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But don't wait. Black Friday every day and Cyber Monday. We make it easy. Toyota. Let's go places. Radical Personal Finance, episode 16. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast. I'm your host, Joshua Sheets, and today is Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Today's topic is, what advice would I have given to the 18-year-old me, knowing what I now know?

I've got one, two, three, 13 different pieces of advice here. Stay with us if you're interested. So today was a busy day for me as I record this. It's late in the evening, and hopefully we'll get this out as soon as possible. But usually I try to record the show in the morning.

But today was a busy day, had a lot of appointments, and wasn't able to get to the show. So was-- and I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do the show on today. There are lots of meaty topics that I could dig into, but yesterday was pretty deep, pretty meaty.

Hopefully you all enjoyed it. Hopefully you were able to dig through it and gain some good tax planning advice that would be helpful, or at least the basics of understanding how to approach tax planning advice that would be helpful for you in the future. But those types of shows take a long time to prepare.

I mean, what is that? Yesterday's show was like an hour and 40 minutes, I think. And the preparation time of getting my notes lined up, getting an outline, trying to think, is this going to make sense? Pretty challenging. So today I certainly didn't have the time to do a long show like that.

And was considering what I wanted to do. Had a couple of show topics, and got on Twitter this morning, and started talking and mentioning and saying, what do you want to ask a financial planner? And so I got a couple of interesting responses back, and really enjoyed that. But one of the questions that I thought was super fun came on Twitter.

The Twitter handle for the person is @RobbyPC30. I guess a man named Robby. And Robby, thanks for the question. He reached out to me, and his tweet back to me-- and by the way, if you're interested in being a part of the Twitter conversation, the Twitter handle for the show is @RadicalPF.

So @RadicalPF, P-F for personal finance. And then my personal Twitter handle is @JoshuaSheets, Sheets with an A, S-H-E-A-T-S. So @JoshuaSheets. Follow us either way. Both of them are me. I just imagine that the show one will be show topics, and me, you'll get a lot of other stuff as well if you're interested.

So feel free to follow either place. So Robby tweets back to me and says, knowing what you know today, what financial advice would you have given your 18-year-old self? Doesn't just have to be financial. So a topic like that. How's that for a setup? How's that for a fun topic for somebody to go back and think?

What would you have told your 18-year-old self? And as it happens, the interesting thing is that I have wanted to create an essay written basically entitled "Advice for a High School Junior," because I've got some ideas on what a high school junior should do. I'm not going to go through that today, but I've got some specific topics and some specific financial ideas that I think would be interesting for a high school junior to pursue.

And although I could do that, I'm not going to focus on that. But I had prepared some of that stuff in an essay in the past, but I struggled to write well. Speaking, I've learned that there's actually a learning style. I don't remember the name for it, but there's a learning style I think is called a verbal learner.

And I actually learn well by speaking. And so it's one of the reasons why I'm doing a podcast and not writing essays, but I learn really well by speaking. And so it's a lot easier for me to sit down and say, "What would I tell an 18-year-old me?" So I've got 13 things here that I would tell an 18-year-old me, and they are all related to finances, but there's not an IRA or the instruction to really save money anywhere here.

And the reason for that is because I think, you know, one of the things I've learned is that the technical stuff, it's important. And as you can see, we're going deep into the technical knowledge. But does that stuff really make a difference? It does, but it doesn't make nearly as big of a difference as some other things.

So today's show is going to be light, fun, and fast. We're going to talk through Joshua's 13 pieces of advice for the 18-year-old self. And we'll see how it goes. So number one, Joshua, don't be scared of people. Or Robbie, don't be scared of people. Or whomever. If I were talking to an 18-year-old me, I would say, "Don't be scared of people.

Everyone else is just about like you." And this one was a tough lesson for me. Because, you know, we all want to be liked. We all want to be accepted to some degree. And so we wind up trying to please people. And when we're trying to please people, we wind up, I don't know, I think we wind up with a lot of fear.

Where does this come from? I don't know. Sometimes I wonder about the way that our social structure works. I wonder about school. It seems to me like the social environment that we're raised in, specifically speaking to my experience in the United States, is, you know, it starts out good.

It's pretty easy when you're a little kid. Gets pretty awful in middle school and high school. And then it gets better as you go on, whether college and into the work world. And if you think about all of the social pressure that comes at people, the cliques, the groups, the peer pressure that comes, you know, it seems like elementary school, the early years of elementary school, the way our society is structured are pretty low-key and pretty easy.

By the way, we're on the topic. This has never made sense to me. So I'll share it with you. And if you can tell me why it's like this and why we continue this system, you let me know. But we start off in elementary school. And we start off in elementary school, and it's pretty good.

You know, kindergarten's pretty fun. First grade, pretty fun. Second grade, pretty fun. Somewhere towards that later part of elementary school or middle school, it seems like the social dynamic changes. And it seems like if you're a middle school kid, you're well acquainted with the idea of cliques and groups and the cool kids and the not-so-cool kids.

And you're well acquainted with where you fit in that social structure. And then in high school, does it get worse or better? I don't know. It's pretty bad for some people and pretty great for others. So if you were a socially successful person, high school is probably pretty great.

And if you're not an unsuccessful person socially, not very popular, high school may be pretty tough. And then it seemed to me, when I went to college, it seemed like in college you had this first opportunity for people to finally be who they wanted to be and kind of live how they wanted to live.

And it seems like in college, when you're not put together in such a crazy environment like middle school and high school were, that you can kind of finally find your group. And you can find out, wow, there's other people just like me. Then you get to adulthood. And in adulthood, you have complete freedom of choice.

So you have a complete freedom of choice with who to hang out with, who to be with, who to work with. So school seems like this crazy artificial environment where you're kind of pushed into this forced socialization, if you can call it that. And again, some people really have a great time in school.

Some people don't. That was probably pretty middle of the road. I didn't have a horrible time, but it also wasn't the best years of my life. So it's this totally artificial environment. And unlike being an adult where you get to choose who you're with, choose who you hang out with, choose who you work with, which by the way, we all have a choice in who we work with, no matter how difficult the situation, you don't get that choice.

You're kind of forced. Parents and the school and the government says, you've got to be in this environment. As an adult, you get to change your circumstances. You get to learn. And I feel like I'm just now learning. I'm just now learning really not to be scared of people.

And it sounds silly and hopefully that's not too, I don't know, namby-pamby, even that, look at that, socialization. Hopefully that's not too crazy to admit it, but it seems like everyone is scared of other people. And whether that's you're trying to reach out to somebody to sell somebody on your new product or your new idea, you're scared what people will think, you're scared what people will say.

I mean, just don't be scared of people. And the thing I've learned doing financial planning, which has been so interesting, and I don't know if I could, I probably could have learned it in another way, but I learned it doing financial planning, is that when you sit down and you talk with people about their goals and their dreams every day, you quickly find that everyone has just about the same goals and dreams.

It's remarkable when you start talking to people. And whether that's the things like, well, if you don't own a house, many people want to own a house. If you don't have kids, many people want to have kids. If you're not married, many people want to get married. These are kind of common goals.

If people want to get a promotion at work, they want to make more money. But then there are the bigger picture goals. And who was it? I think Zig Ziglar. I used to love listening to Zig Ziglar, which incidentally, Zig Ziglar was actually my first podcast. I learned podcasting, I started listening to podcasts back in 2007 when I found the Zig Ziglar, I don't even remember what the name of it was.

I haven't listened to it in a long time, but it was like inspiring others or something like that podcast. And it was his company started releasing some of Zig's motivational materials online for free. And that opened my eyes to the world of podcasting, which was for me an amazing experience.

Because since then, I've consumed a lot of podcasts and now I'm trying to contribute to it. But I owe a debt of gratitude to Zig for a lot of things. But I used to listen to Zig Ziglar seminars, which I highly recommend. If you can find them, go look on eBay, you can probably find them.

But I used to listen to all of his seminars and Zig would say that basically everybody wants just about the same things. And I think it was eight things. He would say that people want to be happy, everyone wants to be happy, everyone wants to be healthy, everybody wants to be at least reasonably prosperous, everybody wants to be secure, everybody wants to have friends, everybody wants to have peace of mind, everybody wants to have good family relationships, and everybody wants to have hope, hope that the future is going to be better than the past.

Those were his eight categories. I don't know if he made them up or if he learned them or what, but those have stuck with me because I heard him say that so many times. Everybody wants to be happy, healthy, reasonably prosperous, secure, have friends, peace of mind, good family relationships, and hope that the future is going to be better than the past.

And so incidentally, look on iTunes. What do you find with all these podcasts? There's a podcast on happiness, there's a podcast on health. I'm creating a podcast on how to be reasonably prosperous. There are podcasts on security, although security branches, you know, connects in my mind to financial planning in a large degree, but although not, you know, security may be things like faith, eternal security, those types of things, just this sense of security.

Everybody wants to have friends, so there's podcasts on communication, on leadership, peace of mind, good family relationships, there's marriage podcasts, and then there's hope. Those are kind of the inspirational podcasts, and that kind of cuts across so many different categories. But everybody wants the same thing. And so for some reason, I don't know, I just feel like I spend a lot of my life being scared of people, not for anything specific.

No one's ever hurt me. I'm a pretty big guy. I've never been in a fight. But so there's just kind of this idea that we're scared of what our parents are going to think. You know, if we follow our dreams, if we drop out of college, if we go to college, we're scared of what, and this affects every area of life, we're just kind of scared of what people will think.

And so I'm pretty pleased, you know, I think I've learned this, but you know, I've still got a ways to learn. Frankly, it's still, it's scary for me to do a podcast because you lose your anonymity, and now you're pushed out there on the front lines, kind of telling your ideas, and you're on the record.

So now somebody can come, and just like I do to other people, somebody can come, take my words, and take issue with them, and so that's scary. But I would just say, don't be scared of other people. Everyone else is just about like you. And once you realize that, at least for me, I found that there was an incredible freedom in that idea.

That's number one. Number two, give up on impressing other people. And I still struggle sometimes with how to balance this one. And there's kind of this fight, this war, this struggle between not just trying to impress other people, but then not necessarily trying to cut against other people, and not trying to needlessly offend.

I think about this in the area of dress. Should you dress to impress other people? No. But then again, is there validity in the ideas of dress for success? Yeah. The way that you dress affects how people perceive you. Should you try to look great for other people? Well, not necessarily to impress them, but then again, should you try to look great?

I think you should. So I'm not sure how to temper this one, but basically the idea is many of us kind of struggle. We want to impress people. But the thing is that if you go on, if I try to be impressive, and I try to sound impressive, and I try to speak about, look how impressive I am, you'd turn me off in a minute.

You'd say, this guy's a dumb-dumb. He's full of himself. It's all about him. It's completely arrogant, and I'm just done with it. The best way to impress other people is to be impressed by them. The best way to be admired is to admire other people. The best way to be liked is to like other people.

The best way to be respected is to respect other people. I mean, this is the way the world works. And so as a young person, we're so concerned, kind of connecting through with being scared of people, we're so concerned with impressing people. And then it seems as time goes on, at least I've learned, no one really cares that much.

If you look at the people that are probably most admired in our society, they're usually a little bit unconventional. I always think of rock stars. The rock stars, we pay them lots of money, and they're really unconventional. They're always looking to get attention. But they don't get attention by fitting in.

They get attention by being different. And millions of people, for a well-respected rock star, will spend all of their time and all their money just simply admiring this person. But it's completely different. It's a free thinker, and people are drawn to that. People are drawn to-- the weird thing is people are drawn to being unconventional.

Unconventional. Chris Guillebeau, my favorite essay-- I've mentioned on the show before, one of my favorite financial planning essays that I would encourage people to read is his essay from years ago when he first got online. He wrote an essay called, "Would You Rather Drive an SUV or Visit 100 Countries?" And basically the gist of it is that you have a choice.

It will cost you the same amount of money to buy an SUV as it will to visit 100 countries. And if you look at that, most people just automatically buy the SUV, but yet I admire someone who's been to 100 countries. To me, that's far more interesting, but it's the atypical choice.

And if you just simply give up on impressing other people and live according to the way that you want to live, it seems like, strangely, that's actually what impresses other people. So give up on impressing other people by trying to fit in. More financial mistakes are made this way than anything else.

And the weird thing is that you'll spend all the money-- you'll spend all your money trying to impress other people, and they're not impressed. But if you forget about doing that, people will often be impressed by you, no matter how much money you have. I've never met Chris. I hear he's a great guy.

I mean, he seems just like a really awesome guy. I read a couple of his books, and I've read his blog for years. But frankly, he's kind of a nerdy guy. And he's kind of this real soft-spoken, real gentle, nerdy guy. And best of my knowledge, I don't think he owns a car.

He lives in an apartment in Portland or Seattle or something like that. Not necessarily-- I mean, does he have money? I don't know. I assume he does. I hope he does. He seems like he's got an awesome business, got some really cool products. I hope he has a lot of money.

But the value is that he didn't set out for that. And so the money is almost unnecessary. If you don't own a car, you don't need to bother with it. He's impressive, because he went to every country in the world by the time he's 35 and started something called the World Domination Summit.

How does it get better than that? Consider-- one of my other favorite online guys I really enjoy reading is a guy named Benny Lewis. And he writes a blog called "Fluent in Three Months." If you're interested in languages, check it out. Highly recommended. But Benny Lewis, when he turned 21 years old, if I remember his story correctly, he only spoke English.

And then since then, he's gone on to learn a dozen or two languages that he speaks with varying degrees of fluency. And every three months, he embarks on another language learning mission. Again, kind of a nerdy guy, but what a cool story. He lives on the road, travels to a new country every three months, it seems like, and has this awesome internet business just based upon what he's interested in.

But if you go out and try to impress somebody down at the club-- I live in West Palm Beach, and you go down to Miami. Now if I'm going to go impress somebody at the club, I'm going to buy a fancy-- I don't even know the right lingo for that world-- I'm going to buy a fancy car, and I'm going to pull up and live the Miami lifestyle.

Not that impressive. So I think just stop trying to impress people, and really focus on just being you. And the people who are interested in what you're doing will be drawn to you, and they'll be impressed by you. I'm interested in languages, so I'm impressed by Benny Lewis. But someone who's not interested, I don't care.

No big deal. Let them go on their way. I'm impressed by him. I'm impressed by Chris Gillibook. I admire what he's done. Let someone else go on their way. I think it's awesome. But you don't need to worry about impressing other people. Do what you want. They'll be impressed if they want to be.

Number three, don't be scared to fail. In our society, Western society, it's almost impossible to fail. Take the risk. What are you going to lose? And here's what I mean. Again, speaking to primarily, I would assume, a US-American or at least a Western audience, in the Western society, failure has a very low cost.

There are almost no actual consequences to failing. Now, in other parts of the world, that's not true. You may lose your life if you fail in some place. And there are certain things. If you are practicing some extreme sport and you fail at that, you may die. But I'm just talking about the things that most of us are scared of.

How in this country-- how is it possible to fail? Think about this. What is the risk? You want to take a big trip. You want to start a business. You want to change jobs. What's a money failure? Let's say, worst case scenario, you lose all your money. Is it possible to fail by losing all your money?

That's not failure. You run out of food. Guess what? There's food stamps, or whatever they're called now, UBT, SNAP. I don't know. There's food stamps. They'll give you money for food every month. And that's enough money to support your family. So if you've got three kids or four kids or five kids, you're going to have enough to feed your family.

Or if you're a single guy or gal, you're going to have enough to feed yourself. There's charities. If you're homeless and you don't have any money, there's a charity that will feed you. Your mom will feed you. Your dad will feed you. And I'm not going to feed you forever.

But so you're not going to run out of food. You're not going to starve. Now, there's some place in the world where you are. There's places in the world where you're starving right now. But I would assume that if you're hearing my voice, you're not in that situation. And we need to work to help people in those situations.

But in the US, come on. You're not going to run out of food. Are you going to be homeless? You're not going to be homeless. There's Section 8 housing assistance. The government will stick you in a place to live. There's housing charities. My favorite thing on housing-- I just think one of my favorite movies I've always enjoyed, which should be probably pretty obvious why, is "Pursuit of Happiness," the story of Will Smith portrayed Chris Gardner, who started-- was it Gardner?

I don't remember the name of his firm. But he started a large financial firm, which was sold, which was sold, which was sold, which always happens with financial firms. But a guy in the filming of the movie, he's sleeping in a subway bathroom. But so what? He's not out in the cold.

He's sleeping in a subway bathroom. One of things I think about, OK, you lose everything if you have a car. Live in your car. Is it so bad? Well, to one person, it's bad. To another person, it's an adventure. Go online. Find somebody who's living in a car. And again, hopefully-- I mean, you can get a minivan.

Minivan is the ideal car to live in if you're trying to live cheap. Is it really so bad? I don't know. Look at it as an adventure. I remember a story that has stuck out to me about-- I think the author-- I think the author was Tynan, who writes an interesting blog over at Tynan, T-Y-N-A-N dot com, Tynan dot com.

And he writes about-- he lives in an RV. And his RV story is kind of interesting. He moved from a big, fancy condo into an RV. And read his essays on it. It's rather interesting. But he lives in an RV by choice, not that he can't live somewhere else.

He chooses to live in a small RV. And I think if I'm citing the story correctly-- I'll have to Google it when I'm done. But if I'm citing the story correctly, he's parked on the street one day. And he comes out of his RV. And he looks across the street, and there's another RV.

And the guy on the other side's coming out of his RV, too. So he walks over. And he says, hey, man, how you doing? Guy responds, how's it look like I'm doing? I'm living in an RV. I think Tynan says, come on, man. And he didn't know what to say.

Because by him, living in an RV was awesome. It's an awesome lifestyle. So I just thought, wow, what a difference of perspective makes. So things like that, just viewing the struggle that can be part of the adventure. You're not going to fail. You run out of money, guess what?

They'll give you cash payments, welfare cash assistance programs, or whatever it's called. I don't remember what the formal name of it is. Is it going to be a lot? No. Is it going to be enough? Probably. Why on earth would you go and slave in a job when you can build a business, if you want to build a business, or if you have a dream?

Why would you not go and follow that? And all this stuff is there. Take it. Use it. That's what it's there for. Somebody's going to get it. Why not you? Medical care? Obamacare? Medicaid? Medicaid was massively expanded in the last couple years. You can walk into any hospital in the country, and if your leg is bleeding, they will take you in and they will fix you.

They give you a cell phone if you don't make any money. So you can run your business. If you want to start a business, and you fail, and you run out of all your money, and you get kicked out of your apartment, and you're behind on your bills, you can go down.

You can live in Section 8 housing. You can get an internet connection from the coffee shop next door. Get a $200 Chromebook to run your business on. They'll give you a cell phone to pay and some money for food, and start your business. I mean, I wouldn't say that would be the primary thing, but I guess a lot of my life, you're always just worried about failure.

Oh, go into debt. OK, so you go into debt. All right, you can't pay it. Well, don't pay it. You get behind on your bills. There's lots of people that have gotten behind on their bills. So don't pay it. Run your household on cash. Change your phone number. Worst comes to worst, you can't pay your bills, declare bankruptcy.

You borrowed a bunch of money on student loans, which aren't bankruptable. Well, go into the black market. I mean, the drug dealers figure out how to live. The illegal immigrants figure out how to live. Figure it out. The thing that is driving us is the fear of failure is not usually a rational fear.

Again, you're not going to fail. What is failure? You're going to die? You're not going to die. What the actual fear of failure is, is the actual fear of failure is a mental construct. It's a fear of looking foolish. It's a fear of other people lowering their opinions. It's a mental game.

Now, do I think that you should do all those things? Well, actually, I do if you're using it for something. If I had my way, I'd snap my fingers and eliminate all of them. But guess what? No one's electing me president. I'd eliminate all those programs. And I'd keep it in the hands of private charities.

But no one's asking me. And no matter how I vote, it doesn't seem to change anything. So I say, I can't do anything about the national situation, but I can do something about my life. And so if worse comes to worse and I fail, that's what it's there for.

And if worse comes to worse and you fail, that's what it's there for. You're not going to die. And then the other thing is that if you look at it-- so failure, fear of failure. I'll use the example of starting a business. Fear of failing because we're going to start a business.

Well, there's no rational-- under the scenario I just laid out, there's no rational fear of dying. So then it's a mental fear of taking charity, of being dependent, of being on the dole. Again, I'm kind of against all those things. I'm a card-carrying libertarian, but about as far out on the kooky political fringe as possible.

But it exists. Why not use it if you have to? So you say, OK, well, then it's a fear of looking foolish. Well, is your mom going to love you less because you start a business and you lose all your money? Is your best friend not going to go have a drink with you because you started a business and you went bankrupt?

I mean, in this country, the bankruptcy laws are the most amazing thing ever. Consider-- who to consider? I mean, there's dozens of examples. Consider-- Donald Trump was a-- go read his book, "The Art of the Deal." A billion dollars in debt. A billion dollars negative net worth. A billion dollars.

They turned it around. And the financial-- Dave Ramsey, in the financial world. I guarantee some of you listen to Dave Ramsey. What did Dave Ramsey do? Starts a business, fails at it, does some dumb stuff with his financing, does dumb stuff, declares bankruptcy, and starts all over again. And today, makes millions of dollars every year with one of the highest-rated radio shows in the country, plus all of his other 83 different lines of income.

He's an amazing business guy. His other 83 lines of income coming into his company. And the whole thing is based upon-- I declared bankruptcy. I was stupid, so let me tell you how stupid I was and how not to be stupid. I mean, it's laughable. And yet, here's the American dream.

Goes deeply into debt. Can't pay it off. Declares bankruptcy. Starts afresh. And today, makes millions of dollars a year teaching people how not to borrow money, how not to do what he did. But yet, what did he do? He declared bankruptcy and wiped away his debts and started fresh.

So I mean, he's a great guy. I have lots of issues with him, but he's done an amazing amount of good for a lot of people. But the reality is that he is a financial advisor. Or he's not a financial advisor. He is a financial entertainer who his entire business is based upon his history of failing.

And yet today, there are millions and millions and millions of people across this country who look up to him and appreciate the work that he does. So who defines failure? Is failure an event? Is failure winning? Or is failure quitting? There are a lot of people who go to the Olympics and only three of them get a medal.

But are they now not Olympians because they didn't win? Winning is a stupid definition of success. I mean, well, I guess it depends on how you define winning. But not everyone's going to come out on top. So you get to define failure. Zig Zig, back to Zig Ziglar. My favorite quote of his-- I can hear his voice.

I can't do a Southern drawl. But here is what he'd say over and over again. And it's my favorite saying to say to myself. Failure is an event. It's not a person. Yesterday really did end last night. Today is a brand new day. And it's yours. Again, I wish I could do his Southern drawl.

Or I should go find a recording of him. But failure is an event. It's not a person. Yesterday did end last night. Done. Gone. Today is a brand new day. And it's yours. So I just say study the worst that can happen and be OK with it. I think one of the particularly useful tips in Tim Ferriss's book, "Four-Hour Work Week," was-- and I think this is key-- is consider the worst case possible scenario, worst possible scenario that could happen under a course of action.

And then ask yourself if you're willing to accept it if it happens. And then work like crazy to make sure it doesn't happen. So if the worst case scenario of-- again, worst case scenario for me, changing, leaving the business that I had and changing to some new ventures, primarily this podcast.

OK, so I walk away from a business. I lose all my clients. I lose all my money. I wind up going deeply in debt. I wind up bankrupt. I don't plan for that to happen. I work pretty hard to make sure it doesn't happen. But let's say I spend all my money.

And I go wind up bankrupt. Guess what? I can start again. And I'm willing to deal with that because I fear the pain of regret more than I fear the pain of failure, the pain of bankruptcy or the pain of a business closing. There's businesses that close every day.

Walt Disney, what did he go bankrupt three times on his way to starting Disney World? But you don't remember him for his bankruptcy. Again, Dave Ramsey, bankrupt? Yes, but you don't know him today for his bankruptcy. There are lots and lots of people that have failed. I don't remember what the numbers are.

I could look them up. But we won't worry with actual numbers today. Lots of people have failed. So study the worst that could happen and be OK with it. And the other thing I've learned is that no matter what the worst case scenario is, there's a way to make it really good.

I remember this when I worked with a prospective client who-- my actual client was a family member of this person. And they referred me to the family member. And they said, hey, maybe you can meet with this person and help him. So I meet with them. And what I find out is that the person has no money.

And they're living on Social Security disability. But yet the person is living on a sailboat. And here in West Palm Beach, in part of the year in the Caribbean, I thought, what an awesome, awesome example of taking what some people would say is a really awful lifestyle-- I'm living on Social Security disability-- and figuring out how to make what a lot of people would say is a really awesome lifestyle out of it.

I remember a friend of mine had a friend who would come. And this person would come down to Florida. And this person was a really great gentleman, an elderly gentleman, kind of the big, kind of bearded mountain man that you'd run into at a folk music festival. And this person lived in his car.

And he lived in a van. And he lived on, again, Social Security, I think. It was a very small Social Security payment. But he would come down. And my friend would let him park in his yard. And he would have a free place to stay every winter, in Florida in the winter.

And he'd go up to New England in the summer. How's that for a great way to make a great life? Now, I don't particularly want to live in a van, or at least not-- I don't particularly want to live in a van with a large family, one person that might be cool.

But the reality is that it's a lot better than slaving away in cubicle nation. So you can make any situation fun if you learn the skills of how to do that. I think of the early retirement extreme book, which highly recommend, if you haven't read it, buy it and read it.

But you've got Jacob, who talked about how he lived, I think it was $7,000 a year of expenses, even though he had plenty of money that he could spend, and with skills, supplanted the need for the high income. So that's the key. Which brings us on to number four, which my piece of advice number four is study skills that actually matter.

How important is it, really, in the age of Google, to be able to name exactly what the capital of every country in the world is? Not that important. But how important is it to know how to have successful relationships? Pretty important. How important is it to have communication skills?

Pretty important. How important is it to understand finance? Pretty important. How important is it to have skills of creativity and ideation, like the ability to come up with new ideas? That's pretty important. How about the skills of how to make stuff, build stuff, create stuff? How about studying the things, creating success skills?

Those things are pretty important. And all of those things are really, really learnable. Our society is so crazy. We talk about skills constantly in our world. We talk about skills like how to keep an empty inbox at work. Inbox zero, right? Super useful. Do my best to do it.

Fail a lot of the times. But super useful. What about skills like building your own house? Read an essay one time. I'd love to find it, but thought, what a great idea. But the essay was advice for-- I think it was a high school student. And the advice was basically, don't go to college.

I mean, unless you want to go to college. But the advice was essentially, consider another way. Consider, instead of going to college, consider going into the trades and learning how to work in some of the trades and learning how to build stuff. Go and work in construction, work in various aspects of construction.

Hire yourself out at minimum wage as an apprentice across various trades. And then save money, live cheap, save money, work hard. And then buy the materials and little by little build your own house. And the plan, I don't remember, it was mid-20s or 23 or 25 or something. But now you're living in a paid-for house that you built yourself.

You don't have to deal with a mortgage payment for the rest of your life. And you've been able to set this up. That's a pretty good plan. But all of that comes from having those skills. Investing in skills, which is what this point, the major point that I'm trying to make, investing in skills pays all kinds of dividends.

You see this all the time in the trades. If you have friends or if you work in the trades, many people have one skill. I am an electrician. Well, when the electrical market goes down, you've got to have another backup skill. You've got to have other skills that you can fall back on.

It would be really nice if you had multiple businesses and you can just slide between them. We've replaced skills with money. Back to Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme, he talks a lot about that in his book. He says that you can either choose to spend money on stuff or you can have the skills to do it.

And neither is right or wrong, in my opinion. If you want to spend your money and hire a person to do that, that's great. There's lots of things I don't like doing and I'd rather hire someone to do. But then again, if you don't have the money or don't want to spend the money, replace it with the skills.

You can't take skills away. People are all worried about-- it seems like half the society these days is all worried about the economy blowing up and the country melting into chaos and trying to figure out what's going to save your lifestyle in that situation. What's going to save your lifestyle in that situation is exactly what's going to make you rich before that situation, and it's skills.

If you're a skillful, valuable person and you've got a strong social network, that's going to be incredibly valuable to you if you had a societal collapse. Who were the Jews that got out of Germany under Hitler? They were the ones that had money, yes, but also a lot of them that didn't have money that had some kind of social support structure that could funnel them out of the country, or they had connections.

Those people got out too. So you can have connections. You can build skills. This is not a financial thing. I just say, if I were talking to an 18-year-old me, I'd say, skip Cubicle Nation. I worked in Cubicle Nation for one year. Sorry to steal-- what was that, Pam Slim's book, I think?

I don't remember who the author of that book was, but I hope I'm not infringing on her trademark. But skip Cubicle Nation. There are millions of people stuck in Cubicle Nation. Work on skills. Again, go join a construction crew and learn to build houses. Learn finance. Learn a skill, and you can get out and then build a business on that.

That is what will ultimately really make a lot of freedom over time. Number five, explore. So I would just say, give up on dogma and have an open mind. So take the classes you enjoy. One thing I wish I'd done differently in college is when I was in college, I was trying to finish my degree.

I was paying for it. I was trying to finish my degree. So I just took courses in my degree. And now I look back and say, what an awesome time that I could have had to sit back and just learn without-- and take classes that I'm interested in, not because I care about the credit, but just go to all these classes that are offered.

That's what I love so much about the world we live in today. I can go to iTunes U. I can go to Creative Live. I can go to Coursera. I can go to all these places. I can take these courses. And I've got YouTube. I've got everything right at my fingertips of all the wacky things that I'm interested in.

So I can explore things with no cost. What an amazing world. And the idea of exploration is don't set out and say, I'm going to make this thing work. The best ideas are usually probably unplanned. But go out and explore things. And don't be concerned with being right all the time.

I have made that mistake for a long time, is that I just want to be right. And these days, hopefully, I'm learning to be done with that. Don't worry about being right. Be fascinated. Be fascinated with life. Be fascinated with other people's stories. Be fascinated. Financial planning, I've learned the hard way to have an open mind.

Because I used to say and tell people how they should live their life. Now I've learned, hopefully-- you have to ask someone that's actually worked with me to prove it-- but I've learned how to listen a lot better. And then just understand. Again, we give a few ideas for after listening, a few ideas for how I think they might be able to get a little closer to what they're trying to do.

The dogma and the closed mind on things. I'll give you one of my personal struggles. For years, I picked on Dave Ramsey earlier. And I'm sure I'll pick on him a lot. Because he's the front runner. And that's what happens when you're out in the front and up on top.

But I always struggled. Because for years, I would listen to Dave Ramsey. And Dave Ramsey would preach, don't lease a car. Don't lease a car. Don't lease a car. Don't lease a car. And buy a car. Buy a car. Don't lease a car. Now do I agree with him?

Yeah, I do. I've never leased a car. Don't plan to. Don't really want to. But then you read something like "4-Hour Workweek." And in Tim's book, you read about the process of dreamlining. And you say, OK, let's start with dreamlining. And the example he uses in there is, let's say you want to buy an Aston Martin.

Well, guess what? You can go down and you can lease an Aston Martin for, I don't know what it was, $1,500 a month. That makes sense. Really. If you had a business that was creating $1,500 a month, why is it somehow morally superior to wait until, I don't know, 40 years or 30 years until you can somehow have so much money that you've put your money in retirement and you can lease the Aston Martin?

Now, I personally am not interested in leasing an Aston Martin. Because I'm more interested in being financially independent. For me, I value the ability to be completely financially independent more than I value the ability to drive the Aston Martin. But I think it's a cool idea to go rent one.

Rent one for a couple of weekends and get the feeling of it. If that's what you like to do, awesome. Go for it. So the dogma of those things, don't lease cars, which is fine. He can run his show how he wants to, but I'll run my show how I want to.

But that dogma winds up just kind of destroying things instead of saying, you know what? All of us, we can choose to rent a car. That's what leasing is. It's called renting a car. And if we want to do that and it makes sense, good for that. Good for us.

This whole idea of paying cash for businesses versus starting with debt. Most people start with debt. I don't think-- I think it's probably smarter to start with money. And it forces to be more agile. But guess what? Most businesses, I think-- I don't know about most. I shouldn't be so loose with-- I don't know the percentage.

But a lot of businesses start with debt. And so this idea that it's only done one way, it may be a better way. We can sell the way. But this idea that it's only done one way is damaging. Number six, get clear on your priorities in life, your priorities.

And be OK with them changing. Understand all your options. So much of our lives, it seems, we live according to other people's priorities. We buy houses because other people think we should, rather than because we want to. We think we want to, but it's for other people's priorities. And a lot of people, I think, would prefer-- I mean, if you were to give this either/or thing to me-- and let's assume that I'm single, so I can just do what I want to do.

And let's assume that I could do whatever I want to do. If you give this either/or to me and say, Joshua, you can buy a house and live in one town all the time and take two-week vacations, or you can choose to rent and every three months go to a new place, I would probably choose the three months if it were just me and I weren't interested in being close to family.

At this point, I've consciously chosen not to live that kind of lifestyle, but I think that would be awesome. And there are a lot of other reasons why I've chosen not to do that. But there are people that have done that. But I never knew when I was 18 years old that that was even an option.

I never knew that I could do something like-- let me see. I think the website is Where Is Kyle Now? And the man, his name is Kyle. I don't know his last name, but his website is Where Is Kyle Now? And here you have this man named Kyle who got sick and tired of living in an apartment as a web programmer or computer programmer of some kind, went and bought an Airstream trailer.

And for the last two, three, four years, something like that, he's gone and traveled all over North America, staying in different places, been to all 50 states, every province in Canada, something like that. What a cool lifestyle for someone who's a web programmer. There's people all over the place that are doing this.

There's people online. The Tropical MBA folks are all living in Thailand, doing these things. I never knew that was an option when I was 18 years old. Well, frankly, it probably wasn't an option when I was 18 years old. But today, it is an option. And so be aware of all your options, and then get clear on what your priorities are.

I live where I live because that's where my family is, and that's where I'm involved with the people, and the church, and the place that I want to be. But a lot of people just kind of live where they grew up, not intentionally choosing to live there. Understand what your priorities and your options are.

Number seven, focus on building good habits. I'm convinced that health and wealth are largely habits. Health is not achieved in a pill. It's achieved in having good lifestyle habits. Wealth is not achieved in a pill. It's achieved in having good lifestyle habits. So the idea of spending less than you make, that's a habit.

The idea of building your skills, and your knowledge, and your income, that's a habit. Focus on building the right habits, and the end result will take care of itself. Number eight, I would say to the 18-year-old me, carefully consider your high school and college decisions, especially the college decision.

Consider all your options, and just be careful that you don't limit your choices. In today's world, there are a lot of choices. And I'm going to do some shows on college. And you have two things that are very popular. The most common, still mainstream, is you need to go to college so that you can get a good job and pay money.

And now it's become quite popular to say, well, you don't shouldn't go to college. You should just start a business instead. I don't believe either of them are right. And we're going to pour through some of the data. It's very interesting, the data, because education, formal education, still has a dramatic, dramatic effect on earning potential.

And this is by far one of the best financial investments that somebody who is right for college and who's going to finish college can make. However, when you dig into the data and you pull out the people who don't make it through college, then you find a very different story.

And so I would say get clear on your priorities and carefully consider the college decisions. For some people, going to college at a mainstream four-year university is going to be the perfect decision. And for other people, the perfect decision is going to be made based upon going to iTunes University while living on the road in 80 different countries for four years and blogging your way through it.

These are not right or wrong. They're only right or wrong if they're made hastily and not thought out. But there are a lot of options. And there are a lot of options. And I'll leave that one with that, because I'm going to do an entire show on that in the future.

Number nine, stay flexible. And so by flexible, I mean in this situation, things like don't have a lot of stuff and don't borrow money. So I think two powerful ideas that can be really useful for financial planning are the ideas of minimalism and debtlessness. And the reality is here is that minimalism, basically a consciously choosing to live life with fewer or an appropriate amount of things rather than always trying to pile up as many things as possible, that can be really freeing.

Because if you don't have so much stuff that you need a five-bedroom house, you have a lot of options. Guys like Tynan, who I mentioned earlier, if he can live in a backpack, he can go anywhere in the world. And that's what he does. I think he still does it.

So if you have all your stuff that fits in a backpack, or in his case, in a very small RV, you can go wherever. And now you have options. And then the idea of debtlessness, if your income is not committed, if your future income is not already committed, which is what debt is-- debt is just simply a pledging of future income and future dollars to things that are already done-- then you have choices.

And so if you lose your job, consider these two things, these two scenarios. You have a large house with a large payment and a bunch of other large payments and a bunch of stuff, and you lose your job. And you can't find another one in the town that you're in.

Or you lose your job, you have a little bit of stuff, not too much, and you have no debt, whether that's because you rent or because you don't own a home. And if you rent, what an awesome situation. And no matter where you are in a 12-month lease, in less than 12 months, you can be out of there.

Try selling a house three or four years ago when you're in this two-year sales cycle world, this weird real estate world that we were in for so long. You weren't selling a house in four months and going to another town to start a new job. But that's what flexibility can get.

Now, with flexibility comes certain disadvantages. So I own a home. I'm not that flexible. However, I gain other value from the home. And that's a perfectly rational decision to give up on that. But for the 18-year-old me, for that beginning phase of life, I would say maintain flexibility and consider the value of the ideas of minimalism and debtlessness in your planning.

Number 10, invest in yourself and follow your hunches. The best investments are always in yourself and in something that you know, whether that means through formal education, whether that means through informal education. And I think it's really freeing to follow your hunches. In some ways, I feel like this is a lesson that I've only just learned and am only just learning.

I've done a lot of different things. But doing this podcast is kind of, for me, is a hunch. I think that there is a desire. I see this desire online. I feel like there's this desire for financial knowledge that goes deeper, that goes a little bit deeper than just the surface fluff, not the mainstream.

And I would never expect this show to appeal to the mainstream. But I see this hunger for information. And I don't see it being served. Now, I've got a hunch that this whole podcast medium is going to be a major, major area of growth over the coming five years.

Five years ago, if you told someone, I'm a blogger, no one knew what you were saying. But today, everyone would know what that means. And everybody reads blogs. Well, podcasting is still non-mainstream. Very few people know what a podcast is. Very few people listen to them. Very few people know how to do that.

Five years from now, I believe it's going to be very different. And you're going to have a world of people looking for information, especially on the things they're interested in. Some of those people are interested in finance. So by creating the kind of show that I want to create that I would like to listen to-- excuse me.

By creating the kind of show that I want to listen to, then it's fun for me to create. And I'm hoping, I believe, that there's at least a few hundred people out there that are probably pretty similar to me, because we're all pretty much like each other. And I think that over time, my hope is that it could build into a business.

And I can serve you, the listener, I can serve you with clear, straightforward financial education that covers the technical and the actual. I've got to come up with another name. If you know a better name, please let me know. I don't know how to compare this dichotomy between what I call the technical and the behavioral, or the technical and the-- I'm struggling with the name.

But the idea is that these kinds of things that I'm talking about today, these, in my opinion, make far bigger of a difference than saying, open a Roth IRA on your 18th birthday. And yet, I think opening a Roth IRA is awesome. But I want to start with what actually matters, which is things like, don't be scared of people, because so many people are scared.

And when you're scared, you take a junkie job that you don't want to have, and then you ask your financial planner, how can I get rich, and how can I have lots of money when I can only afford to save $100 a month? The answer is you can't, period, unless you do something more and different.

Now, can $100 a month over 40 years at 10% make you a millionaire? Yes, probably. I've got to rerun the numbers. But yes, it could. But nobody does it. Nobody has done that. And nobody does it. So you've got to do something else. And you've got to figure out who you are and how to be OK with yourself.

So rant over. But if you know of a word-- I'm trying to come up with a difference between the technical, what guys like me, people think guys like me do for a living, and the behavioral, the emotional, the psychological, the inspirational, that type of thing. Because they've got to go hand in hand.

Again, the reason people are fat, the reason I'm fat, is not because of lack of technical knowledge or techniques that are unproven. There's lots of technical knowledge and techniques that are unproven. The reason is all of those psychological things, all those other hang-ups. I'm trying to figure out how to describe that.

So you can help me with that. Back to invest in yourself and follow your hunches. Consider, give things a go. And so my point was that with the podcast, I've done a lot of interesting things. But I'm following a hunch. I've taken a completely blind jump off a cliff.

And I'm willing to go splat, so that's OK. But I'm just following a hunch. But yet, I love doing it. It's so fun. And I enjoy-- yesterday, prepping that big, long show and trying to dig through it. It's a lot. But I really enjoy it. And I think it's just super fun.

So I'm following a hunch. And it's so freeing to be out there on the edge. That's where the fun is, right? Talk to any extreme sport athlete. It's not playing it safe, where you get that rush of adrenaline that's out there on the edge. Well, I'm not an extreme sports guy.

No interest in it. But I can do exactly the same thing with business and with ideas like this. So follow your hunch. Consider investing in yourself through things like the personal MBA. If you're not familiar with the personal MBA, Google it and read 100 books on business. And you'll gain a huge amount of knowledge.

You may still want to go back and get a traditional MBA with a certificate. But follow things like that. If you look at the guy who wrote that, I think his name is Joshua-- blanking on his last name. But the author's name was Joshua something or other. And he wrote the personal MBA.

And he was working a corporate job, started reading all these books. And today, he's got this incredible business, this online business, where he does exactly what he wants to do every day. My favorite thing about his site-- if you want to be inspired, go look at his About page.

Go look at his page where he says Availability. And what you'll find is that he says-- give me just a second. I'm going to pull this up. It's Josh Kaufman. And I've got it here, joshkaufman.net, K-A-U-F-M-A-N. And if you look here on his site, then what you will see is he's got a thing on here called Status.

And listen to this. How's this for-- so this man, I've never talked to him. I just read his book. And I've read-- I really have enjoyed a bunch of his blog posts. And so you've got a man named Josh Kaufman. And he said-- so he started-- his story is that he started in the corporate world.

He was working for some big Fortune 500 company, started reading a bunch of books on marketing and on business and all these things. And then over time, he started writing reviews of them. And he compiled them into the Personal MBA, which is his list of 100 books that he curates this list, that these are the best 100 books for every area of business.

It's really great. I haven't finished all of them, but I've read a lot of them. And I really encourage you to consider doing the same thing. So you go on his website. He's a young man. And it says, it's joshkaufman.net/status, if you're interested. Josh Kaufman status, bestselling author, business and learning expert.

And at the top, every day I receive many requests concerning my availability for consulting, interviews, and new projects. In the interest of saving time, here's my current status and capacity. Summary, unavailable. How awesome is that? I have very young kids at home. As a result, I am unavailable for travel, interviews, media, speaking, consulting, book reviews, and new speculative projects.

I'm curtailing my interview availability, have no capacity to examine book galleys for reviews and blurbs, and my guest post docket is full. Publishing on this site will continue sporadically as time and energy permit. Regarding partnership requests and speculative projects, unfortunately, I'm going to have to pass. I'm forcing myself to turn down new opportunities so I can stay focused on my research and publishing projects.

I'm honored that many people want to do business with me, but my capacity is limited for the foreseeable future. Thanks for thinking of me. Regarding speaking engagements, in general, I avoid travel as much as possible. I have young children at home, and my wife runs a business as well.

So travel is very disruptive for all of us. Thanks for thinking of me, and I hope you have a great event. Regarding feedback on business ideas, I do not provide personalized business advice at this time. Understanding your business, industry, and personal objectives well enough to provide useful advice isn't a five-minute endeavor.

I would like to say that about financial planning as well. Continuing, and I have more requests than is possible to accommodate. In the interest of preserving capacity for research and publishing, I'm not able to provide individual feedback on your business or idea. Thanks for understanding. Regarding blurbs, recommendations, and endorsements, I only mention or recommend resources I've personally used.

If you have a resource you think I'd find interesting, send me the link via Twitter, and I'll check it out as capacity permits. No need to follow up. Regarding book review requests, in general, I enjoy receiving new books to review, but I'm unable to guarantee your book will be reviewed.

If you have a book you'd like me to look at, there's no need to contact me first. Send it here to this address. Books and resources provided will not be returned and become the property of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To main editorial integrity and prevent conflicts of interest, all reviews are non-paid and are provided only when a particular book is worth reviewing.

Is it just me, or is that not awesome? You have so many people in the world that are saying, look at me, look at me here. Come hire me. Come look at me. Come see me. I'm certainly in that phase of life, trying to say, come look at me.

Come check out what I'm doing. If I can talk to you, if I can help, I can promote my stuff. And here's someone who says, you know what? I've achieved the things I want to achieve, and right now I'm staying at home and I'm taking care of my kids and I'm working on the projects that I think are important.

And what does more money do you? Where do you need to go? If you have enough income coming in, which he does, it's clear from his blog post. Go and read them. I recommend them. It's clear that he has enough income coming in to maintain his lifestyle. What do you want?

And still save some. What do you want more than that? What on earth are you going to buy more than that, that you need more money than that? So follow your hunches and just kind of explore things and see where they lead. And I commend his site to you.

11, 12, and 13, we're going to wrap up quickly here. Number 11, run your life like a business. And in this sense, this can mean two things. This can mean two ways. Number one, it can be on the financial side. And I think that that is a really valuable financial tip.

Run your life, your financial life, like a business. However, in this case, I mean more than that. Run your life like a business and get a sense of detachment. So consider, OK, Joshua, if you were advising you, how would you advise yourself? And it sounds so dumb, but to me, that helps me a ton.

If you were sitting across the table, and somebody was telling you this, this, this, this, this, what would you tell them to do? And somehow kind of get yourself in that idea of being the CEO of your life, of running your life like a business, thinking things through, doing projections, doing analysis, doing due diligence, carefully considering time, resources, money, energy, lifestyle, what the business is doing.

Consider the highest and best purpose. Consider the speculative things that you do want to explore, because there may be great opportunities. And run your life like a business, and you get a sense of detachment. You get away from that being scared all the time. Number 12, recognize the fact and appreciate the fact every day or as often as possible that we live in an amazing world, an amazing world.

Consider the lifestyle that we can live today. This has never been possible in the history of the world. Consider the fact that some of these people, these online personalities that I've mentioned to you, they can live anywhere in the world and run a business. 100 years ago, you had to be the sultan of Brunei.

I think that's still a country. You had to be the sultan of Brunei. And even then, you can go away for six months, and you've got to come back. Otherwise, you're going to have a military coup that's going to overthrow you. You couldn't do that kind of thing. You had to be so vastly wealthy to go and travel.

And you had to maintain your business at home with letters, or I guess telegrams, 2014, 1914. Telegrams, phone calls at that point. So just consider the world that we live in, that you can be anywhere in the world. And I have no idea where Robbie is, who sent me this tweet today.

But he could be in West Palm Beach, Florida, next door to me, or he could be on the other side of the world. I have no idea. What an amazing world. What an amazing opportunity. What an amazing gift of the fact that if you're listening to me, it's very likely that you're living in a place where you probably can't fail.

Why would you not go for the things that you want to go for? So what? So it doesn't work out. What an amazing opportunity that we have. Consider the careers that you can have. Consider the fact that you can do work that's interesting. You can do work that's enjoyable.

You can do work that you really find a spark of creativity in. And compare that to the drudgery that so many people in the world today still live under. So many people in the world all through history have lived under. Recognize that fact and start from that place of abundance of what an amazing world we live in.

The poorest person among us has a pretty good life. Incidentally, Joshua's tip, if you're a poor person in Chicago, come to Florida. It's a lot better weather down here. Number-- I don't understand why there's homeless people in Chicago. I digress. Number 13, finally, read. And if I have to say that anything else has served me well and that I would continue to encourage my 18-year-old self to do is read.

Read, read, read. Because your ability to see through mistakes and to avoid some of the big errors that can happen is going to be based upon, I guess, your exposure and your mentors. And the reality is, however, that you can be mentored by anybody that you want to be mentored by that you really respect and admire.

If you really respect them and admire them and they're a close acquaintance to you, just go and talk to them. And they won't need to have written a book. But usually, if it's somebody farther away from you that you respect and admire, they've probably written a book. So you could go and be mentored by all 44 presidents of the United States of America.

Every one of them has some kind of book that was written by them or some kind of book or many, many books that was written about them. And both of them are valuable. So if you admire Barack Obama and you want to be mentored by him, go read his books and then read the books that are written about him.

And wait a few years and after his political life is done, then go read those books. If you admire George Bush, go read his book. If you admire Bill Clinton, you go back all the way back. And go and read their books. If you admire the great business leaders or the great humanitarian leaders or these great people, go read their books.

Read their blogs, especially today. That's the other thing. And you can choose anybody in the world to be mentored by. What an amazing opportunity that we have. And then go watch their TED Talks. Go on YouTube. Just get exposed to great ideas. And that type of knowledge, that type of education, in my mind, there's nothing better.

That will pay off in spades. The return on investment for the cost of a book-- I used to hear Jim Rohn used to say, just paraphrasing here, which I highly recommend. What a great man he was. But Jim Rohn used to say, rich people all have libraries in their house.

Now here's the question. Did they have a library before they were rich? Or did they get rich first and then get a library? I'll let you figure that out for the day. So with that, that's my show for today. Kind of a little bit different and a little bit looser, a little bit more fun.

These are just some ideas that I've had. And I'm sure if I were to make this list tomorrow, there would be 13 other things. Same thing for you. These are just things that I was thinking about today with regard to my life circumstance. I hope they're helpful to you.

I hope you enjoyed them. I love the feedback. Thank you for those of you interacting on Twitter. Keep in comment. I'm going to keep asking questions. And I think on Friday, probably, I will put together-- I've got some other good, great questions. I'll put together a Q&A show going into a lot of other topics.

So if you would like to be a part of that, please shoot us a tweet at-- tweet me @radicalpf. And let me know what you're interested in my talking about. Let me know what your question is. Please, if you haven't done so, come by the blog and sign up for the email newsletter.

Sign up for the email newsletter. It's only going to be used to publish posts with information on the show notes. So you can find out when the show is published. When I hit Publish and the show is published, that email goes out within 10 or 15 minutes. So you'll know that the show is live.

And you'll know what the show notes are, so you know the show topic. Really appreciate that. And thank you so much for those of you who were helping me with the show promotion. I appreciate it. It means the world to me that you would put a tweet out there, tell somebody about the show.

That means the world to me. I just-- I thank you so much. So with that, go live your dream. No, seriously. Go. Go live your dream. Cheers, y'all. Wake up at Holiday Inn Express to a can't-miss breakfast that's free with every stay. Count on all the hot, fresh coffee you need and an incredible breakfast buffet that has something for everyone, like eggs, cinnamon rolls, and even hot, fresh pancakes with all the toppings you crave.

Next time, do yourself a favor and stay at a Holiday Inn Express with a can't-miss breakfast that's free with every stay. So when you wake up at Holiday Inn Express, you'll wake up happy, a part of IHG Hotels and Resorts.