0:00

Welcome to Radical Personal Finance. My name

0:02

is Joshua Sheetsons. Today on the show,

0:04

I'd like to give you just a

0:06

quick personal report on the recently concluded

0:08

inaugural Radical Personal Finance family camp. Been

0:11

about a week and a half now since

0:13

we wrapped up the inaugural RPA family camp

0:16

in Seymour, Indiana, and I wanted to just

0:18

share with you publicly a little bit about

0:20

it. Some of you were able to come,

0:22

but of course, many of you weren't able to come. And

0:24

I thought I owe you since I talked to you and

0:26

told you it was going to be happening, I wanted to

0:29

give you a public report and just share with you a

0:31

little bit about the event and how it went. Put

0:33

simply, I was enormously satisfied with

0:36

the event. Hosting an in-person, what I

0:38

call it a family camp, hosting an

0:40

in-person event in the way that we

0:42

did it is something that I have

0:44

wanted to do for a very long

0:46

time. It's my basic

0:48

working hypothesis that going forward

0:50

in the coming years, the

0:53

best and most satisfying

0:56

relationships are going to be

0:58

those that exploit all of the wonder and

1:01

goodness and usefulness and convenience

1:04

and just fantasticness of

1:06

digital connectivity, as

1:09

well as all of

1:11

the wonderful fantasticness of

1:13

in-person relationships. The trend

1:16

that I've observed for quite a while

1:18

is that it's very

1:20

difficult to run effectively an all

1:23

virtual company. It's possible you may run

1:25

a department and be leading

1:28

a team of a dozen computer coders and

1:30

engineers spread out all around the world. And

1:33

you can do that sort of effectively from

1:35

many different places, but it's really hard to

1:37

do that effectively if

1:40

you're not building in-person

1:42

relationships, real in-person relationships.

1:45

On the other hand, it's difficult sometimes for

1:48

us to be completely surrounded at all times

1:50

with the kind of people that we'd like

1:52

to be together with in physical space at

1:54

all times. We all have different

1:56

reasons why we live where we live, and it can

1:58

be hard to find like minded people in

2:00

a local area. And

2:03

so I believe that the best possible

2:05

outcome for us going forward in the

2:07

future is to try to maximize both

2:09

of these things. And

2:12

so if you're running a company or a

2:14

department where you have people spread out around

2:16

the world, I think your best practice would

2:18

generally be to at least a couple times

2:20

a year, bring your entire

2:23

team together for several days, enough

2:25

time to engage in real

2:28

activities, real business, real productive

2:30

meetings, but also lots of time just

2:32

to hang out in a casual, unstructured

2:35

format. And that's

2:37

something that I, that's a principle that

2:39

I think also applies to what I've

2:41

wanted to do at Radical Personal Finance.

2:44

For a long time, I've had a

2:46

dream and a vision of bringing together

2:49

like-minded people who want

2:52

to just spend time together, want to

2:54

build friendships and relationships. And I think

2:56

that having something like this show that

2:59

allows a good form of

3:01

connectedness is an ideal way to

3:03

advance ideas, create thought-provoking

3:07

content, teach people effectively

3:09

about certain things, but that we should

3:11

go the next step forward and

3:14

bring people together in person. Unfortunately,

3:16

while it's been my dream for a

3:19

significant amount of time, my wife and I have been busy

3:21

with a bunch of little babies in our house. And

3:24

due to the demands of taking care of babies,

3:26

it just wasn't something that I've been able to

3:28

effectively accomplish. We were to go all the way

3:30

back to 2017. I

3:33

started actually about 2014. I

3:36

started meeting up with people at events that I

3:38

would go to. Then again,

3:40

we started to have a few babies and I stopped

3:43

going to so many events. And

3:45

then after that, we traveled across

3:47

the country in 2018. And

3:49

one of the dreams that I had of that trip was

3:51

to host meetups everywhere we went. I was going to go

3:53

from city to city to city. We were going to have

3:55

our RV and we were going to host meetups. As it

3:57

turns out, we did it a few times. it

4:00

was simply too difficult to figure out

4:02

the logistics of it. And it

4:04

was also difficult when coming together for

4:06

a meetup of just, say, a

4:08

three or four-hour event. It was difficult for

4:10

there to be enough time for me to

4:13

interact effectively with the listener, with all of

4:15

you in the way that I really enjoy.

4:17

I want to interact with people, but it's

4:20

difficult to do it in

4:22

an environment where, let's say,

4:24

I'm there for two or three hours and there's

4:26

20, 30, 40 people.

4:28

That leads to just doing the math, a conversation

4:30

of two or three or four or five minutes

4:33

each. And I've done that in many

4:35

cities around the United States and just found that I

4:37

really love meeting people, but it's hard to have the

4:39

kind of connection that I would like

4:41

to have of being able to spend a

4:43

few days together. And so one

4:45

of the goals that I've had is we've been

4:47

getting out of Babyville, and I've been able to

4:50

get things squared away to where

4:52

I can travel again and I can do

4:55

this kind of thing. One of the goals

4:57

that I've had is to do more in-person

4:59

events. And it started with the event that

5:01

I did in Panama a few months ago

5:03

with Michael Thorop. That was fantastic. Really loved

5:06

getting to know my listeners that came. And

5:08

we were able to hang out together for

5:10

almost a week on a pretty deep level.

5:12

And just all the time together was great.

5:14

We did all kinds of events and presentations

5:17

and classes, but more importantly, or more fun.

5:19

We just go for cocktails on the rooftop

5:21

at Costco Viejo or go and travel

5:23

on the bus together. And it gave us time

5:25

to talk about anything and everything and really get

5:28

to know one another. And it was really a

5:30

really wonderful experience for me and a really

5:33

wonderful experience for all of my

5:35

listeners who came to that event. And so then

5:38

I was excited to follow that up with the

5:40

Radical Personal Find This Family Camp because one of

5:42

the challenges simply is that I

5:44

don't want my business life to be isolated

5:46

and for me to go away and do

5:48

my business thing and leave my family behind.

5:51

One of the reasons I always had for building

5:53

the kind of business that I run

5:55

is to have something like a family

5:57

integrated business. Well, I will always...

6:00

do the main work. I want to

6:02

use my business as a strategic part

6:04

of my life and lifestyle and family.

6:06

I want my wife to be involved

6:08

with it. I want her to be

6:10

able to have opportunities to express

6:12

her skills and talents in the context of

6:15

business. I want my children to be able

6:17

to be involved with my business. I want

6:19

my business to be something that gives

6:22

us a platform for them to learn important

6:24

skills that are necessary for their long-term growth

6:26

and their success. I, of course, want to

6:28

use my business to pay all of the

6:30

relevant people and enjoy some of the tax

6:32

benefits that can come from hiring family

6:35

members, employees, and all of that stuff

6:37

too. More importantly, it's just the

6:39

training aspects for me. I don't think that

6:41

children should be segregated from society

6:43

and locked away in armed

6:47

compounds where they're just separated from society.

6:49

I think that the natural

6:51

place for children and young

6:53

people is to be integrated

6:55

into society in an

6:58

age-diffuse way where they're interacting with people

7:00

of their own age and also people

7:02

of varying ages, younger, older. I think

7:05

that's the healthiest environment for

7:07

human beings to be in. For me,

7:09

my business has always formed

7:11

an important part of my plan to do that.

7:14

It's just that it's hard to do that with

7:16

babies. You've got to get out of baby stage.

7:19

Radical Personal Finance Family Camp was,

7:22

for me, just an enormously important

7:24

part of my long-term plan, an

7:26

enormously important part of what

7:28

I wanted to do. It

7:31

never would have happened, however, if it weren't

7:33

for a long-time listener to the

7:35

show and a personal

7:37

friend of mine who basically

7:39

took away all my excuses. I'm not

7:42

going to tell the story here publicly because I told

7:44

it at the camp and we'll leave some things for

7:46

it. A friend of mine basically arranged all the details

7:48

and said, �Joshua, I think we should do a camp

7:50

and I've made it easy for you.� He

7:53

made it so easy for me, I couldn't say no. What

7:55

we didn't know, however, going into the

7:57

camp was exactly what to offer. As

8:00

you might get and understand when you gonna

8:02

create something you have to offer something to

8:04

the market and see what the market says

8:07

to it. And you can

8:09

do customer research you can do surveys

8:11

you can talk to people but the

8:13

end of the day it's hard to

8:15

understand exactly what the market wants until

8:17

you offer it and see who buys

8:19

and see what happens. And

8:22

even if you can do great

8:24

customer research. About what

8:26

people want in reality you still have

8:28

to go through the process of creating

8:31

something offering it to the market and

8:33

seeing what people actually pay for because

8:35

sometimes people say they want and then

8:37

what they really want are different and

8:40

you know that based upon people who

8:42

click by and send

8:44

you money. I think it was Henry Ford

8:47

who said if I ask people what they want they would have

8:49

all set a faster horse with sometimes we

8:51

don't know exactly what we want. So

8:53

in creating this camp what our

8:56

idea was was to create an

8:58

event that would focus on bringing

9:00

people together to build relationships but

9:02

then would also provide some justification

9:05

of excuses for being together in

9:07

order and structure for the

9:09

for the event so we. Came

9:12

up with the idea of basically a

9:14

four day three night event starting on

9:16

Thursday going through till Sunday and

9:19

we try to put together a

9:21

diverse track of activities so I

9:23

taught some classes on finance try

9:26

to keep it somewhat general and broad

9:29

so that I would have the ability to

9:31

respond to the questions that were in the

9:33

room. Rather than making this I didn't create

9:35

a hyper specialized tax seminars or or hyper

9:37

specialized you know asset protection seminar just try

9:40

to keep it broad and inclusive

9:42

so that I could respond to whatever was in

9:44

the room and questions that were there. Then

9:47

we put together what we call the lifestyle

9:49

track and what we're imagining is wanting to

9:51

build something that would be appealing to families

9:53

so I was imagining that if your

9:55

relationships your relationship with

9:58

your wife or husband is anything like mine. I'm

10:00

interested in finance and my wife not so much. And so

10:03

we thought, well, how could we create something

10:05

that would be appealing to couples where one

10:08

person is interested in one thing and the other

10:10

person is interested in something else? And so we

10:12

created what we call a lifestyle track. And we

10:14

tried to come up with a list of seminars

10:18

and classes that would be appealing

10:20

to different people based

10:22

upon the kinds of things that are appealing to me

10:24

and the kinds of things that I talk about and

10:26

figuring that you guys are probably something

10:28

like me and interested in similar things. Then

10:32

we tried to create something that would

10:34

be attractive for people of varying ages.

10:37

So of course, I'm middle-aged and we

10:39

have some things that were helpful for

10:41

middle-aged and older people. Then we tried

10:43

to create some stuff for younger people.

10:45

We wound up having a wonderful teenage

10:47

entrepreneur who has created a very successful

10:50

business, come

10:52

and make presentations and that was of special

10:54

interest to our teens and young people. And

10:57

then we created all kinds of camp

11:00

activities for younger children because the way

11:02

that we hosted this particular event was

11:04

that I rented an entire, basically church

11:06

camp facility. Little bit in the

11:08

off season, it was springtime, so

11:12

it was kind of a guess of

11:14

what the weather would turn out to be, but that

11:16

was when we were able to get the facility, so

11:18

it worked out really well. And

11:20

I'm just thankful to you guys. The

11:23

first entire camp that we had rented, the first

11:26

entire thing sold out in less than a week.

11:28

It was six days and I sold the last

11:30

one, last spot that we

11:32

had available, which was just amazingly

11:34

encouraging to me to

11:37

see your response, to see that you were

11:39

willing to come and sign up. So I

11:41

went back to the facility and I was

11:43

able to negotiate another about 15 rooms

11:46

and cabins on top of the initial

11:48

one that I had done and

11:50

we sold those out in about another week as

11:53

well. So it turns out the total

11:55

number of attendees was just north of 160, I forget if

11:57

it was 161 or 163. something

12:00

like that, just a little more than 160, which

12:03

I thought was a great size for this

12:06

event. I was able to spend

12:08

time with just about everybody for

12:11

at least various conversations,

12:14

which I really loved. And

12:16

it turned

12:18

out really, really well. The

12:20

thing that the first couple of days we had cold

12:22

and rainy weather. And so thankfully we had to adapt

12:24

our schedule a little bit, but that all worked out.

12:26

Then it turned warm and sunny and beautiful. And the

12:28

last couple of days, which was wonderful. And

12:31

the feedback from every

12:34

attendee was really positive. We

12:37

issued a survey at the end of the event.

12:42

And about 70%, we asked people, would you come next time? Yes,

12:47

maybe, and no. About 70%

12:49

of the people said yes. The remaining

12:52

30%, about 28% or whatever it turned out, said

12:55

maybe, depending on where it is and

12:58

details, and then we had one no, which the no

13:00

had a wonderful note to set. I really loved that

13:02

a great time is just too far away, which

13:05

was totally, of course, totally wonderful.

13:07

And people came from all around the country,

13:09

which was just an amazing, an amazing,

13:12

what an honor. And

13:16

I think everybody had a great time. The

13:19

thing that I found

13:21

most interesting was

13:24

how everyone

13:26

seemed to click really well, even

13:29

people of very diverse backgrounds.

13:32

I was so pleased to see

13:34

that, probably due to

13:36

the filtration of

13:39

you being willing to listen to me, we

13:41

just had the nicest

13:43

group of people who were able to

13:45

come together and engage

13:48

with one another. And so people had many

13:50

things in common. But even

13:52

if we didn't have many things in common, other

13:55

than just simply being connected

13:57

through this platform, through radical personal

13:59

finance. We found commonality

14:01

in our ability to engage in

14:04

important things and engage

14:06

in important conversations. There

14:08

was just such an attitude of respect and

14:11

appreciation for other human beings

14:14

that I found enormously refreshing.

14:17

We talked, we had conversations

14:19

about all different stuff.

14:21

Obviously some stuff, finance, some stuff, lifestyle

14:25

related, plenty of just personal

14:27

interactions and my listeners, you

14:29

all had just wonderful things to say to me

14:31

which I really was grateful for. But

14:34

what I really enjoyed was seeing

14:36

how within a very

14:39

short period of time, within a day or

14:41

two, as I

14:43

would dip in and out of different conversations

14:45

and different campfire circles, I

14:47

found that we were interacting with

14:49

one another on serious

14:52

things and really

14:54

getting the benefit of real

14:56

true diversity. And

14:58

that's something that I feel is so often

15:01

lacking in our world today. I

15:03

have an annoyance with the way that

15:05

the word diversity has come to be

15:08

used in our current

15:10

environment. In

15:13

its current usage, the term

15:15

diversity means basically what

15:17

color is your skin and

15:19

what is your

15:21

gender expression. That's about

15:24

the limit of diversity as

15:26

it's understood today. I

15:29

don't care much myself for that

15:31

kind of diversity. I don't think the

15:33

color of your skin or your

15:35

gender really matters. I

15:37

think what's much more important is the

15:39

diversity of your thoughts, your ideas, your

15:43

background, your experiences, those kinds of things

15:45

are the kind of diversity that I

15:47

think is genuinely productive. And

15:49

it was just such a great expression

15:52

of people from diverse

15:55

backgrounds and diverse experiences

15:57

but yet shared with... a

16:01

very common desire to improve

16:03

things, improve the world and

16:05

see things better. And

16:07

I was amazed. I

16:10

mean, frankly, it's a good thing that

16:15

I'm grateful that so many of you

16:17

listened to this show. And honestly, I

16:19

wonder sometimes why you do because so

16:21

many of my listeners are just incredibly

16:23

impressive people. And that

16:25

came out in the actual

16:28

event, just time over and time over. I

16:31

made several friends there among my

16:33

listeners and attendees that I hope

16:35

are friends for life. And I'm

16:37

just incredibly impressed by

16:40

you guys. You guys are

16:42

smart, driven people, and it's just

16:44

an honor to be involved with

16:46

you. So

16:48

it was, if the event could have gone better,

16:50

I don't know how. We

16:52

had some various wrinkles and things,

16:55

but that was all first-time learnings.

16:57

I think for the most part, we smoothed.

17:02

Everything worked out. The

17:05

worst thing that was about to happen was I had

17:07

made a mistake. I was the one who'd made all

17:09

the bedroom assignments and cabin assignments. And

17:11

it was a little bit of a puzzle to try

17:13

to figure out how to put people together, and I

17:15

had these two facilities that were

17:17

separated by a significant

17:20

walk. And

17:23

so I was trying to figure out how do I do

17:25

it. I'm trying to pack everyone together and trying to put

17:27

like – and I tried to put –

17:29

I was hoping that we could

17:32

use the camp environment to facilitate interaction.

17:35

So unlike being in some hotel where everyone goes

17:37

off to their own room, I really liked the

17:39

idea of a camp environment. This camp was beautiful.

17:41

It was great. It was modern, up-to-date, but it

17:43

was still a camp. It was a little bit

17:45

– it was rustic. It's a camp, but it

17:47

was – it's a recently built camp and perfectly

17:49

adequate facilities. So no

17:51

one was really suffering. So I worked really hard

17:54

to try to put people together where it would

17:56

be easy for them to use communal

17:58

areas. and hopefully make

18:01

friends with people around them and all

18:03

of that. Then at check-in, everything's

18:05

going really well. Everyone's getting all

18:08

settled in. I

18:10

had worked out the rooms to just perfectly.

18:12

I sold the exact maximum number of tickets

18:14

that I could, and then I get

18:17

there and a family arrives that I don't have a

18:19

cabin for. I

18:21

just hadn't even have them on my list. It

18:23

was a moment of potential

18:25

disaster, but thankfully, I was able

18:27

to avert it and made one

18:29

quick change, two quick changes

18:31

of room assignments, and

18:33

everything worked out. They were

18:35

growing pains, and there were other issues that came

18:37

up, but on the whole, it worked

18:40

out really, really beautifully. I

18:42

was enormously encouraged by that.

18:46

I just share that as a report.

18:48

I'm not publishing videos or audios or

18:50

anything from the event. I

18:54

have the privilege of being able to speak to you with

18:56

a microphone whenever I want. I can turn on a camera

18:58

whenever I want. I really

19:00

think that in many cases, electronic

19:03

eyes around us mess

19:06

up real human connection. I'm

19:09

not trying to create something that, in

19:11

this particular event, was not designed to

19:13

be anything that was live-streamed. I'm not

19:15

sharing any of the audio publicly. It

19:17

was real interactions with people who were

19:20

there. What does

19:22

the future hold? I would

19:24

say this was certainly the inaugural event, and

19:26

I will certainly repeat this event in the

19:28

future. I'm trying to figure out

19:30

exactly how to do that. In

19:33

balancing future events, there's basically

19:35

three things that I'm

19:37

trying to juggle. The first one

19:39

is simply what the actual offering

19:42

is. This

19:44

one that I'm referring to here was the

19:46

Radical Personal Finance Family Camp. I made it

19:48

very friendly to families, and it

19:50

provided the kind of environment that I was

19:52

excited about. Not only was it you and

19:54

your families, but I was able to bring

19:56

my wife, my children, my parents, and various

19:58

members of my family. nuclear and

20:01

extended family and so that

20:03

interaction of my family with your family was

20:05

something that I thought was just a wonderful

20:08

aspect of it. Then

20:10

the previous one in Panama was not friendly

20:12

to families and that was purely an adult

20:14

trip which was also really great in a

20:16

totally different way. So there's

20:18

a balance between a family camp versus

20:21

an adult event. There's a balance between

20:23

an event that is at a

20:25

camp facility where it's a little bit rustic, very

20:28

basic versus something that's higher end.

20:31

So there's a difference between

20:33

what I tried to do with this event which

20:35

was talk a little bit but not too much

20:38

and teach a little bit not too much versus something

20:40

that's very content focused oriented

20:42

on a specific transformational event

20:44

of content of come here in

20:46

two days. We're going to accomplish

20:48

this specific outcome or teach

20:51

this body of material that's very applicable

20:53

to people. So that's one thing is

20:55

the exact offering. The

20:58

second thing is balancing a location. So

21:00

this location was in Indiana which in

21:02

some cases is centrally located but it

21:04

wasn't the easiest thing to get to.

21:07

It was easy in terms of airports.

21:10

We had equidistant from

21:12

Indianapolis, Louisville and Cincinnati

21:14

but it wasn't the

21:16

easiest thing to get to in terms of people. So

21:20

there's a much higher population

21:22

density in other parts of the United States. So

21:24

could I do events in other parts of the

21:26

United States? I still really

21:29

appreciate the international aspect

21:31

of life but I understand that's

21:33

not something that resonates with everyone

21:35

in the show. So

21:39

kind of balancing that coming where you are

21:41

versus trying to pull you outside the United

21:43

States and do enjoy

21:45

things outside the United States. And

21:47

then balancing just frequency and figuring

21:50

out what I can

21:53

do in terms of frequency versus what's

21:55

too much, what's not enough. Certainly I

21:58

will make the And

22:00

certainly I intend to make the radical

22:02

personal finance camp an annual event. Beyond

22:05

that, I don't want to make any public commitments. Hosting

22:08

an event is a pretty big disruption in terms

22:10

of the work associated

22:13

with it. I

22:15

found it to be an enormously profitable

22:17

event that didn't make any

22:20

money. So the profit

22:22

was all non-financial. And so finding

22:24

that balance between financial profit as

22:26

compared to other forms of profit

22:29

is a balance as well in figuring

22:31

those things out. So bear with me as we

22:33

go through the growing pains. We'll work out some

22:35

of these things over time. But

22:38

at its core, for me, the event

22:40

was very, very important to build a

22:43

connection with you

22:47

in person and then go from

22:50

there. We've

22:52

created, in the wake of the

22:54

in-person event, with those personal

22:56

relationships. We've created a

22:59

really great group with lots of digital

23:01

interaction where those of us who attended

23:03

the event are continuing our interactions. And

23:05

I'm finding that to be really, really

23:08

productive and helpful as well. Because

23:12

once you've met someone, once you spend a couple

23:14

nights around a campfire with someone, once you've shared

23:16

a few drinks with someone and a few laughs

23:18

and a tier or two in private, then

23:21

it gives you then the ability to

23:23

go on and feel much more confident,

23:25

especially in a closed electronic setting, sharing

23:27

your questions, sharing your concerns in a

23:29

real way that with

23:32

your friends rather than random people on

23:34

the internet, which is, I think,

23:38

what we're all looking for. So I

23:40

just want to say thank you. Thank you to those

23:42

of you who came and who worked with it. Thank

23:45

you especially to Andy who helped me organize it. Thank

23:48

you to every one of you who came. It

23:51

was an honor to interact with you. And

23:53

I'm thrilled for the friendships that we have

23:55

begun. And thank you to every

23:57

one of you who listens. I hope that I can...

24:00

can offer you something in the future that will be appealing

24:02

to you. And regardless

24:04

of whether you are able

24:06

to come to one of my events or not, I

24:09

would just encourage you to do

24:11

everything you can to expand your

24:13

social contacts, build friendships, build community

24:15

in your local area. We

24:17

need it right now. All of us need friends.

24:20

We need people who will walk with us,

24:22

who encourage us, who can teach us, who

24:24

can inspire us, and they're

24:27

right around you. It's just a matter

24:29

of you reaching out to them and looking for them. I

24:32

really believe that every person is

24:34

my superior in some way.

24:37

You are my superior in some way, and

24:40

I'm your superior in some way. And

24:43

a healthy, productive relationship can

24:46

be built upon you

24:49

and my looking for that interaction

24:52

and searching it out. And

24:55

we can walk together in a

24:57

very productive relationship as

24:59

long as we take the effort to initiate them.

25:01

So thank you very much. That's my report on

25:03

Radical Personal Finance Family Camp on the inaugural one,

25:05

and I look forward to seeing you at a

25:07

future event. This

25:09

Fort Wayne Philharmonic season is bigger, bolder,

25:12

and beyond. Join us on Saturday, March

25:14

23rd at our performance hall at PFW

25:16

Music Center as we welcome pianist and

25:19

crooner extraordinaire Tony Deser for Sinatra and

25:21

Beyond. Caleb Young conducts the Fort Wayne

25:23

Philharmonic as Mr. Deser brings his infectious

25:26

versions of Sinatra standards and more. Come

25:28

fly with us for a Swing Through

25:30

America songbook with two performances on March

25:33

23rd. Sinatra and Beyond

25:35

with Tony Deser. For tickets, go to

25:37

fwphil.org.