Get the perfect gift for the wine lover in your life at WineEnthusiast.com Personalized wine openers? WineEnthusiast.com Cheese boards? Mmm. WineEnthusiast.com Glassware? WineEnthusiast.com A 500-bottle wine fridge? Yep. Wine Enthu- you get the picture. Find the best prices on the perfect wine gift for you- I mean, for someone special this year.

At Wine Enthusiast, we bring wine to life. 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. Today on the show, we're going to talk about one financial goal that I think that you should consider setting.

This is part of a financial goals series. What I've learned as a financial advisor has been that many people don't set a goal unless they've seen someone else set that goal and/or they have been inspired to set that goal. This has been true for me in my life. Simple example, when I was younger, I was taught that it's a good idea to save 10% of your income, so I set a goal of saving 10% of my income and I did it.

But no one ever told me that I should save 50% of my income. If they had, I might have done it. I wish I had. I didn't have the creativity to set that as a goal earlier in my life. So we all need to see someone else set a goal.

We all need to have a goal taught to us sometime before we say, "You know what? I'd like that goal as well." And so I'm going to intersperse my current running series called 7 Rings of Liberty with this series of just financial goals. Simple, short, focused things for you to consider, a goal for you to consider making.

And today's goal is very simple. I want you to set a goal of getting a better job. Whatever your job is right now, I want you to set a goal of finding and getting a better job. Now notice that what that better job is, what that actual term, better job, means, it's entirely open to your personal interpretation.

A job that's better for you might not be a job that's better for me. Vice versa. You get to design what that better job is. Better job might mean more money. It might mean more flexibility. It might mean more interesting work. It might mean anything else that you to say, a better work environment, nicer people to work for, a cause that I care about, or something that I believe in instead of this.

But whatever it is, I want you to set a goal of getting a better job. Notice also that I'm not saying where you have to get that better job. For example, your better job might be in the same company that you're working in right now. And if it's in the same company that you're working in right now, your better job might just simply be one step up, or moving a division over, or changing to the foreign branch instead of the local branch.

Your better job might be within your own industry, but in a competitor's company. Or your better job might be in something else entirely. You might say, "I'm done with this work, work, work world. I'm tired of living in downtown Manhattan. I'm going to go and get a job as a park ranger and work in a national park." That could be a great decision for you.

On the other hand, you might be sick and tired of your job in the middle of nowhere, feel like you're on the slow track, and all you want to do is move on to the fast track. In which case, load up your car and move to the big city lights.

But you should have a goal of getting a better job. Now one more thing. I didn't say that you actually had to change your job in order to get a better job. You might. Much of the time, you do. But you might just need to change your job in order to get a better job.

When's the last time you looked at your work and analyzed it for how you're doing it? When's the last time you thought about what you're responsible for and looked around and said, "You know what? I think I could improve this. I think I can change this process. I think I could drop these things here and just adjust.

I think I could bring more value to my employer if I changed these things over here. Or I think I could get more work done if I hired an assistant." By the way, one of the things that I'm convinced more and more people should do is hire an assistant.

In today's world of fractionalized work, that hiring decision doesn't have to be any kind of person related to your full- doesn't have to be a position at your job. I have virtual assistants. I have an app on my phone that I use to interact with my virtual assistants. And it's great.

Anybody can do it. Bill your personal credit card. So if you find yourself doing something that you're responsible for and you don't want to, you don't want to do it, you can hire it out, send it to your assistant. But the key is get a better job. If you don't set a goal of improving your job, what makes you think that your job will ever improve?

That's the problem that most people have. Because they don't set a goal of getting a better job, their job never improves. And instead of actually doing something about improving their job, they often complain about their job. They often just mumble and grumble and complain constantly about their job. "Got to go work for the man.

I-o, I-o, it's off to work I go." Come on. That's not for you. Set a goal of getting a better job. Action exercise. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen. Quiet time. Phone on do not disturb. TV off. Maybe a little relaxing music. So maybe you have to turn your phone on to find a YouTube channel with relaxing music.

Go for it. But sit down with a piece of paper and say, "How can I get a better job?" Ask yourself that question. And the first thing that will be obvious is that you need to know, "What is a better job? What would be a better job for me?

What attributes would a better job have that my current job doesn't have?" That's step one. Clarify. What is a better job? Step two. Now, how can I get a better job? Notice I gave you a bunch of examples. I could improve my current job without actually changing anything. I should improve what I'm doing right now and transform my current job into a better job.

You could also move up within your company. That's one way to get a better job. Or move over within your company to a better job. You could change companies from one company to a better job at another company. You could change industries from one industry to another. You could change geographic locations.

Sometimes the job that is not so fun in New York City could be really fun in Hong Kong to you. You can change an almost infinite array of things. But set a goal of getting a better job. Once you clarify some ideas of how, start to work on some specific things that you can do.

Lots of things you can do. You might need to take some training. You might need to go and interview some people in a better job to find out how they did it. You might need to brush up your resume. You might need to browse some job boards. You might need to go out and put yourself out in the market or do some networking.

Tons of things you can do. But start doing something. The best way to predict the future is to create it. I don't know who to attribute that quote to, but it's something that's always stuck with me. The best way to predict the future is to create it. And so if you want to build a better future, it's up to you.

Start building it. Start building it by preparing yourself for a better future. Start building it by transforming yourself into the kind of person that would be attractive and be hired into the job that you wanted to be hired into. We can see this very easily and naturally if we think about professional careers.

If you said, "My better job would be to be a lawyer," but you're currently working as a truck driver, can you imagine that you would be hired to be a lawyer if you just continue driving trucks and do nothing else about it? Of course not. If you want to be a lawyer, you're going to have to become a lawyer.

So you're going to start studying. You're going to start preparing yourself and moving closer to the legal field. Maybe you don't have money to go to law school, so you go and get a job as a paralegal. It moves you closer. It's easier for you to figure out how to transition to being a lawyer if you're working as a paralegal than if you're working as a truck driver.

There's probably going to be some school involved. There's going to be some job hunting involved. There's going to be some internships, etc. But if you set a goal of, "I want to build a better job, and my better job is to be a lawyer," 10 years from now, probably faster, but 10 years from now, you could be a lawyer.

And the same thing applies to any dream that you have. If you said, "I'm currently working as a lawyer, but what I'd really like to do is I'd really like to work with the land. I'd like to be a farmer." Well, if you spend all your days in your office reading legal briefs, and you spend all your nights going to networking events trying to find clients, or trying to network for another lawyer job, you're not going to get any closer to being a farmer.

So if you're a lawyer who wants to become a farmer, you start moving in the direction of farming. You start filling your mind with knowledge about farming. You start reading some books about farming. You go out and you start working in your garden. You start trying to figure out, "How could I become a farmer and support myself?" Then, as soon as you have the opportunity, you start going and farming.

And you may still be commuting into the city on a day-to-day basis to go and practice law, or you might change the practice of law, the field of law that you practice in. So instead of practicing law where you got to be in court, maybe you go and do estate planning where you can do everything virtually.

But then that allows you to live on your farm out in the country. But you start that transition. Set a goal this year of getting a better job. No matter where you are, no matter what a perfect fit is, fit your current job is for you, you can get a better job.

You can make a better job. I feel pretty stinking happy with my business at the moment. But I'm going to continually focus on, "Let me get rid of these things that I'm not good at. Let me get rid of these things that I don't enjoy. Let me get rid of these things that are being done poorly so that I can focus on my core area of expertise.

I'm going to make my job better." You can do it too. More than any other financial decision you can make, more than any other financial goal you can pursue, this particular goal of getting a better job is one that I believe will impact your life for good. See, if you got a better job, a job that you really like, then you don't have to worry so much about retirement.

If you've got a job that's really well fit to you, it has huge financial potential. You're going to spend the vast majority of your life working, in some way or another. So why not make it work that you really like? Why not make it work that you're really well suited for?

Why not make it work that you really care about the output? Why not make it work that's really profitable? All those things are possible. We live in a world of more opportunity in the job environment than any time in human history. There's a higher diversity of jobs. There's a higher diversity of the ways of working.

Work at home, work at an office, work in a mixture, work online, work in this country, work in that country, work with these people, work with those people. There's more variety available to you now than ever before in human history. So don't settle for mediocre. So don't settle for, "Eh, good enough." Just constantly work on getting a better job.

Your goal this year, and your goal next year, and your goal for all of the 2020s, should be to get a better job. I hope you'll set that goal, and I hope you'll work towards its achievement. Doesn't have to be a blinding achievement. Just little by little, work towards that achievement.

I think it was W. Clement Stone, maybe, who said that happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. I found that to be pretty good. Happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. You're not going to be happier when you get a better job. That's not true.

You probably could be happier when you get a better job, right? If you leave a toxic environment where you're barely tolerated and move into a really positive environment where you're celebrated, that kind of thing will make a big difference in your personal happiness. If you move from a stifling, restrictive environment into a freer environment, that kind of thing can make a big improvement in your life.

But the point is that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can enjoy the process of working towards it. So this is one of those goals that needs to be perennially on your goal list. Get a better job. Close with, finally, the financial impact. My opinion, the most ignored, most unappreciated, most underutilized path of financial achievement is getting a better job.

It's not the fact that somebody didn't put enough money in their 401k. It's the fact that somebody didn't double their income by asking for a raise or by moving to another company. If you look at people who are high earners, the thing I have found again and again and again and again is that their increases don't come in a steady manner, but rather they come in more of a stair-step manner.

And they're associated with either a major change in job position at their current company, which is difficult but doable, or they're associated with a major change from one company to another. If you get a job making $50,000 a year and you go in and ask your current boss for a raise to $100,000 a year, pretty hard to see how that boss says yes.

But if you have a job making $50,000 a year and you prepare for and you target a job that pays at $100,000 per year, and then you go and you interview for it and you get hired for that job, you're all of a sudden an automatic $100,000 a year earner.

And anything that anyone else has learned, you can learn too. You can learn the skills and the abilities that are needed for that $100,000 a year job. You can exercise those things. You can practice those things. You can practice your interviewing skills. You can practice your networking skills. You can get the recommendations.

You can burnish your credentials. You can demonstrate your value. And that $50,000 to $100,000 jump, it's a big deal. And you can do that again and again and again. It's the most underutilized method of financial advancement that I know of. So don't let this be the year that you look back and say, "Man, I wish I'd done that." Let this be the year that you set a goal of getting a better job.

Get yourself a better job and your life will improve measurably. Set the goal, clarify what that means to you, and start doing the hard work to get yourself a better job. Conveniently enough, I happen to sell a course that might help you. The course is called The Radical Personal Finest Guide to Career and Income Planning.

You can find it at radicalpersonalfinest.com/store. I wrote that course going on three years ago now. That because, as I was doing this analysis, everything I've just told you, I came to this conclusion. And I wanted to start with, "What's the thing where I think it can make the biggest difference in people's lives?" I don't think the thing that's going to make the biggest difference in people's lives is save $5 here, $5 there, or get this slightly better insurance product.

It's to get a better job. And so I sat down and I did my very best to create a course that would solve that problem. If you'd be interested in taking that course, you can do it at radicalpersonalfinest.com/store. radicalpersonalfinest.com/store. I have received dozens and dozens of testimonials from people who have doubled their income, tripled their income, quintupled their income, moved, kept the same income, but moved into a much better life situation.

Lots and lots of students have really benefited from that course, and continue to provide ongoing work in that course. So go to radicalpersonalfinest.com/store and see if that course might be useful for you. With Kroger Brand products from Ralphs, you can make all your favorite things this holiday season. Because Kroger Brand's proven quality products come at exceptionally low prices.

And with a money-back quality guarantee, every dish is sure to be a favorite. ♪ These are a few of my favorite things ♪ Whether you shop delivery, pickup, or in-store, Kroger Brand has all your favorite things. Ralphs. Fresh for Everyone. (upbeat music)