Good morning, radicals, and happy Thanksgiving Day. So I'm recording the show here. It's early on Wednesday morning, the day before the Thanksgiving Day holiday here in the United States and just have a couple of short comments to share with you that I hope will be encouraging to you and then we'll leave it at that.

I intended to do a more complex show than this, but my week has been somewhat disrupted. I was planning to, I had all kinds of plans for this week, but I've spent the last two days and now going into the third day trying to help a friend of mine break out of prison and bond out.

I'll tell you that story in just a moment, but it's even impacted my own feelings and sense of gratitude about life in general. Being in the middle of working in the prison world for the last two days has made me appreciate something as simple as my freedom and personal liberty to travel around.

Thanksgiving Day is my favorite holiday. It's really the only holiday that I celebrate personally and it's always been incredibly meaningful to me and I like everything about the Thanksgiving Day holiday. I like the history of it. I like the tradition. I like the focus. You know, to sit down and be grateful to God for all of the good things that we have and all of the trials and the challenges that we have is just an incredible opportunity.

Like most holidays, that Thanksgiving celebration should be a continual thing and I seek to maintain that – this is going to sound so cliche – that attitude of gratitude, that appreciation for the good things of life on an ongoing basis. It's so easy to be jaded at all of the good things that we enjoy.

It's so easy to look around and to despise the comfort that all of you listening to my voice enjoy. Just the fact of having a full belly and a comfortable bed to sleep in, these things are tremendous and yet when's the last time that you and I appreciated them?

It's probably been a little while. My encouragement to you is if you have many things and you're overflowing with thankfulness and gratitude, that's great. I'm happy. I think that's how it should be. But perhaps some of you listening to this right now aren't feeling that particular sensation. You aren't feeling that particular attitude.

Perhaps you're passing through a very challenging time and I guess the primary thing that I want to share with you is that I understand that and I want to encourage you that even in the middle of a challenging time, I want to encourage you to embrace it. In many ways, for me, that's been the context of my last year really.

2016, as I've reflected on the progress that I've made, has been in some ways – and please hear me, I'm not complaining, just simply trying to share with you – but in some ways, 2016 has been a very disappointing year for me. Many things have gone well but many of the things that I set out with a clear intention of accomplishing this year have been complete failures.

That has hurt my self-confidence. That's hurt my recognition or my confidence in my business ability. It's been challenging, very, very challenging. These things will pass and you sit back and challenges are not something that is unique to me. I've faced challenges in different areas. But it's just been a fresh challenge.

And so that's been the context of my life over the last year. And I'm working on it. I'm making changes. But it's easy to look at challenges. It's easy to look at problems and to despise them and to say, "Well, everything will be great when everything is going great." And to miss the opportunities and to miss the lessons.

If you feel that way, please consider recognizing and appreciating the challenges that you're going through. One of the things that I've learned as I've grown and matured is not to look for things to be perfect but to embrace the process of growth. I used to think that, "Well, if only blah, blah, blah, then everything will be great." Or "When I get blah, blah, blah, everything will be great." Friends, it's not true.

It's not true. You never reach a point in time at which, "Oh, everything is fantastic. I have all the money that I want. I have perfect marriage. I have whatever, the perfect body, perfect health." Life is filled with challenges. And if you're looking for those moments, what happens is you miss out on the opportunity of growth all along the way.

Now it sounds, I feel like it sounds a little bit cliche because everyone's always saying, "Oh, appreciate the opportunity for growth." But it's true. Easier said than done but it really is true that in hindsight, if you're going through a difficult time, in hindsight, you'll look back and you'll appreciate the challenges.

So keep your head up while you're going through the challenges. If right now you find yourself facing challenges and trials and things that you've never experienced before, don't try to escape from those things but seek to learn in those circumstances. This year my family and I have been memorizing the book of James from the Bible.

The book of James is my – personally, my favorite book of the Bible. My middle name is James so maybe that's always given me a little bit of an affinity for it. But the book of James is just eminently practical. It's a remarkable book and the thing that is just incredible about it is if you study who James was, James was the half-brother of Jesus.

He's the one who wrote the book and his story is truly remarkable and you study the history. So the book of James starts off with a verse that I have constantly encouraged myself with and it describes this process of gratitude all through the middle of circumstances. And if you're going to memorize one passage of scripture, this might be a good place to start but the book of James begins after the greeting.

It says, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." That verse has been encouraging to me so many times to recognize that one of the things to embrace about one major positive aspect of trials and of challenges, and by the way, I am not complaining.

I have nothing to complain about. All of the trials and the challenges that I've faced compared to so many things are absolutely nothing. But still, they're real to me. One of the things to embrace through trials is the fact that you can either let the trial destroy you or you can let the trial strengthen you.

But you've got to choose in that. And gratitude, choosing to be thankful for a trial, will make a tremendous difference for you. I hope that you have many reasons to be grateful. I have many, many reasons. I even have new ones. Let me tell you the story of the prison situation.

I appreciate the ability to come and go as I please and to do the things that I need to do. The last couple of days, I have been trying to help a friend of mine get out of prison. My friend is an illegal alien and he was arrested by immigration a few weeks ago.

So his court date was Monday morning, when he first before the judge to have a bond hearing. And the hope was that he'd have a bond hearing and that the judge would set a reasonable bond so he could bond out of prison. And that was the plan. So Monday morning, 8 a.m.

court down in Miami at the immigration prison down in Miami. So I drove down very early on Monday morning and everything seemed like it would probably happen where he could bond out. He was not arrested in conjunction with any crimes. He didn't have any other, which is usually in the United States, usually illegal aliens are not particularly bothered unless they're arrested in conjunction with some sort of other crime.

Now, we'll see. President-elect Trump has promised to be much harsher on illegal immigration. So we'll see what happens in the coming months. But generally, it's not you don't generally get arrested just because you are an illegal immigrant. But that happened to my friend. He wasn't arrested simply because he was an illegal immigrant.

So he is an illegal immigrant. So he was arrested and in prison. And so I went down to his court date and it was really remarkable to be there in immigration court. I've been in court before, both as a potential jurist and also a potential member of a jury and also fighting a traffic ticket I was given one time and some other things like that.

And I don't spend a lot of time in that world. And so it's always remarkable for me. But this is my first time in immigration court and kind of seeing there puts another face on it. I know a lot of illegal immigrants here in the United States because I speak Spanish and that opens up a lot of connection and relationship with a lot of illegal aliens who are of Hispanic background.

But that was my first time in court and seeing kind of just the lives that are hanging on the balance of a judge's ruling sobered me. It really sobered me and made me just recognize how valuable something like your personal liberty to travel as you wish and to come and go and to engage in business as you wish can be.

My friend was active in business and you get thrown into prison and all of a sudden your whole business is disrupted. You can't access your email to be able to contact your customers. You can't access your phone. You can make a few phone calls but when you make a phone call, it says blah, blah, blah.

Joshua Sheets calling from the such and such penitentiary. It's a little bit challenging. And so prison in many ways stops your life. It really does. It's one of the reasons why I'm generally opposed to prison for most crimes. I think it's a wrong-headed system. The best system is a system of restitution, not a system of imprisonment.

Imprisonment is in many ways just simply a modern form of slavery and in many crimes it's an injustice. I believe the just approach is to use the biblical pattern of restitution rather than imprisonment and that's freshly driven home by trying to help my friend. So the story is that on Monday, I planned to go down there and I figured I'd be done by noon.

Court date was – court time was 8 AM. He'd bond out. It would take him an hour, hour and a half to process him out. This is what I was expecting based upon research and I'd get him out of there by noon. Well, remarkable story. Getting him out by noon turned into a – has now turned into two entire days of me driving to Miami and sitting there and waiting, trying to get him out.

I've since found out and learned after much pressing that the problem is actually a computer system. The bond was paid for him a couple hours, hour and two after he got out of court and the judge issued the bond order and everything worked out. So – but the problem is that they were having a computer system and the computer system would not accept the appropriate payment of the bond.

The computer system wouldn't acknowledge the bond as being paid and so because of that, they can't let him out. Everyone knows that the bond has been paid. All of the guards know that he should be released. Everyone knows that the system is working fine except the computer doesn't know.

Because the computer doesn't know, they can't or won't process him out so that he can be out. So now my friend has spent an extra two nights in jail and hopefully we'll be able to get him out today. My intelligence is that at this point in time, the computer system is not working but evidently it was a national problem all across the United States with the immigrant – immigration prison system.

Humans worry about that world that we live in where computers control our lives and the humans lose control over the machines. In many ways, we're already there. All the humans say, "Yes, he should be out." Judge says that the – I don't know what the name for it. All the cops, the prison people know that it should be – everything is legally in order but the computer system.

So the IT people, everything is waiting on the IT people and now the brunt of it is that my – I've lost two and a half days of work that I had planned. It was unnecessary – should have been unnecessary and my friend has spent two extra nights in prison.

So be careful what systems you put computers in control of. But you have many things to be thankful for. One of the simplest ones, if you're out of prison right now, just be thankful for that because that will disrupt your life. If you are out of prison and you are in a country where you have opportunity and you're out in fear of your life, my friend, this particular friend, he is from Venezuela and the situation that his family is in in Venezuela, Venezuela seems to be rapidly heading toward a civil war, just a challenge in every situation, in every circumstance.

So time will tell what ends up happening. But you and I have many things to be thankful for. If you're in the middle of trials, if you're in the middle of challenges, if your situation is like mine, we reflect back on 2016 and you're disappointed with perhaps things that you had hoped to accomplish that you didn't accomplish, it's OK to be disappointed.

But don't think that that's a reason not to be thankful, not to be grateful for the many good things. Because although I'm disappointed in some of the progress that I've made, I have nothing, absolutely nothing to complain about. And as I start making lists of things that I'm grateful for, I have nothing to complain about.

I should hardly even be disappointed. The list of things to be grateful for is so, so massive compared to the list of things to be disappointed about. So I encourage you, if you're outside the United States, look up a little bit in the history of the US-American tradition of Thanksgiving.

Make a list of things that you're grateful for and spend some time with your family just appreciating and enjoying those things. If you're in the United States, embrace this holiday and just count your blessings. Thank God for all of the many blessings that you have in your life. We are truly, truly blessed.

And my just personal note of two things. My personal note of thanks is to you, the listening audience. Radical Personal Finance has grown tremendously this past year. It's extremely humbling to me. It's such a responsibility that I feel very deeply to seek to share with you information that's helpful and that's accurate.

It's been an incredible challenge for me to learn new skills. But I just want to thank you for choosing to listen to my show. One of the most valuable things that you have is your time and your attention. Truly in many ways, that's what your life is made of.

It's made of, in some ways, time and attention. And that's what you give me. I do my absolute best to take that seriously and to seek to give you the best that I'm able to give you. And I just thank you for choosing to make this show and my message a part of your life.

And I hope that it has been helpful to you. My goal is to serve you, to serve you as effectively as I'm able to. And so I thank you for listening to the show. I also thank so many of you who are so kind towards me to support me.

I thank you for those of you who write me emails and share your thoughts and your ideas and your opinions, your agreements and your dissent. I appreciate each and every one of you who does that. One thing I'm extremely proud of and grateful for is the tone and the tenor of the radical personal finance community.

Many of you write emails to me talking about something that I said. And the vast majority of you are kind and respectful and thoughtful. There are always a few people who are emotionally charged and upset. And you can't blame people. Oftentimes, people have not been taught how to disagree with somebody in a calm and thoughtful way.

And so they bring that, the tone and the rancor of society that's basically taught this, tear each other apart and yell at each other society that we have. And they bring that to other places. But I think many of those people have been filtered out. And the vast majority of you are so incredibly kind and so gracious and thoughtful in the things that you write me.

I just wanted to compliment you on that. It's been a goal of mine when I started the show to create an environment where people of diverse opinions and strongly held convictions could discuss those opinions and convictions in a thoughtful and reasonable way. And I'm very proud of the progress we've made.

And you, the listening audience, have contributed to that hugely. So thank you for that. Thank you to those of you, again, who write me emails. I am extremely backlogged on communication. We'll get to the major reason why in just a moment. Also thank you to every one of you who chooses voluntarily to support the show financially.

That is a tremendous honor. And in many ways, one of my major disappointments for this year has just been that I haven't felt like I've delivered on some of the things that I've wanted to deliver on. Not asking for sympathy, working on it. Fixing, doing my very best. Just feels like I'm constantly apologizing for the things that I haven't been able to do, but I'm working on it.

But thank you to those of you who've stuck with me through this growth process as I'm learning new things, as I'm growing, as I'm learning business skills, as I'm trying to shore up the areas that are weak, as I'm trying to recognize those areas of my character and personality that don't work and change those things.

I'm just incredibly grateful to you. I am incredibly grateful. And I guess I'll close just with this. I was going to do this as a separate episode on the topic and I will more in the future, but if you've made it to this point, my wife and I are also extremely thankful and you can rejoice with us that we are expecting another baby.

So we're very excited next year, about the early to middle of next year, there should be the birth of a third child into our family. And so we are rejoicing tremendously in that. It's also been one of the major challenges over the last few months. We're out of the first trimester at this point in time, but the first trimester is often the most challenging part, at least for me, it's one of the most challenging part of a pregnancy.

And the reason is just simply because my wife during the first trimester and many women who during the first trimester, that's when they need a lot of the most physical help when my wife is not feeling well. And so it's been a challenge to know how to do that and means that I end up doing basically the vast majority of the cooking, a lot of the work, the physical work in the house that my wife is too weak to be able to do and also with children and things like that.

And so that's been challenging over the last few months, a good challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. Thankfully, we're out of the first trimester. So the next few months I'm very excited about, I've got a lot of work to do here even before the third child is born because the two, for those of you who aren't parents, the two very difficult phases of children can be the first trimester and then the period immediately following the birth of the baby.

Both of our previous two babies have been incredibly just like sick and colicky and whatnot for the first few months. So mentally my wife and I have to prepare for that. Hopefully this one will be different, but regardless we're prepared for that either way. So the next few months are very crucial for me in terms of especially my business work that now my wife is stronger so I have more time to be able to do some of the things that I need to do and I'm incredibly grateful.

So rejoice with us. That is one thing that we are very, very thankful for is that we now have a third child and rejoice with us as we transition into the next year. Those are the comments that I have to share. I'll be out the rest of the week as we travel here and again this week was very mixed up with helping my friend.

But again, if you want a reason to be thankful, try to help a friend get out of prison. That'll help you to be thankful. Working with this friend who's been in prison, I haven't had a lot of friends who've been in prison, some of you have, but it's definitely made me appreciate how challenging it is for people who are in prison.

So if you know somebody, maybe just one idea, consider going and number one, serving their family, helping their family during this period of time or go and visit your friends who are in prison and encourage them. It's very, very difficult in there and perhaps that might be one area of service that you can do to serve somebody who is in a more difficult place than you are.

Happy Thanksgiving. I will be back with you next week after the Thanksgiving holiday. Get the perfect gift for the wine lover in your life at WineEnthusiast.com. Personalized wine openers? WineEnthusiast.com. Cheese boards? WineEnthusiast.com. Glassware? WineEnthusiast.com. A 500-bottle wine fridge? Yep. Wine Enthu... You get the picture. Get the best prices on the perfect wine gift for you, I mean, for someone special this year.

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