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Ralphs. Fresh for everyone. ♪ Today on the show, we're going to talk about some reasons to be thankful that you are alive today. It's the best time to be alive in the history of mankind. And today, I'll try to prove it to you. ♪ Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

My name is Joshua Sheets. And today is Thursday, December 4, 2014. Today, we talk about why this really is, truly, one of the greatest times to be alive in the history of the world. I'm going to try to give you a lot of examples that will help you to see it.

♪ One of the things that you really have to learn to deal with when you get into the world of financial planning and personal finance is you have to figure out what is your perspective on the future. And this is tough because I could give you lists and lists of websites.

And if you go to one website, you're going to become completely, utterly depressed at what's in store. And if you go to other sites and read other essays, you're going to be incredibly positive about what's in store. In my mind, I think the answer is not to be an optimist or a pessimist as such.

The answer is not to say, "Well, this can't happen," or "This is guaranteed to happen," but rather to try to look accurately at how things actually are, at what actually is happening. So today, we're going to talk about what actually is happening, the world that we actually do live in.

And I hope it gives you a little bit of perspective. I'd planned to do this show within the context of Thanksgiving. And what was interesting was I had already planned this and written the outline for it. And then right after I finished writing the outline, I actually was finishing up the last part of the Tony Robbins book, "Money, Master the Game." And he put a section in there on this topic, and I thought he did a very good job with it.

So I'm going to reference that in today's show in just a moment, read you two different pages from that section, because he did a really great job and showed me some technology I never even knew existed, which is amazing. So I hope you enjoy today's show. Real quick, if you'd like to get in touch with me, I'm always available.

You can email me, Joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com. You can find me on Twitter @radicalpf or at facebook.com/radicalpersonalfinance. Thank you all for your support of the show. At the end of today's show, I'll give you just a couple of quick ideas and comments on some of the things that I have planned for the future of the programming of this show.

I hope you enjoy. But for now, let's get right into the discussion on reasons to be grateful. I personally believe that we live in one of the most incredible times of human history. It often doesn't feel that way. If you pay attention to the news that floods in through whatever source you get the news from, it often doesn't feel like we live in an amazing, incredible time, but we really, really do.

One thing that I find helpful when reading the news is to remember. I learned this trick from a friend of mine who's a reporter. He now works at one of the large national news networks. We were talking about the content of the news and how depressing it can be sometimes.

He said, "Look at it this way. The reason that it's news is because it's rare. So when you see something horrific and horrible and depressing on the news, be glad about that. That's why it is news. If it weren't rare, it wouldn't be on the news. It wouldn't be abnormal." That helped me a little bit.

I still don't care that much to pay much attention to most of the content that's essentially being packaged just simply in a sensationalist way to basically titillate my senses and suck me in. But it is an interesting and useful concept. Every single one of you that's listening to my voice, every single one of you, no matter whether you consider yourself to be rich or to be poor, every one of you and me, every one of us is exponentially more well off in terms of lifestyle and standard of living than some of the richest people in the history of the world.

It's never been easier to live well than right now in any way. Now, it may not feel like that right now in your life. If it doesn't, that's okay. Just listen to this and hopefully I can help you with a little bit of perspective. I'm going to open by reading a quote from page 552 and 553 of Tony Robbins' book.

In this chapter, which is the second to the last chapter of his book, he talks about the future. He goes into some tremendous examples. But here he says, "We're used to the idea that we can predict tomorrow by looking at what happened today or yesterday. But that can't be done anymore.

Until very recently, change was very rare and so slow that it was measured in eras, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and so on. Now, change is exponential. That means it's speeding up, making huge leaps forward in shorter periods of time. It means we're making tools that can transform the quality of our lives faster and better, and they're available to just about everyone.

The average person today already has options. The richest pharaoh in Egypt never dreamed of. Imagine what he would have given to be able to fly in the sky, in a chair, or in a bed to another part of the world in a few hours, instead of months fighting the oceans.

Now you can do that for $494 on Virgin Atlantic Airways. Even a pharaoh couldn't spend $200 million to make a movie to entertain himself for two hours. And yet every week, multiple new films are coming out that we can enjoy in the theater for $10, or $9.99 per month on Netflix.

Let's face it, we're living in one of the most extraordinary times on Earth. We've seen the lifespan of human beings in the last 100 years go from 31 years old to 67 years old, more than doubling. In the same time, the average per capita income, adjusted for inflation, of every person on this planet tripled.

100 years ago, the majority of Americans used to spend 43% of each day working just to get food. Now, because of advances in agriculture and distribution, it's 7%. Now, listen to this story. This blew my mind when I read it. Again, this is Tony Robbins again. The first time I met President Bill Clinton, back in the early 1990s, I vividly remember sitting down with him and saying, "You know, Mr.

President, maybe there's a way we could communicate electronically." He looked puzzled, so I said, "I've started using this new thing called email. I've got an account on AOL. Do you have one?" And the President said, "Oh, I've heard about that." But there was no email account for the President of the United States back then.

Now, the phone that an Amazonian tribesman carries around the jungle has more instant computing power than Clinton had at his disposal as leader of the free world. He can go online to buy supplies for his cows or pay his child's school fees. He can translate languages. If he wants, he can access free courses in economics from Yale and math from MIT.

We're living in a whole different universe now, and we're just at the beginning of the beginning. Can you imagine President Bill Clinton not having email? I mean, I'm scarcely – I'm not yet 30, and I remember Bill Clinton getting elected. Bill Clinton not having email, and compare that with the world we live in today.

I remember reading a book in college by Thomas Friedman called The World is Flat, and I remember just how it blew my mind of what he talked about as far as the connections in the world and the future, essentially. And yet today, The World is Flat, probably if I were to go back and reread it, would look like not even scratching the surface of what the future is like.

It's so tough to keep your head straight. It's so tough to wrap your mind around it. I am personally fascinated with – and I'm going to read one more section here from Tony Robbins' book and then go on to my outline that I had prepared prior to even reading this book.

But I want to read a section to you from this book on 3D printing. I'm personally totally fascinated with the technology behind 3D printing. I think it's amazing, and I would love to learn and get involved with some of the maker fairs and some of that. I don't see how I can do it right now, but I have a total interest in this.

Robbins tells this amazing story about a young man, a 16-year-old young man, actually a 14-year-old young man who grew up in Colorado. He learned how to build – by figuring out online, he built a prosthetic hand for – by the time he was 16, built a prosthetic hand in his bedroom.

He's gone on and done all these amazing things. It's really a neat story. I recommend you buy the book just to read the story. You could probably Google him. The young man's name is Easton LaChapelle, L-A-C-H-A-P-P-E-L. Just a really, really cool story. The best thing about it is – so he's very involved in the world of prosthetics now.

At the age of 17, he was hired to run a robotics program for NASA, never having gone to a major university to study engineering. Had done it all on the internet, learned and taught himself everything on the internet. My favorite thing about the story – I'll read one paragraph from page 558.

It goes through kind of his revolution and evolution with the different technology that he invented. After meeting President Obama in the summer before his 18th birthday, Easton interned with NASA at Houston's Johnson Space Center, where he led a team working on robotics for the International Space Station. By the end of August, Easton was already thinking, "I'm out of here.

These guys are too slow." He missed building the things he designed, and there were too many layers of bureaucracy. He went back home to work on building a robotic exoskeleton for a boy in his high school who was paralyzed from the waist down after an accident. Easton wanted him to walk at his graduation.

Notice a 17-year-old young man says NASA is too slow, goes back home to work out of his bedroom. That's going to be a major – I feel that way myself, and it's going to be a major force that's going to shape our society and especially the work world in the coming decades.

But back to 3D printing, page 561 here. Robbins writes, "You know the replicators they used in those Star Trek movies to synthesize hamburgers and hot coffee out of thin air on the Starship Enterprise? Well, scientists say we're not that far from creating the real thing. We've already been talking a lot about 3D printing, but it's hard to grasp what a powerful technology can become until you've seen it in action.

3D printing is really a catch-all phrase for digital manufacturing, and the "printers" are actually mini-factories that use computer files as blueprints to create three-dimensional objects layer by layer. The printers can use at least 200 different liquefied or powdered materials, including plastic, glass, ceramic, titanium, nylon, chocolate, and even living cells.

What can you make with them? A better question is, what can't you make with them? So far, 3D printers have been used to create running shoes, gold bracelets, airplane parts, tableware, bikinis, guitars, and solar panels, not to mention human tracheas, ears, and teeth. As you've already learned, there are 3D printers small enough to fit into a teenager's bedroom that are capable of turning layers of synthetic goop into a functioning prosthetic limb.

And there are hanger-sized 3D printers in China that can print out 10 houses a day using layers of concrete mixed with recycled construction waste. The cost? Just $5,000 per home, and there's almost no labor required. Perhaps even more importantly, NASA has partnered with America Makes, a network of 3D printing companies, to sponsor a worldwide competition to address one of humanity's greatest challenges, the need for shelter, especially emergency shelter in times of natural disaster such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes.

Imagine 3D printers printing out homes on the spot using local materials in hours, not months. The impact of this technology effectively used is limitless. Someday, you might be able to print your own custom-fit blue jeans without leaving your house, while remote villages in the Himalayas will be able to download patterns from the cloud and print tools, water pumps, school supplies, anything they need.

So will space travelers. Of course, as new technologies like 3D printing come online, old ones will be disrupted and some businesses may disappear. There won't be much need for spare parts warehouses anymore, will there? And much less need for shipping. Great for the planet, but not so good if you're a truck driver.

Experts project that 3.5 million truck drivers will be without a job in the United States alone because there will be robotic, self-driving trucks that can operate 24 hours a day versus the 8 hours a human can drive before having to take a break. Also, there's no salary to pay after you make your initial investment in the self-driving truck.

As old industries fall away, new ones will arise. We just need the education and training and mindset to embrace change and meet the demands of the new emerging economy. Isn't that incredible? Every time I see a video of a 3D printer, just go on YouTube. By the way, if you've never seen a 3D printer, go on YouTube and just start searching.

It's really amazing. Now, the technology is in many ways still at its infancy. I have a friend of mine who uses one to custom create objects that he sells online and custom create all these little neat things for his business and for his brands. So, it's still in its infancy and very, very rough.

It's easy to overstate where things are right now because often what happens, at least from my observation, it's easy to overstate. I'm not an expert, but what happens is you tend to talk about where things will be instead of where things are. There are still some challenges. At the moment, you can't yet walk out and get a $50 printer, which is going to print you every little doodad that you need.

But there's no reason that it's not coming, at least that I can figure out. There's no reason that it's not coming. I sat down and I made this list, and I'm going to walk through my list. It's in no particular order. But think about some of these trends that are happening in the world, and I hope this encourages you.

One of the biggest trends that I see is worldwide connectivity, one human with another human through the internet, and especially through mobile devices. I read a report. It was publicized. I've got it here. It was publicized in some news articles, and I went and found the report. I'll link to it in the show notes.

It's from Ericsson, the cell phone company, and it's called the Ericsson Mobility Report. From November 2014, if you look in this report, you see that they predict that by the year 2020, 90% of the world's population over six years old will have a cell phone. If you live in the United States and haven't traveled much abroad, I would encourage you to get out of the country.

It seems to me like we're actually in many ways far behind some of the technology in some of the other countries that I've been privileged to travel through. I've enjoyed very much spending time in some not so wealthy parts of the world. What amazed me, and there are statistics that I've read on this, but you see cell phones everywhere.

Back when I read – it must have been 10 years ago now. Wow. More than 10 years ago when I read Friedman's book, The World is Flat, he made a big point about how quick some of the development in much of the world had been because unlike in the United States where we had to build up an infrastructure of wires and then transition that infrastructure of wires to cell phones, the infrastructure of wires to a wireless infrastructure, much of the rest of the world has never – they could just leapfrog the whole need for wires and go straight to wireless connectivity.

I've been in the boonies in Haiti or in the boonies in the Philippines. Every single person has a cell phone. Amazing. What that has done – I enjoy – go read in some of the microfinance reports, some of the world development reports. What's fascinating is what that has done, the power of information, even with non-smart devices, the power of information for the rural poor throughout the world has just brought this incredible, incredible change.

It's absolutely amazing. One of the biggest trends in the Erickson report that go into what percentage – 90% would probably not be all smart devices. But the smart devices are coming along so quickly that a massive percentage of them will be. Then also with the speeds that are going to be coming out with the data networks, they go in a little bit in the report into the evolution of the next network.

They're talking about the 5G network. What Erickson predicts in their report is that the 5G network is expected to be commercially deployable by the year 2020 as well. We're five years from that. Now, the 5G network from what I understand is not only about the speed, but it's also about just the massive connection of all of the devices.

Essentially using a mobile network with all kinds of small devices connected, but the speed is a big deal. Interesting thing, I have a little graphic on just how fast is the 5G network. Today, we are familiar with a 3G or 4G network. The question here with a 3G network that was introduced in 2001, how long would it take to download an 800 megabyte movie?

It would take four hours and 44 minutes and 27 seconds. But on a 4G network, it would take a total of 43 seconds to download an 800 megabyte movie. On a 5G network, one second. One second. I have a little graphic here right below that. It says, "How fast would you be able to download all episodes of The Simpsons?" On a 4G network, it would be one hour, 55 minutes, and 36 seconds.

On a 5G network, it would be two minutes and 43 seconds to download all episodes of The Simpsons onto your mobile device. Think about what happens in a world where with a computer that's connected full-time to the web, with download speeds that massive, with battery life measured in days, chargeable on a small solar panel throughout the world.

Think of what that does. It's amazing. Think of the connection. Think of the opportunities. Throughout history, those who controlled what people read-- Well, throughout history, those who were in power often worked to control what people read. You can read anything in the world for free. Books, blogs, everything that's on the internet.

Everything. For free. Half of the stuff that's out there, you can read that's copywritten. You can find bootleg now for free. You can entertain for free. Think about the price for you yourself, not even focusing on 2020. Think about today, what you can do. I was looking at some information on the most recent iPhone, and I was just fascinated by it.

Looking at all of the options that are available to you and to me through that device. I have an unlimited amount of free reading material. I have an unlimited amount of free entertainment, both on YouTube, both copyrighted material and non-copyrighted material. There's so much stuff out there bootlegged. I could watch full-length movies day after day after day.

I'd never run out of them on YouTube. Right on that phone. You can learn any subject you want in the world for free. Excuse me, free as far as dollar cost, nothing beyond just the device. It's not free for time, but for free. You can print books. You can connect to any book.

You can connect to any person for free. Any person can have a voice. You can be the most insignificant person. You can write your thoughts and opinions out. If you do something dastardly or evil, and you bring attention to your thoughts, it'll be published. Who was that? I read the writings of that totally disturbed guy out in California that killed that couple of women.

He wrote this totally disturbed diary of his perspectives on life. As soon as he committed his evil deed, anybody in the world could immediately read all of his thoughts. That's never happened in the history of the world. Global literacy is at an all-time high. It's growing all the time.

In a world where there's some interesting studies in education where they take computers and just simply set up computers in some corners of the world where people don't speak the language, and they put them there for the children to play with, and the children can teach themselves how to use the computer, can teach themselves literacy in any language in the world.

It's amazing. Look at the environment. In many ways, here in the United States, the air is cleaner than it's ever been, or than it's been since the Industrial Revolution. The water is cleaner. And the thing about all of the environmental problems, we know how to fix them, know how to improve them.

Food and water. Food has never been cheaper for those of us, especially in prosperous Western societies, as cheaper as a percentage of your income than it is now. Walk into your local grocery store and just stand there and look around at the variety and the incredibly low price of all of it.

Look at the sheer abundance of different types of food that you can consume. Think about the fact that throughout history, certain types of food and certain types of spices and certain types of ingredients were in many ways priceless. Think about the fact that just even the possession of salt was an incredible thing and incredibly valued in much of history.

And now, it costs nothing. Agricultural productivity is amazing, and we know how to make it better. We know what causes famine. Water is cheaper. Clean water, which has made such a massive difference, is cheaper and more available and more readily accessible than any time in the history of the world.

Fuel, fuel, access to fuel, to heat yourself, to transport yourself, cheaper than it's ever been. Transportation, more widely accessible, more available than it's ever been in the history of the world. A little anecdote that I thought was illustrative. My wife and I traveled to see family for Thanksgiving weekend.

So, driving on I-95, there were two cars traveling in the right-hand lane about 60, 65 miles an hour. We were going 70, 75. And the car in front was a beautiful, cherry red, classic, ragtop car. I don't know, but my guess would be probably early '40s car, just a beautiful car, though.

It was just chromed out, stunning example of the actual -- just a stunning example of a beautiful, classic car. Right behind it was a Honda Civic, pretty battered and beat up, not in bad shape, but somewhat weathered, from about the late '90s. It looked like it -- from about that era.

I laughed, and I often will use this example with my wife. And when you get into questions and discussions about inflation and increasing costs, I'm convinced -- I've seen some statistics. I haven't run the numbers myself, but I'm convinced that it is far cheaper to travel now than it's ever been in the history of mankind, even including increases in the cost of fuel.

People get all bent out of shape about the inflation of fuel costs. And I look at it, and I say, "If you actually adjust for inflation, if you have to adjust for improvements in efficiency, which would I rather travel across the country in, that beautiful Ford from 1940-something or that Honda Civic?" I'd take the Civic any day.

Now, travel across town to the car show, I'd take the Ford, or the ragtop. But did I actually travel? A $1,500 Honda Civic with 150,000 miles on it would get you 45 miles per gallon, transport you for another 100,000 miles reliably, and cost you almost nothing. Isn't that incredible?

Global air travel, the ability to get on an airplane and just go to basically any corner of the world for relatively nothing. It certainly would take some substantial money out of my pocket today to jump on an airplane and go to Hong Kong. But in comparison to history -- I've been to Hong Kong, what, three times, I think?

Isn't that amazing? Housing is cheap and getting cheaper. Think of the example that he said about being able to 3D print a house for $5,000. I'm obsessed with housing technology, and I have a brother who is really into all the new, intelligent, kind of space-age materials design, all of this stuff of modular construction and all of these things, and I'm really interested in some of the old-fashioned techniques and some of the more low-cost, eco-budget, eco-conscious housing techniques.

So we go back and forth on this. And whichever way you choose, you can build beautiful housing structure for cheaper than ever, faster, more comfortable. The heating and cooling systems are getting cheaper. They're getting better. They're getting more efficient. Sanitation is easier. Think about the ability to just turn on the shower and have a hot shower every day.

We have an ability to communicate for free around the world. Some historical context. I remember in my life -- so before my life -- my mom and dad told me stories about when they were newly married. My father was in the Navy. And so when he was in the Navy, he would go away on six-month cruises.

He was on a submarine. And he would go off on a six-month cruise, be away from family for six months. He would not talk to my mom for six months at a time with synchronous voice communication. What they would do, I found out, is they would actually record tapes and send each other tapes.

I thought that was brilliant, but you would sit and have a conversation, basically record a verbal letter, and they would mail that to each other. And that was how they communicated when he was away. I remember I have an uncle and an aunt who live in Alaska. And when -- they're in their 70s, 80s, something like that.

When they were newly married and they're young age, and my aunt went to Alaska, her birthday present every year was my uncle allocating the money towards her ability to call her mother in California and speak for about a few minutes on the telephone. Think about today where with a $50 Android -- $100 Android phone and a free Wi-Fi connection on Skype, you can talk to anybody in the world.

Isn't that incredible? Even just the ease of connection, I remember when I was 12, I traveled with my parents to England. And I remember watching -- my father was always very up on technology. I remember watching him try to connect to the Internet when -- in the hotel room.

And he was able to download his email, and he was able to do it. But it was a much tougher thing than today pulling out your little cell phone and anywhere in the world just downloading your email. Really incredible. We know how to fix many of the major problems in the world.

We know how to fix many of the ecological problems. We know what causes war. We know how to work for peace. You can earn your money in ways that are more agreeable and more amazing than you ever could before. Freedom is on the rise all around the world. Ultimately, I'm convinced personally that collectivism and the large nation state as we know it is utterly doomed.

But as individuals, that's good for us. I mean, I'm very -- I'm interested in 3D printing. One of the best developments in 3D printing that people are working on is the invention of the plans that work very easily and very well to print 3D print guns. Right out of any home in any nation.

And this has government bureaucrats quaking in their boots. Because if you go back in history and you go back and you study the invention of the firearm and you go back and study the tension between the ruling class and feudal societies and the peasants and the restriction on armor but how warfare evolved over time and the lack of freedom for the peasant class but how with increasing weaponry they were able to gain more freedom.

Then you go and you look at the invention of the not modern firearm but kind of the first ones. That's what led to the rise of society as we know it today. Now, I don't have any illusion about -- I think I don't have any illusion about society changing and somehow rising up and revolution.

There's no need. There's no need for it. But in a world where any individual -- where people can put plans online for free and with a couple hundred dollar printer, any house, any thug, any criminal, or any upstanding citizen can 3D print a gun in their basement? That's one of the best bellwether signs of increasing freedom of all time.

The freedom to work and do different things and even just the freedom to move. I think a lot about this. On the show with Tony Robbins, I talked about the show -- excuse me, the news website that he profiled in his book called How Money Walks was really fascinated to find that site.

It is so -- I don't understand why people stay in -- I mean I do understand because of the family ties but there's never been a -- think about how amazing it is in the United States or in many places where you can get up and you can get a U-Haul truck and a few hundred bucks, you can transport your entire family 2,000, 3,000 miles away and start a new life.

That brings competition. That competition is what leads to lower costs in some places, higher costs in other places. I have an answer for the show tomorrow, a question from a physician, a new physician, resident physician working in Maryland. And the tax rate that this person is under is atrocious.

It says, "How can I -- what do I do?" And the reality is, is once you're done with your residency, get out. Go somewhere where you make more money for less -- excuse me, where you keep more of your money. That competition over time will bring a reduction in costs.

Now what you see is look at how easy it is to find information for competition among nation states on a global basis. Think about how difficult it was in the Robbins show. I also mentioned Sir John Templeton and how he moved from -- he expatriated and renounced his U.S.

citizenship and became a British citizen living in the Bahamas in order to save money on U.S. taxes. Now he was a billionaire and he had the opportunity to find that information. But now a free duck, duck, go search and boom, you've got all the information you need about other countries.

Think about even the politics as we know it, I think it's largely an empty shell. But think about still how amazing it is that people all around the world have a say in who represents them. It doesn't do any good if the general consensus of a population is in a negative scenario and we elect the people that represent us and the people that represent us perfectly, they're a representation of the people.

But politics aside, just think about how amazing that is. Think about how easy it is to access information. It's never been easier to start a business. Think about how incredible Kickstarter is or Indiegogo, that people, ordinary people have this new, in essence, access to capital that didn't exist in the past.

Isn't that incredible? Look at how amazing the world of money and investing is. Go and research the cost of investing. Go and research the fees charged for investing. There has never been a better time to be an investor than now. You can go out and for 20 basis points you can buy an incredibly diversified portfolio owning the greatest companies of America and the world in the most efficient capital markets ever invented.

It's 20 basis points. Point, point two zero percent. That's your all in fee. Compare that to the fees you would have paid 50 years ago to a stock broker to put together a portfolio of blue chip companies for you to own. Isn't that amazing? Look at the growth and freedom of all the new currency ideas that are being generated.

Look at how monetary arguments and arguments over the structure and the makeup of money and people inventing an entirely new, I mean the crypto currencies, we're in crypto currency version 1.0. Think about where that can go in the future. And look at how easy it is and how it will only get easier to completely cut out the inefficiency of the bureaucratic government systems that exist.

Isn't that amazing? We have access to an incredible amount of information. Now, we've got to ensure that the transition to the next models, the next versions of every aspect of society is positive. And we have the responsibility to ensure that the information is used for good. With regard to personal wealth, it's never been easier to get rich than in the history of the world.

If you know how. And that's the great challenge. If you don't know how, there's never been a time where it's harder to get rich if you don't know how. But the methods are simple. They're not easy, but they're simple. But even just the ability, I mean, ultimately, I think becoming wealthy is all about the ability to defer gratification.

Future orientation, one of the greatest predictors is a future orientation, the ability to defer pleasure and defer gratification to the future time. But you can still live for almost no money. You can still live an incredibly better lifestyle. All you've got to do is just be a little bit behind the adoption curve.

A little bit behind. But just a little bit behind is incalculably better than the history of the world. Now, what's the problem? The problem is none of these changes are smooth. And every single one of those categories, I could just as easily go through every one of those categories and talk about the negative aspects of the categories.

I could go through and talk about the price of housing. I could go through and talk about the problems with the environment. I could go through and talk about the increasing cost of food or the vacuous nature of the nutrition thereof. That's not the point. There are incredible challenges in every one of them.

But the point is those things are solvable. The solutions are largely known. And the ones that aren't known are being invented day by day, partially because of that connectivity. There's going to be – there's sure to be a great amount of turmoil in the short term, maybe even in the medium term.

And that's what we've got to plan for. We've got to plan for turmoil. And if people as power structures shift, as economies shift, that brings an incredible impact. If you have three and a half million truck drivers that are out of work because – I mean I think a decade or two.

I don't know, but I'm sure people have accurate predictions. But I'd say a decade, totally making that statistic up. All the semi trucks are going to be self-driving robotic trucks. And they're going to be hauling twice as much of the cargo on twice as good fuel efficiency. And what do you do when you have three and a half million truckers out of work, especially if they haven't prepared?

And what do you do as – especially in our world, most of you listening live in a western society where there's a heavy influence of governmental systems and structures. And what do you do when essentially, as one of the Buffett aphorisms is, the tide goes out and you see who's swimming naked.

What do you do when you fall short on pension obligations? And what do you do when Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are bankrupt? And what do you do when costs come down and people see through and things change? Well, there's this rough, tumultuous transition filled with turmoil. There's going to be a massive decentralization of society.

And that's ultimately good for you. But it may be tough to get through and that may be one of the biggest challenges. Personally, I think the biggest thing that we need to be aware of is how to be ready. So the question I would ask you today and leave you with is what do you need to do to be ready?

What do you need to do to be prepared to improve your situation for you and for those that you love? Every time a transition is challenging and there are, in every time of transition, there are a lot of people who ultimately get left behind. And that has massive effects in a society.

But in every period of transition, there are a lot of people that become, became wealthy. In the Great Depression, go back and study, the Great Depression formed the foundation of many of the great family dynasties that today are common household names. Remember the story of Sir John Templeton, where Sir John Templeton made his fortune out of the ashes of World War II.

So my challenge to you would be are you aware of what the future could be? As the saying goes, the best way to predict the future is to create it. Are you taking advantage of the current state of affairs, whatever that is, for you to improve your personal scenarios, your personal standard of living?

Are you paying attention to the details and the basic disciplines of finance, tracking your income, tracking your expenses, making wise investments, lowering costs while increasing lifestyle? Are you aware of the technological changes that are happening and how to create them, how to profit from them and how to create them, how to lead the market?

And are you prepared for the challenges of transition, whatever those challenges would be? A good financial plan is not built on one idea or built on one outcome. A good financial plan is multifaceted and it prepares for every outcome. Now you have to do it in a logical way and a logical progression, but I don't have the ability to predict the future, at least not in the short term, and I've never met anybody that does.

That's why we plan. That's ultimately what the whole balance of planning is for. So I hope this is encouraging to you. We're coming to the end of 2014 and it's kind of fun. It's fun and scary and daunting to sit back and think, "What could life look like five years from now?

What does 2020 look like?" It'll be a fascinating experience and I hope to be here to share it with you on the air every day. That's the bulk of what I wanted to share with you today. A couple of quick announcements on the show. I've been working hard on planning for this next year and I've really – this first – what has it been, four months, five months since I started this thing?

It's been really a great learning process and in many ways I feel like I've made a lot of progress. In many ways I feel like I've got a huge need of things to do and so I'm spending a lot of time clearing out my schedule and making some clear plans to really increase everything.

I'm largely focused on just basically increasing the quality across the board and I've got a lot of big plans on how to do that. I'm focused a lot on how do I increase the quality of the offerings to make the show more profitable. So I am working on – my primary way to do that is the membership program, the irregulars.

I have some ideas. I'm actually going to – I've got some ideas for some content that's going to be there to enhance the value of that. A few of you have signed up. I've been a little bit disappointed. I was kind of hoping for more. It's not going to dissuade me from anything but if you've been thinking about signing up, I'd be thrilled if you did.

It would really help me to I guess have some capacity, some more financial capacity to invest in improving the quality of the show. That's a major focus of mine and I'm going to do it either way but I would love – I mean that's the primary way that I've set out to grow things.

I may change – I've gotten a good amount of feedback from many of you about the launch of the membership program. Many of you have said that's awesome. It sounds like what you're doing is really great and that would be a good option. But we'd love just to contribute directly for the show and thanks for the shows that you put out.

And so I think I'm going to go ahead and set up a Patreon account. I think that's the most direct and that's a really great way to do that. So those of you who have asked me to do that, I'll set that up. I'm going to enhance still the focus on the membership because I still want to keep those incentives the way that I described in episode 100 for you.

I want to keep those incentives consistent and I'm going to – I'm not going to go into details today but I'm going to start a new show actually. It's kind of going to be a behind-the-scenes look on Radical Personal Finance. Don't worry. It's not going to take away from the other show.

It's actually going to be really helpful to me. It's going to be much more personal, a lot more details. But essentially what I'm going to use, I'm going to use those of you who are in the irregulars as in many ways a board of directors and shareholders in the show, not in a formal technical sense but more as a way for me to bounce ideas off of because venturing out into this unknown, it's been how do I get information.

And so I pay a lot of attention to those of you who are irregulars who contribute to the show and then who tell me how you would like it to be focused. So I pay a lot of attention to that. I got a bunch of ideas around that, which I'll be rolling out as time goes forward.

That's it for today's show. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate each and every one of you. It's been an exciting year and next year is going to be even better. I hope that as you go into the – we're now in the middle of the holiday season throughout most of the Western world.

I hope that your spirits are high, that your vision is clear, and that you are encouraged. It's a great time to be alive. Thank you for those of you who left reviews. They've been a little bit slow recently. I've still got a couple that I'm working through, so I'm going to read this one here.

This comes from Marcus. Marcus says, "Infectious and educational," this is an iTunes review. "Joshua's balanced approach of theory, practical application, and living proof. Guests take the complicated black art of finance, simplifies it, and motivates you to do something amazing in your own life. His enthusiasm is contagious and I find myself scouring" – did I read this one?

"Scouring his back episodes and sending them to friends. Noah's teacher, he has episodes, episode 80 and 78, that will make them a millionaire. Have a kid about to graduate high school? Joshua's Walmart episode, number 51, will walk a new graduate from a minimum wage job up to financial independence.

Heck, the Walmart episode will help anyone become financially independent because it doesn't stop at simple tricks to make it happen. He gives you the theory behind why it's so important to keep expenses low, to live close to a library and close to work. These ideas are so simple but overlooked in modern America.

Do yourself a favor and look through the episodes for a couple that will look interesting to you. I guarantee that you'll come back for more." Marcus, thank you for that review. I really appreciate it. Several of you have been leaving Stitcher reviews. Thank you to those of you who have been doing that.

I'm going to read some of those soon here too. And if you would please, I would be indebted to you if you'd leave an iTunes review. I love getting those. Consider joining the membership program. You can find all the details of that at radicalpersonalfinance.com/membership. Everything you need to know is right there.

Thank you so much for listening to tomorrow's Q&A. Call in your questions if you haven't yet. Thank you for listening to today's show. This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment. Your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.

This show is not and is not intended to be any form of financial advice. Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy. And consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.

Hold them accountable for your results. I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes. If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please come by the show page and comment so we can all learn together. Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.

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