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. I'm your host. And today we round out part five of our five-part series called "You Don't Have to Be Smart to Become Financially Independent, But You Can't Be Stupid." And the idea is this, I spend so much time talking about radical, hardcore ideas, very technical forms of analysis that I fear that you might have the impression that somehow you have to be smart to do this stuff.

That's a mistake. There are so many ordinary people who have worked at ordinary jobs, but just worked hard at them, who have lived ordinary-looking lives, but have just reined their expenses in a little bit, who have invested in ordinary investment vehicles, but who have simply stayed the course and followed their strategies, who have protected themselves from catastrophe through very ordinary means of protection like emergency funds and insurance policies.

And they've gotten rich. So I want to make sure that you don't think that you have to live in a van down by the river while you're starting up your next tech startup that's going to make you $10 million and invest all your money in the latest crypto offering in order for you to become rich.

You don't. You just can't be stupid and make the stupid mistakes that so many people make. Today we talk about part five of my framework called "Optimize Lifestyle." Now optimize lifestyle is in a sense very simple. When I teach this, I teach it in the simple way to say, you can earn an income of $50,000 per year at a job you like and at a job you don't like.

And the net result on your life measured in financial terms is going to be the same. But the result in your life measured in lifestyle is going to be very different. So if you don't like your job, you don't have to be crazy smart and invent some brand new thing.

Just go look for and get another job that you think you might like more and see if you like it better. If you don't like that one any better, you don't have to be all that smart, come up with some brand new approach. Just go and get another job that you think you might like better.

It's very simple. What about expenses? Well, you can optimize the way that you spend your money. You can buy an ordinary house that you really like because it's close to your children's school, it's close to the local library, it's close to the stores, and it has a really beautiful view.

Or you can buy a really ordinary house that you don't like because it has some problems that you don't like. Well, if you don't like your house, just sell it and go buy another one. If you don't like your car, just sell it and go get a different one.

If you don't like where you live, just move and go live somewhere else and optimize those things. You don't need any super secret strategy. You just need to pay attention to those things that are working for you and do more of them. Pay attention to the things that are not working for you and change them.

Finally, with investments, how can you optimize your investment portfolio? I want to encourage you, think broadly about it. I knew a guy one time who worked in my local coin shop and I would go in and talk to him. He worked in the local coin shop. He loved it.

He enjoyed working there. He was a real expert, especially in numismatic coins. I would go in and chat with him and we'd talk about different things. He provided great customer service on the job. He had a really rewarding type of work that he did. He enjoyed the industry. He liked selling coins.

But on the side, he would spend all his time buying rare coins and putting together collections and then selling them as collections. For a guy like that, it would be crazy for him to make a primary source of his investment in stocks or even in real estate. He was not suitable for a real estate kind of approach, but he was very suitable for buying and investing in rare coins.

He knew what he was doing. So if you want to invest and you have an interest in rare coins or whatever the appropriate version of that is, go for it. Another guy that I knew, I'm trying to use common man examples just as a common man example. Another guy that I knew, he always thought that he should put money in stocks, but what happened was he always wound up putting money in stocks and then he needed money and he would take the money out of his 401k and sell it.

This happened again and again and again. I sat with him as a financial advisor and he expected me to say the same thing that every other financial advisor said, "You got to put your money in and leave it alone." Meanwhile, I look over in the corner of the room and there is a massive, massive gun cabinet sitting there.

Now we got to talking and I am a very good listener. When people want to talk to me about all their guns, I think it's an interesting subject. And the tens of thousands of dollars that were there held in that gun cabinet, those tens of thousands of dollars kept on accumulating.

All I did was say, "Listen, you've got this skill. You've got the money. You spend your time going to gun shows. Just focus on this as your investment approach, optimizing investments." And in those two cases, I used very tangible subjects. Some people are into cars, some people are into horses, some people are into horse trailers.

I don't know. I'm using that. Some people are into crypto and they just love crypto. Well, put your money where your mouth is and focus and be willing to focus on investing in what you know and in what you love and what you care about so that you can reap some reward from your investments.

It's not just numbers on a paper of what the US stock market is doing. My point with these examples is you can get a lot of life satisfaction from your investments. My friend who did coins, he loved it. He was at the coin show anyway and he was really good at putting together collections and selling them for way more than he had in them.

It took him a long time. It took him years to put them together, but he loved the process and he was doing it anyway. My friend who did the guns, he did a little bit of gunsmithing on the side, built some rifles and sold them, helped some friends build some rifles, bought things cheap, sold them, traded, did all this stuff.

Loved it. He was doing it anyway. And he couldn't hold on to $10,000 in his 401k because he could sure hold on to $10,000 in a gun because he didn't want to part with it. At some point in time, obviously, you got to part with the thing, but hopefully my examples ring true for you.

You can optimize how you earn your income. You can optimize how you spend your money. You can optimize how you invest. You can optimize the house that you live in, the car that you drive, where you live, the state you live in, the country you live in. Just don't be stupid about it.

On every one of those things, there is a level of stupidity. For example, I said, you can live in a, if you don't like your house, move to another house. Well, remember, move to another house doesn't automatically mean move to the $10 million penthouse condo, unless you got the, actually got the money to pay for it.

But you can optimize these things. The cool thing about optimization is it frequently leads to greater success. If you choose a job that's well suited for you, then it'll be easier for you to work longer hours in it, work harder at it, and grow in it over the long term.

You'll accrue more and more unique inside knowledge, unique skill that will help you earn more and more and more money. It starts with choosing the right job for you, and then you just simply follow it through. The cool thing about optimizing where you live is if you live in a state that you like, in a country that you care about, in a town that you've chosen, in a house that works well for you and is important to you, then it's a lot easier for you to stay in that house for many, many decades.

If you'll just stay in the house for many, many decades, your expenses will be so low that it's hard for you not to buy a few more houses and rent them out, because what else are you going to do with the money that's piling up in your checking account?

If you'll choose investments that you care about, that are optimized for you, then you'll wind up having inside knowledge on that market, and you'll be able to exert inside knowledge on that market in order to earn above average rates of return, and that earning of above average rates of return will keep you growing your investment portfolio.

Because you're investing in something that you're interested in and you care about, you'll automatically see the opportunities that are right for you. It's not complicated. You don't have to actually be all that smart to become financially independent, but you can't be stupid. I hope this series has been helpful to you.

I hope that when I dig into weird stuff, I hope you just listen to it and say, "If it's right for you, it's fine to be weird, but just say, 'How can I apply that a little bit?'" Recognize that I don't think everybody needs to go to the hardcore extreme, but you can still become financially independent if you'll take a few strategies here and there and apply them to your life.

Thank you for listening. You've honored me with your time and attention, and I'm grateful for that. And I hope that I've effectively served you today with some ideas and strategies and tactics and techniques and tools that will help move you towards your goals. Before you go, three simple requests.

One, if there's an idea that's been helpful to you in today's show, make a plan to take action on it. Listening does lead to learning, but learning in and of itself doesn't automatically lead to a life change. It's action that leads to a life change. So take action. Two, take something that was helpful to you in today's show and share it with somebody that you care about.

I'm depending on you to be a co-laborer with me in helping me to propagate the message that I'm seeking to share. That helps the person that you are engaging with, and it also helps you because teaching others is one of the most effective ways for you to learn and for you to cement your learning.

Three, if there's an idea that's been specifically helpful to you, and if you're gaining financial benefit from Radical Personal Finance, I'd be grateful if you'd consider paying me for this work voluntarily. Come by radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron and you can sign up there to support the show at whatever level you feel is right for you.

This is a voluntary support. That's my Patreon page. You can support me with a dollar a month, $5 a month, $10 a month, any number that seems right to you. If you're gaining financial benefit from this show, and if it's achieving financial results in your life, I'd be grateful for your financial support at radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.

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