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That's FijiAirways.com. From here to happy. Flying direct with Fiji Airways. Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a 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 guest today is John. John, you told me that you've done that, right? You have built financial freedom in 10 years or less, right? So we're going to hear your story. Definitely. And it's not 10 years or less. Maybe that's because I chose to live in an expensive part of the country that is Silicon Valley, so it took me a lot longer.

And of course, I was not as frugal as I could be in the initial days and I still am not. So it took me a slightly longer 12 years, but I think it'll be an interesting episode for your listeners. So you were born and raised in India. That is correct.

So tell us your story of how you ended up in the United States and then tell us a little bit about your financial freedom journey. Sure. So I was born in India and I think the advantage of being born in India is the fact that it has a pretty good demographic in terms of the urban area speaking English.

So at least that outlet is there. But I think also in the fact that I was born in a stable family where my parents were always focused on education, ensured the fact that I was always keeping up with my grades, making sure that while the other kids were out partying or having fun, I was like, "Oh, let me do my homework.

Let me keep up with the studies." Because I think with India and most of other Asian countries, which are highly populated, you either need to be at the top 10 or 20% if you want to be somewhere in life or you just stagnate and live along. So are you the doctor or are you the lawyer?

Which one are you? Neither. Actually, I'm the engineer. Oh, you're the engineer and your brother's the doctor. No, actually, the weird part is he took science as well and then he came along into the similar kind of fields. But yeah, I think those are the similar kind of areas which you can go, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, and those are kind of the respected professions.

Because way back when I was in India and growing up, it was a very closed economy, I would say, and these were the professions which were more paying well. There was a government sector and that was it, but the private sector was not really organized or opened up. But recently when I went back, like last year or the year before, I saw that the economy has totally opened up.

Now you can get a job in marketing or something as well. What do you mean by closed economy? You mean that... How do you mean? So there was not a lot of foreign direct investment, so you not have a multinational coming in. You would have more or less the local companies.

So your earning potential would be limited, your career path would be limited, and those kind of factors would inhibit how much you could earn, how much you could save, how much you could invest, and how free could you live. So the idea is previously if you wanted to work in marketing, for example, you could maybe parlay that into a job at a local firm, but there wasn't a big upside potential.

That is correct. So let's say it was going to be a relatively small Indian firm, but now you can go into marketing and you work with a big global multinational and have massive career potential. Exactly. Understood. Understood. Okay, so keep going. Sure. So I think that was an important factor, and both my parents initially were working, and at some point in time my mother decided it makes sense to actually work with us at home, and she actually decided to quit her job and then work and make sure we got our studies done, our good grades.

So that journey continued, and then after that I did my engineering studies. In India? In India. Is it common that Indian mothers would choose to stay home with the children? So I think it's a mix, honestly. Not many would stay. It depends on the circumstances and if they are able to contribute to the education.

Luckily, my dad had a government job, and my mom had a government job too, and at some point in time because of, so we were never rich, we just had a middle class lifestyle. I mean, to be honest, even like we would get clothes only for our birthday and then Christmas maybe, and not a huge birthday party, nothing other than your relatives calling to just wish you for your birthday, but that was it, right?

So we never, I wouldn't say we were starving or went hungry, but we had a pretty decent life but not a crazy extravagant life, so. Okay. Go on. So I think at that point in time I decided, okay, it makes sense for me to do engineering. The good part about education back in India is it is merit-based in the sense that if I have 100 seats available for engineering, 50% would be available at a very cheap rate.

The other 50% would be available at eight times the cost, so you would have other students subsidizing you, and you need to then figure out based on your grades which category you fall in. Do you fall in the higher category of payment or the lower category of payment? And at some point in time I said, I don't want that debt on my, although my parents were willing to share that and they were like, okay, you can go ahead and choose whatever you want.

I was like, okay, it makes more sense for me to take the effort to then work on my grades to make sure that on a merit-based, they have an entrance exam, so make sure I have those necessary grades so that I'm in the top of the class and thereby I have my choice of the free seat or what is called the lower payment seat and then have someone else subsidize me.

So I think in that factor I was lucky and that was more or less my engineering background. Is engineering school, is that kind of analogous to the American school, 18 to 22 type of thing? Correct. That is very analogous to the American school. So you graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering at 22.

Right. And then after that I decided to work in the local computer companies over there for a year or two and then incidentally when I was working over there, I thought it made sense for me to work on projects which they were doing for a multinational firm like GE.

As I was working on those projects, I gained enough knowledge and expertise that one of the big five consulting firms of the US wanted to bid on similar projects to do for that firm. And then I was like, okay, it makes sense for me to apply and see if I can try my luck over there.

And fortunately, I got through the interviews and all of it and they were like, hey, why don't you actually come here and see how it works for it? And I was like, huh? No one in my family before that had actually left India. More or less what my parents had done was actually move from the villages to the city of Bombay, but that was it.

Nothing more than that. And so it was a big step. The only thing I knew about the US I'd never visited. It was only watching episodes of Friends on television, but that's it. Nothing more than that. And I was like, okay, let me see what I can do. So I had a job offer in hand and then- Wait a second.

On Friends, no one had jobs. They just sat around and did nothing. So why did you get a job? Well, Chandler had some jobs and Ross had a decent enough job. So I think that works. Every now and then they would show them at work when it fit into the plot line.

It's the funniest thing about soap operas and sitcoms and such is it's just, I mean, it doesn't parallel life in any way. My wife and I laugh about it, how you never see people working. You never see, it's a totally different foreign thing. Right. So keep going. I have to record you.

But at least the lifestyle I think helped me understand, okay, oh, this is what happens. There are coffee shops, people go in and sit around, talk around. Because for me it was all a foreign concept. I'd never even left the country, although we had traveled extensively within the country, never left the country.

So I was like, okay, so I have a job offer, then how much money do I have? And then finally had just $1,000 cash in my pocket. And I said, okay, let me take the shot and come over here and see how it goes. And the scary part is-- You've been able to save $1,000 working in India.

Yes. Okay. And that was partially between, I would say $500 and then $500 from my parents. And then I was like, okay, let me take this cash and let me take a job offer and see how it goes. And then I landed over here, but that was all I landed with.

Do you have any idea how much your parents were earning in their government jobs at the time, about that time? What would be the standard pay for a government worker? I did not have a good idea. And in fact, I don't do even now. I think we talked about finances in general, but not the specific figures.

Okay. So you came to the United States with how much in your pocket then? Just $1,000. $1,000. And where did you land? So I landed on the East Coast in Connecticut. And I was there, I was like, huh, I hope I have enough money and they pay me on time in the next 15 days because A, I signed a lease for like $500 rent because I will soon run out of money and B, then I don't have money for a plane ticket back home.

And this is kind of a, it's a big fight consulting firm, but then also you have to remember that this is kind of the timeframe where firms like Arthur Anderson just suddenly went belly up and then it's, yeah, it's scary. So that was a big risk I would say, looking back.

And I was like, maybe I was a little crazy taking that chance, but I said, okay, let me come here. And then it was not easy at that point in time because everything like even buying a cell phone or needing to sign a lease, people want social security, people want credit history and had none of that other than like a job offer.

And even opening a bank account was not easy. So I think I had to go through all the struggles. And that's when I started becoming interested in finance because in India at that point in time, at least credit cards were absolutely no, no, no one had credit cards to be honest.

So did all of that and then tried to slowly go on the internet, learn things. Even back home, we did not have good internet. In fact, growing up, we did not even have a telephone in the house. It was so uncommon. If you have to use a telephone, you would go to like in London, you see this telephones along the street, you would typically need to go there, put a coin in and dial someone, but no one had telephones at home.

So that's kind of how we were living. - So did the company, the Big Five Consulting Company, did they offer any kind of special services for you since you were a new immigrant? Or did they just say, come and be at work on Monday and we'll pay you in two weeks?

- Yeah, they had kind of sent me some documents, but in terms of, okay, orientation and how you would acclimate yourself to the US, but not a lot of onboarding I would say or say that, okay, you can be here for a month, you can get used to it and then start working after a month after you have everything set up.

- Right. Did you have family or friends in Connecticut or were you alone? - I had no one, so I was the first of my family to leave the country. - So how did you find an apartment to live in? - So before I moved over here, when the company told me, oh, this is where you'd be working, I looked online and looked at places which could rent and that's where I found, okay, there's an apartment nearby because I don't even know how to drive at that point in time when I come to the country, right?

So I was like, okay, there's something walking distance, let me reach out to these landlords and see who will accept me. - Just like an on Craigslist? - Yes. - So a $500 a month apartment in Connecticut, was it a slum? Was it adequate? - It was adequate because I would not say it was in the center, it was not something like Hartford or something, it was way out in the countryside.

- Okay, got it, okay. Just 'cause it's interesting, one of the things, as you know, I've been a long time listener to the show, I'm always fascinated in immigrant stories because it's almost the perfect starting fresh, which is basically what you're talking about. For those of us who were born and raised in the United States, you kind of have one way of thinking, but immigrants have a totally different way of thinking.

And I'm always amazed at how you wind up with immigrant communities and you wind up with all the Nigerians live in this apartment complex or the Indians have this and how so many people who are earning low wages, we'll get to your wages, you weren't earning low wages, but how many people who starting with nothing figure out how to live in very expensive cities.

It's a mystery to me because it's not, I mean, I've thought about it and I think it's possible, but it's hard for those of us who are not used to finding those deals and negotiating those things to know how to do it. For me, if I were gonna go to Connecticut and I were just kind of the normal Joshua, not the radical Joshua, like you just look at certain types of places that are what you're accustomed to and you wind up in the automatic $1,500 a month range, like that's the comfortable middle-class range.

But yet the world is not that way and I've talked to immigrants from all over the place who were able to find the deals. That's why I'm interested in the details. So you rented an apartment, you got a cell phone and you went to work. I went to work, yes.

So then after two weeks they paid you and you said, "Okay, now what do I do with this check?" Now what do I do with this check? Yeah, so it was actually a direct deposit to be honest at that point in time. So you've been able to get an account.

By that time I was able to get an account, but I still had no credit card at all. And at that point in time I did not even know about the concept of secured credit card because I was researching just the basics of utilities, cell phone, and I did not even think about credit card at that point in time.

So I was like, "Okay." And I would use my debit card everywhere I went and this continued for more than a year and a half or two years. I was just using my debit card everywhere. How did the process of getting a work visa function? So the company which sponsored me actually applied for an H-1B visa and then I had to go to the consulate, get it stamped and then come on an H-1B visa.

Okay, and they were used to sponsoring tech workers and knowledgeable engineers. So do you remember your starting salary at that point? I think it would be $50,000, yeah, around that range. So continue the money story then. Sure. So then after that, the good part about after I got kind of stable, seeing that I'm acclimated to the US lifestyle, I still didn't know how to drive and I still don't know about credit cards or something, but I started trying to research about finance and how do I invest this money, what do I do with this money.

The company had options like 401k, but I was like, I don't know how long I'm going to be here, what do I do if I need to leave the country or if the company goes belly up, what do I do with the money? So I just thought, okay, I'm not even going to opt in the 401k.

And looking back, that was the worst decision ever. Not so much for the tax savings, but the fact that the company used to offer a 50% match and I'm like, oh my God, I just wasted all the free money there. And that's when I really needed the money, I could have used it, but yeah, it is what it is.

So you can only know that much. And then, yeah. And it's hard. The hard part about, I think, the US system is that you would have coworkers who are nice, they would chit chat with you at work, but not a lot of them would be open or willing to talk about finances.

And I think that's where I'm more attracted to the personal finance community because people are open. Some may be anonymously blogging, but at least people talk, share their finances, or at least educate other people. Whereas if you go to a typical American workplace, and even in this day and age where I live in Silicon Valley, people would be not very open with talking about their finances.

Whereas if you look back in India, where I was working for the one or two years, people would not only share a high level range of their salary, but also, hey, I'm kind of investing in this, I'm planning to buy this apartment, what do you think? They would bounce ideas off each other and kind of help you figure out what you're doing.

So I think that's, I don't know what it is with America, but a lot of the American workplaces, absolutely, they will discuss other stuff. Like they will discuss sports, they'll discuss politics, but they will never discuss money. It's a very taboo subject. - You know, I wonder what it's like on other cultures.

I wonder if there's something unique about the American culture versus the Indian culture and why. I don't have any knowledge of that. Doesn't seem wise to me to talk about money in a professional space. I wouldn't do it. But I don't know if it's just cultural or if there's good defensible reasons.

So lay out then the arc of your career as far as what happened in your career. You started at $50,000 with a big five consulting company. And you were doing software engineering? - Software engineering. And at that point in time, I also wanted to meet my dual goal of travel across the country.

And what I did is I asked them, hey, every time I'm on a new project, instead of like sticking in the same location, can I pick different clients? And they were like, yes, you can obviously pick different clients. So what I did is I moved all along the East Coast, then I moved to the Midwest, and then I moved finally to the West Coast.

And all along this journey, I was also trying to make sure I keep my career up. And in fact, when I launched my blog, and I still see this quite common in Silicon Valley where people don't take care of their career, and that's a major factor which I see can help you achieve financial freedom.

Most of like, you can only frugal so much and cut cost to a certain limit, but your expansion potential with money is unlimited if you keep earning more and more. So that's why one of the first blog posts which I wrote was about how to earn more money. So basically network with other people, including recruiters, or then I got my LinkedIn profile up and running.

I talked to other people, I tried to figure out, okay, if I jump companies, what do I do? The fact that I had a visa made it more challenging than other people who are American-born citizens that you could just get up and leave any point in time, because to transfer a visa takes like an act of Congress.

It's just like, it's a long, lot of process. So it's definitely not easy. And then you have to deal with the government agencies, and then you can anytime get queries, and then you have to answer it, you need a lawyer. So it's difficult. So at least within the company, I stayed there for six years, but I did try to make sure, okay, I figure out with my boss what's important to them, what would help them take on additional responsibility, see how I could get promoted internally within the organization.

And in fact, go to some locations or hard projects where no one wanted to go. So my last assignment, in fact, was in Minnesota, and no one wants to be in 40 below freezing, but I was like, okay, sure, why not? If it gives me more money and more promotion and access to the higher ups, why not?

I'll just take it up. And I did that for two and a half years. So I think taking on those opportunities at work definitely helped me reach a place where I could then say, okay, now I'm much more comfortable, I have grown enough of my bank balance. At this point in time, for my financial journey, I'm just like kind of saving money, squirreling it up.

I'm not even investing it because I don't know what to do and what I need it for. But I'm kind of just like, okay, I'm just saving what I need, I spend it. And I was not living very frugally because at some point in time, like you said, after a year or so, then I graduated to the 1500 apartment.

And then I'm like, okay, I should like live a little better lifestyle. So that's where I totally was. Not spendthrift, but at least trying to say, okay, I need to buy a car, what do I need to do? I need to take driving lessons, I took driving lessons, bought a new car, brand new.

It was a reasonable purchase, I would say a Toyota. So it's at least definitely I know it'll last me for a while, but new car and then it was like, oh, a chunk of my savings gone. But now it is our mobility and I have ability to interact with other people and socialize.

So kind of went along that path. And then when I was in Minnesota, actually, I was contacted by a company in Silicon Valley saying, hey, do you want to come and work with us? And I was like, wondering, should I make this move? But then I realized that for my career, it makes good sense to be in the tech space, in the tech jobs where are all in Silicon Valley.

So then I decided to move over to Silicon Valley. And since then, I've been moving companies every two or three years. And that's what I recommend to everyone, no matter what. I mean, loyalty is overrated. As long as you're working, you can have that in other aspects of your relationship.

But when you're working, you should definitely see, okay, can I move to the next company? And it's always easier to get a higher raise when you move jobs to a new company versus no matter how well you perform, your current company is not going to give you a 20, 30% raise.

- So trace out your income history from starting at 50,000 a year up through today or the last job or whenever you're willing to share. What were the increases like? - So I would say the increases were roughly 10 to 15%. At my last jobs, I would say I'm roughly slightly over 300 in terms of total compensation.

- And the reason that you're valuable to your employees, have you done other studies, other degrees or credentialization? Or what makes you valuable to your employees? What makes you more valuable to your employers today than 10 years ago when you first arrived? - I would say experience is more valuable in the tech industry versus credentialing.

I tried to do some definitely project program management courses and some of them were sponsored by my employers at different points in time, but none of them involved full-time quitting work. There were some programs which were of course marketed saying MBA and all of it, but then I did the ROI on it and I'm like, I'll be out of the job market for two years.

I'll be not earning. I'll be paying this humongous fees, which is like crazy to me. And then I was like, okay, it doesn't make sense. I kept continuing in the organizations and kept moving and maybe starting a little more on the newer technologies and then trying to apply it and trying to be more valuable to the employers.

At some point in time, even in the tech industry, you may know all your technologies, but then your people, your interpersonal skills count a lot more. And that's where I think people are able to then assess if you're a valuable employee, can you move up the management chain? So at my last jobs, I'm no longer doing coding hands-on, but actually managing teams, managing larger programs, budgets of millions of dollars.

And I think that's where you can kind of move either in technical capacity or in a managerial capacity, but kind of upward mobility. - Absolutely. So how did you come across the ideas of financial independence? - So the weird part is at some point in time when I'm working and Silicon Valley, to be honest, is a brutal place.

It looks great, like you watch the episodes on HBO, and most of those are actually true, but the fact that they offer you free food, they offer you laundry on site, they have a notary and everything on site means that they want to actually live on campus. They don't want you to have the thought process that I leave campus.

And the reason for that is they expect you to kind of be working. So if you are doing only 60 hours a week, you're kind of a slacker compared to your coworkers. And that's where I think at some point in time I was burnt out and thinking, "Wouldn't it be nice?" I'm like looking at my expenses and thinking, "I don't, I have this money stocked up, saved." I'm like kind of investing somewhat, haphazardly buying individual stocks, listening to Jim Kramer and figuring out what to do.

But I was like, "I need to now know how to actually manage my money, how to invest it, and what I need to do in order to get out of it." And one of the things which also was a trigger point was I remember clearly a meeting where my VP was suddenly one week saying, "Oh, my sister is not well and she's very sick." And I was like, "Huh, are you going to go and visit her?" And she's like, "I would like to, but we have this important delivery coming up, maybe after that." And then a week later in the meeting, I was in the same meeting and she got a phone call and then she said, "I have to take this." And she went outside and she came back saying, "Hey, my sister passed away." And I think that was a turning point.

And I was thinking you might be a VP earning more than half a million or close to a million, and yet if someone is telling you when and where you need to show up to work and you don't have the freedom to get up and take care of your loved ones, then I'm like, "You are not free.

You are a high-paid slave. You are still a slave no matter what, if you're high-paid or not." So that's- That's exactly what the term wage slave means. That's why we use the term wage slave. If you were a slave in the era of chattel slavery, you had to work a certain amount.

Your boss would tell you what to do and you had to do it, but your boss also provided everything for you. They provided housing, they provided food, and so the boss had a responsibility to provide for you because otherwise his investment in you as a slave, he wouldn't get his money back from investing in you as a slave.

Today there are many people who are wage slaves, that they are responsible and fully beholden to do certain work, but now instead of the boss providing you with a house as part of your compensation package, you have to earn money to go and get a mortgage to pay for your house.

Right. And instead of your boss providing you with food, you have to provide it with food. And yet if you don't ever accumulate capital, you can never buy your freedom. You wind up being a wage slave, and that's exactly what the term means. And I can't think of a better example than what you just said, when you can't even go and you don't have the autonomy and freedom to say, "I'm going to go and visit a dying relative," because you have to deliver for the boss.

You have to deliver the big project. Yes. And that's even at a higher level, right? You think, oh, initially when you start off as a software engineer, think, "Oh, one day if I reach VP level, that'll be a great dream come true." But then you're like, "Oh, even people at that level, at a VP or senior VP level, even at the C level, they're still beholden to someone else." Right.

Yeah, that's where you think about the ideal career path. And there certainly can be freedom that comes as you go up the career path. But company culture makes a big difference. And I think there are companies that have a culture that allows people more freedom. It may be harder to find a Silicon Valley, maybe not, I don't know.

But if you're in a company that has a culture of overwork in that way, then you don't feel the choice to do it. And I don't know what you do except say, "I'm going to go choose a company with a different culture," or, "I'm going to be the CEO of my company and have a different perspective." But certainly it does make a big difference.

True. And I think the fact that you are so dependent on your living from the wages you get every month and you think, "Oh, if my wages get stopped for six months or one year," I mean, ideally you could just be like, "I'm not going to show up to work and in the next six months to one year I'll find some other gig if I don't find anything." But I think the fact that you're so addicted to that monthly income coming in and that you need that to live for your daily life, I think that makes it harder to just suddenly say, "I just don't care." And to stereotype, I think it can be especially hard for people in environments like Silicon Valley because there are very high hard costs.

Your rent is high. Your mortgage payment is huge. But then there are also lifestyle costs that are considered to be normal that would make someone who's involved in that lifestyle feel very embarrassed if they stopped the things they wear, the things they eat, the things they do, the things they drink.

Just it's a culture where, at least what's popularized and what is common among the glitterati, it's a culture of high embedded expenses. And I think it's the same. It's not just Silicon Valley. A lot of it is the big city culture, the afternoon Starbucks, you're a weirdo if you don't partake in all of it.

And so when you sit down, I've done the analysis for workers in those situations sometimes, unless you're a real curmudgeon and you're totally comfortable just being doing your own thing and you're known as that, which isn't necessarily good for your career path. It doesn't endear you to your coworkers.

Coworkers don't really want to step up and say, "Yeah, you should promote Bob because Bob just gets... Nobody likes Bob because Bob makes them feel bad." So there's a balance there. But in the big city, corporate, high level, professional culture, which is largely of young people, single people, there's so many embedded expenses with the work lifestyle that when people come out of that, if they lose a job, they often just struggle with how do I even adjust, how do I live in this place without my daily latte to beat the stereotype.

It's really tough. And it's not making it up. These are tough. This is a cultural expectation that people have to figure out how to deal with elegantly. - Right. And I think the most important part is the fixed cost. At some point in time, the variable cost like the lattes, you can just eliminate, but the fixed cost is what gets you.

So you need to figure out a way to make sure your fixed costs are at least stable or you have them in control. - Right. So I want to talk about the strategies that you have used and are using. So from the time that you landed in the US to the time when after learning about finance, you came to a point where you said, "I think I'm financially independent." How many years was that?

- So at that point in time, I did not even... It was 12 years, but at that point in time, I told you the VP experience, but I was not even at that point in time figuring out if I'm financially independent or not. All I knew was I need to get out and I need to figure out an alternative path where I have the option that I can say no to them.

And I'm like, "What is the amount of money and how do I know that?" Because like I mentioned, my parents were government employees, so they would get a pension whereas over here, I'm a private sector person, so I have nothing to fall back on. It's not that I know, "Okay, this is the amount I'll get every month." And I'm like, "What is the amount I need per month to live on?" And at that point in time, I'm not even tracking my expenses.

So I have no idea how much is my expenses. I have money. I know it's in the bank, it's invested, but I don't even know how much that return throws off. So that's when I got interested in personal finance, started looking at multiple things. And that's when I also came across your podcast.

And then I think one of the first podcasts I listened to was Early Retirement Extreme, and he's based out of San Francisco, Jacob Fischke, right? And I was like, "This guy's crazy if he can do that in San Francisco living on like $20,000 or something lower than that." I believe at that point in time.

And I was like, "This is really fascinating." So then I went back, I listened to some more episodes, I went and read some personal finance blogs, and then I slowly figured out, "Okay, at least as a rule of thumb, you can use the 4% rule, you can accumulate 25X your annual expenses and assets and have that kind of thing." So that gave me a roadmap and said, "Okay, if I hit this number, then I should consider myself financially independent." It might not line up perfectly.

Life may throw things at you, but at least I know, "Okay, it's kind of a high level, some safety comfort factor." And then I can be like, walk into my next job and say, "Hey, I don't care." Because although I'm financially independent, my last job, which I then said, "Okay, I don't want to work anymore." And I was thinking, "Should I work or should I not work?" And I had an offer from Amazon and a bunch of other companies, Silicon Valley organizations.

And then one organization, which is not Silicon Valley, but still based in that neighborhood, so it's not tech, but it's still based in that neighborhood, gave me an offer. And I was like, "Should I take this up because A, it's going to be less stress, and B, more importantly, I like the people I interacted with all through the interview process, but then the fact that the company was a little far away and I have to take BART, which is a local train over there, and connectivity in Silicon Valley through the local trains is not the best." So I was like, I was honest and I said, "Hey, I really like you all.

I might decide to come and work for you all, but I don't even want to even commute to work every day." And they said, "You seem that you have done really well in your career. You interviewed well. Everyone on the team likes you. You don't even need to come to work physically every day.

You can just come in once a week, make sure your meetings are on that day, and then work remote for the rest of the days." And I was like, "That is amazing." I mean, I would never, ever get that option in most of the other companies. And this is where I thought, "Okay, this is really freeing because A, I don't need the money so I could actually go to them in the interview process and be honest and say, 'I don't want your job.

But if I don't need to come to work, then I would definitely take this job.'" And then they are like, "Okay, why not?" Because if I was not financially free, I would be afraid of even asking or making that demand right in the interview process. So I think that's where it helped me.

And then I was like, "Oh, this is a nice gig." Because commute time saved is amazing. I mean, that is the biggest stress of everyone. Even if it's like a 30-minute commute one way, it's one hour of your life wasted. And then you have to deal with the traffic, the stress.

- Hey, hey, people can listen to Radical Personal Finance. It's not wasted. - Yeah, so it's like, oh, I was like, "Oh, that's amazing." - Right, right. No, definitely, it's a lifestyle improvement for sure. So you think that, is it accurate to say that your personal psychology, the strength and the confidence that you had from being financially independent helped you to be a much stronger negotiator and to develop something that was a good fit for you?

- Exactly. Yeah, I think you put it right. I think the fact that you are coming from a position of strength also gives them the confidence that you can deliver it. Because if you are through the interview process kind of wanting that job, a lot of times they were like, "Huh, why does this person really want the job?" And they are more hesitant to give it to you.

But when you're like, you don't need to be rude, but you're like, "I don't need the job. But if you are offering me, then these are my conditions." It kind of puts you as an equal on the table, right? It's no superior, inferior kind of relationship. But rather you're just talking as equals to your employer and saying, "Hey, this is what I need.

Can you give it to me? If not, then that's fine." - So I wanna highlight that for the listeners and just draw three lessons, three points from that. Because it is true, it does make a difference. And just negotiating from a position of strength is hugely important. Whether it's in romantic relationships, whether it's in job relationships, just in almost anything, just understanding, being confident.

So number one, the ultimate confidence is true financial independence. I don't have to work. I can be happy living on my portfolio. That's the perfect, that's the ideal place to get to. So that's number one, that could be, it is an important goal. And I think the reason that's an important goal also is because it's gonna be hard to know your personal motivations if you don't, if you really wanna keep working until you recognize you have the option of doing something else.

Number two is, if you're not financially independent, it doesn't mean you can't have that confidence. So the important thing is never to get a job when you need one, but always to get a job when you don't. So you don't wanna be fired, laid off, in the middle of a recession, desperate for work.

You wanna be interviewing when you're happily employed and you're just trading up for the next one. You've talked about that. Every few years, you're always keeping your lines open with recruiters. You're building your personal brand in the industry. You're making sure that you're regularly getting offers. You entertain all offers, but then you're always in a position of strength.

Because hey, I'm happily employed right now, but hey, if you can make me a better offer, I'm willing to consider it. And I don't wanna move across the country, but if you put enough money in the pot, I'm open to it. So you don't actually have to have any money to be in a position of strength if you have already established yourself, you've got a job, and you're continually working on upgrading.

So that's the second point I'd like to make. And the third point is any person who's spending less than they're making can very quickly cultivate enough personal financial security that they can negotiate from the position of strength. $10,000 for a lot of people changes things. $50,000, $100,000 for the average person changes people if you'll let it hit your psychology.

Because if you have $100,000 in the bank, and you need $30,000, $40,000 to live on, which is a reasonable budget that any person could live on in the United States without suffering, you have two and a half, three years of wiggle room. So you can very reliably say, "I don't need a job right now." And you can adopt that psychological strength going into job negotiations and such as you work your way towards ultimate financial independence.

And then once you get into that higher level of career orientation where you've said no to the things that you are not good at, you've said no to the things you don't like doing, and you've said no to the toxic environments that you don't want to be a part of, then you can say yes to the things that you're good at.

Say yes to the jobs that you like doing, and say yes to the jobs that come with a really good environment. And those are the kinds of jobs and career options that frankly you probably won't want to leave unless something changes. And that's why when you pursue that strategy, then the wealth just continues to multiply because you could retire any time, but you don't feel any pressing need to, and the job provides a useful application of your skills and abilities in the world that leads to fulfillment, leads to contribution to the world, leads to making a difference, and continues to radically transform your financial life.

Yeah. And I think the last point is definitely important, Joshua, because to be honest, I'm still working, but although I don't need to work, right? And that's where I think the difference is that I can still go in, be productive, do my best for my employer, do the best for myself, but at the same time live stress-free.

Any time I need a vacation, I can just take vacation. Like in December, I took a six-week vacation, went all over Asia, traveled to Cambodia and saw different cultures because travel is really important to me. Again, I'm planning to go to Mexico and then do again more trips to Canada, China.

So I can take long vacations, and my employer is totally fine with that, and that gives me the person, like a strength position where I can actually go in and say, "Okay, this is what I want. What do I do to achieve this?" And I think at some point in time, employers as well, when they see an employee doing well, they are able to negotiate, work those things out, and able to create a good, conducive environment.

So I think it's both ways, and you need to be in that position to create that environment. Absolutely. So you haven't mentioned marriage, children. Have you lived as a single man through this whole process? Yes. Okay. And how do you think that has affected your financial independence journey? To be honest, I don't think it would be very different.

And to give you some background, I did mention my parents at the initial part of education, but now what I do is I ask them to... I feel guilty because in the initial years when I moved to the US, it was just me calling them with a calling card on a phone, speaking to them 10 minutes every week.

And then as technology improved, both in India and over here, we kept in touch over Skype and kept doing that. But once I got financially independent, moved to Silicon Valley, I felt confident enough saying, "Hey, why don't you guys come and stay with me for six months and live with me?" So now the arrangement, which my parents do, is they come and live with me for six months, and then they live back home in India six months, just because most of the family and relatives which they grew up with are still in Bombay.

So that keeps that close connection. And when they're here with me for six months, it's really me taking care of all of their expenses. And I already have a three-bed, two-bath house in Silicon Valley, so it's not that I'm living in a studio apartment. So I think as far as living cost go, it's not drastically different being a single person versus being in a relationship, in the sense that you still need to provide for three people expenses.

So I think that's kind of where I would have... In Silicon Valley, I think the most important part is housing expense, and as long as you have that under control, you are good. What strategies have you used to moderate your expenses while living in Silicon Valley? One part which helped me definitely was I was lucky during the crash.

There were certain areas of Silicon Valley which the prices never budged, but there were other pockets in the Bay Area itself where prices cratered. And they cratered by 30% or so, and that was enough for me to say, "Okay, this is the time where I actually need to get in the market and buy something." And my timing was a bit off, to be honest, because I bought my house in 2013 when the market had already risen, but not as crazy as it is back now to pre-peak level.

But then I also had some crazy investment ideas which worked. Like I invested in financials, and as it kept going down, I kept doubling down, doubling down until finally Bear Stearns and Lehman happened, and then I was like, "Oh, I should actually..." I actually started buying Citigroup from $12, $8, and then I'm like, "Oh, at $5, it seems like a greater buy, all in." And then I'm like, "Oh, now it's $2." Then I'm like, "Okay, I'm borrowing money," and then I'm like, "Okay, investing," and then when it is below a dollar, I'm like, "I'm really scared now.

I don't know what to do." But by then, I'm like, "All in." Luckily, I think that bet paid off, and I managed to get enough money which I could then use for down payment. So I think taking the strategic risk helped as well, and I was able to... And I clearly remember, in hindsight, it's easy to say, "Oh, everyone should have bought a house during the crash." But when I was over there and I talked to my co-workers saying, "Hey, are you guys buying?" Because we all were in a similar situation.

We'd talk, "Oh, our rents are going up every week. To have a one-bedroom apartment in Silicon Valley is $3,000 rent. What do we do?" And we keep discussing this, and then the market crashes. But when the market crashes, no one was willing to step in and buy. So it does take a lot of courage to actually say, "Okay, I'm going to make a decision, and let me go in, let me put the down payment, and then see what happens." It's just a risk you have to take.

So I think that risky bet paid off for me as well. So luckily, I have a house which I bought at a lower price. The best part about California, though, is the property prices are pegged to the buy price. So the property prices just track inflation, and if you buy it at a low price, it just is low-priced property taxes for the rest of your life.

- Yeah. Tell us about the investing strategies you've developed and chosen now, going forward, after years of thinking about it and education. - Right. So after years of thinking and education, I no longer do... I have a fund portfolio where I still do individual stocks, but most of my portfolio is in well-diversified, quarterly mutual funds, just tracking the index of passive index funds that Vanguard Fidelity show up, just track the index and global asset allocation.

There are some bonds in it, but then I also do some alternative investments. So I invest in... Because of my income, I'm an accredited investor, which then opens up the other options for me. So I'm able to invest in some art offerings, some marine offerings, some real estate syndication deals, and those provide a good enough yield, because I never believed in bond portfolios yielding low returns.

I have some treasuries which have done really well this year because of the bond convexity, but other than that, it's more or less trying to get yield from all these alternative investments like real estate syndication, art, marine offerings, those kinds of things. So I've kind of kept that as my bond portfolio.

In addition to that, I also have a rental property I bought in Silicon Valley. So the good part about the rental property is that it exactly matches my mortgage. So technically, although I haven't paid off my mortgage, I consider that my rental property is paid off, so I'm living rent-free in my house.

So you carry a mortgage on your primary house, but the rental property is mortgage-free. And so basically, your tenants are paying off the mortgage on your primary house. I think those mental tricks are powerful when you can say, "Okay, I want to buy this. I want to live in this house.

So how can I generate an investment that's going to pay for this for me? Because I don't want to pay for it, but I want to live in this house." Absolutely. I think that's powerful. And that's true financial independence, right? You have a paid-off house, technically speaking, where you are living free, and then you only need to say, "How much do I actually spend on travel?

How much do I spend on food? How much do I spend on clothes?" And when you actually add it up, it's very little. And that expense, whether you're in Silicon Valley or you're in Kansas, it's the same. I mean, food doesn't cost a lot more in Silicon Valley compared to anywhere in the Midwest.

How do you weigh, having traveled and worked across the United States, how do you weigh the costs and benefits of living in Silicon Valley? I would say for technology individuals, it would still make sense to move to Silicon Valley, make a ton of money, and at some point in time, if you think this is expensive, you can move out.

The opportunities you get in Silicon Valley are tremendous. Like I mentioned, I've never needed to ever hunt for a job. I've been always quoted and people reach out to me for jobs, and then you can keep getting a lot of money. You would kind of rent an apartment. You would not have your own house maybe initially, but over a period of time, I think the amount of money you can amass through that route is much greater.

Of course, now Silicon Valley is more diversified, so you have options like Austin, Boston, other tech hubs, Raleigh, North Carolina, which are coming up. Amazon is opening up an office outside of Seattle. So those options are there, but still I would say Silicon Valley, if you're in technology field, you should move there.

If you're not in the technology field, I don't think people have any business living there. I know there are people who work at Starbucks who live in Silicon Valley. I would honestly, if I was not in technology and I worked at Starbucks and those were my only skills, I would just move out and get a similar job somewhere else.

I have a cultural question for you. I have the opinion that Indians who are smart and who leave India and go where there are more economic opportunities are very efficient at becoming wealthy. I don't know if that's true because I've never charted the data on it. I don't know if there are poor Indians living in the United States who, yeah, they are from the Indian culture, but they just are always struggling.

But my anecdotal experience has been that Indians do really well in the United States. It's been hard for me to find, again, examples of just normally competent people who do come to the United States and work and pursue opportunities that they become wealthy. First, do you think that's true?

I think it's more the first generation immigrant who comes over here, they understand the struggles and they will be careful about everything and be wealthy. But culturally, I don't think there's anything specific about Indians or any other ethnicities. So to give you an example, like Silicon Valley and that neighborhood has a lot of people from Vietnam, some of who came during the Vietnamese war.

But the people who are born there, the second or third generation people I meet are more American than Vietnamese and their way of living and spending would be more similar to the Native Americans versus their home culture, right? And I could see them degrading in a lower level lifestyle versus the immigrants who actually came in the first wave.

So I don't disagree with that. I totally agree. But what I'm interested in is first wave, like first wave immigrants. Because I don't have the same impression, for example, about Guatemalans who come to the United States. I've known a lot of Guatemalan immigrants, but Guatemalans, I know a couple of Mexicans who immigrated to the United States who are at upper levels of income, but I don't know any personally, I've never met any Guatemalans who experienced the career success, the wealth success, etc.

that Indians seem to experience. So that's what I'm focused on. I'm just trying to say what are the lessons from the Indian culture? Because to me, it seems to me that here's what I see. You tell me. It may be easy, it may be hard for you to analyze your native culture.

Right. Right. Because I'm like, if I'm sitting in the ocean, I see water everywhere. Exactly. I think it's normal. Exactly. So here's what I see. Here are the advantages I think that Indians have over immigrants from other cultures. Number one, you grow up speaking English, right? For those who don't know, it's my understanding that in India, it's standard that children are taught three languages, India, Hindi, and a local dialect generally.

Is that pretty true? That's true to some extent. So the urban areas, people, the medium of instruction is English, but not so in the rural area. So it also depends on the city where you were born. So you had the benefit of growing up in an urban area, your parents had already moved from the country to the city, and you had the benefit of learning English as a child.

That's a huge benefit. It is. Definitely. If you were born in the United States, you could come as a professional worker, which we'll get to education in a minute, but you had to be able to speak English to do that. Whereas somebody who comes from Guatemala to take a manual labor job doesn't speak English, and so that really harms them.

I'm forever desperately trying to get Hispanic immigrants to the United States. You've got to learn English. The very first thing you got to do is to learn English. So that's one advantage. Number two, there seems to be an intensive culture in India where parents are willing to make almost any sacrifice for the betterment of their children.

So parents will work forever. If it makes my children better, I'll do it. And a lot of that comes down to schooling and education. In the Indian culture, schooling and education are massively valued. And then with those foundations, with being able to speak a language, and then the schooling and education and culture, you add that to immigration.

I have not been to India. I kind of wonder very much what's happening in India. Of course, you got a country of a billion people. How do you even know? But I feel like all the smart Indians leave and go somewhere else. I meet Indian immigrants all over the world, and I often wonder, there's got to be a bunch of smart Indians staying, but there's no question that intelligence and skill, then you put it into an economy like the United States, where the average American that's born in the United States succumbs to that second and third generation malaise.

They're not really hungry. They're not willing to sacrifice. And it just seems to me that new immigrants who have those benefits just wipe the floor. They see the opportunities and they take advantage of them. I don't know. Do you think that's accurate? My analysis is accurate? I think that is accurate.

And to answer your question with respect to what's happening now in India, when I last visited two years ago, a lot of reverse brain drain is now happening because the Indian economy has opened up. It's now more capitalist and market driven. So like Amazon has a rival, the Flipkart, which has opened up and giving Amazon a tough competition in India.

Amazon has been trying forever, but it can't gain market share in India. I think similar phenomena is occurring in China as well, where a lot of Chinese immigrants come here, study and sometimes say, "Oh, it's better off to go back to China and work over there." So I think that's good, where as each economy is opening up, people are having that opportunity to go back to their country of origin, work over there and then contribute to that society as well.

Yeah, I hope so. To me, the lessons are obvious. Those things that I said, you mentioned being raised in a stable home environment. It's incalculable how big of an impact that makes on you in time. And then having family that loves you, that supports you, is willing to deal with the hardness of your going abroad.

I find it very inspiring. Now if we can figure out how to get second and third generations to keep the good things about the immigrant attitude and not succumb to the malaise of comfort and wealth, then we'll really have something. But I don't know how to do that, other than to, my theory is that if we deprive our children and put them into hardship, because that deprivation and that hardship is the thing that has a formative influence on new immigrants.

If you've slept on the street, if you've not known where your next meal is going to come from, if you've experienced hardship and want and distress, then you recognize comfort and ease and luxury when you see it. And then you look at it and you say, "Well, this is simple.

I just need a good job and save money. And look, this apartment is $500 a month, but this is better than I could have had back home for, you know, this is nice." And so my theory is that there's got to be a way to expose our children to plenty and security, et cetera, but also expose them to hardship and deprivation so they can gain the lessons of both.

Because if it's too much hardship and deprivation, right, some guy who's living in the middle of nowhere, India, who has nothing but a mud hut, like too much hardship and deprivation can lead to somebody just simply not having either the knowledge that they can have ambition or the ability to do that.

You weren't raised in that, right? You were raised in relative prosperity, kind of a middle class, you had a roof over your head, you weren't sleeping on the street. Sleeping on the streets can be really destructive to the psychology of a human. But there's a difference, like there's got to be some right balance where we're comfortable, we're safe, those basic needs of life are met, but yet there's still enough challenge and hardship and deprivation to make somebody feel hungry.

- Right, and I think the culture which the parents have the ability to push their children and it's not looked upon as strange, I think that helps a lot. I remember when I came to the US, I read the story, it was called, it was a huge deal, it came in the New York Times, which was the battle cry of the tiger mom, and there were like so many comments on that article.

And when I read that story, I was like, that seems normal what the mother did to the Chinese daughters, like playing piano, make sure you study and do all of this. But as I read the comments, people are like, oh my God, what a bad mother, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, that does not seem like a bad mother to me, it seems just normal to me, but I think that's a huge cultural difference. - Well, what's happened is that in the American culture, the individualism and basically, Americans speaking broadly, especially the secular elite, like the culture makers on the left and right coasts, have basically accepted the philosophy that you do you, right?

This is the idea. There is no right or wrong, there's no better or worse, something is right because you want it. So you live how you want to live. Well, if that's true, right, which many people accept that as being the basic philosophical truth that the highest and best thing I can do is to express myself, to be myself, to let it out.

I wanna be me, I wanna be free. What does the Frozen song say? Let it go, right? Don't be inhibited by the rules, don't be inhibited by standards, don't be inhibited by other people's opinions of you, let it go, let it go, let it go, right? That's the basic operating philosophy of the majority of the American coastal secular elite.

Now in that, then you come to child training. Well, if it's right for you as a parent, then it's right for your child. And so parents often then impose that idea on their children that instead of saying there's a process of education whereby I'm going to teach my child what he or she needs to learn, it's just simply the goal of education is to let my child's innate goodness flower and let it out.

And so my goal is to indulge these things and to indulge them so that whatever their right path is in life, then they'll find it. And so that basic educational philosophy sets the difference. In the Indian culture, your parents know if you are well educated, if you're good at math, if you're good at science, if you become a doctor and a lawyer, you can have a better life.

You can have a better life, therefore you will study your math. And that's imposed on you and the standards are held there. And if you come home with a B, your mom is looking for something to teach you a lesson, right? Whereas in the American culture with this basic concept of a philosophy that says you're good however you are is just the right way to be.

Then if my child comes home with a B in math, you just don't like math. That's okay. Maybe you'll find something else that you like better. And as far as I'm concerned, the evidence is obvious. Just look at the earning ability, look at the wealth accumulation, look at the success in academics.

There's no question. Now again, I'm not, maybe there are times that the Indian mom goes too far, right? Maybe I don't know. I don't have an Indian mom, but maybe there are times where it goes too far and maybe there's a right balance, but I'm not in favor of the American system.

I don't know if I'm in favor of the Indian system. I think there again is an intelligent way to say, no, you're not good enough just the way you are. You're not, oh, you're five years old. You don't know what you're talking about. You're five years old. Like sit down, learn, and take the instruction of your elders without destroying the child and saying, well, you're just worthless because you don't get A pluses in math.

- Right, and if we extrapolate that, Joshua, to even like the student debt crisis, which is there, I honestly still believe that if someone today in America goes to school for medicine or engineering, they will have huge debt, but they will land a job and they can easily repay that debt.

If you go to school to study like pyramids of Egypt, that's a pyramid scheme in itself because you're paying the college and then the only job you can get is being a professor teaching other people the same thing. I'm like, what is the value out of it? I mean, don't get me wrong.

I mean, history is great, but you could just do that, go to the library, check out 10 books, just read it, and then you know the pyramids of history. I'm like, why do you need to spend money and thousands of dollars? At the end of the day, I think when people spend money on education, they should be like, what does this contribute to society and who is willing to pay for my skills, right?

I mean, as an engineer, I know that, okay, if I can code, someone is benefiting with that code and is willing to pay me. But if I can paint or something, maybe my painting is famous, but that possibility and that risk is so high that it's clearly not worth taking.

- Right. Well, it's obvious that you're right, but I would just kind of point out, why then do we have the cultural conversation? Well, if you're taught as a child, as I'm a millennial, right? Most of my peers, we have been taught this as children. If you're taught as a child that the most important thing in life is that you are allowed to express yourself, that you're allowed to be you, and that your self-fulfillment is the ideal goal, then that naturally results in many people, not all, there are lots of intelligent people who made different choices who chose to study something that paid them well.

And the natural result is that you try to choose something that leads you towards self-actualization rather than leads you towards profitability. And then what happens is, it's very easy psychologically, once you get into a certain groove, just like once you say, it's like, I don't go to new car dealerships and look at new cars, right?

I don't do it because I don't know if I would have the self-control to say no to the new car. I love them, the technology is great, you go and you sit in them and you look and you're like, man, this would be so much better. So because I don't know if I would have the self-control in that situation, I don't go there.

But almost anything in life is basically the same thing as going and shopping for cars. If you don't make a decision in advance that I'm going to choose a course of study that will lead to a practical benefit, and you say, well, you know what, I'm interested in pyramids of Egypt, and you go and you find, man, there's this guy who knows everything about the pyramids of Egypt, and you say, look, there are 10 anthropologists all around the world who are making their living on the pyramids of Egypt, I can do that too.

And you don't do an accurate analysis of the fact that, look, there are also 10,000 people with degrees in pyramids of Egypt, and they're failing, and they're working at the grocery store bagging groceries. People don't really make that analysis. And then built upon the philosophy of self-actualization, what would make me happy, what would make me fulfilled, then you move in that direction.

Your mom and dad didn't ask you what would make you happy, what would make you fulfilled, they said study, because this is good for you. And then you find out, hey, engineering works, and you figure out how in the context of engineering to find the greatest happiness and fulfillment in the best environment you can.

But there's gotta be a link of, I'm all for self-fulfillment, I feel very fulfilled doing what I do, but there's gotta be a good link to the practicality of our decisions. If you separate them, you wind up with a crisis. - True. Yeah, so the choice is only for typical Indians growing up in India is either medicine, doctor, or lawyer, and you get to make your own choices, but it's limited to those choices.

- You know, with good reason, though. If you go back to, in the United States, there was Tom Stanley, was an author, he interviewed a lot of wealthy people, and he wrote a number of books, and one of the basic recommendations that the wealthy people in his studies would make to their children is that their children acquire a professional degree, that their children become doctors, lawyers, or engineers in many ways.

Even though many of his interviewees were wealthy entrepreneurs, they knew how fraught entrepreneurship was with difficulty, and how you're always on the line between success and failure. And when it's successful, it's nice, but you know all the things that have gone slightly wrong would lead to failure, and they recommend the safe path to their children, become a loctor, doctor, lawyer, engineer.

They know, recommend these things. So you're not alone, and it's true, right? It really is true. - And I think given the fact that internet has democratized information so much, it's hard for me to understand anyone in the US, even someone who's earning minimum wage, ideally if they spend enough time, they can set up like a new website on the side, they can sell products.

When I was taking my vacation in Thailand, I met so many people from Thailand actually buying stuff from Alibaba, selling it to the Americans on Amazon, just doing fulfillment by Amazon drop shipping, and they're making tons of money, and they are not in the US, but they still, just by knowledge of the internet, knowing English, they are able to just arbitrage and just make money.

And I'm like amazed that people who live here don't have that entrepreneurship. They will argue with people over Facebook, over Twitter, and like waste time following what the latest Kardashians are posting on Instagram, instead of like kind of doing something, which will trickle in money, build your skills, and then those skills are useful.

Even if it fails, just take small bets, if it fails, you have those skills, just apply to the next gig. - Yeah. I don't have an answer for it. I think about it a lot, and I try to be thoughtful and not just say everyone's wrong, but there's something about inspiration, right?

If you don't believe that you can do it, you do that. There's something about the experiences that people have had. You know, a lot of people are beaten down psychologically. A lot of people have experienced a lot of suffering, and that harms their confidence. There's something about character and discipline, doing the hard work.

It's great to have an idea, it's hard to execute on them. There's something to be said for ability. There's something to be said for intelligence. I do, I've noodled on that for a long time, and I still don't know that I have answers. I know that the answers are out there for someone who seeks.

One of the things I wrote down as I was listening to you talk is you demonstrated an interest in the story that you shared. You demonstrated an interest in learning and looking for answers. You recognized, oh, I have money. I have your money now, I have an income. What should I do with that?

I don't know why everybody doesn't do that, but I know that most people don't. Most people don't go look for answers. Most people don't, if they're unhealthy, they don't just keep looking and keep, you know, if a doctor tells them it's incurable, they don't just go and fire that doctor until they find someone who tells them it's curable.

They say, oh, it's incurable. Okay, I'm going to lie up and lay down and die now, right? And it's the same thing. Very few people just seem to possess that natural or trained knowledge of I'm going to get better at this. So I don't know what we do other than try to talk and share and inspire people, because I do know almost anybody, whether they're Thai or Guatemalan or native-born American or whatever, I know that once they get some inspiration and someone lays out a path, then they can start to build.

- Definitely, and I think that's where I decided, even like within Silicon Valley, I've seen so many of my coworkers be stressed. So I said, okay, I should start a blog because all of them come to me for advising, even basic things like what 401(k) investment should I choose or what should I do with my excess money outside?

Should I sell my company RSU stocks? Is it too much diversification risk? So I said, okay, I might as well rather than talk to each person over and over again. So I said, okay, I'll start a blog and start like typing on all my thoughts. I might not have all the answers.

In fact, I might be wrong most of the times, but at least it fosters dialogue, puts my opinion out there. And if someone thinks differently, I mean, feel free, like come in the comment section, talk about it, and then I might change my opinion and I might go a different route.

So I think that's where I decided to go along this journey. - Your blog is financialfreedomcountdown.com. - That is correct. - Financialfreedomcountdown.com. So you're blogging about financial freedom, the things that you've learned, the story that you've laid out. - Right. - The financial independence, early retirement, et cetera. Is there anything I've missed in today's interview?

Anything you'd like to share with my audience? Being a long time listener of the show, is there anything you'd like to share that you wish I'd asked you about or any just personal desire to encourage your fellow listeners? - No, I think Joshua, this was definitely a good thought process and it helped clear some of the concepts in my mind as well.

And it's great after listening to so many episodes to actually meet you in person and talk and be on the podcast. So I can't tell you how excited I'm for all of this. - I'm so glad you're here. Financialfreedomcountdown.com. John, thank you for coming on the show. - Thank you, Joshua.

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