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All while basking in the glow of the neon marquees of the iconic casinos. Purchase tickets at vegasexperience.com. SlotZilla, a ride unlike any other. It's Friday, live Q&A time. (upbeat music) 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 name is Joshua, I am your host, and it is time for a Friday Q&A show. Open phone lines, open to patrons of the show, which you can become at patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance. We go to the phones and talk about whatever you want to talk about. (upbeat music) If you are not sitting on the phone line right now, I would really love you to be doing that right now.

So if you wanna join me for next week's Q&A, go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance. Again, patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance. Sign up to support the show there, and you will gain access to the call-in codes, the number, and the time, and everything for next week's Q&A show. We begin with, let's see, Tim in New York.

Tim, welcome to the show. How can I serve you today, sir? - Hi, Joshua, thanks for taking my call. Just wanted to let you know I really appreciate what you do, and the values you espouse are really aligned with mine, and I really appreciate all the advice that you give.

And I was recently listening to your Spousal Liberty show. It was, I don't know, a week or two ago. And you said something that really struck me, which was you didn't know what you would do had you married a doctor. And then you also mentioned, I took some notes here, so you said family works best with one large productive career and one family facilitator.

And you also mentioned that you didn't think, you didn't think it was possible to own a business and care for young children. On its face, I would tend to agree with pretty much all of that, and I happen to be in that situation. We are mid-30s. We have three kids under five in a private Christian school right now.

I don't know how much you would wanna know necessarily about me without knowing my topic, so I'll get right to that. My wife, like I said, is a doctor, and she was recently let go from an associateship that she was in. She was making probably 175-ish, but she's been in about four of these associateships agreements in the last nine years or so, all of them being about part-time, between two and a half days to four days a week.

And she's just been treated really poorly by the owners of these practices that have really taken advantage of her, and even this latest one could result in some legal issues that we're gonna pursue. And she's just sick of being like a second-class doctor basically and having to ask permission or being second-guessed on things.

And so when she, last month she was forced to resign, and she started second-guessing her career choice and I guess her vocation as a mom and as a working mom. And I would say that since we've been married, our priorities have kind of changed, less about focusing on careers and more about raising good, solid Christian children.

So we do a lot of volunteering in church and whatnot. And after she was terminated, I don't know if it was a knee-jerk reaction, but she said something about, "Maybe I should homeschool the kids." And then a couple of days later, she was back to looking at buying a practice.

So she's kind of gone back and forth, and I think now she's less in the homeschooling mindset and more in the, "I just wanna work for myself" mindset. And so I'm kind of letting these things settle a little bit before we make a really big decision that's gonna affect the rest of our lives.

And then I heard your show a couple of weeks ago. And so I guess I'm looking for maybe to have you expand on, you said you don't know what you'd do if you married a doctor. Well, I did. I work, I have a W-2 job. She's been an independent contractor, so she's been a 1099, which is nice because we can take advantage of some of the tax breaks and whatnot.

So it's worked well to have one W-2. I collect all the benefits from my employer. I work from home. I don't work more than 40 hours. It's a nice fit. - Good. - But then she makes twice as much as me in half the time. - Sure, sure. - It, so I'm sorry, I went on a long time.

So I'll let you share if you have any thoughts. - Yeah, so first of all, how much is your income? - It's about 90,000. I knew you'd ask this. So I also thought about total compensation because she doesn't get any of the benefits that I get that we would otherwise have to pay for.

So I have a pretty generous pension through my employer. I have a 401k matching, a lot of vacation time, so, and health insurance, of course. So I estimate the total compensation to be around 120. - That's great. And it's a blessing that you're able to work from home as well.

You have said three children under five. So all of your children then are in daycare or one of them is in-- - Five are under, I'm sorry. One is kindergarten. - Okay, one is kindergarten. - And then pre-K. - Yeah. Well, I'll share with you my thoughts and we can talk about it, but there's not gonna be, let's work it through.

So here's where I would like to begin. What bothers me intensely in many financial planning conversations, including on a topic like this, is people start with the numbers involved. And they start by saying, well, you've gotta do the thing that is most profitable. And I simply reject that. I think that you do need to consider numbers, but I don't think that money and money alone is a very good criteria to really make almost any decision in life.

At least not in my worldview and not in yours either. There are many things that I could do that would make a lot of money that I simply would not do because the price is too high. Whether those, and there's things that I could do that don't make a little bit, that just make some money that I would not do because the price is too high.

And for me, I'm always going to prioritize people. In my worldview, people are the most important things. You mentioned that you guys are both Christians. Well, let's start there. Jesus said, "Do not lay up for yourselves "treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy "and where thieves break in and steal, "but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven "where moth and rust do not destroy "and where thieves cannot break in and steal.

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Now, I've pondered that verse and that teaching and many others that Jesus taught about money. I've pondered that for years. And as I've considered it, I've asked myself, how do you store up treasures in heaven? Let me ask you, Tim.

How do you, if I say to you, how do you store up treasures in heaven? What's your answer to that? - I would say the way that we, at church, I mean, we donate to the church, we donate to the poor, we donate our time in leading ministry. I would say those are probably the primary ways.

- Good. So, I'll share my answer and I'll do it just simply with one simple thing. When I think about storing up treasures in heaven, well, I can't do that with gold, right? Streets are paid with gold, gold doesn't matter, right? Obviously, it's a metaphor, but gold and silver are not eternal.

They're physical substances. They're not immaterial and eternal. The only thing that I know of that is immaterial and eternal is a soul, a living soul. Souls are the only things that are immaterial and eternal. God himself is immaterial and eternal, and he's given man a soul. A soul is an immaterial, eternal entity that goes on forever.

So, if you wanna store up treasures in heaven, the only way I know how to do that is to invest in souls, because souls are the only thing that actually goes from here to there. And then, one of the basic ways to do that is to take money and invest it into people.

I always think about another teaching of Jesus, where Jesus said, in the book of Luke, he said, "I tell you, make friends for yourselves "by means of unrighteous wealth, "so that when it fails, they may receive you "into eternal dwellings." Now, obviously, Jesus is talking about that in the context of the parable of the dishonest manager, but it's just something that I always think about.

Different translation says, "Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself, "so that when it is gone, "you'll be welcomed into eternal dwellings." Now, again, I'm pulling that a little out of context, 'cause it's in the context of a parable, but I think the thought is there, and just in the point that I make.

Say, okay, what is the point of money? The point of money is to invest it into people. And so, when I die, and when you die, we leave exactly the same amount of money behind as everyone else, all of it. And we're only stewards of it for a temporary period of time.

So, I'm always going to prioritize people above finance. I'm always gonna prioritize souls more than gold coins, or digits on a digital balance sheet. That's my basic and simple philosophy. So, when we come to something like a job, and you think about your children, and your family, and your community, this applies across the board.

So, if we use the ethic that I'm going to invest money and lay up treasures in heaven, not on the earth, then that's going to give a good guiding principle to many decisions. So, for example, I'm not going to engage in a career or business choice that is destructive to people.

So, perhaps I could go, and I could become a multimillionaire by fomenting wars around the world, and using those wars to create a demand for me to sell arms to the war efforts, and to the people who are prosecuting those wars. But I'm not gonna do that, because that results in the destruction of souls rather than the betterment of souls.

I'd rather have a very small business that actually served people, more than have a big business that was destructive to society and destructive to people's souls. We can pivot to our family, and I could say, well, there are a lot of things that I could do that would make a lot of money.

There are things that I could do that would be illegal, that would make money. And not only would some of those things be destructive, but the risk of doing something illegal is simply too high, because perhaps I could make a million dollars this year doing something illegal. But the risk is that I'm going to be imprisoned for my activities, and I'm gonna spend the next 20 years in prison and not be able to be of any use to my children.

So I'm obviously not gonna do anything illegal. In addition, we could go to, what about something that's very high paid, but would take me away from my family? Perhaps I could go and work as a military contractor overseas, hire myself out as a mercenary, make a lot of money working for a private contracting company.

Yeah, but that takes me away from my children. And it takes me away from my children, from my family. I leave them. And could there be times where you have to do something like that? Yeah, of course, right? Throughout history, men have gone away to war. And if it's necessary, if your home is being threatened by somebody, you might have to go away and fight and say, I'm sorry, I'll be back on the other side of the war.

That might be. But I'm not gonna make a decision like that intentionally, because I know that the havoc that that would wreak in my children and in my family and in my community. And so all of these examples are simply trying to say that you're never gonna get me to start by saying, the only thing that matters is the most profitable.

It's simply not. All the money is disposable. It's all gonna be eventually burned up. And so it's simply a temporary tool for a time. But what's the most important is the souls of people involved. So that's my basic guiding ethic, that money matters, but it's not the most important thing.

So now we come back to a situation such as you're wrestling with. How do we, as parents, build a godly family that will stand the test of time? Well, that's not an easy question to answer. There's a lot of things that are associated with that. But I'm gonna use that ethic, and I'm gonna say, I'm gonna begin by deciding what's in the best interest of our family.

And we're gonna take into account what's in my best interest as the husband and father, what's in my wife's best interest as the mother and wife, what's in our children's best interest, and what's in the best interest of our family collectively together. And I'm gonna try to build an ideal vision from that position.

And then once we're clear on what we think is in our best interest, what we think is the ideal, what we think is the best way for us to invest in souls, then now, as I see it, we pivot, and we look at the finances, and we say, in light of our vision, how can we make the finances fit?

In light of our vision, how can we make the finances fit? And then we go with what, and we ask God for wisdom in that situation. And we consider different options, we consider different solutions, we consider the benefits and the disadvantages of different parts of that, and then we go from there.

Now, the challenges, so do you agree with me so far in my method of analysis here, Tim? - Yes, mm-hmm. - Okay, so at this point in time, what we've accomplished, we've accomplished a basic ethic, a basic framework, and now the challenge comes to, well, how do we know what's in the best interest of our children?

So how do we know whether or not your wife working as a doctor and doing this, how do we know if that's better for our family, for her to make an extra $175,000 a year by being away from the family for 60 hours a week, or if it's better for our family to not have that extra $175,000, and just simply being with the family?

How do we know? How do we know if it's better for you, go ahead. - I was just gonna say, I know we already talked about the dollar figure doesn't necessarily matter, but there's a pretty big difference between what she's thinking of pursuing now, which would be purchasing a practice, and what she was making as an associate.

It would probably be double. We're probably looking at over $300,000, to the point where maybe I could go part-time. Just an option, just things that we're bouncing around. - Sure, fair enough. So I honestly don't know how I could solve the question. I don't know how it's possible for someone who's not in the middle of the family, because there are a lot of things that you've gotta balance.

Number one is you've gotta take an accurate look at your earning ability. It could be that you're choosing to earn something where you're making $90,000 per year, because of the things that it gives you, but you could go and do something to making $400,000 a year. And so I would talk about with my wife, and I would say, "Well, what if I were making $400,000 "a year, what would we do then?" It could be, on the other hand, that you don't have that capability.

Maybe you are untrained, maybe you are just simply not capable of earning a significant income, in which case everything changes. You need to look at, talk about your ambitions, your career ambitions, your family ambitions. Then you'd talk to your wife. Take a good, solid look at her life, her lifestyle, her ambitions, her career ambitions, the time and the structure for the family.

Talk about what's given up. One way, if she stays home and is a stay-at-home mom, if she works as a part-time doc, just doing another associate thing, if she does her own business and buys her own practice and sets that up, talking about that. I think it's important to discuss the impact on the children.

If I could have a magic wand and wave a magic wand over the entire universe, I would have every dad and every mom as full-time moms and dads, perfectly together with their children for the first five to 10 years of life. In my opinion, that's probably the best solution.

Now, I do think that that should be done in the context of work. I think it's really healthy to have work and jobs that children can engage with together, but I think stay-at-home moms and stay-at-home dads, and for those years, it is incredible. I wouldn't give up, I can't imagine the amount of money that, there's no amount of money that I would give up and trade for the lifestyle that my wife and I enjoy right now.

We're with our children 168 hours a week, both of us. I guess 167 or 166. We do try to put them into some classes and things where they have to be with a teacher and a homeschool co-op, things like that. But beyond that, we're with our children practically all the time.

Now, I don't think that's a mandatory number that dads and moms have to be together with their children for 168 hours a week in order to raise successful children, nonsense. But it is really nice. And when I think about what would I buy with the money, what would you buy with the money?

What would change in your lifestyle if your wife makes $350,000 instead of 175 or in terms instead of zero? Well, we could talk about that. Basically, you'll have more money faster. So you become financially independent faster. You'll start consuming more. You'll have a bigger house. You'll have nicer cars.

You'll be able to put the children into nicer things, fancier camps, fancier schools, et cetera. To me, none of those things are nearly as appealing as having a strong family. If I had to trade them, and I don't think you have to necessarily. I'm a little tongue-tied just because I'm trying to be very respectful of the fact that you're not me.

So I'm just speaking from my position and trying to be also very respectful of the fact that what we're dealing with here is one of the most sensitive, intimate types of decisions that a family can wrestle through. And it's tough. It's difficult. But all I can say is that I can't think of anything that I would wanna buy with money that would make it worth my giving up those early years of my children's life.

And so if my wife were in that situation, I would say, "Listen, honey, let's keep you current. "Keep your licenses current. "Keep your skills current. "You can stay current on knowledge. "Let's try to find some way "that you can indulge your interest in this area. "Let's find some way that you can maybe be a researcher.

"Instead of being a practitioner, "is there something that you can do as a researcher "that's not gonna subject you to the daily stress "of being at your practice 40 hours a week "just to make money that we don't necessarily need?" Just so what? So we can buy bigger cars and a fancier house?

How are we ever gonna get back the time with our children? How are we ever gonna get back the relationship that is cemented in those early years? And I would say, "Why don't we look for a way "that you can stay current with your skills, your career, "and exercise it in a way that allows you to be a mom?" Because you'll never get back...

See, as I look at it, your wife will never get back the first five years of her children's life. She can always go and work five more years in a career. And so why not just simply do whatever's needed to keep her training current, her licenses current, et cetera, but focus on the irreplaceable thing of the family during these years that you never get back, and then plan to practice medicine for longer.

It just doesn't seem to me, from my worldview, it just doesn't, more money doesn't seem worth it if it comes at a cost to a family. Now, my point would be, however, that what I would try to do is I would try to find a third solution that doesn't come with a cost to the family.

And so maybe that third solution is that she works two days a week, and that way she has enough time with the family, but then you're available in the other two days a week, or you find a really good solution for the children that's not just full-time them out there.

Or maybe she becomes a researcher and a writer, and that's something that in her research and her writing, she can do while she's with the children, or you can do together as a team. Maybe you build a family business where you work together. Those are the kinds of solutions that I'm always drawn to, because I like to make money.

I like to make money, and I think it's fun. I think having nice cars and big houses and being able to afford cool things for the children is fun. And if you have the ability to do that, then I say go for it. But I'm never gonna do it if it costs me something.

I'm never gonna go for the money if it costs me something that I can't get back. So I don't know exactly how to do it, but that's what I would be looking for, is I would talk about it, I would discuss and discern what's best for our children, and then I would try to make a plan through it that allows us to get some of each thing.

So if she works a couple days a week, but she makes $100,000 a year, I mean, that's more money than you need. And if you're there in the house the two days that she's working, then that's fine, right? It's not like 168 hours has to be the absolute standard, but trying to navigate through it in some way where we recognize that you will never get this time and relationship with your children back.

And the only thing that you get in exchange for going to the workforce is more money. Well, what do you need the money for? And as long as we prioritize the children as being really important, and we don't prioritize the money as being supremely important, then I'm confident that you can make the best decision for your family based upon the circumstances that you actually face.

- Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that perspective. I mean, I probably have thought of it that way, but never, I don't think I've heard it. Verbalize that way. - I'm gonna interrupt you just for a moment. The thing that obviously gets me going is what bothers me substantially is that in our modern world, the basic criteria that people use for everything is money.

And they measure everything in terms of dollar earning. And this is especially damaging to women because in the wake of the feminist revolution, the first and second wave feminists looked to a career and to earning an income as a primary metric of proving equality and or superiority with men.

And so what has happened is that many times, many women have come to basically analyze themselves and value themselves based upon money. Now, certainly men do that as well, but the pressure is intense on women because it's very difficult for many modern women, especially young, intelligent, capable women to value themselves based upon something other than money.

And that's why in the show that you referenced, why I used financial kind of calculations to try to demonstrate that many of these things that I value that my wife does can actually be denominated in money. But it's stupid to judge everything by money. We all know that it's stupid and yet we still do it day after day.

I don't have worth because of my worth and my worthiness and my value as a person is not based upon how much money I generate. My worth and my value as a person is based upon my identity as being an image bearer of God himself. That's what makes a slave and a slave master both of equal worth.

That's what makes an employer and employee both of equal worth. That's what makes a ditch digger and a doctor both of equal worth. It's the imago dei. It's the fact that they are a human and as a human, they are fundamentally valuable because of their humanness. We don't judge people and say, well, that doctor over there is a more important person than the ditch digger because the doctor makes more money except in the modern United States of America and the modern capitalist system where we basically prefer the rich over the poor and we bow down to the rich and we bow down to the people who have all the money and we neglect the people who are poor because of this corrupt standard.

Now, I'm fine with making money. I want there to be a, I want there to be all of us to achieve to our maximum potential, to grow as much as possible. And I want all of us to earn as much money as possible in a free market, non-coercive, capitalist society.

Money is one way that we can assess the value that's brought not to everything, but to many things in life. And so it's useful. It's a good metric and it's a good barometer, but it cannot be the primary ethic that we judge people by. I cannot prefer the rich man and ignore the poor man just because it's rich and poor.

That's immoral. That's absolutely immoral. And so what happens is that in the modern society, because of the inability of people to think ethically and to appreciate somebody for their value and their worth and their dignity as a human, and then to appreciate the full scope of their value as a human, everything just comes down to how much money you make.

And it's the thinnest, stupidest metric to ever use to judge a person's value. It's a useful metric for yourself if you're working in a career where you can say, I'm making more money because I've served more people. I track how much money I make because I believe my goal is to serve more people and to serve them more effectively.

And one objective metric that I can use is how much money am I earning? Because in order for me to earn more money, I have to serve more people and serve people more effectively. But it's just one metric among many that I need to use to track my success.

And it's a very clumsy metric. So I don't know how to break through to a broken society that prefers the rich and denigrates the poor and doesn't esteem people based upon their worth as human other than to use the extreme examples. We all know that when you sit down and write your eulogy, you don't sit down and say, and imagine that your best friend is gonna say, well, Joshua Sheets made $450,000 per year.

It's absurd, it's stupid. You know that there's a non-financial quality that you want someone to talk about. And so to the extent that you can achieve those non-financial qualities and the financial benefits, go for it. But if it ever costs me a non-financial quality to have a financial benefit, price is too high.

Money can always, you can always get more money. Money is the ultimate replaceable resource, the ultimate renewable resource. And it's one of the, once you get over a certain point, it's one of the least impactful. And that's another point to drive home for you. Let's say that you were disabled, Tim.

You couldn't work, okay? You're disabled. Would your situation in your household be fairly easy to figure out the right thing to do? - Yeah. - Be obvious, right? You can't work. Your wife has to work and she has to support the household. And so she would do everything she could to be effective as a mother and as a wife, but she has to go and she has to earn an income.

And you're gonna do everything you can to fulfill her role, to be a dad to the extent of your physical capabilities and to love your children. But you're not in that situation. You're in a situation where you could live perfectly well on your income. You could live perfectly well on her income.

And so it's much harder for you guys. So just recognize that. We're not talking here about somebody who's destitute. Your income is almost double the median income in the United States of America. Her income is quadrupled to quintuple the median income in the United States of America. So this is a real first world rich person problem.

And thus you'll have to talk about the solutions. Look at your children, see what needs your children are, consider what your visions are as a family, how they're performing, how they're thriving, and come to a solution together. My only plea with you is that you don't consider money until after you consider what you believe as a family is best for your children and best for your family.

- Great, yeah, we will certainly do that. - Let me ask you, let me pivot it, okay, to try to put this home in the most graphic way that I can. Let's say that, let's say that, both for your wife, let's say that she starts this business and she makes a net income of $300,000 for the next five years, right?

$300,000 for the next five years. She earns a million and a half dollars over the next five years. But for some reason, and I don't think that there is this there, I'm just trying to prove my point about priority of importance. For some reason, because of the fact that she's starting this new business and making all this money, it costs the life of your youngest child.

And five years from now, your child is dead. Would you do the, would you earn the $1.5 million? Or would you save the life of your child? - Certainly not. - Right, nobody would. Now, no, we're not, obviously, we're not dealing in a situation where putting your child in daycare is gonna kill 'em.

No, it's not. But if you start with what's best for my child, if you wouldn't suffer the death of your child to earn $1.5 million, what about the success of your child? So would $1.5 million be worth it if your child achieved at a slightly less rate than they possibly could achieve?

Or would perhaps, let's say that we're just measuring in terms of relationship, and the possible relationship that you could have with your children and that your wife could have with your children, the possible family dynamics that you could have as a family are a level of a 10. But if you go and you earn the $1.5 million, it's gonna reduce the quality of your family life to a six.

But that six is gonna go throughout life. So maybe you could have really loving relationships, you could have intimate relationships where there's total peace and total happiness, and you have a rich relationship of respect and of love with your children, and that's a 10. You play with this however you want, but just aim out what the 10 is.

And then say, well, instead of love, we could have care, we could have liking. And instead of rich respect, we could have toleration. Instead of very well-behaved children, we could have children that are sort of behaved, not entirely insubordinate. Instead of being able to nurture our children and train them in the way they should go in everything, we'll have an input level of 20%.

Well, fast forward. You're 50 years old, your children are adults, you're 60 years old, you're 70 years old. And so you achieved results of a six or a seven instead of a 10. Is that worth $1.5 million? And you don't have to answer, 'cause of course that's a very personal question.

But that's how I look at it, is that if I know something is ideal, then let me find a way to get something that's ideal. And for me, the reason why children and doing the best that I can as a parent is important is because there's probably not gonna be that many people in my life who are gonna truly love and support me and care for me throughout my entire lifetime.

We're all fortunate if at the end of our life, we're sitting there at our funeral, if there's a handful of really true, genuine, good friends, we're fortunate. Now, there might be more attendees at a funeral, but a really good, really close friends are a handful. And I can't guarantee that I'll have those kinds of friends.

I can do my best, I wanna be that kind of friend, and in time, they should develop, and I should be able to maintain them through the years. But I do know for a fact that I want my children to be some of my best friends. My own father is one of my closest friends.

Now, we don't have the kind of chummy relationship that I have with other friends, which there's still a respect, but I feel closer to him in terms of my relationship with him than I do with almost anyone else. And with my own mother, the same thing. I feel I can share with total honesty and total sincerity and total vulnerability.

I respect them and I ask for their advice, I care for them. And I would sacrifice anything in my life to care for them as they got older, as they get older. And they have that relationship, more or less, with most of my siblings, not all to the same degree, but they have that relationship with more or less.

So, you know, one of my sisters is dead, but if you have six children that all care for you, they're your best friends. My parents have, I don't know, 16, 17 grandchildren, I can't remember. Anyway, they have a lot of grandchildren at this point in time. And you can build that same relationship with your grandchildren.

And so when you talk about happiness scale and a happiness scale of life, I'm not gonna, if I had to choose between the $1.5 million just so I can, I don't know, live in a fancier house, versus having the kind of relationship with my children that I wanna have when they're young and when I have when they're older, and then seeing my children and being proud of who they are and being proud of their character and being proud of how I've trained them and helped them and served them, to me, it's no comparison.

There's just no, the return on money is so thin and easily understood, versus the return on investing in people, in children, which is so rich and so lifelong that when I imagine my eulogy being said at my children, I don't picture how much money I earned, I picture my children delivering that address and talking about the experiences and the way that I impacted their life and the way that I modeled a life well lived before them so that they'll take that.

And my goal is that, my goal is to live such a life, I don't know if I'll achieve this, but this is my goal. My goal is to live a life that is so inspiring to my children that when my children's children's children are being trained, they'll still look back to my example.

That's my goal. Now, I don't know if I can achieve it, but I do know that I can't achieve it if I say, well, I'm gonna make money. 'Cause I can look throughout the world and I can find a whole lot of people who made a whole lot of money, whose children respect their ability to make money, but they don't say, I wanna be just like that.

And I want my children to say, I wanna be just like that. So I've talked about it, I've ranted about it kind of in every direction that I can come at it, but that to me is why it matters. Because the thing that goes into eternity is the souls of people.

And the people that I have the most opportunity to impact are the souls of my children. It's a blessing if I can encourage another couple people, right? I love the fact that I can encourage other people through this podcast. I love the fact that I can go and I can encourage my next door neighbor and I can love my neighbor.

But the people who are the most important in my life, the people who I'm accountable to God for, my wife and my children. And so those are the souls that my job is to impact. So with as long as that ethic is in place clearly, then I believe that thoughtful, godly parents will look at their situation, ask God for wisdom and say, what's best for us and what's best for our children and make the proper decision.

And I believe that those decisions can be different for different people. I don't see how I could say to you, here's what you need to do in your situation. Your situation might be different than mine and we might make different decisions. But as long as that ethic is there and as long as we have our priorities straight, then as parents, you and your wife will be able to make the best decision for your family, whatever that is.

- Okay, yeah, I really appreciate the insight. There's a lot more variables that would take forever to go into and various things that we have to consider before we make a decision either way. But I mean, you've really reinforced a lot of what I already believe for the most part.

- Good, good. And I don't even think necessarily that, especially in a public format like this, I don't think you should even talk about those variables publicly because they're personal and they're intimate. They have to do with your dreams, right? Your wife's dreams. When I was talking about being married to a doctor, one of the things that I, the reason I feel like I dodged a bullet in not winding up in a relationship with either of those two girls that I was interested in was because for them, a very important part of their dreams from girlhood, especially one of them, was to be a doctor.

And it was so fundamentally a part of her identity that I can't see how I would ever, the only thing I would, I can't see how I would ever have to be able to or want to kind of interfere with that. It was her girlhood dream. All I would do is I would say, "Lord, if you want her to have another dream "or you want her to change that, you gotta do it." I couldn't open my mouth.

And I was talking to my wife about this and I said, the reason is because as a husband, right? One of the things that you do as a husband is you care for your wife. And part of that means you want your wife to experience the fulfillment of all of her dreams.

You want your wife to experience, to be richly successful. And so you're going to support her. And so if I were in that, caught in that situation where my wife's dreams involved medicine and that was so deeply important to her, it wasn't just a part-time thing. It wasn't like, well, okay, it's fine.

But this was with one of those girls, it's just a fundamental part of her identity. What could I do other than say, I want you to have what you want and support her in that. But yet what I see now from years down the road that I didn't when I was in that situation was how hard that would have been based upon some of my vision.

Now, I haven't talked to her in years. In time, people change. You gotta come to a shared vision. There's a reason why I'm not married to her. But that's the challenge that you're in is you've got to look and say, what's in the best interest of my wife and how do I support her so that she can achieve the things that she wants to do?

And then is there a way that we can do this? And we have to do it in a way that's best for our family. That's my only point. We have to do it in a way that's best for our family. My closing comment to you, if you decide that you can't do a career, if you can't decide that you can't do a big business and also get a 10, which you may be able to, I'm not saying you can't, but if you can't also get a 10 and feel really confident that you're doing what you believe is in the best interest of your family, just simply remember that careers can always be done.

There's not anything that's going to fundamentally change about the need for doctors five years from now or 10 years from now. And the time horizon that you have with children is so short. You basically have, you have a few years. If you go and you study the early child development statistics, the vast majority of a child's vocabulary is formed within the first few years.

The person who teaches a child vocabulary teaches them how to think. The vast majority of a child's character is established within the first few years. And then it's not the vast majority, but a huge amount of the child's personality, character, and basic habits and things like ability to learn, manners, et cetera, those are all very early childhood things.

By the time you get to a child who's seven, eight, nine, 10, there's not a lot that's gonna change for that person. And then once they reach that, they learn a different style of learning where they can learn to do self-learning, where they can read a book and say, "Okay, I'm gonna change this thing about myself." The most important thing in those early years is the behavior that's modeled by mom and dad, the way that mom and dad speak, the language that you speak, the accent that you use or don't use, the type of words that you use, the type of concepts that you speak about.

And it's not really anything that can be done except naturally. And so that's my great fear, is often that people underappreciate how important just the physical presence is with mom and dad to observe how they live their life and to observe what we as a family do and what we as a family don't do.

And they wind up outsourcing that most important task to a person who is often poorly paid and is not necessarily chosen based upon the character that they have and the values that they have, et cetera. Now, you can do this better, Christian school versus non-Christian school, choosing an elite daycare versus a run-of-the-mill daycare.

But that's why those early years are so important. But it's a very narrow window of time. 10-year-old, you could put a 10-year-old in a school and it can thrive, right? Two-year-old, I'm not convinced. So one way or the other, may God give you wisdom in your situation to decide what's best for your family.

But that's how I see the world. Anything else, Tim? - I appreciate that. Thank you. No, that's it. Thank you so much. - All right, well, quite the interesting call there. Tim was our only caller for today, so I'll just wrap up the Q&A show with that. My only point, and I hope that, I don't need to say it again, I've been clear enough.

Prioritize people. I'm convinced that if you prioritize people, they're souls, right? The importance of a soul, the inestimable value. Prioritize people from the earliest of ages to the oldest. If you prioritize people, you'll never go wrong. You may not be as rich as you would otherwise be in financial wealth, but I'm convinced you'll be far richer in the things that matter.

I always, when I was younger, I traveled alone sometimes. And some people like to travel alone. There are things that are nice about it. I think that, you know, as a parent of four, I have to admit that sometimes when I travel alone, you think, wow, this is nice, right?

I can just come and go. I can go to a restaurant and just sit down and order what I want. I don't have to order five meals. There are some nice things. But one of the things I learned when I was young is traveling alone, I just assumed not travel.

It wasn't interesting to me. I remember one time I took a trip, doesn't matter where, I just learned that I didn't wanna travel alone. And I've seen again and again and again how when you have something nice, you wanna share it with someone. If you have a nice car, I get joy from sharing something nice.

If I have a nice fishing rod, I'm not the kind of guy that enjoys going out in a boat and saying, look, I got a fancy boat and a fancy fishing rod. I'm the kind of guy who wants a boat full of people and a bunch of people having fun.

That's where I derive my joy from. And I've always used those pictures as being pretty clear. If I had to choose between a $50,000 bass boat that I'm in alone versus a $500 John boat that I got a couple of friends out there with me, I'll take the John boat and the friends.

And so I think that for me at least, it's a pretty powerful metaphor between life and money. It's fun to have money to buy big fancy boats and take your friends on fun adventures. It's fun. And I'm all for it. I think you can do it. I think you can do it without sacrificing the things that are at home.

But if I have to choose between them, I'm gonna choose people over money every time. And I believe that if you think about the people that you respect and admire, they probably exhibit that character as well. Well, if you and I are gonna be people that others are gonna respect and admire, then we gotta make those intentional decisions.

Look for the third way in anything. Look for the way that you can do well financially and also simultaneously. You can do well financially and simultaneously spend time. And that's where I'm convinced. Obviously I'm biased, but I'm convinced the value of the lifestyle that I'm modeling. I was yesterday working on some of my training.

I have a bunch of goals and I'm taking some business courses. I'm taking some music courses this year, taking some language courses, and really just working hard to develop my skills. And I was just thinking about how, because one of the things that I do is I share everything with my children.

My eldest child is finally at a point where he's right on the cusp of being able to go with me and not severely hinder me on a business trip. I don't ever plan to travel alone on business again in my life. I don't ever plan to go to a seminar, to a course, or to a conference and not take at least one of my children, if not multiple of my children.

And so when I think about, I was considering the quality of the education that I'm taking. These teachers that I've got are the best in the world. I chose them because of the best in the world. And with the miracle of modern communications technology, where the best teacher in the world can teach to a vast audience, it allows you to be an elite level learner from the comfort of your own home.

When you bring this in with your children, what it means is that because I include my children in my education to the extent that they're interested, it means that my children have an elite level education and it doesn't cost anything more. And when I think about the, saying, okay, I'm gonna go stick them in, insert random local institution here where they just have whoever happens to be hired by that versus the elite level education, it's non-replaceable.

And then the actual experience of building something like a family business. My favorite structure for people who are inclined is have a family business where mom and dad both work in the business, work full-time in the business, and the children are involved in that. Because now you have the opportunity for that very important education and it can be done very, very profitably.

So now we're not choosing between money or relationships, it's both and, it's money and relationships. And I believe that those activities are actually important for children to be involved in. I think one of the reasons why people don't spend more time with children is that they don't know what to do 'cause we're so used to entertaining children, what, are we gonna sit around and stare at each other?

And to me, that's the wrong thing, is that one of the reasons why we need important work, why we need work is so that our children can be involved in that work. And that's what one of the things that I didn't like about my previous career was in an office environment.

And yeah, could I have brought my children in to some extent, but not in any meaningful way. But if you have some kind of family business or if you have jobs that fit into that, involve your children in that. I don't want my children to sit around and be entertained all the time, I want them to work.

Because it's in that process of doing that work that they learn a lot of those lessons. It's in the process of working with mom and dad that they see how mom and dad react, the kind of language that mom and dad use, et cetera, all those things that I previously talked about.

So I don't believe that you have to choose. The only thing that, just that if you did have to choose, you prioritize the children and the people. And what I see is that with a little bit of thoughtful and creative effort, many families who desire something where their children can be involved can build that.

And so consider it when you choose a career, consider it when you choose things. And then if you're already kind of stuck in something or committed to something, that's okay. Just within that context, do the best you can to generate, to do the best you can in those circumstances.

I would never choose to be a truck driver. I see that as a bad, unless I had to, because we were starving on the street. I don't see that as a lifestyle that's conducive to a healthy family life. Me, you know, sleeping at a truck stop six nights a week or 13 nights out of every two weeks.

If I were a truck driver, I'd have one of my kids with me as soon as I could. We'd do a lot of stuff in the car. And I'd take advantage of the modern technology to be as connected as I could, et cetera. So all of us face different circumstances, but many times we're in circumstances due to a series of decisions that we made inadvisably.

I'm stuck in a career. It's a career that's gonna have bad results for something that matters to me. Well, change, get a new career, redesign your business, redesign your job, redesign your life. Anybody can do it. But in the context, just make the best decisions that you can and may God give you wisdom.

Recognize that at the end of your life, the work that you do with your children, how you care for your children, how you raise your children, the opportunities that you expose your children, the relationship that you have with your parents, how you care for your parents, how you support them, the kind of rich texture that you build to those relationships, the kind of sibling that you are, the relationships with your siblings, the kind of neighbor that you are, the kind of friend that you are, the kind of employer or employee that you are.

Those are the things that when you're on your deathbed and you're reflecting back, you wanna be satisfied with the decisions that you made. And so the money can come, the money can go, but don't harm those things that deeply matter. Thank you for listening to today's Q&A show. Today, as you see, we only had one caller.

I'd love to have more callers. I'd love to have a bunch more of you join on the Patreon site. Go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance, patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance. Sign up there and join us for next week's Q&A. Be back with you soon. With Kroger Brand products from Ralph's, you can make all your favorite things this holiday season because Kroger Brand's proven quality products come at exceptionally low prices.

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