1:20

Now, Jackie, in the investing section, there was a story with regards to how

1:24

to identify the future millionaires of America that you really like.

1:27

Can you tell us what it was, what that was about?

1:30

Yeah, I really love this one, JL. I'm a financial literacy advocate.

1:33

I mean, I keep up with how many states are requiring personal

1:37

finance in order to graduate. So I love the Looking to young people and helping them out in their early

1:43

days as you do too, because obviously you wanted to teach your daughter.

1:47

So, yeah, so this the 1 story is where it's Gregory and Greg is in college now.

1:53

He had gone to community. He said he went to junior college or community school

1:57

before he started college.

1:59

And he was in this huge lecture hall and it was a like a management basic

2:04

principles of management class, huge lecture hall, and the professor.

2:09

Instructed them to go open up an IRA.

2:13

Now he barely knew what that was, but he started with 200.

2:16

He was a broke college kid. So that was a lot of money.

2:19

And I think it was the second to the last day of class.

2:24

And the professor asked. The students to stand up that open up an IRA and follow his

2:30

instruction and Greg thought that everyone would stand up with him.

2:35

So he, enthusiastically stands up.

2:37

He looks around. There's only 10 other people.

2:39

I'm guessing there's 100 150 students.

2:41

If it's a big lecture hall and he was.

2:45

Silence. of a few that stood up and the professor said, or asked the other students to

2:51

give them a big hand because these are the future millionaires of America.

2:55

And this, he went on to talk about the lesson of compound growth, which

2:59

you talk about a lot in your book. But I guess, little takeaways in the beginning that, my.

3:04

not resonate with someone else, but the fact that he was in junior

3:07

college before he even went to this college, he, he had the foresight to

3:10

do that and he was only one of a few that took the professor seriously.

3:16

He barely knew what he was doing, but he went and opened up an account.

3:19

And I think he ended, he said that one I called it like his little starting point,

3:23

his little, seed that he planted with 200.

3:27

It ended up being. Over a million dollars now, not just that 200, but of course,

3:33

that was the seed he planted. And I thought that was a really powerful story, but that was absolutely my favorite

3:39

in investing because you start young and the compound growth is just amazing.

3:44

And, it doesn't matter how small you start, it matters that you

3:47

start and then you keep keep adding.

3:51

Yeah, I mean, the simple path to wealth in some ways is one person taking you aside and giving

4:00

you the one tip, saving in your retirement accounts that makes all the difference.

4:05

We had Fritz Gilbert on earlier this year, and his boss took him aside in his

4:12

first job and said, max out your 401k.

4:16

That's like four words. And he retired early based on that one statement and cause he

4:22

didn't know what he was doing. And it just takes that one person and I didn't get that one person.

4:29

I don't know why, so I ended up with my head in the sand.

4:32

I ended up with lifestyle inflation. I ended up waking up late because I didn't have the one person

4:37

to say one sentence to me. And then maybe follow up explanations.

4:42

So. And so we need to encourage our audience to tell their grandkids

4:46

to tell their kids that one thing that makes all the difference.

4:50

And it could be read the simple path to wealth.

4:52

That's it. I hear from people all the time who tell me that they gift the simple

4:58

path to wealth to their friends and relatives with that in mind.

5:02

But, not just a matter of those of us who are aware of this path sharing it,

5:09

but people have to be open to hearing it.

5:12

And so I do have this vision that I'm, I'm always gratified when people say, Oh, I,

5:18

I just bought 20 copies of the simple path to wealth and gave them away at Christmas

5:22

or whatever to my friends or relatives. And I, I think that's wonderful, but I also have this maybe cynical

5:28

vision that There's now 20 copies sitting, gathering dust on people's

5:32

shelves where they say, Oh, Jackie, thank you so much for this book.

5:36

I can't wait to read it and on the shelf it goes and it's forgotten.

5:40

So, I mean, I hope that people hear the message, but unless they hear the message,

5:48

then, it's just not going to happen.

5:51

So. you, if you make these steps, now we get into the fun part.

5:55

If you take these initial steps of managing your debt savings and investing,

6:00

you end up Not necessarily, quickly, but pretty soon you end up with a few money.

6:05

And tell me the difference JL between FU money and FI money.

6:11

Well, so, first of all, this is my way of thinking about it.

6:15

So for a lot of people, they are synonymous,

6:18

being financially independent and having a few money is the same thing.

6:22

In fact, that's probably the more common way to understand it, but I prefer

6:28

to think of financial independence is when you have enough money.

6:32

That it supports your lifestyle and maybe a little bit extra.

6:36

So you never actually have to trade your time and labor for

6:40

money again, to meet your bills and to do the things you want to do.

6:44

For me, having a few money is that interim step on the journey.

6:49

So it starts from the very first dollar that you save and

6:53

invest is part of your FU money.

6:56

And of course, as that grows. You become stronger financially and, your ability to say FU when it needs

7:05

to be said become stronger and your ability to make bolder decisions become

7:10

stronger and your ability to live a, a more expansive and freer life

7:16

with more options become stronger. So FU money for me is that interim step between where you start and where

7:23

you suddenly Look at the numbers and say, wow, I'm, I'm now financially

7:29

independent and working is purely optional for me at this point.

7:34

There's somebody in your stories that uses a different term for FU money.

7:40

They call it. The shit hit the fan money or the shift money.

7:46

And what's interesting here is people talk about health challenges.

7:52

And in this story, they're very transparent about this person had

7:56

an unanticipated manic episode and was diagnosed with bipolar one.

8:00

His wife, not too long thereafter in her thirties was diagnosed

8:04

with stage three colon cancer. And then.

8:07

They talked about being on the path to FI and not quite FI and gave them

8:13

the freedom and time to focus on their recoveries without the additional stress

8:18

that the need for money can cause.

8:21

So they're managing to build wealth, but their FU money isn't just.

8:25

I'm going to leave a toxic job. Theirs is that they can take care of themselves when they need to.

8:32

And he talks also about the goal for him has never been to achieve

8:36

FI, but to achieve balance, you need to save and prepare for the

8:40

uncertainty of tomorrow while enjoying the time that you have today.

8:44

These are profound statements and the writers in your book come up with.

8:50

just, or have stories that are so prescient and important

8:55

for all of us because we all run up against these things.

9:00

Yeah, and they all have different life experiences and they've thought

9:03

about this stuff pretty deeply. the old saying money doesn't buy happiness is absolutely true.

9:09

If you're an unhappy person without money, you're probably gonna be

9:12

an unhappy person with money. But that said, money is the single most powerful tool that we have to navigate

9:22

this complex world that we've created.

9:25

And therein lies the usefulness of money.

9:30

If you're suddenly hit with some terrible disease, as you were describing in that

9:34

story that's going to be a struggle.

9:37

And money isn't going to lessen the impact of the disease on your body, but

9:42

not having to worry about money, not having that as part of the framework

9:48

you have to deal with being able to just focus on getting healthier.

9:53

What a tremendous blessing, handling your money correctly and effectively can be.

9:59

I, how much more stressful is it if you're going through

10:03

Something traumatic like that. And at the same time, you're trying to figure out how to pay the bills because

10:10

maybe you can't work anymore, or maybe your spouse isn't working anymore.

10:14

it's money is security.

10:16

It's like a suit of armor is my friend.

10:19

Christy Shen likes to say. You can no longer, actively earn income.

10:23

And we'll have an episode on disability insurance and its importance and all the

10:28

ins and outs of it in a later episode.

10:32

yeah. And JL. I just want to mention.

10:34

I felt like the. The people that share their stories, they're unbelievably vulnerable.

10:41

They were very open and insightful.

10:43

And that meant a lot, they weren't just saying, Oh, here's how the

10:47

simple path to wealth helped us. Although, it kind of did.

10:49

And that's, that's the common thread. But.

10:52

A story like this, for example, very, very vulnerable, and I think that's what

10:58

kind of sucks you in a little bit to make them really seem like real people.

11:04

And part of that is probably because, they trusted you and they felt like they

11:07

knew you already and and all the work that you've done and, so it was just

11:11

great to have them just speak so openly about, their, their situation, their

11:15

story and willing to share it with us. Yeah, I was and from my point of view, it was.

11:21

And from Chris, my editor's point of view, it was a real honor for us to,

11:26

to be able to read these stories and, and go through them and, and hear these

11:31

perspectives from people, as I said earlier in this conversation, when I

11:36

put out the call asking, we didn't know what kind of response we would get, we

11:42

didn't know how many we, if we'd get enough, we didn't know how many we'd get.

11:47

We also didn't know whether the quality of them would be there, whether they

11:53

would be compelling stories or not.

11:55

We just didn't know and turns out we got more than enough and they were, at least

12:02

in my opinion, and it sounds like you both have the same, they were extraordinarily

12:07

compelling stories and incredibly diverse.

12:11

I mean, in terms of the subject matter, in terms of the people, in terms of

12:15

the stage of the life they're in, the place in the world they're in.

12:19

And yeah. So again, and my favorite part about it is that it is such a powerful pushback to the

12:28

idea that, Oh, this can only be done by a certain elite group of people out there.

12:33

It couldn't possibly be done by me.

12:36

This is not true. It. Can be done by anybody listening to this.

12:41

Yeah. I mean, let's go back to Jackie's story, right?

12:43

She started from very humble beginnings lived life in poverty to start.

12:48

It's 39 and was financially free at 49 and retired.

12:54

I think she's busier than ever, but she retired.

12:57

There's that R E. Yeah.

12:59

Go back to her episode and listen to her story.

13:02

I mean, it's a powerful message that really anybody

13:06

can do it once they wake up.

13:09

And, but the hard part. When you get doing is staying the course, right?

13:13

It's you have a great quote from Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens Where money

13:21

is more open minded than language state laws cultural codes religious

13:26

beliefs and social habits Money is the only trust system created by humans

13:31

that can bridge almost any cultural gap and does not discriminate on

13:35

the basis of religion gender race and gender Age or sexual orientation

13:40

now you put this quote in staying the course And why did you do that?

13:47

So, first of all, I love the book Sapiens and I love that quote

13:53

because there is so much nonsense, at least in the United States.

13:59

That is put out around money and accumulating money.

14:02

That's so incredibly negative. This whole idea that money is the root of all evil, which by the way, is not the

14:10

accurate quote that, the love of money is the root of all evil is the quote.

14:15

Correct way of saying that, but there's just so much nonsense about this and

14:21

that anybody who's wealthy must have done something nefarious to become wealthy and

14:27

money's dirty and it's, all this nonsense.

14:31

And I think Harari's quote there is so profound.

14:35

In fact, I, I'd actually ask you to read it again because it's, it might

14:40

be the most profound thing in the book. Well, i'm happy to I mean because it's it's we'll leave it in the show

14:46

notes too So people can read it or they'll just need to read your book.

14:49

But well, let's do it, because as you say, it is important, money

14:53

is more open minded than language. State laws, cultural codes, religious beliefs, and social habits.

14:59

Money is the only trust system created by humans that can bridge almost any cultural

15:05

gap and does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race, and gender.

15:11

Age or sexual orientation and you go on to say that there was actually a story with

15:17

regards to Isis that proves this point.

15:20

Maybe you, if you recall, maybe you can tell that story.

15:23

Sure. So, and actually, this is, harari, who's the author of Sapiens, is

15:28

recounting this story, but he, he talks about myths, right?

15:33

Humans create myths, then money is a myth.

15:36

Now myth doesn't mean what people think it means.

15:40

It doesn't mean that it's not true and powerful and useful, but it is

15:46

something that we all collectively decide to believe for whatever reason.

15:51

money, let's be honest, doesn't have any intrinsic value unless we all

15:55

happen to believe that it does, but he talks about Isis and of course,

16:01

Isis viewed the United States as a great Satan.

16:05

And at one point during the war, they conquered a city.

16:09

I forget which one and. They broke into the bank and they found, I think, a hundred million or a couple

16:16

of a hundred million dollars in cash in that bank that were in bricks of a hundred

16:21

dollar bills, United States currency.

16:24

So here's this radical religious group who views the United

16:30

States as the great Satan. They come across these pieces of paper that are printed by

16:37

the great Satan with slogans.

16:41

about the political system of the great Satan and even religious quotes in there

16:48

that are different from their religion.

16:51

So of course, as Harari says, they burned these things.

16:56

Well, no, they didn't burn them because they recognize the value of money.

17:03

They recognize that these pieces of paper from the great Satan.

17:08

Covered with these things that were an absolute anathema to their belief system

17:14

was more powerful than their belief system, or at least they were willing to

17:18

set their belief system aside to enjoy the benefit of having these pieces of paper.

17:24

That's incredible. That's one of the reasons I say that money is the most powerful tool that

17:30

we humans have created to navigate this complex world we've created.

17:37

Absolutely. Now, Jackie, your favorite story in the book comes in this part

17:42

of the section of the book. Can you relate this story to us?

17:47

Because it's also near and dear to my heart.

17:50

Yeah. This was awesome. It was Tom.

17:52

And I believe that's a friend of yours, Jayle.

17:55

I did not know that when I listened to it.

17:58

And is also my favorite story, by the way.

18:02

So, just to go on record, I was wondering which story it was going to be.

18:06

That was my all time favorite out of the book.

18:09

I'd love to meet, Tom, I believe is up in Michigan.

18:11

I'm in Ohio, so he's not even that far. It would definitely be worth the drive to go visit him sometime.

18:16

But so Tom, he has his ups and downs.

18:19

He gets married young. He has, I believe, two kids and he ends up getting a divorce.

18:24

It sounds like he's an executive or a director level person

18:29

that changed jobs a lot. And, with each job, he got a raise.

18:34

He got laid off some. So he had a series of good luck and bad luck.

18:38

His mom and dad dies within a short span of time.

18:42

And then his wife asked him for divorce.

18:45

He gets divorced from this wife. Then he gets married again to a new wife that's 23 years younger than him.

18:52

So he's all virile and ready to go.

18:55

And he has another child and things are going great.

18:59

he changes jobs a lot, moving his family around and things like that, that

19:03

that's something that stuck out to me. And then I'm not sure how long he was married to the second wife,

19:08

but he ends up divorcing her. And he's hopping from, job to job, must be pretty successful because

19:15

he's able to, at least, get jobs. And then towards the end with the second divorce, they split the money, the

19:23

retirement accounts and things like that. And he ends up struggling financially.

19:27

And by the time he hits like 61 Almost like the job merry go round kind of

19:32

slowed down because he thought no one wanted someone that old even though he'd

19:36

been, doing his career for quite some time and so he ended up being financially

19:42

strapped to where he got to the point where he had to file for bankruptcy.

19:47

And he's in his sixties and he ends up taking a social security

19:51

at 62 a little bit early. So it was a little bit less, but I remember the math where he was bringing

19:58

in his money from social security, a tiny pension, I think something else,

20:02

like when he was in the military, but it was about 2, 500 a month.

20:06

and I, Believe he's working on a farm, just doing some part time work.

20:10

So he's living on very little, but he's still super happy.

20:13

he meets a Swedish girl, I believe.

20:15

So I thought that was cute. Meet the Swedish girl and he's just super happy.

20:19

And I guess for me. I didn't know how the story was going to end and I was a little

20:26

surprised and I wanted more jail.

20:29

I felt like I was watching a movie and that's when when I, at the very

20:33

end, it said, this is part of an essay from the JL Collins NH website.

20:39

So of course I'm hurrying up and I'm going to the website.

20:41

I want to read updates on the story. And so I got a little more there, whatever, but it was

20:45

just fascinating to see that.

20:49

throughout his life with ups and downs, you can call it good

20:51

luck, bad luck or whatever. But in the end, his happiness, it really wasn't tied to the money.

20:58

And he's apparently he's a still a super happy guy now.

21:03

And it was just kind of cool that he was so open to the ups and downs.

21:08

But at the end, he didn't necessarily had some, Oh, now I'm a millionaire

21:12

or billionaire or anything like that. It was just his happiness.

21:16

So that one was warm, my heart. And I extended that out, of course, by going to the website and digging

21:21

a little bit more about Tom. But Tom, I loved your story.

21:25

So I, I, as I said it, it's my favorite.

21:29

Tom actually, he's a friend of mine, he used to be a client of

21:32

mine, which, back in the 90s, which is how I got to know him.

21:36

He was, as you alluded to, a very successful, upwardly mobile executive

21:41

in, in the advertising world. And but he went through a couple of very expensive divorces and, he wasn't a saver

21:49

investor and, everything financially went wrong for Tom, he went bankrupt.

21:54

He lost his house to foreclosure. he didn't have any assets.

21:59

I mean, he lost everything at the age of.

22:01

6061. And, as you alluded to, I mean, Tom took his social security early because

22:09

he needed it to make ends meet. That's not optimal financial decision making, but you do what you need to do.

22:16

He had that little pension. He has, he works on the Henry Ford Museum.

22:24

They have a farm from the 1800s that operates the way

22:28

they operated in the 1800s. He's one of the guys that dresses in period clothes and tells people how it

22:34

was done, but they actually work the farm.

22:37

So he's out getting fresh air and exercise.

22:40

And Tom's a few years older than I am.

22:43

So he's in his seventies now, but what's, what I love about that story.

22:48

First of all, I love Tom just as a friend, but

22:51

What I love about that story is here's a guy where everything financial went wrong.

22:57

And that's actually the title of the case study in the blog.

23:01

This is one of the case studies that made it from the blog into the book.

23:06

Everything went wrong. And, and yet Tom is probably the single happiest person I've ever

23:12

met in my life and continues to be.

23:16

And it's in, I think one of the, things that concerns me in the F.

23:20

I. community is they meet so many people who worry so much about their money.

23:27

And, I'm talking about people now who have a million, two

23:30

million, five million dollars. And they worry about it all, all the time.

23:35

I mean, is four percent the rate?

23:38

Withdrawal rate, should it be 3.

23:41

72 percent or, or something lower?

23:44

And, who knows what the future holds and, and these are people

23:48

who are doing extraordinarily well.

23:50

And there's an argument to be made that maybe one of the reasons they're doing

23:54

well is they worry about these things. They think about these things.

23:57

I know that's probably one of the reasons that I was successful.

24:01

I worried, I think I worried way too much.

24:03

I think a lot of people in this community worry way too much.

24:08

And the point is that, with the right attitude and Tom has certainly

24:15

got the right attitude, your happiness is not tied to your money.

24:19

I'm sure Tom would have preferred not to go through all those financial hardships.

24:25

And, if he and I had been talking about this stuff in the nineties,

24:28

maybe that would have helped. But the point is, if you're on this journey, you probably don't need to

24:36

have to worry as much as you are.

24:39

Almost by definition, you're doing the right things and you're going to be fine.

24:43

Yeah, I think that's the part that resonated with me the most.

24:46

Cause as someone that's like four years post retiring from a corporate job, you

24:52

think about what about your mindset has changed and And my big takeaway after four

24:57

years is that precision is not required.

25:00

I did pay attention to so many things and stressed about so many things

25:04

that now I'm like, why did I, maybe because I'm on the other side of

25:08

it, but I just love Tom's attitude.

25:11

And I'm kind of of the same attitude at this point.

25:14

I've done the big things, right. And.

25:16

Just precision is not required. Cause yeah, fire people do obsess over, withdrawal rates, sequence of,

25:22

and all those things are important, but maybe not as quite as important

25:26

as just being happy, enjoying the journey and, and just your attitude

25:30

and who you surround yourself with and what kind of energy you throw off.

25:34

You know? Well, if you, if you want me to offline, I'll, I'll tell you how to get ahold

25:40

of Tom and maybe you can go up there and, and and visit him on the farm.

25:44

Okay. Yeah. I'd love to go to that Ford museum.

25:47

I definitely heard about it. And so now it's definitely on my bucket list.

25:51

So yeah, I'm gonna take you up on that. Actually, kind of a funny story.

25:55

We have a place in Wisconsin and my neighbor there, I want to say this

25:59

was last year, my neighbor is a guy named Al who's a Wisconsin farm boy.

26:03

He grew up on, on a farm in Wisconsin and.

26:06

He came back from from a trip and he and I were talking, he was telling me

26:11

about going to this Henry Ford museum.

26:13

I mean, he said, they have this really cool.

26:17

1800s farm that's operating and they have people that are actually doing the

26:20

farming and They're in the period costumes and they tell you how things used to

26:25

be done in the 1800s on the farm And of course being a farm boy, he loved that

26:29

He said man, there was this one guy I was talking to and he was just awesome.

26:33

He's a guy named tom and He said do you mean And I mentioned Tom's last name

26:40

and he said, yeah, that's my buddy.

26:45

I know Tom. How funny is that?

26:48

Small small world. Yeah.

26:50

Well, there's a couple of stories that are tandem and back to back in this section,

26:56

which are some of the more profound stories in the book, where you have one

27:01

from a 30 year old in the Ukraine, a country at war, where he has a hard time

27:07

finding equivalent investment vehicles compared to the U S and his home country

27:13

bias with invents investments in the Ukraine get frozen at the time of the war.

27:17

But he had the foresight to have an international brokerage account with

27:23

money in it for retirement outside of his home bias for, geographic.

27:29

Protection because we don't think of the

27:33

confiscation or freezing of our assets in the United States.

27:38

These are just not things we really think about.

27:40

And then right after the story you talk about, or a man from Russia gets ahold

27:45

of you and he talks about the same thing.

27:48

His assets all get frozen.

27:51

And he has no control, but luckily he still has a job.

27:55

What did you feel or what did you, when you got these stories and at

28:00

this time when there's in their part of the world, war crisis.

28:06

I, and Jackie alluded to those two stories earlier in the conversation,

28:10

and I think in some ways, those are the two most profound stories in the book.

28:17

And in fact, I was so impressed with them that.

28:21

At the beginning of this year of 2023, I want to say in January, it wouldn't be.

28:27

The stories were coming in and we were sorting through them.

28:30

Maybe it was 2022, but anyway,

28:33

I actually put both those stories up separately as blog posts because,

28:37

I just thought they were incredible here's a guy whose country has been

28:41

invaded and he is still finding a way to walk the simple path.

28:48

Here's a guy whose country has become an international pariah.

28:53

And laden with sanctions because they have invaded their neighbor.

28:58

He's still figuring out a way to do it.

29:02

And I contrast that to some of the people that I meet in the United States who say

29:07

things like, Oh, yeah, that sounds great.

29:09

I'd love to be financially independent. But, I need to have those leased luxury cars in the driveway.

29:15

So it's really not achievable for me.

29:19

Well, okay. I mean, you can spend your money however you want to spend it.

29:23

You make whatever choice you want to make, but you can't

29:26

tell me that you can't do it. When I see people like this, who are doing it

29:31

Roman, by the way, who's the Ukrainian guy has a podcast

29:36

in Ukraine that I've been on.

29:39

He's had me as a guest and, anybody who's interested in that can go to my blog.

29:44

Find the page at the top called Interviews.

29:47

And go down and, you'll, you can, you can scroll through

29:50

all the interviews I've done. This one will be up on it when you release it.

29:55

As are the first two that we did together. But anyway, if everybody's interested, they can go listen to that.

30:00

But, so not only is Roman doing this, but evidently there are

30:03

enough Ukrainians doing it that he has a podcast catering to them.

30:08

So it's just, this is a country that's being bombed.

30:12

It's been invaded. It's just, so that's, again, what I love about Pathfinders.

30:18

You can't read Pathfinders and honestly ever say again that you can't do this.

30:24

Well, I mean, humans are intimately adaptable.

30:28

I mean, our survival instincts kick in and we adapt to the situations we are in

30:34

with the eye on the prize, the eye on the horizon, the eye on the goals we have.

30:39

And it's like, okay, I've hit a brick wall here.

30:42

Let's. uh, find a way around it, right?

30:45

Yeah, absolutely. All right.

30:48

incidentally, I just listened to that podcast.

30:50

It was awesome. Maybe we can link that in the show notes bill.

30:54

oh, that'd be even better. yeah, just from their perspective, if anything, my mind got a little

30:59

bit bigger from an international perspective, listening to the Ukrainian,

31:04

the Russian, and then there were several other countries represented.

31:07

So more than anything, it'll help you be a little more global in how

31:10

you think about money and, and. Reaching financial independence.

31:13

So there's a lot of value there globally too.

31:16

And I think you realize, as, as I mean, and I'm assuming most of your

31:20

audience is, they're Americans. And you realize, the tremendous advantages that we have as Americans to pursue

31:29

this, it can, it's being pursued by people all over the world and some of the

31:33

worst circumstances like they're at war.

31:36

But, so if you're in the, in the United States, I mean, there's really no excuse.

31:41

Yeah. First world problems, right? First of all, yeah, right.

31:46

I mean, and again, if driving the luxury cars are more important

31:51

to you, hey, it's your money. But at least now, this is an option and.

31:56

That it can be done. Well, we're coming to the last few sections of the book and you included

32:02

one here in part eight on family.

32:05

that's not something that we talk much about in the Phi community.

32:09

And why did you include this chapter and how did it become so important?

32:14

Well, so 1st of all, I had to talk about how the chapters themselves.

32:18

Came into being, Chris and I didn't have.

32:21

the framework of the book laid out when we solicited the stories.

32:26

The stories dictated the framework of the book.

32:31

So as you mentioned, there are nine sections and the stories themselves,

32:35

as we went through them, sort of created, not sort of, they absolutely

32:41

created each of those nine sections because of the content of the stories.

32:48

So we didn't have the nine sections in mind and then fit the stories into them.

32:53

The stories, the sections grew out of the stories themselves.

32:58

Now, clearly, as you read through the book, I think you would both agree.

33:01

you can read a story in lifestyle inflation and say, Oh, that

33:06

could equally be in freedom. So there were times where stories could be in Two, three, maybe

33:13

even four different sections. And we had to make a judgment call as to where to put them, but that's how

33:19

all of those, those chapters evolve.

33:22

So I didn't set out saying, I want to have a chapter on family.

33:27

The contributors of the stories led us to say, Oh, well, there are stories here that

33:34

speak to the challenges and opportunities around family and following this path.

33:40

Okay. So I did wonder about that. So you gave them just a broad prompt of stories and people got to choose, Oh,

33:47

I want to tell this little snippet or what I want to tell that little snippet.

33:51

And that allowed you to, and then you guys and Chris, he's the

33:55

person at your publishing house.

33:57

How did you even get with him to begin with, by the way?

34:00

Well, he's at Harriman house. And so Harriman house reached out to me in the fall of, it must've

34:09

been 2021 thinking about it now.

34:11

And that was, they had seen, I'd put up a, in the spring of that

34:16

year, I'd put up a blog post asking for help on my second book.

34:20

which is how I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable.

34:24

And they reached out saying, Hey, we'd love to participate in this book.

34:30

But the book was a week away from being published.

34:33

And so at that point, that book was done.

34:37

But I responded to this woman, Sally Tinker at Harriman house.

34:41

It was a And in that process, at one point she whistled in Chris Parker,

34:47

who turned out to be my editor.

34:49

And cause she's, Sally's role is kind of basically finding

34:54

authors that they want to publish. And I was so impressed with Chris.

34:59

So this is all going over the course of two or three months

35:04

before we finally to deal. But I was so impressed with Chris that when we put the

35:09

deal together, I insisted it. The one of the clauses be that he be the person that I work with on this book.

35:16

Because I didn't want to, sign this contract and then say, Oh, okay,

35:20

Chris has got other things to do. Here's Charlie who I don't know.

35:23

Right. I want it. And by the way, I didn't have to do that as it turns out, it was always

35:29

their intention to have Chris work on it and he wanted to work on it.

35:33

He's a huge, passionate fat follower of the simple path to wealth.

35:37

And he really loved this concept and loved the book.

35:41

And, he did a lot of the heavy lifting.

35:44

He's, it was just a great partner and I can't say enough about him.

35:47

So as an airman house in general was wonderful to work with.

35:50

So that's the, that's the origin story there.

35:53

Yeah. Sorry for the sidebar, but yeah, it was great to, you kept mentioning

35:57

Chris and it seemed like they were such a perfect partner for you and

36:02

they were as just invested as you were and obviously readers of the simple

36:06

path to wealth and things like that. So that's kind of cool.

36:08

I always wonder, how books come together, sort of the behind the scenes.

36:12

So having that support from the right people, the right publisher

36:16

to me, makes a huge difference. So so thank you for that.

36:20

Chris also, by the way, is the one who did the cover design and

36:24

I love the cover of this book So he's an editor and he's an artist.

36:32

well, I, I think it was, I think they have artists that, physically

36:39

did the artwork, but I think it's, Chris was the guy who had the concept,

36:44

Okay. Gotcha. he was the one and, and, and, we worked on it together, but mostly

36:51

it was a matter of Chris saying, what do you think about this?

36:54

And me saying, I think that's awesome.

36:57

Let's do that. Right. So Yeah, so he really, and then, as they say, they had artists that I think who

37:03

actually rendered the illustration of,

37:07

So he had the concept and But it was his

37:10

his concept to life. You're both of your concepts.

37:13

Excellent. Excellent. Okay. I love that.

37:15

So we were in the know now we're in the know.

37:18

Yeah. exactly. You're in the know, but it was just a wonderful partnership and Chris

37:24

and I have become personal friends. since.

37:27

So, we still chat on a regular basis and, and he's just a, he's a great guy and, and

37:34

extraordinarily talented talented fellow.

37:37

Well, they lucky they got you. That's for sure. So that's why I wondered how that partnership came about.

37:41

So Well, I feel lucky that, that to work with them.

37:45

So yeah, I can honestly say Pathfinders wouldn't exist if it wasn't for

37:50

those guys, because I don't think I would have had the heart to do it.

37:54

On my own after the, cause it's so much work, self publishing so, yeah.

38:01

Yeah. We're coming to the end of our show.

38:04

The conversation could go on forever, but section nine is interesting to me.

38:09

I haven't reached end game.

38:11

I look forward to end game. And what do you mean by that?

38:15

And how do you know when you're there? Well, end game is, when you've achieved financial independence.

38:22

And how, is you're there is a pretty simple financial formula,

38:28

at least the way I think about it. So there's this thing called the 4 percent rule.

38:34

I hate the fact that it's called a rule, but it's a wonderful guideline.

38:38

Evidently it was created by a finance or the concept was originated with the

38:42

financial planner in the early nineties.

38:46

But then maybe even more importantly in the mid nineties, I want to say

38:50

there were three professors at Trinity university who ran a study looking

38:55

at different asset allocations and different withdrawal rates and the impact

39:01

of that over a 30 year time horizon.

39:04

And when you still do all of that out, if you were withdrawing 4 percent a

39:11

year, adjusting for inflation every year, You had a 96 percent chance

39:16

of your money lasting for 30 years.

39:19

And that's, I think, where the common use of this 4 percent idea came from.

39:26

There's a lot of ink has been spilt over whether 4 percent is the right number.

39:32

And, I don't care to get into that debate because I don't see it as a rule.

39:37

I think it's a wonderful guideline. So if you're at a point where 4 percent of your invested assets can cover your

39:45

expenses, you're financially independent.

39:49

So the math on that is pretty simple.

39:52

If you have a million dollars, 4 percent of that a year is going to be $40,000.

39:58

If $40,000 a year covers all of your expenses, and maybe a little extra,

40:03

you're financially independent. Or you can look at it from the other direction.

40:08

You can say, I need $40,000 a year.

40:11

Well, if you multiply whatever that number you need is by 25, you get the

40:17

number of invested assets you need.

40:20

So you multiply $40,000 by 25, that's a million dollars.

40:24

So that's my guideline. If those numbers work in your world, you can call yourself financially independent.

40:32

So how does it feel when you get there? Well, in my case, because I had no concept of financial independence at the

40:41

time, I was wandering in the wilderness.

40:44

This would have been the late 80s, 89, 90, 91.

40:49

I had a few money and so periodically I would take sabbaticals from working.

40:55

And the longest I ever took was five years, which was in that particular

41:00

period of time from 89 to 95.

41:04

And at the same time, my wife decided to go back to school.

41:08

So she quit her job and Oh, our daughter was born in 1992.

41:14

So every year and I used to do this with a pen and paper,

41:18

I would look at our expenses for the year.

41:21

And I would look at our assets and I'd kind of see where we stood and

41:26

we hadn't changed our lifestyle at all, but we didn't have any income.

41:32

And I suddenly noticed that something remarkable, and that was

41:36

that we had paid all our bills. We'd led pretty much the same life we'd always led.

41:42

And there was more money at the end of the year than when we started.

41:46

And I thought, well, that's pretty remarkable. And so then I went back and I looked at the year before, and I saw the same thing.

41:53

Somehow I hadn't noticed it the year before.

41:56

And I went and I looked at the year before that, and it was the same thing.

42:00

Well, I knew something remarkable had happened, and

42:03

this is embarrassing to admit. I didn't have the frame of reference to put two and two together and realize

42:10

that, oh, this means you never have to go back to work again, right?

42:14

Because they just didn't have that, that concept.

42:16

So to me, it was, oh, this is interesting.

42:20

And I put it away and went on with my life.

42:23

And I continued my career for, 2011.

42:27

But I enjoyed my work, but it just never Being, retiring early was

42:32

never a goal of mine, particularly. I wasn't aware of it as a concept.

42:36

I wasn't even aware of financial independence as a concept.

42:39

I just knew I wanted to have a few money so I could take these

42:42

sabbaticals whenever I wanted to. So anyway, that's what it felt like to me.

42:48

I think for other people, it runs the gamut from, doing the happy dance

42:53

to, Oh my goodness, what do I do now?

42:55

and in talking to people at Chautauqua, which were the annual events I used

43:00

to run, and I'd have one on one sessions with people frequently, people

43:07

would come to me with their numbers. And these are all very great people who can do the simple math.

43:13

And they would lay him in front of me and they would ask him,

43:16

I financially independent. And I remember one woman who was a banker.

43:22

In fact, she was going to take a job at the end of Chautauqua that was going

43:26

to pay her a million dollars a year. And she lays out her numbers for me and she has 5 million invested

43:36

and said, okay, Val, that's great. Now the other part of the equation is how much are you spending?

43:42

And she, now this woman's a banker. I mean, exceedingly bright woman as you can imagine with

43:48

the position she's going to. And she said, well, I'm living on a hundred thousand dollars a year.

43:52

I'm spending a hundred thousand dollars a year. I said, well, okay.

43:57

So if we take a hundred thousand and we multiply it by 25, she knows these

44:01

formulas because she's run my book. We multiply it by 25.

44:05

What do we get? we get two and a half million dollars.

44:08

I said, and how much do you have again? I have 5 million.

44:13

I said, Val, you, you, you, you are financially independent twice over

44:18

based on what you're spending. So if you're going to take this new job on Monday.

44:22

Because you want the challenge or you love the work or whatever reason like

44:29

that, then by all means go do it. If you're going to take this job because you think you need the money, then no,

44:37

you don't, you don't need the money. So why does somebody like Val ask me this question?

44:43

And, and she was not alone. There were many people asked this question and the conclusion I came to finally.

44:50

Cause all these people can are very bright. They can do the basic math was that compounding is a hockey stick, right?

45:00

For a long time, it's the rise is so gradual.

45:03

Nothing seems to happen. And then all of a sudden it spikes and Val and the others could read

45:10

the numbers as well as I could, but they couldn't quite believe what

45:15

they were seeing because it just.

45:19

Feels miraculous the way it comes on.

45:23

And they just wanted somebody else in this case, to me to say they want to point it

45:29

and say, are you seeing what I'm seeing?

45:32

I mean, I know what I'm seeing, but I can't quite believe what I'm seeing.

45:35

Are you seeing the same thing I'm seeing? And then I'd be like, yeah, I mean, I'm seeing somebody who's

45:41

financially independent twice over, Wow.

45:44

And that what you're seeing? Yeah.

45:48

know about the Chautauquas early enough.

45:50

I started hearing about them maybe around 2019.

45:54

And then the last one was 2022. And I was just at my peak.

45:58

And I have since read about them and I just hate that I never got

46:03

a chance to go to a Chautauqua.

46:06

And I don't know, maybe somewhere down the road we can like revamp that.

46:10

But those were so amazing.

46:12

And the story about the banker.

46:14

Oh my God. Like, That blows my

46:17

Yeah, they were really amazing experiences and I I'm not doing them anymore

46:23

for a variety of reasons, and I'm.

46:27

It's the right decision. but it's his decision that breaks my heart.

46:33

Because, we took part of the magic of Chicago is.

46:37

We took a very limited number of people.

46:39

So we only took 30 people and we'd have four speakers from the FI community.

46:45

I was always one of them. And we'd spend a week together in some really cool part of the

46:51

world and a really cool venue. And it was just a tremendous bonding experience.

46:58

And the most remarkable thing about it was that.

47:04

Virtually every attendee, and I asked virtually every attendee over the years,

47:10

what's the most powerful part of this?

47:13

What was your favorite part of it? And of course, I was always hoping one of them would say, Oh, it was meeting you.

47:20

Oh, it was your talk. Nobody

47:23

have been my answer. Yeah, no, it wouldn't have been.

47:25

It wouldn't have been. No, it was never anybody's answer.

47:29

The answer everybody gave was I got to hang out with people who get it, , we

47:35

all are unicorns in the world we live in.

47:39

And that's hard because nobody quite understands this

47:42

path that you're walking on. A lot of people are made very uncomfortable by it, are

47:46

actively hostile towards it. That, our friends and relatives, and you come to Chautauqua and suddenly

47:54

you don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to explain what pursuing FI is or what the simple path to wealth is.

48:01

Everybody there gets it. And so you can begin bonding with people and having conversations with

48:06

people who are like, who are very different than you because it's an

48:11

incredibly diverse group of people. But who have this one cool thing in common that they all share.

48:19

And in fact, Chautauqua was one, was where I really realized that this concept

48:25

that, financial independence is only for, software engineers with advanced degrees

48:31

was just nonsense because The range of people who came to Chautauqua was, I

48:37

mean, any kind of human diversity you can think of was represented at Chautauqua.

48:45

, they had this one commonality, and that just brought everybody together, and

48:50

incredible friendships came out of it.

48:53

People started businesses out of it. I know of one baby that was conceived there.

48:58

I, I I know of a couple of people who met their life partners there,

49:03

Wow. Yeah. You cannot deny the value of community.

49:06

And you're right. I probably would have found that to be the most valuable thing.

49:10

So I get it. Yeah. right. And he would have said, this Jay, I was all right having him

49:15

along, but, that wasn't the cool

49:18

Well, one of my bucket list items is to meet you, JL.

49:22

At some point we've come close and Well, we'll just have to make that happen.

49:27

I have to say that having you again on the show has been a joy.

49:31

We love talking with you and hearing the stories, sharing the stories.

49:36

I think this book, Pathfinders as you said, is a Precursor

49:42

to the simple path to wealth. So, you know begin with the end in mind find out where your tribe is who your

49:49

people are and which stories resonate with you and then Get the mechanics

49:54

and the math as to how to travel down the path Do you have any final thoughts

49:59

today for our late starter audience? With regards to pathfinders

50:04

Well, Phil, for a late start. I think we touched on this in the conversation, it's never too late

50:10

and it's not an on off switch. So, even if you only have a five year time horizon, it's worth beginning the journey.

50:17

'cause you you get stronger moment by moment and you can be amazed.

50:21

As, the story of Val hopefully illustrates that.

50:24

It seems like the progress is very slow, but compounding is an amazing thing.

50:30

And when it clicks, it's, it's a little bit stunning.

50:35

Well, we look forward to having you again on the show and talk about your next book.

50:39

I don't know if that's in the works or not, but you're very prolific

50:43

and we're very appreciative of the generosity you've had and sharing

50:47

time with us on Catching Up to Five. Jackie, any final thoughts?

50:52

Yeah. I'm looking forward to the next book, which I know it's a lot of work, but

50:56

I feel like it should be something like the lost, Letters or the lost

50:59

stories or something like that. The things that end up on the editing floor, but so yeah, and

51:05

JL, you might've mentioned this sometime during our conversation,

51:09

but how people learn is important.

51:11

Like some people might not be the book reading type.

51:14

I am not the book reading type, but I absolutely love listening

51:17

to podcasts and the audio book.

51:20

Was outstanding. Like the content is undeniably valuable.

51:24

So if you don't want to pick up the book, you can go to audible,

51:28

get it through your library, or whatever and get the audio version.

51:31

And of course, I left that five star review.

51:34

I left it on audible. I left it on Amazon Um, because.

51:37

I feel like the value that he, you have given to the FI

51:40

community is almost immeasurable.

51:43

So if we just continue to support what you're doing, maybe there will

51:47

be a book somewhere down the line, five, 10 years from now, who knows?

51:50

But that type of support, I'm hoping that kind of, keeps your light bright to say

51:55

there are people that still want to listen to what I have to say and the ideas that

51:59

I have to show love to this community.

52:04

Well, I appreciate that. And if anybody else reads Pathfinders or The Simple Path to Wealth and finds

52:11

value in it and thinks that, that other people would benefit from it, five star

52:16

reviews on Amazon are incredibly important because that's frankly how people who

52:21

are new to it make their decision. And, there are some people who like to leave low reviews.

52:27

So the five star reviews are, are incredibly important.

52:31

And if you. if you read it and it resonates and you think the message is important, then

52:36

I think that you're certainly doing me a favor by doing that, but you're also

52:42

doing the people who will maybe pick up the book because of your review a favor.

52:46

Silence.

53:01

this book. We also need five star reviews.

53:04

There's a couple calls to action we have here, but, please leave us a

53:08

review on Apple podcasts for Spotify.

53:10

Send us a speak pipe where we get your voice messages and questions that we

53:14

could put on the show and heck buy us a coffee go to the support us button

53:18

on our webpage and help us defray some of the costs of this podcast.

53:23

We have to give credit to, in our show, to Diana Falk, our social media maven,

53:27

Sarah von Sternberg, our show notes author, and Fritz Bosshard, our editor.

53:32

And most of all, we give thanks to J. L. Collins for being here with us today.

53:36

Thanks, J. L., we'll talk to you again soon. It's entirely my pleasure.

53:39

I'm happy to come back anytime book or no.

53:42

Okay, alright, take care, and we'll see you next time on Catching Up