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your first year at lifelock.com. Welcome

0:31

to Radical Personal Finance. Today I want

0:33

to tell you about the worst international

0:35

trip that I myself have ever taken.

0:37

Which just so happens to have been my

0:40

honeymoon. Which just so

0:42

happens to have been to the nation of

0:44

Haiti. I want to draw

0:46

from this trip for you some important

0:48

lessons related to societies in general, economics

0:51

broadly, and personal finance.

0:54

Haiti has been in the news over the

0:56

last, well really, months. But it really came

0:58

to a boiling point over this past weekend.

1:01

As the nation's capital, and indeed

1:04

the country broadly, has been wracked

1:06

by violence. Extreme violence for

1:08

months now. And it has boiled over

1:10

to the point where over the weekend

1:13

the United States of America performed an

1:15

emergency airlift to withdraw all non-essential

1:17

personnel from the U.S. Embassy. The European

1:19

Union has withdrawn all of its diplomats.

1:21

And it's so bad that the leader

1:23

of the country can't even get back

1:25

into his own country. Because

1:28

of the violence that ultimately shut

1:30

down the airport. Now all

1:32

of this is ineffably sad. But

1:35

none of this is surprising. My

1:38

first experience with Haiti came on

1:40

my honeymoon. Now before you

1:42

think I'm the worst president in the

1:44

world, remember that other great people have

1:46

also taken their wives to Haiti for

1:49

honeymoon. After all, former president Bill Clinton

1:51

took Hillary Clinton to Haiti on their

1:53

honeymoon. But my story is not

1:55

quite so interesting as that. When

1:57

my wife and I were newly married, I was

1:59

looking around. trying to figure out where would be

2:01

an interesting place to go for a honeymoon. And

2:04

I was able to get a great deal

2:06

on an all inclusive resort in the Dominican

2:08

Republic, which is of course part of the

2:10

island of Hispaniola. And there are

2:12

two nations that share that island. You have the Dominican

2:14

Republic and also the nation of Haiti. And

2:17

since my wife and I both enjoy Spanish and

2:19

French, I thought it would be a fun travel

2:21

experience for us to spend a week in the

2:24

Dominican Republic and then to go to Haiti. So

2:26

we flew into the DR and then after a

2:29

week at an all inclusive resort, we

2:31

got on a bus and went

2:33

from Sano Domingo Dominican Republic to

2:35

Port-au-Prince, Haiti. And on

2:37

that bus ride, I began to understand that

2:39

perhaps I had gotten myself in a little

2:41

bit over my head. I didn't do a

2:43

lot of research on Haiti. I just knew

2:45

that, Hey, it's a French speaking place. I

2:47

knew it was fairly poor at the time.

2:49

I wasn't too worried about violence. I've traveled

2:51

in a lot of difficult places and I

2:53

thought it'll be fine. We'll figure it out.

2:56

But on the bus itself, I wound up

2:58

meeting some people on the bus who were

3:00

quite concerned about the decision that I had

3:03

make. And in fact, there was one lady

3:05

who was on the bus who had a

3:07

private driver who was meeting her and she

3:09

insisted that her private driver would be the

3:12

one to drive us from the bus station

3:14

to our hotel. So

3:16

we went to, I think it was called

3:18

the Caribe Hotel in downtown Port-au-Prince for our

3:20

first night. Remarkable experience. We

3:22

were there a year after the

3:24

big earthquake and actually I wound

3:26

up meeting Anderson Cooper, the CNN

3:28

host who was in Haiti for

3:31

basically a review of the earthquake. Where

3:34

were the earthquake? What was happening to

3:36

Haiti a year or so after the

3:38

earthquake? And we started in Port-au-Prince and

3:40

then from Port-au-Prince, we took a bus

3:42

across the mountains to a city

3:45

called Jacques-Mell. I wanted to visit the

3:47

Basandbleau there in Jacques-Mell. So we took

3:49

a little mini bus across the mountains

3:52

and that was where everything started to go awry.

3:56

Because we did not have

3:58

an enjoyable travel experience. And

4:00

in fact, after getting to Jacmel and

4:03

spending two days in Jacmel, I

4:05

experienced the desire. And in

4:08

fact, I actually chose to do something I

4:10

had never done before and have

4:12

not done since, which was just

4:14

to leave somewhere as quickly as

4:16

possible. When we were in

4:18

Jacmel, our experience was so bad that my

4:20

wife and I took the first bus back

4:22

to Port-au-Prince that we could get, and we

4:25

went directly to the airport. And

4:27

I was determined to buy the first flight out that I

4:29

could get. Unfortunately, when we got to

4:31

the airport, all of the international flights had gone

4:33

for the day. And

4:35

so instead of taking a flight out of the

4:37

country, I wound up taking

4:39

an early morning flight the next

4:41

day and flying to Cape Haitian,

4:44

where we spent one more day

4:46

visiting something called the Palace of

4:48

Saint-Soucy and the Citadel, which is

4:51

truly remarkable, an amazing place to

4:53

visit. We enjoyed our time

4:55

in Cape Haitian and then later wound

4:57

up taking the bus early back to

4:59

the Dominican Republic. But why

5:01

was Haiti so bad? Well, I'll tell

5:03

you, quite simply, I

5:06

felt like every single

5:08

person with whom I

5:10

interacted in our trip

5:12

in Haiti was

5:14

out to cheat me in some way, shape,

5:17

or form. I'm not an

5:19

inexperienced traveler, but I found it

5:21

quite challenging to hang on to

5:23

my money, to hang on to

5:25

my luggage, when every single person

5:27

at every single level of society,

5:30

including all of the people who are

5:32

serving tourists in the tourist industry, is

5:34

trying to cheat me out of my

5:36

money. And

5:39

I reflected quite a lot. I spoke to

5:41

a lot of Haitians trying to understand why

5:43

that might be. I developed

5:45

a theory. This is purely my theory,

5:48

my experience from spending what wound up

5:50

being three or four days in Haiti.

5:53

But my theory as to why my experience

5:55

in Haiti was so unpleasant is this. Haitians

5:58

refuse to commit to the cooperate with one

6:01

another in any meaningful way. The

6:03

experience that I had being in Haiti

6:06

was that every single

6:08

Haitian is out to

6:10

fight against every other single Haitian

6:13

on a daily basis.

6:16

I don't know why that is. My opinion or

6:18

my theory is that it has something to do with

6:20

the history of Haiti. One thing

6:22

that's very important to understand about the

6:24

Haitian nation and

6:27

culture is that

6:29

Haitians are extremely proud of

6:31

their heritage as being the

6:34

only successful black slave revolt

6:37

in world history. So as

6:39

many black Africans were enslaved all around the world,

6:41

in Haiti the slaves were able

6:43

to rise up and defeat their

6:45

masters in battle and create the

6:47

only independent formerly slave nation, which

6:50

is the nation of Haiti. But

6:52

as I reflected on it and thought about my own experience

6:55

there, I thought this must explain at least

6:57

some of the horrifically

6:59

unfriendly culture. Haitians

7:02

argue with one another constantly.

7:05

It seems like they don't ever want to

7:07

take the lower place, the place of a

7:09

servant. Now I believe

7:12

that the basic foundation of

7:14

a functional society is

7:17

the willingness that neighbors, friends, coworkers,

7:19

that we all have to serve

7:21

one another. I take that

7:24

primarily from Christian theology. Jesus taught that

7:26

the greatest among you must be the servant of all. And

7:29

I see that throughout society, especially in

7:31

a free capitalist society, the man who

7:34

can serve the most people in the

7:36

most effective way is ultimately the man

7:38

who winds up becoming the greatest. All

7:41

of the greatest entrepreneurs of our

7:43

culture, the people that we lionize,

7:45

became well appreciated by the public

7:47

because they serve the public effectively.

7:49

They served their customers. In

7:51

a country where we love one another and

7:54

we serve one another, we can have lots

7:56

of nice things. But if we

7:58

aren't willing to humble our... and

8:00

genuinely serve one another, all

8:03

of our nice things will disappear. That's

8:05

what I observed in Haiti. That's what I

8:07

observed happening. Now, it

8:10

should be no surprise to you where

8:12

Haiti is today, because the situation that

8:14

you see today, the horrific, awful situation

8:16

that you see today, is

8:18

the natural outgrowth of

8:20

this philosophy, this philosophy of battling with

8:23

one another. And when you bring all

8:25

of the other human failings and sins

8:27

into it of corruption and all

8:29

the stuff, it just exacerbates it. But

8:32

that was my experience in Haiti. The other

8:34

thing I want to point out to you

8:36

is that you don't need a newspaper to

8:38

tell you these things. You can sense the

8:41

truth for yourself. Yes, I speak

8:43

a little bit of French, and so I was

8:45

able to have access to the Haitian culture, but

8:47

I didn't even need French to access

8:50

that feeling. I knew

8:52

very, very quickly that something is dreadfully

8:54

wrong in the society. And I got

8:56

out as quickly of the country as

8:58

I was able to. Today, there are

9:00

thousands and thousands and thousands of people

9:02

who are fleeing Haiti, trying to escape

9:04

to the Dominican Republic or elsewhere, trying

9:06

to escape to South America, trying to

9:08

get into the United States, across the

9:10

border. There are many, many people who are fleeing,

9:12

but it's not easy to flee today. It's not

9:14

nearly as easy as it was many years ago.

9:17

So remember this other truth, that if you

9:19

see a society heading in the wrong direction,

9:22

if you see people arguing with one another,

9:24

unwilling to submit to one another, unwilling to

9:26

serve one another with a free and glad

9:28

heart, make a

9:30

plan. This is one of the reasons why

9:32

I built International Escape Plan, www.internationalescapeplan.com,

9:35

the course that I taught

9:38

on getting out. Any Haitian who got

9:40

out of Haiti years ago is

9:42

extremely satisfied with his choice today. You do

9:45

not want to be among those who are

9:47

heading last minute to the airport or heading

9:49

last minute to the border, trying to bribe

9:51

someone to get your way out so you

9:53

and your family can make it. Let

9:56

Haiti be a lesson to you. Number one, serve

9:59

your neighbor. There's a

10:01

reason why when I do Q&A calls,

10:03

I always say, how can I serve

10:05

you today? I want

10:07

to serve you every

10:09

single day, and I want to

10:12

spread the attitude of service in

10:14

every cultural corner of the world

10:16

that I can myself impact with

10:18

my example, with my leadership. Service

10:21

is the foundation of a healthy society,

10:24

and when that service is missing due

10:26

to arrogant pride, ridiculous pride of your

10:28

unwillingness to humble yourself and serve another

10:31

human being because of the cultural baggage

10:33

of what happened to your ancestors, you

10:35

are never going to wind up in

10:37

a good situation. Study

10:40

Haiti. If you see problems happening

10:42

in your country, if you see a breakdown

10:44

of society, make a plan to get out

10:46

if you ever need to. internationalskateplan.com,

10:48

if you're interested in my course, I'll be back with

10:51

you very soon.