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Adorama, the photographer's source for gear. Shop Adorama.com today. Today on Radical Personal Finance we're going to talk about the perils of success. Life is filled with peril and we all know that failure has a whole bunch of perils. But did you know that success has its own set of perils?

I'm sure there are many but today I'm going to share with you a few and specifically I'm going to share with you how they've affected me, the lessons that I've learned from them and I hope this content, because it's related to me, will be helpful and relatable for you so that you can avoid some of the problems and the mistakes that I've made.

Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host. Today we're going to focus largely on that insight and encouragement part of the little slogan.

Give you a little bit of insight into success and encouragement of what you can do when you face it. Many people are quick to talk about the problems of failure. Failure has its own set of problems. Many people are quick to talk about success but oftentimes we miss some of the benefits and some of the things of success, some of the aspects of success.

We don't talk, most people who are successful don't spend much time seemingly talking about the problems of success or the things that can happen. Success in the same way that failure is rarely permanent, success is rarely permanent and success has its own attributes. And today I want to talk about some of those with you.

This show is intended to be probably two things. Number one, I want to share with you some of these specific perils. I'll summarize them here in the beginning of the show for you. And then I also want to share a little bit about how they've emerged in my own life.

And so that part of the show, most of the back half will be largely narrative and be very personal. I won't be digging into any nuts and bolts of personal finance today, any details on an investing. So feel free to check back another day if that's the type of content that you're into.

And do note that I'm intentionally going to be pretty personal today just because I desire to do this in a way that is relatable and also to share some things from my own experience. One thing that's important to me, if you're a new listener to the show, I want you to know this, one thing that's important to me is to maintain a level of transparency and relatability through my podcast that perhaps is missing in other more professionalized media.

If you are new to the show, one thing I hope that you'll experience around here is that I try to be very transparent with what I think and why I think it. I try to be very transparent with who I am. I just returned from FinCon 16 out in California and my hope is that all of you who are listeners of the show, I met many of you out there, but my hope is that all of you who are listeners of the show found me to be the same person in person that I am on the show.

I try to be a consistent person. And I think the podcasting lends well to that because we don't have to reach a mass media. I don't have to have a general appeal. I'm able to be more me, which is a major component of the second half of this show.

But I also want it to be relatable because I think sometimes we can learn from people best who are just a little bit ahead of us. It's great to listen to an expert on whatever thing. If we're going to talk about Tony Robbins, he's got a lot of great stuff to teach you.

But at the end of the day, is he really the best teacher for you? Or is somebody who's just a little bit ahead of you or somebody who's beside you possibly do they have something to share? That's why on the show I try to bring experts on the show.

But I also try to bring just normal people. I often invite listeners on the show, very common, ordinary people. And I hope that you hear that in the content. The metaphor I use for this is that the best person to teach first grade is not necessarily a first grade teacher who's been through a college degree and a master's degree, an undergraduate and a master's degree.

Sometimes the best person to teach first grade is a second grader who has successfully passed first grade. Sometimes for a first grader, the second grader is more relatable. Now, I don't think you can take it to either extreme. I don't think that you can say that the second grader is always better.

We need the teacher sometimes to know where we're going. We need somebody to lay out first grade. We need somebody to decide what the curriculum is that we actually need to cover. What are the concepts that need to be studied in first grade? That's where the teacher steps in.

But on the flip side, sometimes the teacher is hard to relate to. That's why we want to have a mixture of experts and common people. So I'll be talking about the perils of success, listing them out for you, but then just sharing my story in hopes that it's relatable to you, especially for those of you who are longtime listeners and who've listened from the beginning.

When I was younger, I used to think that if I just did something or if I just got something better, then everything would be great. If only this, if only that, then everything would be great. If only I had a better job, if only I were married, if only I lived in a house, if only I didn't live in a house, if only I ran my own business, if only I didn't run my own business, then everything would be perfect.

Everything would be great. That was a pretty immature philosophy that I held for many years of my life and I'm sure that many of you listening can relate. I've since discarded that philosophy, both from advancing a little bit in years, gaining in maturity and experience. I've had enough personal experience to recognize that that philosophy or that idea is inaccurate and also from study and observation.

I try to talk to old people as much as I can and ask them questions like this. Does everything get better at some point in time? One of the things I've learned from both personal experience and from study and observation is that your problems will never go away. They will only change in type and character and possibly quantity.

No matter what, you're going to face problems. Now some problems are easier than other problems. Some problems are simpler than other problems. Some problems have a broader impact in your life than other problems. Many of you listening right now are facing significant financial problems. I've heard it said that if you have a problem that can be solved with money, you don't really have a problem and I think that I agree with the sentiment of that.

It really is true. If you have a problem that can be solved with money, it's a pretty solvable problem. It doesn't mean it's not a problem. It just means that in comparison to many of the other problems of life, it's a little simpler to handle. Now that doesn't diminish the impact of that problem and the financial problem in the life of somebody who's going through it.

I've walked that road with many people. It's very difficult when you're facing significant financial problems. But don't expect that your problems will ever go away because they won't. They'll just change. They might be bigger. They might be smaller. They'll certainly be different. And don't think that once you are successful, you won't have to face problems.

Don't think that once you are successful, you won't have to face the fear and the pain of failure because you will again and again. This is perhaps the biggest problem or peril of success is we launch out into the deep oftentimes in an adventure, whether it's an entrepreneurial venture into a relationship, into something new.

And we think that this is just going to work out, but we know it might not. So we conquer the fear, we conquer the unknown, and we decide to screw up our courage and act in the face of it. And then we launch out and we start to experience success.

And one of the great problems that can occur at this point in time is we might think that now that we are successful, we'll be able to avoid the pain and the insecurity and the fear of potential failure. And I'm here to tell you, you can't. I can't. None of us can.

One of the most important character traits that we can cultivate for success is some level of comfort with fear and uncertainty and with the pain of failure. If we can conquer this and become comfortable with the uncertainty and the fear and the potential pain of failure, we can continue doing those things that push us out of our comfort zone and those things will lead to ever increasing amounts of success.

Now the number of perils of success, here's my list that I'm going to be going over and relating to my own story and to my own business, partly as catharsis for some communication between me and you, but also for instruction. My story should be pretty relatable. I'm a pretty normal guy.

But here are some of the perils. Number one, you may stop doing what made you successful in the first place. I'm guilty of that and I've seen so many people be guilty of this in different contexts. Number two, once you are successful, you may fear losing that success. That one has tremendous impact.

Number three, once you are successful, you will constantly compare yourself to other successful people and to their success and then yours will pale in comparison. Number four, as you become successful, it's easy to lose sight of what you are working toward and why you are working toward it. It's easy to lose sight of what your goals are and it's easy to compare yourself with others based upon their objectives rather than your own.

Now I recommend to you, as I recommend to myself, don't do this. It's not a good plan. So here's a little bit of my story and how these things have affected me. In July, I celebrated the two-year anniversary of Radical Personal Finance. So about 26 months now of doing the show.

And the last about a year has been really, really hard. I've really struggled, really, really struggled in a number of different ways. Not in the same struggles of the first year of the show, not in the same struggles of things that I've struggled with in the past in my life, but it's been really, really challenging.

It's been really, really tough. And even though in many ways I've experienced more and more success, the problems and the struggles have continued to mount up. Now to be clear, this is not a pity party and I'm not asking you for your sympathy. There's nothing wrong with struggle. We all struggle with different things.

I have strengths, I have weaknesses just as we all do. And again, as I said earlier, I've learned to embrace the struggle. If only, then I'll be successful. That doesn't work. There's always going to be struggle. And struggle is to be embraced and to be appreciated because struggle and challenge often leads to growth.

In hindsight, when we go through difficult times, in hindsight, we'll often look back and embrace the challenge, embrace the difficulty. That difficulty and struggle is valuable for many reasons. Just some examples from my own life. When my wife and I were first becoming acquainted and becoming interested in one another, our relationship was not easy.

We faced a lot of challenges. Now the challenges were primarily my fault due to some mistakes that I made in our relationship. But it was really difficult. We had some really difficult times. And I never understood why it would be that way because I'm Mr. Learner, I'm Mr. Studier.

I always try to study an issue and try to figure out the right way to do something. And so therefore, I usually expect because I know the right way to do something that it's going to work out. But it didn't. It wasn't easy. We had a difficult time. And yet I look back on that in hindsight and I'm extremely grateful for that struggle because it has given me a tremendous level of empathy that I wouldn't have had without it.

It's very easy if you are used to doing your homework and just think that you can figure out the right way to do something. It's very easy to somehow think that, "Well, you just do A, B, C, D and everything will work out." And I think I would have been more susceptible to that if our relationship had just simply been perfect and easy and simple and without complications.

I would have been prone to pride and to feeling confident that my formula was perfect. But thankfully, I experienced some struggle and now I'm much more able to be empathetic with those who are having a difficult time in their relationships, with those who've gone through difficult experiences and who faced the painful breakup of a relationship or the divorce in a marriage or just difficulty relating with somebody that they love.

With regard to finances, I have over the years had on more than one occasion had very difficult times in my own personal finances and I didn't understand why that was the case. Now I can see now the mistakes that I made and I know why it was the case, but at the time I thought, "But I'm doing everything right.

Everything should work out. I'm doing everything the way it's supposed to be." But in hindsight now, I can not only identify the mistakes, I'm not saying that you have to struggle intentionally, you can see those mistakes and in the abundance of counsel you can find wisdom. But in hindsight, I'm really thankful for those financial challenges.

I'm really thankful for those mistakes. I'm thankful for those struggles because again, it's taught me empathy. And now I'm able to be empathetic with somebody who is struggling and not sit there and judge them that you just don't know what's going on. You should just, "Didn't you know? Didn't you read the book?" So embrace the struggle.

So as again, as I share this, I'm not asking for a pity party nor am I necessarily upset about it. I'm just sharing some of the things that I've learned in hopes that it'll be relatable for you. But one of the biggest challenges that I faced in the last year has been figuring out how to grow the business behind the show.

As I was at FinCon this last week talking with a number of other people and they all said, "How's it going?" Which is my common answer to all of them. I said, "The show's going great." But I'm just struggling with the business. The show has grown really well. The business has been anemic, functional but anemic.

Here's some updates for those of you who appreciate knowing such things. I mean, at this point, Radical Personal Finance is in the top 4% of all podcasts in terms of listener size. Going up on 4 million total lifetime downloads, the show is I would say somewhere between about 13,000 to 15,000 of you who tune in for every new episode.

Consistently 13, sometimes there are bigger spikes. Many of you just download here and there. But that's a pretty substantial audience when it comes to podcasts. It's in the top 4% of all podcasts. The show is routinely ranked in the top 50 for all podcasts in the business category of iTunes.

To the best of my knowledge, I've never broken into the top 200 of all podcasts but routinely the show comes in at the top 50 in iTunes rankings for the business category which is pretty substantial. It's not unusual that the show can be ranked ahead of many big names in those rankings.

Those rankings are not perfect. They're not infallible. They're useful to some degree. But the show has done well. And yet the business has been really, really challenging. It's been hard to know what's the right move. I've gone back and forth with different business models. You'll notice that sometimes I do advertising, sometimes I don't do advertising.

One thing I've really struggled with is it's been so challenging is actually producing what I've said I'll produce. I hate to break my word. I hate it. That's why usually I'm pretty slow to advertise what the next show is going to be. I have a calendar myself. I have a schedule.

I know what the shows are, topics that I'm going to do but it seems like every time I say well here this week, this is what we're going to do, all of a sudden the very next day my life gets turned upside down and I can't get that show done.

For a year and a half I've been talking about getting the book done. I have the outline done but I haven't gotten it written. I haven't built the courses that I've intended to do. And there are reasons behind it. One of the biggest challenges with producing the show is I want to do a good job with it.

So I want the quality to go up. Well, that's good. It's good to want to do a good job. But then there's also the pride of wanting to look like I'm doing a good job. One of the biggest challenges, do I want to do a good job or do I want to look like I'm doing a good job?

Now that's – there's a lot of pride in the second one. There's an appropriate pride in the first one. There's an inappropriate pride in the second one. And I've been convicted of that and repented and have moved on from that. But it's still pretty humbling to recognize that. The reality is that I like the attention.

I like the acclaim. I want to experience those things. And yet my job is to serve you. But it's very easy to lose sight of that. I've struggled with that, the desire to be popular. When I set out to do the show, I discarded popularity as a goal. I didn't set out to create the most researched business show out there.

I'm not stupid when it comes to business. I know how you can do something like that. You can research exactly what's needed. I come from – I worked for a couple of years in the market research company. Research is tremendously important. And if you set out to be popular, you can do that.

So I could have done that with the show. I could have picked the format that would be popular. I could have picked the content that would be popular. And I see evidence all the time that others are doing that. So when I set out to do what I do, I decided to do it differently and I discarded popularity as a goal.

But then along the way, I wound up achieving popularity and a tiny little bit of notoriety within a very small circle. And that affects you. It feels good to be admired. Now I do want to be a better broadcaster. So I'm proud of the progress that I've made. But that has a cost.

Wanting to be better has slowed me down a ton. And again, that first peril is that one of the things that happens is it's easy if you experience success to stop doing what made you successful in the first place. So as that relates to radical personal finance, I've stopped doing the show with the frequency that I once did it.

I haven't wanted to do that. But when you have a certain standard of production value, when you have a certain standard of the type of content you're trying to convey, when you have a certain standard and you get tired of reading reviews about how you ramble on and on, you spend all kinds of time writing your notes so you don't ramble, and you want to keep that high standard, but then all of a sudden you start to lose what got you there.

And by you, of course, I mean me. I've started to lose what got me there. It's more time consuming to do a good show than a bad rambly one. I've always wanted to be more professional, but that desire to be professional and professional sounding has kept me from tackling some of the content that I probably should have just tackled and not done it fully as professionally.

I've wanted to be more balanced with the content. I think diversity of topics keeps things interesting, so I try to keep things every day where you'll want to come back again and again, but that desire to be balanced has caused me to put things on my content calendar that are very difficult and time consuming, and then I fall behind.

So sometimes when you become successful, you stop doing what made you successful. Another way this has affected me within my own business project here, Radical Personal Finance, I've stopped tackling some of the more difficult, controversial subjects. Some of the rawness from the early shows has disappeared, and I've tried to keep that, and I've tried to tackle some of the ...

I still try to tackle things that interest me, but you get tired of it sometimes. And so I know that one of the things that made me successful was fitting the bill of Radical Personal Finance, but then oftentimes I shy away from the radical topics. So you stop doing what made you successful.

I've stopped trying new things. Again, back to that desire to keep things interesting and back to that desire to want to sound good and look good. I've stopped trying new things just to see what you all like. So one thing I wish I had done better, and I'm going to do better, is in the early days I would sometimes put out a long show, sometimes put out a short show, sometimes tackle a question, sometimes do a little mini episode, a little motivational five minutes, things like that.

It's a real danger of success that you stop doing what made you successful in the first place. Now, what's remarkable is I haven't only seen this in Radical Personal Finance. I used to watch this in my business and other businesses when I was in the life insurance business, and you would see somebody that would do everything that made them successful, that's making a certain amount of calls per day or doing this type of sales presentation, and there's a parallel in your business as well.

But over time it starts to work and then you start to be busy and then you stop. Be careful of this one. Because what happens is you can't stop doing what made you successful in the first place or you lose the success. Big, big danger. One challenge of success and other peril is that once you're successful you may fear losing success.

See, when you're small and you're nobody and you're poor and you're growing, you're willing to try new things. You have no brand image to protect you. You do what you want. You have no reputation to uphold. You just do what you feel like. But when you're successful you start to value that success and it's easy to fear losing that status.

Financially once you've experienced financial success and started to don some of the symbols of success, you fear looking like a loser. If you've made money and bought an expensive car and then decided that you want to sell the stupid expensive car because you've had a business set back or you've gone into debt or you've had a problem or you just need to make a change, it's hard to want to sell the expensive car and drive the beater.

It's a bitter pill for many of us to swallow. Or you don't want to dump the overwhelming beautiful house, the beautiful house that's financially overwhelming and get an apartment. You fear losing that status. And so you start to change. But yet if you would look back and realize, "Wait a second.

What helped me to be successful was my willingness to do these things. Why am I so fearful of it?" This happens on radical personal finance. Once you're successful, you fear losing the success. So I've taken more interviews with ho-hum people on ho-hum topics. Now, I try to do some of that because I think experts have something to contribute and I think it's dangerous to try to desire to be extreme for the sake of extremism.

Mainstream is not wrong because it's mainstream. So I want to take interviews from people who are mainstream. But I think I've done too much of that. You build a brand at a certain point, okay, radical personal finance, we're going to be radical and then you wind up and say, "Where's the radicalness?" It's nice to be well-connected.

It's nice to be well-connected in your industry. It's nice to be connected with famous people and have them sending you books and solicitations all the time. It's hard to want to turn those people down. Once you're successful, you fear losing success because you fear some of the connections that come into play.

I've feared losing success by not wanting to be abrasive. I think here of my interview with Robert Kiyosaki. That interview came out about in an interesting way. I never reached out to Robert. I had a listener of the show that reached out to me and was connected with him and they put us in touch.

I really like and admire many things about Kiyosaki's message. I've read many of his books and I have found many of his concepts to be helpful and useful. Rich Dad Poor Dad is the most influential, biggest selling personal finance book that I'm aware of. Tremendously huge brand. Tremendously. But what's interesting is I'm not a raving fan of his.

I find a lot of his message very confusing. I find a lot of it very wrong, very dangerous, poorly supported. So I'm not a raving fan. So when I had the opportunity for the interview, I really struggled with how do I do this? I'm not opposed completely, but I'm not a raving fan.

So I tried to do it very fairly and very directly and just give him an opportunity to speak but ask him good questions. But after the interview, I thought to myself, "Maybe I should go ahead and do a show with all the things that now that he's had his say, I should all the shows, all the areas where I think he's wrong." And I should have.

I probably still will. Got an email from a listener a few weeks ago. They said, "I'm very confused. He says some good things but he doesn't say other good things." But the reason I didn't, it was probably a few things, but one of the reasons I think is not wanting to be abrasive, not wanting to attack the big dogs in the industry.

I'm not a mean person. I don't pick personal fights with people. But I do have things that I think should be criticized about what other people do and I probably should take on various financial pundits on different topics. But I've held back because you don't want to lose your success by all of a sudden becoming abrasive.

And this affects you with many people or at least affects me. Excuse me, I'm always talking about me. Now, at the end of the day, who knows if I'm right or they're right. That's where you have to be the judge and time will tell. I'll tell you this, I'm far less critical of many financial pundits now than I was in the past, but that doesn't mean that I should run away from my criticisms.

We should respect the process of debate and criticism and allow it to bring better results on the other side. But I never wanted to be an attack dog. Some people are like that. That's not me. What's interesting though is I can now relate to what I see happen to politicians frequently.

You find a really good attack dog politician who sticks to their guns and they say, "This is my philosophical ideological position." And because that philosophical or ideological position matches what you believe to be the correct course of action or what you believe to be the right solution, then you start voting for them.

And then they go into office and they come back a different person. And you say, "What happened to you?" Well, they got corrupted. Not necessarily that they started taking bribes, but it's a very gentle seduction. It's a very seductive corruption where they don't want to be abrasive. They don't want to be that guy.

They want to be liked and included. Guess what? I do too. It's a real challenge. And yet what happens is you wind up losing the respect and the benefit that you had with those who elected you and you wind up being despised by all sides. Part of the danger of success is that once you're successful, you will constantly compare yourself to other people's success.

This has affected me with business things. I think maybe I can do this. Maybe I can do that. I want to write. I want to do video. I want better, cooler stuff. I want to do it all right now. But I can't do it all right now. I can't.

And what happens is I wind up chasing my tail trying to do it all right now. And in the process of trying to do it all, I forsake doing the core that got me successful in the first place. See the vicious cycle? It's terrible. But the same thing may happen to you.

It might happen in your business. You can identify and diagnose those problems. But it may happen in your finances. You reach a certain level of status and you want everyone to think that you're successful. And so you start comparing yourself to other people's success. And yeah, your boss can buy a round of drinks for the whole bar or your boss can buy everyone dinner.

And so you say, "Well, that must be what I need to do to be able to be successful." And so you think, "I need to do it." And you wind up destroying your budget trying to fit in. Or you wind up moving to the cool part of town and not saving any money because you're living in the cool part of town because you're trying to compare yourself to other people's success.

Here's the deal. You will never be as successful as everyone else is. No matter what stage in life you reach, no matter what metric of success, there will always be somebody who's ahead of you. There will always be somebody that has more money than you, that has a nicer car, that has a better looking husband or wife.

There will always be somebody that's ahead of you. But even if you are the number one in your field, you're the highest earner in your company. That comes with a cost. And so somebody else will be more beautiful than you are. Somebody else, you might be the highest earner, but somebody else is a better investor and so they have more money than you do.

Or you might have more money, but they have a better marriage than you do. Or their kids are more athletic and yours is not. Real danger of success is that you're constantly comparing yourself to other people's success. But now instead of being at the bottom where success is achievable because you just got to move up a little bit, now you are constantly looking to people who are far above you.

You haven't been down the path they've been. You're not at the place where they are. You have to find a metric of success that's meaningful to you. We'll come to that in just a moment, but a quick story on this comparison. I have two podcasts and my podcasts are hosted with a company called Libsyn, which is the best podcast hosting company, by the way, free month of posting with the code word radical, coupon code radical.

If you're thinking about starting a podcast, just tell them radical, you get a free month of hosting. So I host with Libsyn and I have two podcasts. What's interesting is when you open up your Libsyn account, you see on the front page just kind of a summary and there's a summary snapshot of the chart of your show.

So for a podcaster, for a blogger, et cetera, one thing that often is a very seductive trap is where you wind up looking at your statistics. You look at the number of people that are listening to your show or that are reading your blog or how many are on your email list or whatever.

These are real metrics, but sometimes they're vanity metrics. But the chart is interesting because it doesn't show the, what's it called, the metric, the scale. It doesn't show the scale. And so I open it up and sometimes it's opened up to the radical personal finance chart and sometimes depending on which show I last published from, it's opened up to my other show, Encouraging Christian Fathers.

And all you see is the chart with the ups and downs without the scale. Now radical personal finance, like I said, probably has, it gets somewhere 13, 15,000 downloads a day across all the shows, something like that. I can't, I don't check that number. I just look at the new listens per show after a few weeks.

But it gets thousands and thousands of downloads per day. My other show has probably around 800 subscribers, probably about 800 men that subscribe to that show. And so it's a very, very different scale in terms of audience size, et cetera. There's a massive difference there in audience size. But what's funny is that when you back out and you just see that summary chart on the front page, I can't tell the difference.

They have the same look. And what's interesting is that over time, for those of you who are beginning podcasters, I encourage podcasters, bloggers, whatever, enjoy the journey. Because what happens is over time you're going to become a little bit insulated to the numbers and the meaning. I'm overwhelmed by the idea of thousands of people.

I can't conceive of thousands of you listening. I can't conceive of it. It overwhelms me. It pops my stack. But I can conceive of a few hundred. And I try to take joy in the movement, the trajectory, the direction. You can't take joy in the scale because the scale is meaningless.

And so applying this to finance, that's what you see. If you find that you're earning more than you're making, as the famous Charles Dickens quote goes, you'll find a degree of financial freedom. And you're just as free if you're earning $40,000 and spending $35,000 as you are if you're earning $120,000 and spending $105,000.

The scale, yes, it does matter, but it doesn't matter. I know it's a paradox. You can live in a house and for me, one of my dreams when I was younger, which I have since fulfilled, and I got this from being a financial advisor, I would often go and meet with people and I would sometimes go to their house at 9.30 in the morning.

I'd meet them at their house and I'd be sitting in their house at 9 a.m. or 9.30 in the morning and they'd be sitting at their house drinking coffee at the kitchen table meeting with me. And I'd often ask myself, who is the kind of person who can be sitting at their house drinking coffee at 9.30 in the morning meeting with me?

And it became a goal of mine to be able to, if I wanted to, sit at my kitchen table and drink coffee at 9.30 in the morning in my house at my kitchen table. That became a goal of mine and I have since achieved it, which I'm very thankful for.

And thank you to all of you listening who have enabled me to be able to achieve that goal. Now, I won't tell you that I'm up at five in the morning working, but at 9.30, I'm sitting at my kitchen table drinking coffee. And that to me became a symbol of success.

But you know what? You can wake up and have a 9.30 cup of coffee in your house if that house is very humble or if that house is very ostentatious. At the end of the day, you can only drink from one cup of coffee at a time and you can only sit at one table at a time.

And is there a small difference of experience between drinking a cup of coffee at a table in a humble house or a cup of coffee at a large and ostentation house? I bet there probably is. I enjoy beautiful views. I like to go to nice hotels and sit and look at the water or sit and look at the mountains or sit and look at the valley.

I think that's nice. But the vast majority of it can be experienced with a simple act of a cup of coffee and a table. I like to go out in the woods, go camping in the woods and wake up early and sit and drink a cup of coffee by a campfire.

So the point is don't compare yourself on somebody else's scale. Don't compare yourself to somebody else's success. My definition of success, one of them, is being able to have the cup of coffee at 9.30 in the morning at my house at my kitchen table. Doesn't matter to me about your kitchen table or at least it shouldn't.

Obviously these things creep in sometimes. So it's easy and the final peril is this. You can lose sight of what you're working towards and what your goals are and you can start to compare yourself with others based upon their objectives rather than your own. Why are you doing what you're doing?

Why do you want to do it? I didn't get into this business because I wanted to have a business like Dave Ramsey. I like Dave. I admire him. He's done a tremendous amount of good. He's built a tremendous business. I went up to Nashville last year and I met Dave and watched him record his show and instantly I was able to put myself there.

Instantly I was able to say, "Well, I could do that. I can have this big building and this fancy production." Dave doesn't have anything that I don't have. Yeah, he's got a couple decade head start but no big deal. He's not smarter than me. He's not better than me.

He's not more articulate than me. He's not a better student than me. I have all the basic qualities. He's just got a head start. And so I can instantly put myself there and say, "Well, then I need to be the next Dave Ramsey." That's so, so attractive. That is so seductive.

The question is, do I really believe that that's what I want? Do I really want that? Or am I just doing that because that's somebody else's life and that's somebody else's goal? See, I didn't get into radical personal finance because I wanted to have a big business like Dave Ramsey.

I had different goals. Certainly I want to do well. I intend to build tremendous wealth. But wealth doesn't control me. I'm not implying that it controls him either, just using him as an example. Wealth doesn't control me. The love of money doesn't control me. One of the reasons I got into the industry was I was annoyed and angry that there's some voices and perspectives that are not being heard.

There's some viewpoints and philosophies and opinions that are not given a platform. I had a vision for the impact that a different message could make. Those are the things that compel me. And yet, when you achieve a little bit of success, you can quickly say, "Well, I want more.

I want to do what that person has done." There's a famous story from Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie was a fascinating guy. In 1901, he sold Carnegie Steel and went on to form a steel trust called United States Steel. He became the richest man in the world when that happened.

After that happened, he spent the rest of his life giving away most of his money. He did a great job. He made a lot of money and then he gave it away. After he died, they were searching through his personal effects. And they found a note that he had written when he was 33 years old and he was making $50,000 a year.

Now, this was in a different age when the average laborer earned about 500 bucks a year. But he wrote this on a note. He said, "Man must have an idol. The amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money.

Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately. Therefore, should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery.

I will resign business at 35, but during the ensuing two years, I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically." Now, he wrote that advice to himself at 33. And then he spent the rest of his life obsessed with money, making it and then giving it away.

Don't make some of these mistakes. What's interesting is one of the biggest struggles I've had is just simply knowing what to do in my business. One thing I loved about the life insurance business is that it was simple. If you do this, you get this outcome. I can tell you all the ratios, make this many phone calls, get this many referrals, go and meet with this many people, and you'll have this many sales.

It's very, very simple. And the great thing is you memorize the scripts, you make the calls, you see the people, you fix their problems, and you get these results. 70% of people in the United States are underinsured when it comes to life insurance. And I loved that. I could go into the business and I could just follow the plan.

I also hated the simplicity of that. I got really bored, but it was simple. You knew what to do. If you had a problem, our business was so well researched that if you had a problem with your outcome, you could just go back and study the process and we would go through the ratios.

And every Monday morning, we'd have our client, we call it client builder meetings, and we'd go through the ratios. And I would coach new guys and all I need is the numeric ratios of their activity and I could diagnose exactly where the problem was. Oh, it's a language problem.

It's a recommendation problem. It's whatever. The biggest challenge for me has been, well, in this business, it's hard to know what to do. Do I do more shows or fewer? Do I do longer shows or shorter? Do I do more controversial shows or not? Do I pursue advertisers and make my own products?

What advertisers do I accept? What products do I make? Sometimes I feel competent as a broadcaster and incompetent as a businessman. Should I go into radio where some of the business can be taken away from me and I can focus on the skill of broadcasting? Success brings with it all kinds of challenges.

I've struggled with the extra work that comes from success. For those of you who are new with any type of venture, here's what happens. With feedback, you'll get none and then for a long time, then you'll get a little and you'll be excited about it and then you'll get a ton and you'll start to dread your inbox.

Not because you dread the communication, but you dread the inbox. So these are things that happen. And at the end of the day, you've got to go back and reassess and reconsider what are your objectives and why are they your objectives? Because you can't take somebody else's goals on for you.

Just because somebody else has a goal of being valedictorian in their high school class doesn't mean that you should have that same goal. If you spend your time pursuing the goal of being a valedictorian, you are going to be giving up something else that you could be doing. You're perhaps going to be giving up playing sports.

Perhaps you're going to be giving up starting a business. Perhaps you're going to be giving up a hobby that you're doing. Perhaps you're going to be giving up having a great time traveling with friends and hanging out and going spelunking on the weekends. So when you set a goal, you figure out what's the goal and what's the cost and am I willing to pay the cost.

Be careful for these dangers and perils of success because they are seductive and they're probably going to happen to you. They've certainly happened to me. Now I can't just by making you aware of them, I'm hoping that when they do happen to you that you will pay attention to them.

The dangers of success that I have gone into or that I have faced and the mistakes that I have made has not been a surprise. These things happen. So the good thing about content like this is that you're able to look at it and you're able to see it and then hopefully you'll be able to say, "Ah, when that happens, I'm aware of it." That's the point of a show like this, to help you to be aware of it so that you'll recognize it when it happens.

When we're training our children, we teach them to recognize certain things. We give them certain instruction. When you're crossing the street, here's what you do and we drill it into their head again and again and again. It's as simple as crossing the street or it's as complex and as important as, "My son, here's how you avoid the seductress.

Here's what's going to happen. You're going to face this in this position. You do this." From the simple to the complex. So with regard to these aspects of success, done with preaching about what they are, what does that mean with me and with the future of radical personal finance and how will that impact potentially you?

Well, the last few weeks have been for me very much a time of introspection and just considering what I've been doing, what's been working, what hasn't been working. And then thankfully, this was – well, I knew it was going to be. I was able to finish with a visit to FinCon 16 out in San Diego, California this past week, which is – enjoy FinCon.

It's a network of my compatriots and my peers, a lot of listeners to the show, but also a lot of people who do things similar to what I do. In past conferences, I've gone with different agendas. This time, I just went to hang out. I went to hang out with listeners, enjoyed meeting up with many of you, and I went to hang out with other people who were doing similar things to me.

And it gave me a good opportunity just to think and to get a little bit more clarity on what I'm doing. So a couple of things, just for the record, so that I have this here to send people to. I'm not willing to fall prey to these perils of success.

I know what they are, but I'm not willing to fall prey to them. I'm not going to fear losing success. I'm not going to stop doing what made me successful in the first place, and I'm not going to compare myself to other people's success, and I'm not going to lose sight of what my goals and objectives are and try to all of a sudden start substituting other people's.

And I have done this, but I'm not willing to do it any longer. So first, you should know that, although to some of you, you might think that I have already been unfiltered, going forward on Radical Personal Finance, I am removing the filters from the content. I do not care about political correctness as an end or goal in itself, in any way, shape, or form.

Now that does not mean that I desire to be rude or insulting or demeaning or mean. I'm none of those things. I think we should treat all people honorably and with respect and with gentleness. But it does mean that I have no interest in affirmative action. I'm not going to try to play the game of giving equal airtime to all sides.

And this has been a tremendous challenge for me because I desire, and a mistake that I've made, because I desire to be thoughtful. I desire to be careful. I desire to be inclusive. I desire to be non-discriminatory. I desire to be welcoming. But that's been very paralyzing for me.

It's been very difficult for me. I've tried to maintain a balance. I've tried to have something that's been helpful, but this is probably just primarily for me, not for you. But for me, that's been very paralyzing because I can't hit that standard. I can't have an equal show. I can't give equal airtime to all people, nor do I want to.

So I don't care about you being a man or a woman. I'm not interested in trying to maintain a balance between the number of my guests who are men and the number of guests who are women. My show is not targeted at men. It's not targeted at women. And I'm not into that marketing stuff.

If you want a show for women, either go find one or go create one. If you want a show for men, go find one or go create one. But I am not trying to keep some kind of artificial balance where if you are a man, I do a show on this day, and if you are a woman, I do a show on this other day.

I talk to people because they're interesting to me. And I don't care if you're a man or a woman. If you have something that's interesting or something that will help to serve my audience, then I care about talking to you. But I have no interest in playing this game of affirmative action.

Do something that's interesting. Teach and help and serve my audience. And I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're black or if you're white or if you're yellow or if you're red. One of the areas that I've shied away from on Radical Personal Finance is I've just been scared to tackle racial issues when it comes to money.

In today's culture, especially in the United States, it's really hard when you're white to feel confident enough to take on the difficult questions that emerge based upon the color of your skin. But there are some serious differences in money between people who have differently colored skin, and those things need to be discussed.

And perhaps it's taken me two years of work to try to come to the place where I'm confident enough to do it, but I'm not going to run away from it. I'm tired of it. And I'm tired of seeing other people run away from difficult questions simply because you have more or less, what is this stuff, melanin, right?

Melanin in your skin. The color of your skin does not matter in the sense that your ideas have more or less value. The content of your ideas matters, and we need to talk about difficult topics. And I'm not playing the politically correct game anymore. I don't care about whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or an atheist.

I'm absolutely convinced that you cannot disconnect your worldview from your money. You cannot disconnect your religion from your money. Religious neutrality is an absolute myth. There is no neutrality. It's just a matter of which religion is dominant or in control in your life or my life, and which religion is dominant or in control in a culture or a society or a country or a community.

There is no religious neutrality. I don't care about your politics. Sorry, this is sounding more... I guess I'm just, for me, stating some of the things that are a little bit pent up and stating it for the record, so I'm not mad at you, the listener. But I don't care about the politics.

I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican or a Libertarian or a... I don't know. I ran out of... An anarcho-capitalist or an anarchist or... I know all the ones on the right, communist, socialist, whatever. If you don't think politics matter to your money, what world are you living in?

Did you watch the Trump-Clinton debate this week? You have two likely candidates for president. On the one hand, you have a communist, and on the other hand, you have a fascist mercantilist. You're doomed either way. We're all doomed either way. The point of this is that I cannot maintain a balanced perspective and still produce the show, and that's been incredibly stressful to me to try.

So I'm done trying. Trying to maintain a balanced perspective or to be politically correct stresses me out, and it causes me to second guess everything that I want to do because I'm trying to be politically correct. Now, again, I'm not trying to... I have no intention of creating offensive content.

That's not the point. The point is that political correctness and affirmative action, it's a losing proposition. Let me give you an example. For a long time, I've wanted to launch a huge series on the show on what the Bible teaches about money. The Bible says more about money than it does about faith.

It says more about money than it does about love, and it says more about money than it does about prayer combined. The New Testament says more about money than it does about faith, love, prayer, or almost any other topic combined. Money is a central theme of the Bible, and there's some incredible riches there to learn.

Some of the strongest promises in the Bible are related to money, and some of the direst warnings are related to money. And thus, as somebody who's creating a personal finance show, I should cover that, and I want to cover that. I spend a tremendous amount of time studying these issues.

But I've waited out of not wanting my show to be too Christian, too religious. Every time I do a religious show or mention anything Christian, I get emails and reviews, and it gets really annoying. So this is the point of this message is for those of you. Now, I'll just send you to this timestamp, and I'll be done with it.

The point is that I've waited because I'm also interested in what the Koran teaches about money, and I'm also interested in what the Jews believe about money, and I'm also interested if there are any Hindu teachings on money, and I'm also interested in what any atheist teachings on money.

And I think about those things with as much depth as I have the ability to do. And so I'm very interested in those topics, but I've pulled back out of trying to maintain some kind of balance. Meanwhile, I look for an imam or somebody who's willing to come on the show and talk about it, and I can't find anybody good.

I found one or two that I'm going to work with, but I'm done trying to keep any kind of balance. Biggest thing for me, I've gotten sucked into the trap of trying to please everyone else, and as a predictable result of that, I've pleased very few, including myself. So I'm done.

I love debate. In a debate, you can find out if what you believe can hold up to the light of day. You can find out if your ideas are founded on something solid or if they melt away like sand. I like to watch debates because debates are a very efficient way of understanding the major issues in a conflict.

When I have a question about something, not a Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump debate, that's a waste of time. When I have a question about something where there's an actual legitimate topic, I like to go and watch a debate on the subject because the debaters are trying to distill the essence of a topic into a specific viewpoint, a specific position that will bring in their strongest arguments.

And so debates are powerful. And I like to debate because as a debater, I win either way. Either my arguments win and they have hopefully a positive effect or my arguments lose and I win by discovering an area of error and correcting it. And frankly, I'm sick and tired of evil and sin and debauchery and ugliness winning in our culture and winning on the airways.

I'm done with it. I'm absolutely tired of going to FinCon and it happens at all the conferences, not just FinCon. But these days you go to a business conference and drunkenness and profanity and lewd content are a consistent theme across a majority of the speakers. I don't know what it is about somehow the modern business culture, but evidently the number one character aspiration to have and to praise and to celebrate is drunkenness, public drunkenness.

And there's no respect any longer for profanity and for the content of your message. It's disgusting. And here I am sitting back, I sit back and I try to be sensitive and inclusive. Why do I sit back and try to be sensitive and inclusive when no one else does?

Why do I do that? Why is Howard Stern or why do the shock jocks get all the pay? Why does Donald Trump and his antics get all the airplay? Why do not those of you, why do not you and I step up and not pull back and hold back our ideas?

Why do those of us who actually care about our fellow human beings not stand up and actually say something? Why do those of us who actually care about the health of an individual, the health of a family, the health of a society stand up and condemn drunkenness instead of celebrating it?

There is nothing positive about drunkenness, public or private. It destroys families' lives. Why do you and I sit back and not criticize that? So I'm done. I'm promoting ideas on this show that I believe in and I'm done with the filter. If you desire to debate me, please do so.

I welcome the debate. But I'm doing you no favors as a listener and I'm doing me no favors as a podcaster, a broadcaster by holding back and trying to be neutral. Number one, I start to hate my own show because I try to filter it to please the non-existent you and I wind up frustrating all members of the audience.

I frustrate the person who thinks that I'm too extreme on this side and I frustrate the other person and says, "Why are you holding back there?" And I wind up miserable, which is what has happened basically. So I'm doing you no favors, I'm doing me no favors. If I'm wrong about something, I desperately want it to be exposed so that I can get right.

So you should know that about me as a person. If you think I'm wrong about something, feel free to, you want to pick a bone to pick with me, do it. You're actually welcome to fight with me on my website. I approve all the comments personally and I approve the nasty ones and the nice ones.

I think I've only ever rejected one nasty comment. I was really tired after a long day working and someone made some stupid, insulting comment probably with some asinine ad hominem attack as its center and I just felt like they were walked into my house at the end of a long day and threw a bunch of garbage all over my floor and on that one I just like, "Why?

It's my website. I have no duty or obligation whatsoever to approve your stupid comment." I hit trash. Now I know it's my site and I can do whatever I want with it. I could clear all that stuff out and nobody would care. But anyway, I don't mind it. I know my ideas are not politically correct, but I don't care about politics.

I don't want any position of authority or control whatsoever. I have no interest in that. I want my ideas to be heard and I want them to be heard by those who have an ear to hear and are interested in those ideas. So I'm fixing my own problem with this little discussion here and I know that I didn't have to do this, but to me I always like to communicate up front.

I always try to do everything in the light. I try to communicate clearly. That way I feel better, at least I've given you a warning, a trigger warning. Here's your trigger warning. And I'm not saying that I'll change anything about my tone. Those of you who appreciate the tone that I take, I'm not changing anything.

As I cover difficult issues, I intend to do so in a respectful and careful and thoughtful way. If you're interested, the reason I do this is because I do it in this way and I try, hopefully I do it well. I try really hard to do it thoughtfully and to be respectful and careful.

But the reason I try to do that is because the Bible commands it. The book of first Peter, the apostle Peter says this, he says, "But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the hope that is in you.

Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame." So I think that the way we debate ideas is very important. It should always be done carefully and with gentleness and respect.

But it should also be done in a way that gives full exposure to the ideas at hand. It should be done in a way that gives full access to an idea so we can consider it. Many of you said, "Joshua, why don't you censor somebody out?" Or many of you said, "Joshua, why don't you edit this out?" The reason I don't do it is because editing is usually done as a way of manipulating an idea, manipulating a message.

And I'm not talking about editing a technological problem, but when you edit somebody's content, you take out what you pick and choose. And I don't think that's fair to people. I think that we should respect another person and respect their argument and give it the full light of day.

I've discovered that I always thought that I was a courageous person, and then I discovered that I wasn't quite as courageous as I thought. Courage is hard, but I am convinced it's worth it. It's been fascinating to me to watch the political landscape of the past year or two years.

I mean, what's it been? A year or so, I guess, has been remarkable. And from a broadcaster perspective, the broadcaster that I probably most admire in the large mainstream broadcaster space is Glenn Beck. I really admire Glenn. And as I've thought about it, I realized that I know why I admire him, but I find it difficult to do the things that he does, which are the reason why I admire him.

I admire him because he's actually real. He actually shares who he is. He actually is... I hate the word authentic. So overused. He actually is transparent. He's actually him. Good, bad, whatever. And I love that because I know where he stands. I know what he believes. I know what he thinks.

He doesn't have the filter that many other broadcasters have. And the thing that's been the most remarkable to me is he's one of the very few conservative broadcasters that stood up to and continued to oppose Donald Trump with his rise to power. What's been remarkable to me is just seeing how he's done that.

And I go and look at his Facebook page sometimes and I look at the vitriol that comes against him and I just think to myself, "Joshua, wow. You've learned. You got scared over the tiny little bit of vitriol that you deal with, and yet how would you deal with this?" Well, you learn.

But the thing I always respect and appreciate about Glenn is he says what he thinks and he thinks... And he's true. He conveys who he actually is. Good things, bad things, warts and all. And that to me is compelling. And yet one thing I've learned being in the position of...

as a broadcaster, it's hard to be vulnerable because you expose something of yourself. You expose something of yourself and you put something of yourself out there that people are going to have the possibility of rejecting. It's really difficult. Again, I'm not asking for your sympathy. I chose this path.

It has many rewards. I'm trying to convey it to you so that you can understand. That's all. So I've realized that I've not done a good job of putting into practice some of the things that I think I believe. I've tried to be balanced. I've tried to do all those things.

And yet I don't believe in that. So what am I doing? So here's my message for my trolls so I can point them to it. I don't owe you a thing. The internet is a free place, at least for now. And if you want to fight, fight in the arena of ideas.

My show is freely available to anyone who wants it. No one is forcing you to listen and I'm not charging you a dime for it. So thus I owe you nothing. Now if you disagree with me on something, I hereby invite you to do so. But prove me wrong.

And here is how I suggest that you do it. Number one, research your position, understand your presuppositions and use facts, logic and evidence in your argument rather than calling names. Number two, at least try to understand my position on an issue and the presuppositions that I have. It's important to always do your best to understand your opponent's argument to the fullest extent possible.

And then identify where I'm wrong and how I made my mistake and then come tell me about it. I recommend that in general you start on your own blog or your own site. But if you want to talk to it online, I welcome you there. Start on the blog.

I consider all blog comments. And if you're really good and if the conversation is related to finance, we're not going to talk about cosmology on Radical Personal Finance. If the – not that I'm opposed to it. I want to stay consistent to the personal finance thread of the show.

That's very important. But if you're really good and your argument is related to finance, then I'll invite you on the show to debate me on the subject. And that will give you an opportunity to demonstrate to the listening audience that you're right if you can persuade them and expose your ideas.

And if you can convince me that I'm wrong, then I'll publicly acknowledge it. Just don't use a stupid ad hominem attack. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, I'm making up a percentage. But it just feels like 75% of the attacks that people make are some variation of an ad hominem logical fallacy, which is where you attack the person instead of the idea.

I do this all the time in most debates that I have with people. You write out a long thing and they just attack you. Well, you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're mean or you're nasty or you're insensitive or you're unloving. Come on. Deal with the issue. Personally, and many of you are thinking, "Why this somewhat lengthy discourse on Joshua and ...

Why don't you just do a Joshua? Why are you talking about it?" Frankly, I'm really concerned about the future of free speech. I'm very concerned about it. Now, at the moment, the future, I think, is bright, at least from a technological perspective. From a technological perspective, things are good.

There are more ways to get around government control today with regard to freedom of speech than there's ever been before. In general, freedom of speech is appreciated by many more people in the world than ever it was before. So, technologically and to some extent, philosophically, free speech is appreciated.

But the social pressure against the free expression of ideas is immense. That's what I've been responding to here, trying to share it with you as somebody who's experienced that social pressure. The social pressure is immense and concerningly, the pressure of big government to finish the job is closing in, especially with the forthcoming presidential election in the United States.

Now, I think we're going to escape the problem. I really do. I think that we're going to escape the problem. The reason is that I'm pretty confident in the impotence of bureaucracy and the limitations thereof. In general, when I screw something up, create a bureaucracy. So I'm pretty confident that bureaucracy will render the political winds ineffective.

But I could be wrong about that. And we might have to fight over it over the next couple of decades. I'm very concerned about the coming presidential election in the United States. Both Trump and Clinton are terrifying when it comes to the idea of free speech and free expression of ideas.

And again, I'm pretty confident, but I'm not 100% confident. So put it this way, my passports are ready and I've got a bag packed. So if I need to get out of the United States and do this from somewhere else, I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

But the big thing is the social pressure. The current psychological and social pressure being put on dissidents to conform is immense. It's immense. Now, I'm small fish and I've experienced it personally. But I bet you have too, whether it's a Facebook comment about an election or a contentious, divisive question of some kind, and all of a sudden people jump on you and demand that you conform without giving you any reason to do so.

Again, I'm small fish, but man, the pressure that I've experienced over the last two years has been very impactful. I've needed two years to grow some thicker skin. I never knew how immense it was. I can't even imagine what it's like for those people with a huge footprint. So I hope this is at least interesting to you.

As a listener of the show, I wanted to speak clearly on the subject to convey it to you. And going forward in the future, I hope you enjoy the work that I'm doing here at Radical Personal Finance. I intend to fully embrace that word that I put in the show title, radical.

And I intend to have serious discussions in a thoughtful, gentle, and respectful way on serious and difficult and divisive issues that matter to your bank account and to mine, and that matter to your life and to mine. And the key thing is I'm not trying to screen it based upon trying to maintain some semblance of balance.

And neither am I necessarily trying to keep it unbalanced. But just the pressure that I've put on myself, it's not you, it's me. But the pressure that I put on myself is to somehow keep it balanced, to somehow interview somebody from this perspective and somebody from that perspective, and then somehow mix up the order so I don't get too out of whack one way or too out of whack the other way.

I can't do that. That's been really paralyzing to me. So I'm done with that. But that's not to say that I'm not willing to tackle or hear or interview people or discuss subjects from different perspectives. Just that if you see three shows about politics or about religion, those are always the contentious ones, or about how you shouldn't invest in a 401(k) in a row, I'm not trying to filter that in order to keep it diverse.

There's a huge podcast feed that you can listen to. And don't worry, it'll change up in the future. That I guess is the biggest thing that you need to know. So if you'd like to support the show, I would ask you to do so. And here are four ways that you can do so.

Number one, I haven't talked much about the business side of the show. I always say this, I'm going to make some changes. I am going to make some changes. But one of the things that I'm very focused on is building the autonomy and the independence of radical personal finance, keeping the show largely free of the influence of sponsors, of corporations, of outside influences.

And to do that, I am continuing to create standalone information products to sell to you. And I hope to price those products very, very high and make a very nice profit on the sale of that to you. So I'm working on a few. But what I would like to ask is, if you have a moment, take a minute and write me an email.

Email me joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com and ask me a question that you have. Put in the subject line of the email, product question or something similar. Just tell me the subject or topic or question that you have questions on that I haven't covered on the show. I get those from time to time from many of you.

I'm just asking you, please write me an email, joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com and ask me a question or tell me the topic that you'd like to hear more shows on. Doesn't matter if it's mainstream, doesn't matter if it's radical. All of the above are welcome. Number two, if you'd like to help me and help the show, please take a moment and review the show on whatever podcasting platform you use to listen to it.

These podcast reviews are very helpful to a podcaster for various reasons. And I generally don't like to come on the show and just ask and solicit your reviews all the time. That gets really annoying. But they are very helpful. So you can do it in iTunes or Stitcher or the app store on your phone.

And please do not think that needs to be a three paragraph review. One or two sentences is perfect and you can do it right on your phone. Just pull out your phone, pause this for a moment, pull out your phone, write one or two sentences. Joshua's show is great.

He's so smart. That'll be nice. Joshua's show stinks. He is just a jerk. Fine. Doesn't matter. Write the review. Number three, please support my show on Patreon. My Patreon campaign has really suffered in past months and this is my fault due to not structuring it well. I will work on that.

But I remain convinced that this is the very best, most ethical way for you to support somebody like me who's trying to create for you interesting and useful content. Because at any point in time, you can either show support financially, change support financially or remove support financially. And this is the best, most direct feedback mechanism that can possibly exist in the marketplace.

And so if you would like to do that, I would greatly welcome that. You can find that at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron. RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron. Finally, if you would like to support the show or if you'd like just to work with me, I'm still doing some consulting calls. You can book a consulting phone call with me at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/phonecall.

And I keep notes on those, not about your specific situation, though obviously I do have that, but your information is private. I keep note on the themes because I find it really interesting, the questions that people actually want to hire me to talk about because that gives me product ideas for things that I can create and sell millions of and make millions of dollars.

I hope this content today has been useful to you. I think it flowed. Usually a guy like me, you get to the end of the show and you think, "Wait a second, did that make sense?" I hope it did. So I just like to communicate clearly, especially for regular listeners.

So anyway, that's it. Thank you all so much for listening and I will be back with you very soon. Shop break resistant glassware at WineEnthusiast.com so you can spend more time and less time. I'll get the broom. Shop our Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for the best prices of the season on wine storage gifts and more.

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