Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast, Episode 10. I'm your host, Joshua Sheets. This is the Daily Personal Finance Show, dedicated to serving you with accurate information, comprehensive education, and inspiration to help enhance your financial literacy so that you can save money, live better, and achieve the lifestyle of your dreams.

No matter where you're coming from today, my goal is to deliver some ideas that will impact your life and help you to optimize your personal financial plan. Today is August 5, 2013, and today we're going to talk about income. The theme of today's show is that you and I, we are both 100% responsible for our level of income.

Now hear me out, don't shut me off too quickly. Many people when they hear a statement like that immediately will shut me off. But give me an opportunity to explain, give me an opportunity to defend that idea, and I hope by the end of it you will see some of where I'm coming from.

You know, in past shows we've been talking a lot about varied topics, which is how I hope that this show goes. But one thing I think that's very important is that I do not want this show to reflect a poverty consciousness in the wrong way, meaning that life is difficult, we have to scrimp and scrape and just barely get by simply because we can't afford to save any money, or we can't afford to make enough to actually save any money.

Income is what drives everything in financial planning. So remember there's only three variables that we can really affect. Number one, how much you make. Number two, how much you spend. Number three, what we do with the difference between those two things. That's it. Everything else is commentary as somebody famous says.

How much you make, how much you spend, and what we do with the difference between those things. Now if what you make is low and what you spend is high, that's a problem. If what you make is high and what you spend is low, that helps. So we've got to constantly, consistently come back to that and focus on each of those things.

What you make, what you spend, and what you do with the difference between those two numbers. So today we're going to talk about what you make. And I believe that the foundation to start with, with what you make is by taking 100% responsibility for what you make. You know if you read books on psychology, personal development, things like that, one of the themes that you may find, at least that I have found, is that taking personal responsibility is one of the most important starting places for any major life improvement.

If one doesn't take personal responsibility for their life, it's very difficult to make any progress. This could be applied in a marriage. If you don't take 100% responsibility for your marriage, it's very possible that your marriage may suffer. This can be applied to your personal life. If you don't take responsibility for your health, if you don't take responsibility for your wealth, if you don't take responsibility for your ability as a parent, or for your function on your job, if you don't take responsibility for those things, then the results are not, the results are going to be subpar.

Now, many people obviously when I say something like take one, let's use marriage as an example. I believe that each person in a marriage should take 100% responsibility for the marriage. So in my marriage, I take 100% of the responsibility for my marriage. There's a bit of a cognitive, a bit of cognitive dissonance there.

Because in a marriage you have two people involved, obviously not any one person of those two is 100% responsible. Some would say that there's a 50/50 responsibility. That's possible. That makes sense if you have two people to split the responsibility. But what do you do when there's disagreement? What if one person is 70% right and the other person is 30% right?

It's impossible to work your way down that list and be able to rightly divide the responsibility. How much easier is it if I take 100% responsibility? Because the thinking here is that if I take 100% responsibility, that means that I never have to look at my spouse and say, "Well, it's her fault.

She needs to do such and such. If only she would do this, then I would do that." The point is it's my responsibility. Now, I wouldn't say that responsibility and fault are the same thing. So I wouldn't say that it's 100% my fault. I think that would be an inaccurate statement.

But responsibility is an important thing. The example that's come to my mind in the past, and specifically I've thought of it when talking with my wife about our marriage, is the example of who has responsibility for closing a gate to keep animals in. Let's pretend for a moment you're on a farm or you have some, I guess you don't have to be on a farm, but just pretend you have a gate to keep your dog in, or your cat in, or whatever animals there is that you're dealing with.

Imagine for a moment, and I'm going to continue using marriage as an example and then we'll move to finances. Imagine for a moment that you have a gate and in your marriage you're not quite sure who's responsible for closing the gate. So you say, "Well, it's partly your responsibility." I'll use me.

And I say, "Partly to my wife." You know, "Wife, it's partly responsible, you're partly responsible for closing the gate and I'm partly responsible for closing the gate." Well, if the gate's open, I may have the potential for looking at it and I may say, "Well, today's the day that Tiffany's going to close the gate." That's my wife's name.

"Today's the day that Tiffany's going to close the gate, so I'll leave it alone." And Tiffany may look at the gate and say, "Well, today's the day that Josh was going to close the gate." And the gate might not get closed. But, if I take 100% responsibility and I say, "It's my responsibility.

If I see the gate open, it's my job to go and shut the gate." Pure and simple. Now, if my wife is a virtuous woman, and she is, she can also take 100% responsibility for the gate and say, "If I see the gate open, I'm going to go and make a clip and I'm going to go and close it." That's what I mean by taking 100% responsibility.

So when it comes to income, this is a very charged discussion. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to talk about this morning, but I noticed on my Twitter feed last night, I was noticing a friend make a comment about the wages that a large fast food restaurant, McDonald's, pays its employees.

And, in case you don't pay much attention to popular news and whatnot, McDonald's Corporation made quite a stir some weeks ago back in July, I think it was early July, when they released some budgeting guidance for their employees. And as part of that budgeting guidance, they released a sample budget for somebody who's working at their restaurants.

And, I'll let you go and research the numbers. I don't want to talk about the numbers this morning, but many people were extremely upset at the low level of income and low level of expenses that McDonald's put on that budget. Extremely upset. And I was thinking, so my friend posted a note about the corporate profits that McDonald's declared and talked about what they pay their employees.

And I think that my personal opinion is that a company will, can and should pay excellent wages and provide an excellent working environment for their employees out of their own selfish best interest. Because that will help them to develop a more quality workforce that cares about their process and about their product.

However, no employee is required to work there. And I'm not going to get into a discussion and debate on the aspects of where to work and opportunity and whatnot. I just want to talk about personal responsibility. Each and every one of us is responsible for what we make. It may be that we've come from an extremely privileged background, however you define privilege.

Maybe our parents were wealthy. They were upper class or upper middle class. Perhaps they sent us to the best schools, provided the best tutors for us, gave us the best education, provided all of our needs. And because of that, we've been able to have a life of luxury because of it.

And today our lives exude success in every area. Or perhaps we came from a very underprivileged start. Perhaps we were abused as children and we have deep, deep, deep emotional and psychological scars because of that. Perhaps we come from another country. Perhaps we're immigrants. Perhaps we are in a situation where we're just extremely disadvantaged.

Perhaps our skills are lacking, our education is lacking. Perhaps even our own physical and mental abilities are lacking. Perhaps we're not as capable as others may be. Now one note before I continue on. Today I'm going to speak in the context of the US-American context. I've been fortunate to travel a good bit in my life and I have seen other contexts and I'm simply not qualified to apply what I'm saying in other dynamics.

I have been in places in the world and lived in places in the world where I woke up and shook my head and said it's a difficult place to be and it's very difficult for someone to get ahead. You need a miracle. And I think there are still things that can be done to optimize but when the entire social structure and the governmental structure is against you, it seems very challenging.

And I am absolutely not qualified to talk about those countries. So let's set that aside. It's a conversation for another day. I'd love to be of service to some people in those contexts but I don't know how to be. But I do feel that I can speak accurately about the US-American context.

And in the US-American context, opportunity is wide open. It absolutely still is. People say well those times are changed. No they're not. It absolutely, we still do live in the land of opportunity. Now opportunity is a charged word because an opportunity is not a guarantee. An opportunity is just that, it's an opportunity.

People have an opportunity to do what they, whatever they can do. But it's not a guarantee. Now when it comes to income, you're responsible for how much money you make. I'm responsible for how much money I make. It doesn't mean that I can't make choices. I don't always choose personally.

I don't always choose to do the things that result in the highest income because that doesn't reflect my values. But I will never say that I'm not responsible for how much money that I make. It's in my hands. It's largely under my control. See here's what I mean. In the United States of America, you are paid exactly based upon your worth in the marketplace.

That's it. Now that's a freeing concept for me. If I'm paid exactly according to my worth in the marketplace, then what I need to do is look and say, "Am I happy with what I'm making?" And if not, I just simply need to increase my worth or I need to make sure the marketplace really sees my worth.

And if the marketplace is ignoring my current worth, I guarantee you somebody's going to find me from another opportunity who's going to recognize that worth. It may not be immediate, but somebody's going to find it. The level of income that we make has much to do with our personal productivity, our personal performance, our personal skills, and our personal knowledge and our personal ability.

So why do some people with the same 52 weeks a year, 24 hours a day, why do some people make $10,000 a year, some people make $100,000 a year, some people make a million dollars a year, some people make a $10 million a year, and some people make far more?

What's the difference? Well, it's obviously not a difference in time, although it may be a difference in hours worked. It's a difference in the person's knowledge, skills, ability, and the environment in which they're applying those things. We all have the same amount of time. We all start from where we start from, and that's mostly irrelevant.

We all come out naked, kicking and screaming as people say. We all start with no education. Now some people start that education process early. We all start with no character. Some people start that character formation process early. But each and every one of us has the opportunity to increase who we are, to change who we are, and to become more valuable in the marketplace.

But if we only do that if we see that we are responsible. If we don't see that we're responsible for how much money we make, we view it as someone else's fault. "Well, I'm not making enough because my employer's not paying me enough." Or, "I'm not making enough because my hourly wage is not enough, and the minimum wage is too low." Or, "I'm not making enough because my company doesn't allow me to advance beyond this certain cap, this salary cap." Or, "I'm not making enough because the commission rate is too low, or because the commission rate is decreased." Or, "I'm not making enough because business is bad, and customers aren't buying my products." You're responsible for affecting those things.

You're responsible for changing those things. I'm going to give some examples, but the two things that I want to focus on is that by taking responsibility we can take action. And number two, that by developing our own knowledge, skills, and ability we can become worth more in the marketplace.

Number one, in taking action there's a lot of actions we can take. Most of them probably aren't going to be fun in the short term. Taking responsibility I have found is very rarely fun because it forces me to look at my own character and my own shortcomings. I usually don't enjoy that because my character and my shortcomings are usually weaker than I wish they were.

But it's important. So if I'm not making enough, let's go with the lower wage of the wage scale. If I'm not making enough, what's my first choice? Work more. I'm not saying that everybody should work 100 hours a week, but there's a reality to it that if I'm not making enough, I've got to work more.

I've been to places in the world one year ago was a place that really impacted me. I was in Guatemala City, Guatemala. And in Guatemala City, Guatemala, and in many places in the world, they have a large city dump. And there are people that make their living in the dump.

Their entire living and their entire livelihood comes from scavenging through the trash, finding things that might be of value to other people, collecting those things, and reselling them. And that made my heart hurt for those people who were living there. Children, men, women. It absolutely still does make my heart hurt for the people that are living there.

And I want to help. So this is not coming from any kind of arrogant idea that there's something wrong with the people there. There's nothing wrong with people there. Some of the hardest working, most dedicated people that I have seen. But imagine you're in that situation. If your entire living comes in such a basic, challenging way, do you hang out all morning?

Lying in your bed, enjoying the bed, and then get up in the afternoon? You know, you wouldn't want to work during the hot part of the day. So you get up in the afternoon for a little bit, work a little bit in the coolness of the evening, find what you need, and then turn around and go and sell it?

Guarantee you not. The people that I observed and that I interacted with, sun up to sun down every single day. Work is something like that. If you're not making enough, you've got to work more. Got to work more, got to work harder. The people that were making their living in that manner were not lazy.

Think about many of us who, obviously, if you're listening to the sound of my voice, you have access to maybe a computer, maybe an mp3 player, maybe a phone that you're streaming me on. Think about the situation that we have in life. Think about the opportunities that we have.

So number one is we can work more, we can work harder. The interesting thing about the McDonald's budget that was published, many people were incensed that McDonald's assumed automatically that people would have a set of two jobs. It lists right on the budget income from first job and income from second job.

People were incensed about that. Now again, I'm not going to get into the political conversation here, but are you kidding me that you would work on minimum wage and only have one job? Are you kidding me that you'd work on minimum wage and work 30, 35, 40 hours a week?

There's no possibility of that. It's not possible to make it on that, which is why people that work those types of jobs, generally it's part of a family unit or generally they're young, young people. Young people just getting started, working part time as they're working their way through school.

It's not an adult that is working and supporting their family as running the cash register up front. Now I will tell you this, my observation and experience with people who work at McDonald's, McDonald's has some of the best advancement opportunities in the world. If you are dedicated and focused, McDonald's will take you from being on the front cash register.

If you've got a good smile, a good sense of humor, and by the way those are easy to develop, McDonald's will take you from there and they will put you through McDonald's University and they will take you to be a top level manager. And there are plenty of people who have started on the front line at minimum wage who now own multiple McDonald's.

And McDonald's franchises are very profitable to own. That's up to you. Do you come to work with a surly face or do you come to work with a smile? It's a choice. Responsible, you're responsible for that choice. The second big thing that impacts our income is our knowledge, skills, ability, personal productivity.

Now years ago I heard a talk by Brian Tracy. I always have enjoyed Brian Tracy's presentations. When I was younger I bought all of his books and audio programs and I would strongly encourage you if you're looking for a good place to start, it's tough to do a lot better than what he has to share.

Brian Tracy is, I don't know what you call him, I wouldn't call him a motivational speaker. That has a different connotation. He often goes by management consultant and personal success coach. I don't know what he is. He's a speaker, he's a writer, but he comes from a corporate background.

But I have always found every book, every recording, everything that I've ever purchased from him to be incredibly pithy and to be packed with information. So there's my, I give you a ringing endorsement that every dollar you may spend on any of his materials would be well worth the money spent.

So I really couldn't recommend anybody more highly than I recommend Brian Tracy's materials. The thing that I always love and have, enjoy and appreciate about his talks is that he doesn't leave you with fluffy, feel good ideas and emotions. He gives you practical tips and strategies and tools that you can use to take action on what he says and then that action ultimately produces the good emotional feelings.

Years ago I heard a talk from him called his thousand percent formula, how to increase your income by a thousand percent in ten years time. And I will link to his original, I found one version of his talk on YouTube. I will link to that talk in the show notes so that you can watch him do it.

I am 100% plagiarizing what he has said, just adding a few things of my own and I'll summarize his points. But his major thought was that, he proposed that anybody can increase their income by a thousand percent in ten years time. So take your current income, multiply it by ten.

So if you're earning fifty thousand dollars a year, that's five hundred thousand dollars a year. If you're earning twenty thousand dollars a year, that's two hundred thousand dollars a year. If you're earning a hundred thousand dollars a year, that's a million and etc. And the reason he said that was partly A) because he had experienced it.

His story that he tells in the video that I'll link to was that one year he finished his tax return and his taxable income was fourteen thousand four hundred dollars. Twelve years later he filed his tax return and his taxable income was one million four hundred and forty thousand dollars.

An increase of one thousand percent over the course of twelve years. And it was in looking back and reflecting on that and reflecting on what he had done in the interim that he developed his thousand percent formula. But the major idea is that you can increase your income by increasing your productivity, your performance and your output.

In the United States of America and in many countries in the world, you're paid exactly what you're worth. I'm not getting into your worth as a human being, but as a person, as an individual, as a sovereign individual. But in your economic worth, you're paid exactly what you're worth.

So if you want to get paid more, the only thing you can do is be worth more. To develop your skills, knowledge, ability, increase your productivity, your performance and your output. That's it, that's the formula. And it's applied at every end of the income scale. So if you're making eight dollars an hour and you say I want to make nine dollars an hour, you have to look at your situation and say what does someone who is worth nine dollars an hour do and how do I become that person?

And if you're making three hundred thousand dollars a year and you want to make eight hundred thousand dollars a year, you have to look at your situation and say what does somebody who is worth eight hundred thousand dollars a year do in the marketplace and how do I become that person?

And it's going to be different than who you are making three hundred thousand dollars a year. It's going to be an evolution, an evolution of yourself. Brian Tracy's formula that he delivered in that talk that I heard years ago, is that if you'll focus on yourself and develop your own personal abilities, you'll become worth more in the marketplace.

And all you have to do is focus on small, incremental, consistent changes. Incremental, consistent changes. And if you do that, you can become worth more in the marketplace. Now his formula, let me walk through his formula of how he got to one thousand and four percent, one thousand percent over the course of ten years.

What he said was, can you become one tenth of one percent more productive each and every day? If you'll just focus on each and every day becoming one tenth of one percent better, better at what you do, more productive, higher performance, increasing your output, increasing your skills. One tenth of one percent better every single day.

That'll get you where you need to go. I'll walk through the math in just a second. Let me ask you a question and think about this. And by the way, when I share these things, I'm not coming from a place of I haven't done it. I haven't made one million four hundred and forty thousand dollars in a year yet.

But, I'm doing this with you, but I believe that the concept is sound. Could you become one tenth of one percent better every day? I think anybody could get one tenth of one percent better every day. It's one one thousandth better every day. A tiny little improvement. And he gives a formula for how to do that.

I'm going to add a few of my own things to that. But the math is that if you'll become one tenth of one percent better each and every day, that means that each and every week you'll become one half of one percent better every week. One tenth times five, five days a week is one half of one percent.

Which means that every four weeks, every month, you will become two percent better than what you are right now. Two percent better every single month, or every single four week period. There are thirteen four week periods in a year, fifty two weeks a year. Two percent better every four week period over the course of one year is twenty six percent better.

Twenty six percent better each year, compounded over ten years is one thousand and four percent better every ten years. So you get ten times better in ten years. That's the math. But it comes down to one tenth of one percent better every day. Now, the formula for how to do this is pretty simple.

He lists seven things in his formula, which I'll share with you. And then I'm going to add a few of my own as we go through. And I'm not going to worry too much about what's attributed to him and what's attributed to me. You can watch the video, the YouTube video, and you'll see what's attributed to him.

But here's the important thing. Take somebody who earns ten thousand dollars per year, and take somebody who earns a hundred thousand. That's probably a bad example. Take someone who earns forty thousand dollars a year and someone who earns four hundred thousand dollars a year and ask, does the person who works, who is earning four hundred thousand dollars a year work ten times as hard as the person who's making forty thousand dollars a year?

I would say no. It's probably not possible to work ten times as hard. Does the person who's making four hundred thousand dollars an hour, excuse me, four hundred thousand dollars a year work ten times more hours than the person who's working, making forty thousand dollars a year? There's no way.

It's not possible. So what's the difference? The person who's making four hundred thousand a year has a higher level of knowledge, skills, and ability and they're applying those things in a different field or in a different manner than the person making forty. So that means that in order to make more, we have to develop who we are as a person and increase our knowledge, skills, and ability as a person.

Now to prove this to yourself, ask yourself this question. Look at your industry. Wherever you come in the pay scale of your industry, look at your industry and ask yourself, is the person at the very top of your industry is making ten times more than you are? The answer is probably likely yes.

That somebody who's at the very top of your industry is probably making ten times more than you are. Unless you're at the top of your industry. In which case you've got a choice of, am I in the right industry where I'm happy with what I'm doing? Or do I need to change?

Or you have the choice of, is this important to me to make more? And if so, can I either figure out a way to do it in my current industry or do I need to switch to another industry? Side note, make sure that as you're doing these things that first you've got your ladder leaning against the right tree.

You're going to talk about what to do. It's a lot easier if you know you're in the right career. And this may change over time, but it's a lot easier to know what to do if you're confident in the career and the choices that you have made. So step one of Brian Tracy's formula is get up earlier and read for one hour every single day.

Read one hour every single day in your field. Now the average American simply does not read. If you only did this one thing, if you only got up an hour earlier and read for one hour per day, how many books would you read and how much knowledge would you acquire and how many skills could you pick up as time goes by?

The impact that step alone could have is astounding. If you read at the average rate of speed that the average American reads, you would read on average an hour a day about a book a week. If you read about a book a week, that's about 50 books a year, which means in the course of 10 years you would read 500 books.

And these should be books that are either in your field or are something that you think would benefit you and help you. So the question is this, look at your industry and ask yourself, if I were to read 500 books that were in my field, is it possible that I wouldn't have a comprehensive knowledge of what's going on in my industry?

Is it possible that there would be anybody else that were more knowledgeable than me? It may be possible but it's not probable. Most people don't read. Just that right there, one hour per day, that's 50 books a year, that's 500 books in your field. That could increase your knowledge by 1000% easily.

His step two is make a list of everything you need to do every day before you start. Make a list of everything you need to do every day before you start. Write it down. Most people don't write things down. Step three, put it in order of priority. Most people don't put this in order of priority.

This is my personal weakness. I can put it in order of priority but I usually want to work on the fun things before the most important things. So put that list in order of priority and then start on the most important thing and focus on it 100%. Step five, turn your car into a university on wheels.

The average person in the United States of America spends about the same amount of time in their car as the average college student spends in class. Which means that if you'll seek out information and education that are on topics that are interesting and important to you and you'll do that while you're listening in your car, you'll gain far ahead even things like this podcast.

Here's my commitment and my promise to you. I promise that in the fullness of time by listening to this show, listeners to this show will develop a level of understanding and financial literacy that goes from the basics to as high as enough knowledge that would be required for passing the CFP board exam which is a comprehensive financial planning exam that's administered by the CFP.

Now it's going to take a little time to get there. I don't have 97 classes on financial planning scoped out in my mind. I'm figuring this out as I go. But I promise that we're going to talk about the basics from what is compound interest and what is an asset and what is a liability all the way through advanced complex technical topics.

My challenge is just to figure out how to do that in an interesting way that's not boring. I don't know how to do that so I'm working on that. But you can listen to this for free in your car. My goal is to deliver the equivalent of a college education in financial planning through this podcast.

So that right there, just simply turning a drive time into a learning time could be incredibly valuable. So many people have benefited from that. For me personally, this has been a huge asset through the years. I don't have much of a commute now because I've arranged my life in such a way to diminish my commute.

But for years I commuted. And any time my car was moving, I always was listening to something, learning something, understanding something and developing my knowledge on something. Brian Tracy's step number six is ask two questions every day after every major meeting or after every major day. Number one is what did I do right?

Number two is what would I do differently next time? I think of this as self-coaching. By asking yourself what did I do right and what would I do differently if I were doing this again next time? This is a valuable skill to be able to coach yourself into everything that you need.

See, teachers and coaches, they don't know your situation, but you do. And you can coach yourself if you'll observe. But most people don't take the time to observe and analyze. So observe. What did I do right and what would I do differently next time? His step seven is treat everyone you meet like a million dollar customer or a VIP.

Treat everyone you meet as important. Now think about the impact of those steps that he gives. Reading an hour a day in your field. You're building your knowledge. Make a list of everything you need to do. Put it in order by priority. Start on the most important thing and focus single-mindedly on that.

You're increasing your productivity. Turn your car into a university on wheels. You're increasing your knowledge. Ask two questions. You're increasing your skills and your ability and you're coaching yourself in the right direction. Treat everyone you meet like a million dollar customer or the most valuable person. You're increasing your social skills.

Is there anything that's not enhanced by that? Is it possible that if you got one-tenth of one percent better at each one of those things each and every day that you would be able to make some major progress? I think it's very likely. And the difference between the major progress can be substantial.

The difference between somebody who's doing those things and not doing those things at the beginning doesn't seem like much. Someone who is two percent better in the beginning, not that big a deal. But at the end of a year, someone who's 26 percent better, that's huge. At the end of two years, someone who is 40, 50 percent better, I guess it wouldn't quite be that.

I can't compound the numbers in my head but it would be huge. Time and compounding make a huge difference. I'm going to add a couple of things. This is actually probably also from one of Brian Tracy's books that I read back in the past. I'm going to focus specifically on the education part of things.

Education is so important. Without education, education is important. And he has two steps that he mentioned in these seven steps that I wrote down from the video. But in the book, I remember him adding a third. So step one, read for an hour a day in your field. That's a book a week, that's 50 books a year.

Average PhD program requires a student to read between 30 and 50 books and write a dissertation. If you read for an hour a day, 50 books a year in your field, that's the equivalent of a PhD level education each and every year. Number two, listen to educational materials in your car.

That's the equivalent if you spend the same amount of time in your car as the average college student spends in class. That's the equivalent of two and a half bachelor's degrees over a ten year period of time. Let's call it two and round down to be conservative. His step three is search out, seek out, and attend one conference in your field every quarter, or per year.

And the reason that conferences are important is because conferences in your field, or conventions, or shows, or whatever it is in your field, is where the best of the best and the brightest of the brightest are invited to share their ideas. They don't invite the people who are losing up on stage, generally.

They invite the people who are crushing it. And one idea at a conference can make the entire thing worth it. The other thing that's so valuable about conferences is that the people who go to conferences are the people who are generally very committed and very dedicated to their fields of study and fields of work.

So by being at the conferences and networking with the people that are there, you're in a situation where you're getting to know the best of the best, and you're becoming friendly with them, and you are learning their tips and their techniques just simply by being there. Now it takes time out to take time off on the weekends.

That's why the people that you find at the conference are the highest earners in your field. Now I add another one. Learn to be a decent public speaker. If you're not comfortable with public speaking, join Toastmasters organization. Well worth the, I don't know, tiny little membership fees to learn how to be a decent public speaker.

Because the thing is this, while you're at a conference, you want to network with the leaders who are there, who are leading the sessions and the ideas. And is there any reason why if you're reading 50 books a year in your industry, and you're getting two bachelor's degrees every 10 years in your industry, and you're applying those insights each and every day, and you're learning while you're at the conferences, is there any reason why you shouldn't be on stage?

Why you shouldn't be sharing the things that are helpful for you? There's no reason at all. And with those things being done, is there any reason why you shouldn't be able to increase your income by 1000%? But this only starts if you start with taking personal responsibility for your life.

You have to take personal responsibility for your life, for your education, for your knowledge. I personally get really upset when people talk about, "Oh, I can't do this because I can't go to college." Education is free. Each and every town has a local library. And in that library are hundreds and thousands of books that are available for free to you.

All for the cost of driving there or walking there or riding a bicycle there and going inside and learning. Whether someone is a brand new immigrant to the United States, and I believe this formula can be solved in any way. Immigrants to the United States, by the way, I think the statistic that I can't source this or prove this, but the number that I remember in my mind, four times more likely to become millionaires than natural born citizens.

People who show up to the United States don't speak a word of English. You can get English classes for free down at your local library. You can check out English classes on CD. The books are there for free. The internet is there for free. With YouTube, there is almost nothing you can't learn with YouTube.

Want to learn math skills? Khan Academy. Want to learn science skills? There's tons of science podcasts. You can watch university lectures for free. Everything for free. The problem is not that the information and the education is not available. The problem is that people don't seek it out. So don't be one of those people.

Seek it out. Seek it out. To close, take responsibility for your income. Choose how much money you want to make. If you want to make a low level of income, maybe to avoid paying income taxes, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. There are people, I'm fascinated by people who are tax protesters.

I'm hoping to have one on the show here. I have contacted for an interview. It's not quite the right time, but in the future I'm going to interview somebody who is a tax protester. This person is anti-war and he does not want his tax dollars being used to support foreign wars.

And so because of that, he avoids paying income taxes. He avoided paying income taxes by consciously reducing his income from a higher taxable income down to a level that's no longer taxable. So if you want to choose to make a lower income, more power to you. But you can also choose to make a higher income or develop your skills and knowledge and ability that you have the opportunity to do that.

Take responsibility for that and encourage others to take responsibility for that. I hope this has been a good show. I felt a little bit like I've rambled, so if I have, forgive me. It's always challenging to be pointed and brief, but yet share enough information. I hope some of the ideas in here, these ideas have been helpful to me.

Look at the show notes for more information. There are others that are much more capable of explaining things better than I can. So look in the show notes for some other resources and links. I hope this has been helpful. Leave some feedback in the comments section. Shoot me an email at joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com or also leave some notes in the comments section.

If you have questions, let me know what your questions are. I want to tailor this show to be exactly what will serve you, the audience. We're starting to get some really nice numbers as far as listenership. I'm excited. I'm committed to being here and doing this. I'm going to be improving my audio quality soon here.

I apologize, the website was down last week for a day or two. I host the website with Bluehost and evidently there were some major outages with the parent company that owns Bluehost and HostGator. There were something like 8 million websites affected. So poor folks over there were scrambling all day to get things done.

So the site was down on Friday. But it should be back up now. Again, going to keep on doing this, getting better. Let me know what you want, how I can serve you. I'm going to keep applying my 1000% formula to this show. Doing it consistently, learning how to become better at it.

If you need to check back in 10 years, check back in 10 years and find out if I'm 1000% better. I believe I will be. So just check back and we'll find out for it. We'll find out together. Have a great week everybody.