become essentially free. And so, I envision, you know, whatever, you know, mask--whatever like example you want to use. I envision a poor kid in the ghetto, you know, who has a smartphone. He goes down and gets his cheap smartphone and he has his internet because that's, you know, it's fairly--fairly in within reach and he stumbles across my podcast.

And I imagine--this is again, this is my personal dream, I'm just sharing vulnerably. I imagine this person stumbling across my podcast and I want to create content that takes that person from zero level of knowledge about money, broke and debt, you know, a kid growing up to master's level financial planning knowledge.

And both the technical side of things and then also the behavioral side of things, the non-technical, you know, the goal setting, the goal planning and kind of--because it all matters, you know, it really all matters. And it's not one or the other. Am I trying to replace financial advisors?

No. I personally have an opinion. Information is and always has been and should be free. I mean, I guess it hasn't always but in modern history, information is free. You can go down to your local library and you can learn everything you need to know about money right there for free for the cost of, you know, some shoe leather to get you down there.

But the specific application isn't free. So, I want to--I'm going to give away all the knowledge but then if you just want an expert answer, talk to your financial advisor or if you want behavioral modification, talk to your financial advisor. That's where a good financial advisor comes in. So, I want to compliment--I want to compliment financial advisors.

You know, what qualifies me to do this? You know, again, probably nothing. I mean, you judge that. The qualification of anybody is based upon the response and the results that they get. I do have some technical qualifications. I've had a long time interest in this. I've read--I've always loved reading.

I still do financial planning books. So, you know, you throw a book at me, I probably read it or I will if you say it's good. I'll read it. I'll do a review for it. I've done some really stupid stuff with money. I've made some mistakes and I've done some really smart stuff with money and I've learned a lot of lessons.

Probably the biggest skill is I've worked with financial advisor--excuse me, I've worked with hundreds of clients over the last six years and I've learned to become a pretty good listener. And in listening and talking with people in depth, you learn a lot. You know, being a good financial planner is a unique role in someone's life as I feel like I know more about some of my clients than their own spouse knows about them.

And that--when you start to see what works and what doesn't, when you--and when you work with a young person just getting started, when you work with an old person finishing up and you see what's going on, you know, you start to learn a lot about--you start to learn a lot.

I feel like that probably gives me most of the most broad experience. Over the years, you know, I've learned--you know, the more I see actual client situations, the more I've worked with actual clients, I learned that when you actually apply knowledge, you know, my strong opinions about my strong mind in the past, either I was wrong or I was just limited in scope or application to one specific scenario.

And that was my problem--that's become my problem with a lot of financial planning stuff. As I used to give away--I used to carry certain financial planning books or recommend certain financial planning books and I still do. But, you know, the author would oftentimes be very dogmatic. This is the way.

I'd have to give it to somebody and say, "Okay, in your situation, I think this is the book that most closely fits what you're trying to do and this book can spend more time with you than I can face to face. However, you need to ignore--you know, you need to take note of this, this, this, this and ignore this, this, this, this." You know, and then I would learn some more and I'd work in more situations.

And then I'd say, "Well, that book doesn't work in this situation." And, you know, I don't--I don't actually have the answer. The only answer I know at this point is not--is not found in a book, it's found in the advice of a good financial planner. A good financial planner with broad-based knowledge that can apply and help with person in specific knowledge.

It's the difference between a diet book and a personal knowledgeable, you know, diet consultant. Someone who knows your situation, knows what's working and knows what's not working and is aware of all the diets and aware of the principles of why they work, aware of the technical minimal details that need to be applied and then can apply that, you know, can talk to you about applying it in your situation.

I think it's so valuable to learn to understand all aspects of a side--of an argument. You know, I compare it to political discussion. It's hard to have a political discussion if you can't understand why your opponent feels the way they do. And that's what you--I see in our culture nowadays is people get on opposite sides of a political discussion.

A, they're not friends and B, they just think the other is stupid. Instead of saying, "I understand the principles that the other person--the other person is espousing and why they feel that way. But, you know, here's what my principles are and here's why my position is stronger." So, to me, that's what I plan to do with financial planning is try to help people, you know, why certain things are, what certain philosophies are about, what certain principles are and kind of connect the dots.

I do have, you know, a bunch of professional designations. A lot of those of us in the business, we get made fun of, you know, the people who collect education. I'm guilty. I would, you know, sometimes I get a little embarrassed about it but--because I have a bunch of silly letters after my name.

But I'll--I mean, it does matter. And I'm really proud--and I shouldn't be quite so--I guess I shouldn't be so downcast. I am proud of the work that I've done. I worked hard to learn some of the technical aspects of financial planning. As far as, you know, my professional designations, in the past--some of these are current, some of these are--I no longer carry.

Certified in long-term care planning, a chartered life underwriter, a certified financial planner, a chartered financial consultant, chartered advisor for senior living, chartered advisor in philanthropy, registered health underwriter, registered employee benefit consultant, and then I am almost finished with a master's degree in financial planning. So it's a bunch of letters, you know, CLTC, CLU, CFP, CHFC, CSL, CAP, RHUR, UBCR, MSFS.

So my business card is a little obnoxious. It's not intended to be. But--I mean, it's not intended to be, "Hey, look at me," but, you know, it is. You know what? I'm going to--I'll walk through. Let me just tell you what that stuff means. Feel free. This is going to sound like self-promotion.

I apologize. Skip the next five minutes if you don't care about this stuff. But designations do matter in the financial planning world. And just because someone has a bunch of letters after their name doesn't necessarily mean anything. So let me give you kind of a quick overview as far as what certain ones mean.

Letters and numbers and all of that stuff, again, doesn't mean anything. It doesn't really mean anything unless--oh, in addition to all the designations, I passed some serious exams over the years and had insurance licenses, so that matters too. You know, some designations can be achieved with, you know, basically a one-day class in a hotel conference room.

And some designations are really, really rigorous. So for example, you know, the first designation that I ever got was a certification in long-term care, long-term care planning. And this one was really important to me at the time because my grandfather had needed long-term care and I was a--was a--not a--I guess not a primary, but I was a caregiver for him for years fresh out of college along with my parents.

And I really, really feel strongly about long-term care planning. So I went and got this designation. Well, this designation is really useful but it's really, really focused on long-term care. So, if my memory is right, it was two days of class and then an hour--one hour exam. Really, really useful for me.

I learned a lot and it really is a good class to kind of get you started. But, you know, the next designation that I got was a CLU, which stands for Chartered Life Underwriter, and that's a designation with--that's an insurance specialty, basically a life insurance largely specialty. So to give you an idea, let me surf over to--the CLU is administered by a college, a financial planning college called the American College.

And the classes--it's eight classes that are required. And these are basically the equivalent of college classes although there's no in-class time. You're--basically, they ship me--ship me a textbook. Each one of these is a, you know, basically a college textbook and you read the textbook and you go take an exam, a hundred question exam.

It's a two-hour exam. And some of the exams are easier, some of the exams are more difficult. But a CLU is eight classes, five of which are required and three of which are optional. So the five required classes are fundamentals of insurance planning, individual life insurance, life insurance law, fundamentals of estate planning, planning for business owners and professionals.

And then I think the three electives I took were financial planning, process and environment, income taxation, and investments. So when you actually see somebody with a CLU behind their name, you can have a pretty good confidence that person has done some studying. I don't remember how many hours each of this took but, you know, take picture of college textbook in your mind and figure out how long it takes you to read it and then absorb the information, practice the questions and then go take the exam.

It's not insubstantial. And when you go through it in an organized way, you learn a lot more than if you just have an idea--you learn a lot more about the foundations of things like life insurance and where it comes from and how it's designed and how the different products evolved than if you just read an opinion in Money Magazine about, you know, what life insurance should be.

So a CLU designation is--I have a huge degree of respect for people that have studied and gotten a CLU designation. I think after my CLU, I took a few more classes and I sat for the CFP exams. The CFP stands for Certified Financial Planner. And CFP board is trying to make their designation to kind of the gold standard of the business.

It's--I don't know if it's--maybe it's there, maybe it's not, I don't know. But the way the CFP exam works is different. You have to take a certain number of classes, I can't remember, it's eight or ten, something like that, and then you have to pass a comprehensive 10-hour exam.

If somebody has a CFP--if somebody has passed a CFP exam, that's a pretty substantial--that's a pretty substantial achievement. And I would encourage you that--it's worth paying attention to what they say even if they have a different philosophy. I personally think the CFP exam is one of the harder financial exams because it's been a little bit shortened now.

When I took it, it was a 10-hour exam over a two-day period. And what's tough about it is that CFP covers five or six different things. It covers general financial knowledge, investments, income tax, estate planning, insurance planning, college planning, retirement planning, and estate planning. I think I said estate planning and college planning.

And so, when you've got all those different situations, you've got to cover each of them in an exam that's comprehensive that's, you know, you don't have an open book. So, what will happen is that your knowledge of retirement planning factors into your knowledge of estate planning in this one specific question.

Each of the answers--it's a challenging exam. I think it's--and I haven't--I've never taken the CPA exam, but I have some friends that do. And the CPA is a challenging exam for accountants. In some ways, my personal opinion is probably CFP is probably harder because the CPA is divided into four sections.

Each of them is a four-hour exam, but they're subject matter specific. So, I think the CPA is like the first--what is it? The first section is, I think, like auditing. The second one is--or like auditing and attestation. The second one is business concepts. And then the third one is financial accounting and reporting.

And then the fourth one is regulation. So, you know, the accounting part of it or the tax part of it is one smaller bit because they have to know auditing, but that can be divided up. The one that's harder, I don't have, is the CFA designation. That's a Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

And a Chartered Financial Analyst is--I think there's three sections on the exams, level one, level two, and level three. You know, I thought about doing that, but that is not my special--the technical, all the formulas and stuff, that stuff puts me to sleep. So, I just--I've taken various--some classes that are like the start of it, but those are my least favorite classes that I really enjoyed.

But I think the CFA is probably harder, but anyway, they're all challenging. And anybody who's worked at that, worked at them is, you know, I think that deserves some respect. Book knowledge doesn't necessarily make for an expert, but it can contribute. I then went on after CFP and did a Chartered Financial Consultant, CHFC.

That's also by the American College. And that one has nine courses. Let me look here. Okay, nine courses, seven are required, two are optional. So, you've got the seven required, financial planning process and environment, fundamentals of insurance planning, income taxation, planning for retirement needs, investments, fundamentals of estate planning, and financial planning applications.

And I think the two electives I did were executive compensation and financial decisions for retirement. And so, you'll notice some of the classes overlap. What I did was when I set out to do this stuff, I was trying to finish everything, a bunch of study work up. I have a nine-month-old son.

I was trying to do all that study work before my son was older so that I don't have to be taking exams and studying at four in the morning or five in the morning once he's a little bit older. So, I laid out kind of the most efficient process through all these things that I could and tried to take the minimum number of classes to get it done but still learn.

So, maybe that's cheating the system a little bit. I call it being, what's the term? Planning, good planning. Then I did the chartered advisor for senior living. So, this one is a five courses and chartered advisor for, and again, each of these courses has an exam afterwards. And this is one that's really focused on kind of working with retirees and understanding how to work with older clients.

So, you've got five classes, investments, fundamentals of estate planning, understanding the older client, which was really interesting, kind of a study on social gerontology, health and long-term care financing for seniors, and then financial decisions for retirement. So, that was really useful. Then did a chartered advisor in philanthropy. I loved that class.

Those classes are awesome. Three classes. Number one is planning for impact in the context of family wealth. Number two is charitable strategies. Number three is gift planning in a non-profit context. Did that course with actually a local study group here in West Palm Beach of other professionals and really enjoyed that.

Finished the RHU, which is a registered health underwriter. That one had three classes. Group benefits, which is all about your group benefits, how to put in different programs at different companies. Advanced topics and group benefits and advanced topics in managed care. And that one was fascinating to learn about kind of the health insurance industry and the history of it, some of the history that I never understood, which is extremely applicable to today's world of the Affordable Care Act and all of the changes that are happening.

Really enjoyed that. And then the, excuse me, that would be a little bit of a misstatement. I enjoyed some aspects of it. Other aspects of it were not my thing. Then I did the REBC, which is a registered, what is that, registered employee benefits consultant. And that's five classes.

Group benefits, planning for retirement needs, advanced topics and group benefits and executive compensation and advanced topics in managed care. You can see the overlap there. So I tried to design an efficient course through that. And then I'm almost finished with a master's degree in financial planning. So this is technically an MSFS by the American College.

So this is a master's degree in financial planning. There's 12 courses. I think it's 36 hours. So it's comparable to some other master's degree programs. And the 12 courses are, these are all separate from all of the rest of the credentials. There's no overlap, with the exception of one class.

I think group executive compensation is overlap. But the master's in financial planning is financial statements and business valuation analysis. Loved that class. Awesome. Really, really interesting. Security analysis and portfolio management. Really enjoyed that one. Qualified retirement plans. Really fun. Advanced -- I guess you know a financial geek when you say really, really fun about qualified retirement plans.

Advanced estate planning, personal tax planning, mutual funds, analysis, allocation and performance, executive compensation, planning for impact in the context of family wealth, charitable strategies, gift planning in a non-profit context. Okay. So there was overlap from the CAP courses with those that I did. Then there's a case study, which is a comprehensive financial plan.

And then there's some residencies, which are called issues in advanced retirement planning and ethics and human values. So those are the two classes that I haven't completed. And I'm actually scheduled to do those in September 2014. At this point, I'm sick and tired of taking exams. And I'm done for a while.

Although I'm really interested in some of the theoretical aspects of financial planning. And at some point, I have thought it would be interesting to do the Ph.D. program at the American College. I just think that some of the work that's being done to advance the discipline of financial planning, just the actual profession of financial planning has really developed and really been advanced over the last few decades.

And some of the work is really interesting. The papers and the research that is fascinating. So at some point, maybe I'll go back to school. But at this point, I'm tired of getting up early and studying. And I want to do something. I want to go to the beach on Sunday afternoons instead of reading financial planning books.

So with this, I think we'll wrap up. Oh, last thing. What do I want to take the show? So tough question. If nothing else, the show for me is intended to be a creative outlet. I think of financial planning as much like art. And believe it or not, it's really satisfying when you have a challenging client situation.

It's really, really satisfying to be able to create a financial plan that kind of perfectly hits what they're trying to do and what their needs and their goals are. I think it's -- in my head, I've never really been that artistic visually. I don't have the ability to express myself really in paint or music or anything like that.

But as I've grown as a financial planner, I have learned what artists feel when they kind of say it just like comes alive in your head. And for me, that's how financial planning is. I hear somebody's "woe is me" tale about how difficult their life is, and I just say, "Well, look, you know, you do this, do that, do that, do adjust this and change this, and now you're living the life of your dreams." And I'd like to -- I don't want to get too dramatic with it, but I mean, it really does feel that way for me.

And so if for nothing else, the show would be a creative outlet. I would love this show eventually to become a business, self-supporting. As far as how, I don't know. I've got some ideas. And if you guys, the listeners, like it, let me know and we'll figure out if that can work.

In the meantime, I'm not depending on the show as any kind of financial support. I think that really destroys shows when they're designed for -- purely for economic benefit. I don't think there's any -- my opinion, I don't think there's any problem with having that in mind. But, you know, I think it really just destroys shows when they're just designed for economic benefit.

So hopefully this show won't do that. I want to provide really good info. And I'd just love to make some impact and, hey, if it makes some money in the long term, great. In the meantime, I am doing some consulting work, which pays me income, has some savings, and then also I'm actually going to be building in the future a new financial planning firm.

And I've got some ideas as far as a way to financial planning. And that'll provide for the bulk of my income. And I should still be able to do that and do this show. So if nothing else, then that'll be the -- that's the show. Questions, comments? Hopefully this has been interesting.

I'm excited about having the chance to do this. I'm excited about the potential of this. I'm excited for where things can go in the future. I think that there is a tremendous potential for this. And I am thrilled with -- I see just a hunger in our society of people wanting good financial knowledge.

And I see that every goal and every dream incorporates good financial planning. How do you achieve your goals and dreams without good financial planning? I was reading a book this morning, and the author said, you know, if you want to buy a yacht, the first thing to do is go out and find out how much they cost and figure out how much money to buy and to sell.

So no matter the dreams, big or small, yacht or financial freedom, money, time, stuff, whatever it is, it all incorporates some aspect of financial planning. So thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to the Radical Personal Finance podcast, episode 11. Would love to hear your comments. If you have questions or comments, especially if you think I'm dead wrong about something, come to radicalpersonalfinance.com/11.

Radicalpersonalfinance.com/11. That is the URL for this show. Tell me about it. Tell me where I'm wrong. Let's debate this a little bit. And hey, if I think you're good enough, I'll have you on the air to debate me. If you want to reach me personally, email me at joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.

Joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com. And as always, with all financial planning information, I've done my best to give, you know, really authoritative, I will always do my best to give authoritative and accurate information. But you know what? Laws change, and I'm human, and I screw things up all the time. If you find an error I've made, if you spot a problem, if you bought a mistake, come to the show page and notify me of it, and I will correct myself.

I appreciate that very much. Financial planning is very personal, and it's state and country specific. So consider asking a professional for their opinion on your specific situation. I live in Florida. I don't know all of the laws for every state, but I do hope that the content of this show will help you to be equipped for that conversation.

Have a great day. Thanks for listening. And that is a wrap. The holidays start here at Ralph's with a variety of options to celebrate traditions old and new. Whether you're making a traditional roasted turkey or spicy turkey tacos, your go-to shrimp cocktail, or your first Cajun risotto, Ralph's has all the freshest ingredients to embrace your traditions.

Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone. We've locked in low prices to help you save big store-wide. Look for the locked in low prices tags and enjoy extra savings throughout the store. Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.