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We've locked in low prices to help you save big storewide. Look for the locked in low prices tags and enjoy extra savings throughout the store. Ralph's fresh for everyone. Radicals, I've just found some important news and I've got to get this to you as fast as possible because I just found out that there's a presidential election tomorrow, November 8, 2016.

There is a presidential election in the United States of America and your life is going to be over if the wrong person wins. You're doomed if the wrong person wins that election tomorrow. You are absolutely going to be without a future. And so I've got to get you all the information that you need.

I need to fill you in on all of the details so that you know who you can vote for and how you can vote. Because if you don't go out and vote tomorrow, the end of the world as we know it is upon us and... Oh, wait a second.

Sorry, wrong show. This isn't that show. This is another show. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and I am your host. Generally not quite as caffeinated as that intro. This is the show where we tackle the subject of financial freedom, building a plan for financial freedom, while also living a rich and meaningful life now.

And today we talk about voting, elections and their impact on your money and your life. And no, I hope you like my little joke, but I promise, none of that nonsense around here today. In case you haven't heard, and it's hard for me to imagine how you wouldn't have heard, although, I tell you what, if you didn't know, and you're listening to this, if you didn't know, listen to it currently, that tomorrow, November 8, 2016, is the 2016 presidential election, I would applaud your ability to be informed about things that matter to your life and to ignore everything else.

I would applaud that. I actually would. But I dare say that there's nobody in the listening audience who's not aware of the election tomorrow. And as has been the case with the last dozens and dozens of elections that I'm aware of, this is, of course, the most important election in your lifetime.

And it will remain that way until November the 9th, in which case the 2020 election campaign for presidential elections will kick off, and that again will be the most important election in your lifetime. So congratulations, enjoy this one while it lasts, and we can get ready for the next one.

Now, lest I offend all of you who do care deeply about the 2016 election, I must tell you that I care about the issues involved in the 2016 election, and I do not say those comments in an effort to minimize the passion that you feel for your position. I really don't.

And if you're not ready to hear this yet, then just pause and come back in a few days, because this will be every bit as relevant a couple days after the election as it will be today. And if there are those of you who don't like political discussions, I encourage you, this is a good place to use the delete button on your phone.

And if you do like political discussions, I encourage you to recognize that at no place in today's show will I tell you what to vote for, who to vote for, or even to vote. Because my entire point with today's show is to demonstrate to you how. It's a waste of time for you to devote anything more than maybe an hour to go down and drop a ballot in the box and go back home and get on with your life.

It's a waste of time for you to pay any attention to this whole debacle any more than that. And I'll tell you, instead of wasting your time moaning and whining and complaining about this stuff, I'm going to give you some activities that you can do that will actually make a difference and will be far more influential in your society and in your culture than your vote.

Now, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news and to come against the whole cultural conversation. It's really annoying. I went on YouTube this morning and YouTube tells me I'm supposed to go vote and Facebook tells me I'm supposed to go vote and Google tells me I'm supposed to go vote and can't go anywhere without being known that I'm supposed to go vote.

They all wanted me to go and vote, and yet, is it really going to matter? Is there a difference that's going to be made in my life depending on who I vote for? Now, if you're screaming "yes" at your earpieces right now, I'd agree with you, yes, there is going to be something of a difference.

Elections do affect your life to a very small degree, but it's nowhere near as much of a difference as those who are clamoring for you to go out and vote want you to believe that it is. It's nowhere near of a difference. Because I want you to recognize the fact that they need you to go out and vote.

They need you to feel that it really matters. They need you to feel like it's the most important of your election because if you don't feel that way, then you won't pay any attention to them. By "them" let me define that. I hate when people refer to the "they" without defining them.

"Them" being politicians. They need you for power. They need you for their power. They don't have power without you, the collective you, and your collective vote. But you, the personal you, the individual you, you don't need them. And thus, all of the power is in your hands, not in their hands.

Yeah, they might have the guns, they might have the government, but you've got things that are far more valuable than that. You've got the freedom of choice. You've got the freedom of association. You've got the freedom of activity. You've got the freedom over your own thoughts. And depending on what you do with your life, you will either consistently give away your power to politicians, or you'll stand up and take a little bit back for yourself.

Today I'm going to give you some ideas for how you can do that. And here's the cool thing. If you start doing some of these things, I've got 10 ideas, if you start doing some of these systematically, consistently, that will have a ripple effect on society. And if you care about seeing anything change in society, you can't start with them.

You have to start with you. We're going to start with the depressing news, and then we're going to move on towards the hopeful things. I always rather end on a hopeful note when I podcast rather than on a depressing note. But here's the depressing note. The 2016 presidential election is reflective of your culture.

You own it. I own it. If you're frustrated and annoyed at the politicians, recognize the fact that you and I collectively chose these politicians. You and I went through the process of allowing these people to have our attention. We gave them permission to run their political candidacies. We gave them our attention, we gave them our votes, and collectively we bear the responsibility for them.

Now, if that's not depressing, I don't know what would depress you. Because what it means is that everything you don't like about that political candidate, all the things that make you despise that person, guess what? Those things are what our culture is full of. So if it's arrogance, our culture is full of arrogance.

If it's corruption, guess what? We live in a very corrupt culture where people can be bought for not much. If it's their lack of willingness to deliver anything truthful, we live in a culture that accepts lies on a daily basis, and we accept it. We put them there. So don't go yelling about the political candidate who you can't stand.

Recognize the fact that you and I are responsible for them. Because if you and I hadn't given them power, they wouldn't be there. If you and I had stood up and not allowed them to have their place of prominence, they wouldn't be there. So it's our fault. Pretty depressing, huh?

So what can you do? Because the depressing part is over. Now we're going to talk about what you and I can do. Remember, we can't do anything about anybody else. I can't control you. I can't control your actions. I can't make you do anything. Oh, sure, I could get a gun and come and stick it to your head, but that doesn't work.

You might carry out the action that I command you, but as soon as the gun is gone, you're not going to do it anymore. So what can you do? Well, you can change you, and I can change me. And you can live how you want to live, and I can live how I want to live.

And as you do that and I do that, there will be a change and an impact on the tiny little community around us. And then as dozens of other people do that, there will be a little bit more of a change and an impact on the little community around all of us.

And then as many more hundreds and thousands and ultimately millions of people do that, there will be a little bit more of a change. Now, of course, some people have more influence than others. At the end of the show, I'll talk to you about that. But without question, there are those who seek to influence many millions, hundreds of millions, and billions of people with their power and with their message.

And they have very effective ways of doing that. But don't start there. Don't start with trying to figure out how you can influence millions of people if you can't even influence yourself, or if you can't even influence the one or two people who are closest to you. There's a good visual metaphor for you and me to keep in mind as we consider the problems of our day.

It's to recognize that power and influence flow out in a series of concentric circles. And they're the most influential when they're close. I think of it like a stone dropped in the middle of a pond. A friend of mine who is a poet, lives in New York City. His name is Jonathan Walton.

He has a poem, and in one stanza of his poem, he has this lyric. He does it super fast. I'll do it slower. But he says, "We are people pebbles tossed into a pool. Every ripple I create in turn ripples you. So in unison we are rippling, a type of ripple rhythm, but we need to ripple in a way that benefits our living." Again, "We are people pebbles tossed into a pool.

Every ripple I create in turn ripples you. So in unison we are rippling, a type of ripple rhythm, but we need to ripple in a way that benefits our living." So if you want to influence others, it has to start with you and it has to flow out through those who are the closest to you.

So I want to give you some specific and practical ideas, things that will impact your finances, but that will help you, and some things that you can do that will actually be influential. So if you're frustrated and angry about the political election, if you're frustrated and angry about who it is that you think is going to win, or who it is who has now won, that's what is, and you can't change that because you have no influence over that.

But here are some things that you can do. Here are some things that you can do and you can focus on in your life. And the ripples that will come out from some of these things will start to build a ripple rhythm with other people around you. Number one, and probably all-encompassing, is get free yourself.

My number one suggestion for you, if you would like to be able to have an impact on other people, get out of debt. And here I'm not making the argument that one course of action is financially superior than another, or that there's no, I'm not making any financial argument here.

I'm making the argument of freedom. If you owe other people money, your actions will be governed because of that. One of my managing directors, when I was with Northwestern Mutual, used to have the joke, remember he was managing a team of salespeople, he always used to say, "I love it when my sales guys go out and buy a brand new car." He said, "I love it.

I love it when they go out and buy houses." He says, "Because guess what? Payments are good for business." Remember, he, as a managing director, he would get paid based upon the production of his agents, and his agents were all on commission. So his happy day was when his agents would pull up into the parking lot in a beautiful new car, or talk about that beautiful new house they bought.

Because now all of a sudden, they got to get busy and make money. When you're in debt, when you owe other people money, those other people have control over your actions to some degree. Depending on the severity of the debt, depending on the type of the debt, etc., that degree will vary.

But if you are beholden to other people, your actions will be governed based upon them. One of the most valuable financial things that you can do is to get out of debt and stay out of debt. Because when you get out of debt and you stay out of debt, you'll experience a degree of freedom that you never knew before.

You'll experience a degree of autonomy that you haven't known. And what will happen is, even if you could earn more money by being in debt, you'll experience an emotional freedom, and you'll start to see things that might matter to you more than money. You'll experience the ability to say what you want, to do what you want, to be responsible for yourself and for your family.

And that has the potential of turning you into a radical person, has the potential of turning you into the type of person who can stand up and speak your mind in the midst of a lot of people who disagree with you. Number one, if you want to be a revolutionary, if you want to be a radical, if you want to see some change, give some serious thought and some serious effort to getting out of debt and staying out of debt.

Number two, get off of and get out of governmentally controlled welfare systems. Disconnect yourself from dependence and reliance on the politicians' good favor towards you. Recognize that the politicians use money as a way of gaining influence and power. And they control vast swaths of people based upon the money that they either open up to allow to flow from the centralized coffers or upon the money that they cut off.

Doubt me? Just think about the lobbyists that are sent in when the politicians are getting together and thinking about making some kind of legislative change. Just think about how if there's a welfare system that's trying to be changed. Just think about how all of a sudden entire voting blocks can be moved.

If you are reliant on the flow of government funds to you, it's very difficult to be free. What you'll have a tendency to do is to want to step in and try to change how those funds are used. Well, start by getting out of the game. Make a plan and systematically get off of and out of any kind of governmentally controlled financial system.

Try it. If you doubt me, try it. See how you feel when you're free. Number three, work to disconnect your income from the large centralized workplace and seek to build some sort of more independent and more autonomous form of income. If you have opinions and perspectives that are important to you, you will find that when you're working within a large centralized system of employment, it will be very difficult for you to express those opinions.

However, if you're responsible for yourself, as in the only people you have to please are your customers, you'll have a much higher degree of freedom to express yourself as you want to do it. It wasn't until a year after I had left Northwestern Mutual that I realized what the freedom was of not having to deal with being beholden to an employer.

Because as an employee, I think you have to be responsible with what you say. Certainly, you can say what you want in just about any kind of perspective, but freedom of speech, simply the first amendment that talks about freedom of speech, simply is supposed to protect you from being attacked by the government.

It doesn't mean that you're not responsible for what you say. And when you're an employee of a large company or you're an employee of somebody who has an opinion different than your own, you will have to muzzle yourself and control what you say. It doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

It doesn't mean you're by definition compromising what you believe. But if you can disconnect your income from a centralized large company with the forces of political correctness scared to appear in a certain way, you'll find that will be tremendously valuable to you. Now, those three things that I just gave you are absolutely monumental.

I just lumped together action points that are years for some people, years of work to get out of debt, to get off of and out of governmentally controlled and influenced financial systems, and to disconnect your income from a large company and to move in a place where you have more control, where you're more individually responsible.

Those things are huge and not easy. But they'll have a tremendous impact on your life. Now, the rest of my list is a little bit simpler. And these are not in order. These are just ideas meant to spark your creative juices. Number four is build local community and change your purchase decisions and vote with your dollars.

Recognize the fact that you are funding the things that you care about, the things that are important to you. With every purchase decision you make, you are consciously choosing to fund something. Do some research into the things that you're funding and make sure that you're making those decisions intentionally.

Make sure that you are proactive about choosing to do business with people that you want to do business with. Don't be scared to stand alone. If you want to boycott a certain person or a certain company or a certain practice, don't be scared to stand alone. Just because everybody disagrees with you doesn't make you wrong.

You certainly should pay careful attention to what they say if everyone disagrees with you. But just because everyone disagrees with you doesn't make you wrong. You'll sleep well at night if you make conscious decisions to support the things that you care about, the things that you believe are right for the reasons that you believe them to be right.

If you do that in a local community, you'll be able to build relationships with your neighbors. And your voice in a local community will be far more powerful than your voice to a large multinational corporation. Your voice to a local politician is far more powerful than your voice to the next president of the United States.

Focus on building local community and use your dollars to fund the things that are valuable to you. Number five, transition your idea of the word investment so that it includes investing into things that you believe in and into people that you believe in. Invest into things that you believe in and into people you believe in.

Look at the amount of money that you have under your stewardship. Pull out your balance sheet. Look at those numbers. Look at the amount of money that you have right now under your stewardship and ask yourself, "Does the way that this money is being managed reflect my values?" "Does the way that this money is being managed reflect the type of world that I want to live in?" "Does the way that this money is managed reflect the change that I want to see in the world around me?" If not, start working on taking small, simple, progressive steps to change and invest the money that's under your stewardship into the things, ideas, and people that you believe in.

Number six, show hospitality to your neighbors and build local community where you can actually influence another person. I'm very concerned personally with the tone that we seem to take in our language with one another, especially when speaking in public, when speaking online, and the various forms for communication that we currently use.

It's vitriol. It's absolutely horrendous. And I think there is some value to it. I have to be careful with my opinion because I recognize the value of being able to communicate. But it's very hard to get people to listen to you when you're just arguing through a keyboard. I reflect even on some of my own communications online and just wonder sometimes, "Is any of this valuable?" I think some of it is, but I often wonder, "Is any of this valuable?" You can argue intensely with somebody online and have nothing fruitful come from it.

But you can sit down and have dinner with your next-door neighbor who's very different from you and have a productive and useful conversation. Set up a plan to systematically show hospitality to your neighbors and get to know them, whoever they are. If that means the people in your neighborhood, that would be great.

If that means the neighbors in your community as measured and connected by some other connection, whether an area of social interest, an area of business interest, etc. Make a plan to invite people over and get to know them. You may be surprised at the impact that you can actually have with other people if you do that.

As our world becomes more and more connected, it seems to me that the people in our world become more and more lonely. I've seen some data that would support that as far as measured sociological data. I couldn't prove that statement to you. That just seems to be the case as I look around.

I recognize that as people become more and more connected, we're consistently becoming more and more lonely. But you can change that and you can have a huge impact. Even with something as simple as once a week, spending time with somebody that you don't normally spend time with. In my family, one of the things we try to do is one night per week, we do our best to have somebody different over into our home.

One night per week. Whether that's somebody that we know from the community or a listener of the show or somebody that we know, next door neighbor, co-worker, acquaintance, etc. We have it on the calendar. It's there systematically. I have a recurring meeting. And it reminds me every week, "Okay, who are we going to invite over this week?" Well, think about it.

If you do that, then you're probably not going to do it all 52 weeks. There are times at which you need a break. But let's just say you have somebody over 40 weeks out of the year. Think about the relationships that could come from spending time and having dinner with 40 or 50 brand new people over the course of a year.

Think about the impact. Think about the conversation you can have that actually matters when you have 3 to 4 hours to visit with somebody over dinner. Those of you like me with young families, you might find, as we find, that your dinner invitations generally dry up when you have children.

Don't worry about it. Just you be the one to give the dinner invitations. You be the one to use your home. Invite people over and spend time getting to know them. Not with the desire to change them, but just to understand them. If you don't first understand how somebody thinks and why somebody thinks that way, it's not possible for you to affect their thinking if you even should.

I fear one of the biggest challenges I face, even with communication style and on the show here, trying to figure out how do I accurately represent how somebody else feels. It's difficult because I don't know who I'm talking to because I've got many thousands of people that I'm talking to.

That's been really, really challenging for me. But you don't need to worry about the thousands of people. That's a nut I've got to crack. But with one person, you can understand what's important to another person. And if you'll systematically show hospitality to your neighbors, what will happen is you start to build local connection, local community, and you'll start to find areas where you can work together with them.

And instead of everything coming down to which presidential candidate you vote for and either they're evil because they're going to vote for candidate A and you're evil because you're going to vote for candidate B, all of a sudden you find areas that you can't agree on. Don't get me wrong.

I'm not saying that you have to somehow compromise in something that you believe. But the reality is that in normal, actual human life, normal people, you'll never find somebody else that you agree with. I'm not advocating for some kind of kumbaya ecumenical acceptance and tolerance of all people. I'm just saying in normal, natural relationships, human, personal relationships, you can disagree with somebody on all kinds of things, but you can find an area to work together.

And that's a skill that we need to practice. It doesn't come out well in online political conversations, but that's a skill that you and I can practice over our dinner tables at home. Next, number seven, something you can actually do, theme, constant theme here on Radical Personal Finance. But if you haven't done it, may I strongly encourage you, pull your kids out of the government schools and choose a different solution that is appropriate for them and where they are and what they need.

Pull your kids out. See, guess what? You are never going to change the school system. Not a bit. But you don't have to participate. Pull your kids out. There would be only a tiny subset of my listeners who would actually disagree with that statement because legally by law, they can't pull their kids out.

And there are solutions there. But the vast majority of you, pull your kids out and find a solution that's going to work well for them. Whether that's home education or private school education or an unschooling approach or whatever it is, you are the parent of your children. You are responsible for them.

Your decisions are going to dramatically influence and affect the outcome of especially the early years of their life. Don't spend time having them locked into a system that somebody else designed for their own purposes, not for yours. Don't waste your child's life having them stuck in a system that's custom designed for absolutely nobody when you have the resources to pull them out and custom design something for them.

Talk about politically subversive. I've had this show on my to-do list. I can never finish my list, but I have all these long lists of things I want to talk about. There's like 10 politically subversive things that you can do to change the world. Number one is pull your kids out of the government schools.

Just think about it. Do you go down and trot down to the communist car factory where they say, "Here's a car. Everybody's going to drive this car and you're going to like it"? You don't do that. Nor do you trot down to the one nationalized brand and choose among the three appropriate models as in we're going to put your kid in the advanced track, the gifted track, the standard track, or the slow kids track.

You don't buy cars based upon what's being offered to you and the three menu options presented to appear that you have some kind of choice. You don't go down to the clothing factory where there's men's clothing, women's clothing, boys' clothing, and girls' clothing and just grab whatever is given to you.

You make a specific customized choice. You choose clothing that's appropriate for you. You choose clothing that's appropriate for your children based upon what you want. When you're choosing a job, you don't take the job that the local apparatchik assigned you. You think about what's right for me. You go through the process of considering what you should do, what's right for you.

Why should you do anything different for your child? If you want to be politically subversive, if you don't want candidate A or candidate B, that person that you can't stand governing your child's indoctrination, don't accept it. Get your kids out. Choose a different option for their educational track. Choose an option that you can control and affect.

You have no control whatsoever over your local school district, your local government school district. But if you come together with a few hundred other parents and you guys establish a private school or you join into a private school that's already established, or you organize a neighborhood co-op, or you handle the education of your kids at home, guess what?

You can have influence there. Number eight, if there is a political issue that you care about, why don't you start, instead of arguing about it with other people, why don't you start by getting to know other people who disagree with you and educating them on your opinion? Here's my example.

If you're a gun owner and you care about the Second Amendment, have you taken any of your liberal friends shooting in this last year? That might be more useful than just about anything else that you can do. If there's an issue like that that you care about, make a plan.

Let's say once a quarter, I'm going to schedule a day at the range and take one of your liberal friends from work or one of your liberal friends from the community or one of your liberal neighbors or somebody that wants to take away your gun, take them out and take them shooting.

And then talk to them and ask them why they're opposed to your owning that gun or why they're opposed to your being able to go out and shoot. Because what happens is a lot of the conversations and various political debates are driven by fear. And fear paralyzes people. But oftentimes fear comes from lack of exposure, lack of awareness.

Consider somebody who comes in from the middle of the bush and all of a sudden sees an escalator for the first time. They're not going to immediately want to jump on the escalator. But to you, you jump on the escalator and it's no big deal. And oftentimes when you look into these political conversations with actual people, I'm not talking about the ideologues who have an agenda of wanting to accomplish change A or accomplish change B.

I'm talking about people, actual real life breathing people. Often what you find is that they have fear over a certain subject because of lack of awareness, lack of exposure. So if you have a political issue that's important to you, yeah, fine, send off your money, join the NRA or whatever, gun owners of America or whatever political thing it is.

If you want to do that, great. But you'll do a lot more by just choosing another person and getting into their world a little bit, trying to understand them. Take them and expose them to what you're aware of. Do that with whatever issue you care about. I think you'll start to understand the other side a little bit more and you'll start to have some hope of affecting some other people.

Next, if there's a political issue that you really care about, before you run out and vote for somebody who promises you something, ask yourself is there something that you can actually do that will change the situation. Is there a way that you can actually help, first of all? It's one thing to vote for the politician who promises, "Hey, I'm pro-life.

I'm going to do something against abortion." It's another thing to have a child yourself or to adopt a child or to get involved in supporting a pregnant mother locally. It's absolutely insane that there are thousands and thousands of children in adoption agencies and foster care agencies all over the country who sit there year after year after year without a parent willing to step up and say, "We'll welcome you into our home." Meanwhile, those same parents systematically say, "Yeah, we're in favor of life.

We're pro-life." Don't just talk. Do something. Do something that you can do. All of a sudden, if you start doing something, you pull down a lot of your opponent's arguments. So get involved. I'm not here to tell you what you can or can't do, but recognize that there's something you can do in whatever political area that you care about.

You may not be able to adopt a child, but can you go and help a mother who is pregnant and who is struggling? Can you go and make a car payment for her every month? Can you go and take food or organize a group of people to take food to her four or five days a week to make sure that she's cared for?

Can you help to provide for her? You can do that. So if you have a political opinion, I use that just because it's very important to me, and I try to talk from the heart about things that are important to me, and I try to take my own medicine.

But if you have a political issue that you care about, see before yelling about it. See if there's something that you can do. And don't try to go and pass a tax and coerce everybody in your town to join up with you and do something. Just get a couple of your friends involved.

Your hope for the future will be destroyed if your hope depends on organizing 150 million people in the United States of America to agree with you. Again, your hope for the future will be destroyed if your hope depends on organizing 150 million people in the United States of America to agree with you.

Just making that number up because it's about half of the U.S. population, somewhere about that. Don't start with 150 million if you can't get your next-door neighbor to work with you, or if you can't get your friends at church to work with you. Again, pick on adoption because it's important to me.

In my state, there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people who come together as a local church body. Those churches contain anywhere from a few to hundreds or thousands of people. And yet there are a few thousand kids sitting on the Florida State foster care rolls, unloved, unadopted.

That, my friends, is unacceptable. So do what you can do. You may not be able to open your home to a child, but can you get two or three of your neighbors and make some food for somebody in your church or community who is fostering a child? Can you help some of those moms who are struggling?

If you think that voting is going to change something, you're wrong. It doesn't change anything. What happens is people change things, and the votes are reflective of those changes, which leads me--I've already stolen my own thunder--to number 10. Start with yourself and focus on one area of influence where you think you can actually make a change.

Recognize this. You can't help somebody else until first you've squared away your own problems. Jesus said it like this. Take the log out of your own eye before you try to worry about the speck that's in your brother's eye. Now, there are two things implied in that. Number one, and in context with that scripture passage, number one, you've got to actually take the log out of your own eye before going and taking the speck out of your brother's eye.

But number two, there is a place, once you've taken the log out of your own eye, where you have to go and work on the speck. But don't try to go and fix all the problems of the world until you've started with one very simple problem in your own life and in your own family and with your next-door neighbor, whoever that is.

You can't help the poor if you're poor. Let the rich help the poor and you help yourself. Don't try to vote help to the poor. Just help yourself. And then, once you're not poor anymore, go and help somebody who's poor. And if you help one person who's poor, then go and help another person who's poor.

And over time, you might be able to help three or four. And let the people who've helped a few thousand people who are poor go on and help the millions to not be poor anymore. You can't help your neighbor with food if you don't have any food. You can't help your neighbor with their marriage problems if your marriage is a mess.

You can't help the kid on the street if your kids are a mess. So start with yourself and focus on the one area of influence where you can actually make a change. I'm convinced that there's a continuum between those who talk about problems and those who solve problems. And the people who talk incessantly about problems are probably the ones who are the least engaged in actually solving problems.

And the people who are the most engaged in actually solving problems are probably the ones who want to talk the least. I must confess that I myself have far too often been at the wrong end of that spectrum. A lot of talk, very little action. So I'm starting and have started with me for a long time now.

But I'm encouraging you to do the same thing. It's fine to talk, but your talk must be borne out in action. So begin with those closest to you. Begin with yourself, begin with your family, begin with your neighbor. And don't worry about the rest of the country. Because the rest of the country, unfortunately, is just a reflection of all the other people in it.

And you can't do anything about them. You can only do something about you. I want to read a quote because it's just a friend of mine, a buddy of mine actually here where I live in Florida. And he wrote this as a Facebook post during the recent election cycle.

And I just thought it was so powerful. It talked about the most powerful thing that the central government has stolen from you and from me, from the people of these United States. Here's what it is. Here's the quote. I used to say we just need more people paying attention to what's really going on.

The problem is human attention is most attracted to the biggest and the loudest things, not the smallest and most important things. And so there is self-indulgent activities that I used to participate in all the time, convinced that by participation in those activities, those big, loud, obnoxious activities, I was actually making an impact.

The most powerful thing that the central government has stolen from the people of these United States is human attention. You might be thinking they've stolen my money or they burden me with regulations or they've messed up educating our children or something else. By giving the federal government the responsibility of all those things, you have essentially made it impossible to actually get them back to where they belong, which is in your hands.

During the revolution, it was not said we should replace the king in order to get our freedom. Rather, it was said we should remove the king's power in all of our local communities so that we can be free. How did they do this? One, anyone who was sent by the king of England to their local communities, they made it very uncomfortable for them to stay.

Two, any business that was supporting the king of England was immediately on the list of the people to no longer purchase goods or services from that business. Three, they transferred all of their wealth that they had possession of into the hands of people they trusted locally. Four, they prayed fervently for victory.

Where will your attention continue to go? End quote. Powerful, isn't it? The most powerful thing that the central government has stolen from you and from me is our attention. See, the sad truth is that in the United States, the federal government is bankrupt. Now, it will continue on just about like it is for the coming decades.

And who knows when that bankruptcy will be evident? Who knows when it will actually be reflected? It will probably look nothing like the dramatic thing that a movie or your latest greatest favorite dystopian fiction paints it out to be. Bankruptcies are often very slow until they're quick. And over the coming decades, I expect to live through the systematic bankruptcy of the United States federal government.

But here's the question. When the federal government is clearly acknowledged by you and by me to be bankrupt, who or what will be ready to take the place? Will it be another tyrant ready to stand up and say, "Vote for me because I'll make everything great again"? Or will it be you and me and millions just like us in our own little communities having stepped up and done what needed to be done?

Not in the name of tyranny and control and coercion, but through service. Get out of the trap of thinking that if you can just control enough other people, everything will be great. That is not the way to victory. Oh, sure, a few people can get there over time. But over time, their deeds are exposed and they will lose their influence and control.

So although they may seem to have control and they may seem to have power, their power and their control will be short-lived. Instead of that, recognize that the way to gain power is through service. The way to gain influence is not through forcing or coercing other people, but through leadership.

If you're still listening to this show, 51 minutes and 45 seconds in, and if you care about anything I have to say, which I assume by the fact that you're still listening, you do, please notice that I have never once coerced you to do so. I didn't come and strap your headphones to your head and say, "You must listen or else." I didn't bring a gun to your house and say, "You've got to listen to Radical Personal Finance." Not a single time have I ever coerced you in any way.

I've actually tried. I haven't necessarily tried to make it hard for you to listen, but I've put up roadblocks in your path. There are things that I've done that I could do differently that would have made this far more palatable and far easier for you, but you're still here.

You're still listening of your own free and voluntary choice. I didn't coerce you to be here. I served you and you chose to be here. Now, go and do likewise. Why do all the politicians care if you vote? Because they get their power from you. So, they rile you up and they incite your emotions and then they do absolutely nothing that they said they're going to do.

They try sometimes. I guess I was a little bit overstated when I said they do nothing they said they're going to do. They do a little bit of it. But all of that was a line of lies that they fed you to get you emotionally engaged in the process.

Why? Because if you're not emotionally engaged, you don't show up to vote for them and then they don't have any power. Because half of these men and women couldn't do anything if it weren't for that one skill of getting you angry enough to vote them into office. They can't produce anything.

All they know how to do is accrete and exercise political power. They need you for their power. But you don't need them. No matter who wins the election tomorrow, you can do any of those things above that I said. Nothing will change with your ability to change. So, I recommend that you ignore them and you focus on you.

Remember, back to Stephen Covey's example. He was not original with him but he popularized it. You have your circle of concern and you have your circle of control. The circle of concern is all the things that you care about in the world. Of which there are for you and for me thousands, tens of thousands of things.

I care about many, many things. So do you. That circle is huge. And if you think about that circle, it's so utterly overwhelming you don't know where to start. But there's another circle and that's called your circle of control. Your circle of influence. The things that you can actually do.

So you might be concerned about global climate change but you can't do anything about that. What you can do is plant some trees and flowers in your front and back yard. You might be concerned about how workers are treated in China. But you can't do anything about that. What you can do is think about how you're treating the person that you've hired.

You might be concerned about the national debt but you can't do anything about that. What you can do is do something about your own debt. So the secret to power and influence and growth is to focus exclusively on that circle of control. And not to worry too much about the circle of concern.

If you need to read a newspaper or keep an eye on the morning headlines just so you feel connected, that's fine. But don't think you're doing anything by it. Just recognize I'm kind of just keeping my interest titillated. The more you focus on your circle of control, on the things that you can actually change, the more those things will change.

And then you start to harvest the power of the compound effect. See, money compounds over time but so do many other things in life. And all the little actions that you take in your circle of control will compound. And over time, your circle of control will become much bigger.

If you're faithful with a little, the time will come when you have a lot. So you can't do anything about the national debt but you can do something about your debt. And as you're doing something about your debt, your next door neighbor will get inspired as you share your story with them.

And they'll do something about their debt. And then as they do something about their debt, then all of a sudden, they'll inspire a couple of their neighbors and a few of their neighbors will do something about their debt. All of a sudden, you have all kinds of people who are increasingly becoming debt-free.

And all of a sudden, as they start to experience less control by their creditors and by the people that they owe money to, all of a sudden now those people will systematically feel more emboldened. And they won't live their lives in constant fear thinking, "Well, I need the government to step in and bail me out.

I need the government to step in and pay off my student loans. And if we don't elect the right person, I'm going to be facing destruction because of my student loans." You can't do anything about global warming but you can plant a garden bed in your backyard or in your front yard.

And what happens is that as you do that, maybe your next door neighbor will. All of a sudden, you're growing some food and they're growing some food and you're making your community beautiful. You're pumping some oxygen into the environment. You're taking out some carbon dioxide and that has a ripple effect.

So, all these little actions compound. Now, once you've taken care of yourself and your family and your next door neighbor and a couple of your buddies, then maybe go ahead and you can expand a little bigger. But don't go too big. And certainly don't go too big too quickly.

I encourage you if you're listening to this before going out and voting on November 8th, go and vote. That's what you need to do. Vote as you feel you need to vote for the reasons that you think you need to vote. But don't delude yourself into thinking that your vote has any meaning or impact more than simple symbolism.

And don't ignore where the power actually is. And then when you're done voting, come on home and sit down and make a plan for something that you can change in your own life. Something that you can change that will actually be valuable. Something that will actually make a difference.

I think you'll be glad you did. That's the end of today's podcast for the majority of you. But I do have one just very short encouragement. I know I said when I talk about religion that would be a good time to hit fast forward. This will not be relevant to you.

But I know many of you in my listening audience are Christians. I want to just encourage you with a couple of simple thoughts. This election season has been incredibly challenging for those of you like me who are disciples of Christ. Incredibly challenging. The issues at stake are monumental. Seeking to discern what is happening is so incredibly difficult.

The rancor and the divisiveness goes deep. And the arguments are on every hand. I just want to encourage you with one simple passage of scripture that I think is incredibly powerful. I think there's a lot of instruction. Here in the United States we seem to be in a period of time where more and more those of you who have a desire to stand for God's truth will face more and more challenges.

I don't see, although the world situation is very different than the U.S. situation, that much seems apparent to me. That means there's a time of testing. Testing is good. Trials are good. Testing is to be welcomed. But oftentimes it means, it leads to a question of what do I do?

I encourage you, go back and if you haven't read it recently, go back and read the book of Jeremiah. And I'm just going to read one very short passage that, especially in light of my comments today, for those of you who are Christians, I think is incredibly valuable. Remember, much of the context of Jeremiah is where the people of Israel are sent into exile.

God judged them for their collective sin and they're sent into exile for hundreds of years. And they're sent into slavery. But here is the instruction that came to them through the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 29. I'm keeping this very short. You go and read the book for yourself and figure out how and whether to apply this to your own life.

But this is important. "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters.

Multiply there and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare." It continues on. I just emphasize that again. "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf.

For in its welfare, you will find your welfare." As the acrimony of this election season has mounted, I encourage you to be one of those who is diligently engaged in seeking the welfare of the city where you are. Don't constantly be one who stands up and has nothing but negative words to say.

Be one who's active, who's doing actively engaging in all of these things that I've said here in today's show, and who's carefully and diligently seeking the welfare of your family, your friends, and your neighbors. Finally, if you're a Christian, be very careful to guard your attitude. It's easy when you're put upon, it's easy when you're attacked to respond and to revile back out of a sense of righteous indignation and justice.

But recognize that you're called to be humble, and I'm called to be humble. We're called to have a response that's different. If you'd like a valuable book to meditate on as we go into election day, whether it's the night of election night or whatever, take eight or nine minutes and go back and read the book of 2 Peter.

Encourage yourself with the attitude that God wants you to have, and be very thankful that God is slow. Not because He is slow, but because He has a desire, as 2 Peter says, that each person would be able to come to a place of repentance. So don't gloat, don't despair, just get to work.

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