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Radical Personal Finance is live Q&A. Welcome

0:49

to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you

0:51

with the knowledge, skills, insights, and encouragement you need to

0:53

live a rich and meaningful life now while building a

0:55

plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My

0:58

name is Joshua Sheets. Today is Friday, February 16,

1:00

2024. And

1:04

on this Friday, after a multi-week

1:06

hiatus, we do live Q&A. You call

1:08

in, talk about anything you want, any

1:10

questions, any topics. It's up to you.

1:21

If you don't know what to

1:24

call in and talk about, well, welcome to my world. I actually

1:26

really enjoy doing these Friday Q&A shows because they're easy for me

1:28

because I don't have to pick the topic. It's

1:31

not hard for me to record podcasts. It's hard

1:33

for me to choose the topics to record podcasts

1:35

on because there's so many twists and turns. Oh,

1:38

I could talk about this, but I could talk

1:40

about that. Or how much should I talk about

1:42

it, etc. Showing up to Friday shows

1:44

is easy because you have to do all that work. You have

1:46

to decide what we talk about. If you would like to join

1:48

me in one of these Friday Q&A shows, you could do that

1:50

by becoming a patron of the show. Go to patreon.com slash

1:52

radical personal finance. patreon.com/radical personal finance.

1:54

That will gain access for you

1:56

to these Friday Q&A shows. I

1:58

do that just. to meter the amount

2:00

of calls to an appropriate number so

2:03

that we don't wind up with 25 callers on the line, et

2:06

cetera, and something that I can't do. So

2:08

please, go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance. We begin today with

2:10

Dan in Colorado. Dan, welcome to the show.

2:13

How can I serve you today, sir? Hey,

2:17

Joshua, thanks so much. I

2:19

am 32 years old. I have a two-year-old

2:21

and a seven-month-old. I currently work

2:23

remotely, have a salary of about 150,000 with

2:26

a 10 to 20% bonus. My

2:29

wife works remotely part-time with

2:32

a really flexible schedule, and she takes care of the boys the

2:34

rest of the time. We

2:36

plan to move close to our family this spring, but

2:39

my boss recently offered me a promotion that I would

2:41

need to move to a different city for. It's

2:44

a vice president, executive level role that

2:47

would roughly double my salary, come

2:49

with a much larger bonus, and would also include

2:52

some ownership in the company that is likely to

2:54

IPO in the next year. Awesome.

2:58

Thanks. We saved a lot of

3:00

money in our 20s. Pretty comfortable. Also

3:02

had a side business with a FinTech product that was about

3:04

to hit the market, and I expect it to do really

3:06

well. I really like

3:09

the lifestyle of working remotely, but with the

3:11

new job, I would need to go into the office two to three days a week.

3:14

Not really a big deal. My initial thought, though,

3:16

was to turn the position down so that we could

3:18

still move kind of close to our family like we

3:20

intended, but after sitting with it for a while, I'm

3:23

kind of wondering if I'm crazy for not taking a role like

3:25

this, especially since it's the

3:27

first quarter of my career, certainly

3:29

be among the youngest VPs in the

3:32

industry, and the title could

3:34

lend some additional credibility to my side venture, and

3:37

would absolutely make it easier to get another

3:39

VP gig at any point in my life

3:41

after this. So three quick questions. Would

3:44

I be crazy for not taking this if I decided

3:46

not to, or would I be

3:48

crazy for taking it? Either way, I guess. If

3:51

I were to take the job for a year

3:53

or two just to get

3:55

the street cred, and then would

3:58

moving it... a two-year-old and a

4:01

seven-month-old out and then back,

4:03

being okay, things do. I think it is, but it

4:05

might be nice to hear somebody else say that. And

4:09

then finally, if I were to negotiate a

4:11

schedule where I could be in a new

4:13

city for a month and then back home

4:15

for one to two months, would moving my

4:17

family back and forth that often for a

4:19

couple of years be irresponsible in your opinion?

4:23

When you talk about moving your family

4:25

to be back home or close to

4:27

the rest of your family, specifically

4:30

which family members are you

4:32

referring to? How many of

4:34

them are there? And

4:36

what does close mean? Good

4:39

question. Yeah, so it's basically

4:42

everyone. It's both of our parents, so

4:44

all the grandparents, all

4:46

of our siblings and their children.

4:49

And we would be within

4:51

about two hours of

4:53

them initially, because we

4:56

were gonna move to our vacation property for a

4:58

year or two. We have a lot

5:00

of problems going on out there. So it'd be easily

5:02

within a weekend drive, whereas we are not now.

5:05

With about three

5:07

to four years out when my older son

5:10

starts kindergarten, we would move probably

5:12

back into the same county. Okay.

5:17

First thing is I don't know

5:19

how to answer the question of

5:21

living close to family in

5:25

any kind of financial framework. And

5:28

I don't know that I have any kind of broadly

5:31

applicable framework, so let me just kind of lay

5:33

out a couple of thoughts to consider as we

5:36

talk about it. First,

5:39

let's acknowledge that moving

5:43

close to family would ordinarily

5:46

be considered by most people a positive

5:48

thing to do, unless

5:51

there's some kind of dysfunctional or toxic

5:53

family, et cetera. Generally speaking, we appreciate

5:56

that we want to be close to

5:58

those that were most... most dear

6:00

to that we love those who were

6:03

most dear to. And so that generally

6:05

I think is a positive thing. And

6:07

the fact that all of your family

6:10

is together in one place, meaning both

6:12

sides of the family across the board,

6:14

that creates an enormous

6:16

attraction because those relationships

6:18

for you and for

6:20

your wife and for your children, those relationships

6:22

will be very productive and helpful, especially

6:25

in these early years of

6:27

you having some help, some relief,

6:30

interactions, friends, people that you

6:32

know well, et cetera. So

6:34

that's a positive, beneficial thing.

6:39

I don't know that that is

6:41

always the determining factor though. I've

6:44

wrestled with this a lot. I don't currently live

6:46

close to my family and I've repeatedly

6:49

questioned my own motives because I could

6:51

live anywhere. And the question is, am I,

6:55

why don't I live close to my family? If

6:57

I believe what I just said, which I do,

7:00

that living near family is useful and helpful and

7:02

productive, et cetera, then why don't I myself at

7:04

this time live close to my family? And part

7:06

of it is that I did for a long

7:08

time and without

7:12

getting into my story, just saying that I

7:15

guess the reason is you need to have some

7:17

kind of strong reason not to. And

7:19

so there can be many reasons and no

7:21

one is out here judging your decisions, but

7:24

you'd wanna have some reason as to why

7:26

you're not living close to family. And

7:28

you have something of a reason and

7:30

that's what you're wrestling with. You didn't

7:32

have a great alternative choice and so

7:35

the previous plan was move close to family.

7:37

Now all of a sudden, you've got a

7:39

really strong job offer, can advance your career,

7:41

could possibly be a shorter term thing. Now

7:43

you have a good compelling reason to

7:46

consider an alternative. And I'm not gonna be

7:48

the guy to tell you what you should

7:50

or shouldn't do, just that it's

7:52

fine, I think, to consider it as

7:55

you are. And at the end of the day, the

7:58

basic thought that I have on that, that subject is

8:00

that living close to

8:03

family doesn't seem to me

8:05

like a goal in and

8:07

of itself that

8:09

really should make the difference. And

8:12

I've wrestled with this a lot with my own children. Is

8:15

my goal in raising children, is

8:18

my goal to raise them so that they can live

8:20

next to me for the rest of their life? And

8:23

when I put it in kind of a blunt and

8:25

crass way, I think most people would say, well, no,

8:28

that's not my goal. So what

8:30

is my goal? Well, I want to enjoy relationship

8:32

with my children, but I also want my children

8:34

to do something and to impact the world. We're

8:36

here on mission. We've got a job to do.

8:39

And so that's the standard that I'm

8:41

going to apply to my own children. I'm going to

8:44

say that I'm not bringing you into the world so

8:46

that you can be my next four neighbors as our

8:48

highest and best goal. I'm bringing you

8:50

into the world so that you can serve mankind

8:52

so that we can transform the world. We're

8:55

on a mission. And so to me,

8:57

it seems in that light, it seems perfectly

8:59

reasonable for me to look forward

9:01

to close relationships with my

9:04

children. But I'm not going to hold

9:06

my children to some

9:10

standard that exists in my mind that somehow

9:13

the height of family goals and future

9:16

is to be my next door

9:18

neighbor. That's not the goal. The

9:20

goal is that you do something in the world and

9:22

that you fulfill your purpose in the world. That puts

9:24

you here for a reason and you have a purpose,

9:26

something to do, and I'm going to support you in

9:29

that. And if that means we can do that being

9:31

my next door neighbor and laboring together in something, wonderful.

9:33

And if that means that you're going to go to

9:35

the other side of the world and

9:37

do something on the other side of the world,

9:39

absolutely, I'm going to support you. And we're going

9:41

to look to enjoy as much fellowship and relationship

9:44

between us as we possibly

9:46

can. That would be

9:48

the first thing. The second thing is, do I need

9:51

my family at this point in time? So you've got

9:53

a wife with a two-year-old and a seven-month-old. Let's

9:56

say you have another baby next year, all of

9:58

a sudden her life's pretty intense. And

10:00

so there may be a

10:03

phase of life in which she really

10:05

needs some help and maybe being near

10:07

family could be a really important component

10:09

of that or it might be the

10:11

opposite. It might be that other things are better. So

10:13

you should always look at your family, look at your

10:15

wife, just ask do we need our family's help at

10:17

this point in time. But I don't think that the

10:19

goal is to always be specifically

10:21

there. That's not the

10:23

life goal. And so if there's purpose in

10:25

your making an alternative choice and

10:27

one of the cost is going to

10:30

be distance in your family relationships, to

10:32

me that seems an acceptable decision

10:34

if that's what you decide. The

10:36

reason I ask about distance is

10:38

quite simply I think

10:40

there's an enormous difference in

10:42

the lifestyle that you have

10:45

if you're two hours away from family

10:47

versus if you are 15 minutes

10:50

away from family versus if you are three

10:53

minute walk away from family. And

10:56

what I have experienced and observed

10:58

from a lot of people is

11:00

that the idea of being close

11:02

to family actually in

11:04

reality turns out to be well we see

11:06

each other once a month and

11:09

you say well is this really the key? And

11:12

then instead of actually doing something together,

11:14

being intimately involved in one another's lives

11:17

and pursuing similar goals, it often turns

11:19

into well we watch the Super Bowl

11:21

together and you know that's about it.

11:24

And we have these superficial relationships

11:26

and superficial contact and so

11:28

you should judge your family relationships

11:30

and ask is there going

11:33

to be something where we're genuinely going

11:35

to be working together in a close

11:37

way or are we just going to be living in

11:39

the same town? And

11:41

if you're two hours away, you're probably not seeing them

11:43

weekly. If you are seeing them weekly, it's going to

11:45

feel like a real burden and it's going to take

11:47

real effort for you to say on Saturday morning we're

11:49

going to drive over to the next town over. On

11:52

Saturday morning we're going to drive over the next two

11:54

hours away and that's something you're going to do once

11:56

or twice a month. So now all

11:58

of a sudden you're down quite a lot. And so

12:00

in terms of strategy, my point is

12:02

that if you can quite literally live

12:05

walking distance to your parents so that your

12:08

children can just run in and out of

12:10

their house all the time and

12:12

anytime you need to step out, you can call

12:14

them over to take care of the children and

12:16

maybe you send your six-year-old over to work with

12:18

grandpa on his math, exercise, etc.

12:21

That's a much

12:23

more worthy being close to family than

12:25

is being 20 minutes away or being

12:28

two hours away. And so

12:31

that's why I ask those questions. Now to

12:33

your question, to the specific things. Are you

12:36

crazy to take or to not take? No,

12:38

I don't think you're crazy to take or

12:40

to not take. You are young and your

12:42

career is an enormous component of

12:44

your life and it

12:46

is not wrong to prioritize career

12:49

advancement. Career advancement

12:51

and your accepting responsibility when

12:53

it is offered to you,

12:56

that is an important component of why

12:58

you're here on this earth. Certainly

13:01

the money and the additional financial

13:04

power that you accumulate with

13:06

higher salary and with more

13:08

savings, that will be an

13:11

important component of your work. But

13:14

also just simply having more power

13:16

and more status and authority in

13:18

your company and in your career

13:20

is an important thing for you

13:22

to embrace, especially as young

13:24

as you are because most careers

13:27

properly managed work on a ratcheting

13:29

mechanism. It is that once you

13:32

reach a certain status, a

13:34

certain job description of a vice president

13:36

of XYZ, a certain salary, a certain

13:39

type of work environment, then you're often

13:41

not going to go beneath that.

13:44

And for you to accomplish your purpose in

13:46

life as long as you don't feel like

13:48

you're in the wrong career or the wrong

13:51

business or something like that, you want to

13:53

embrace responsibility whenever it's offered to you. And

13:55

so I didn't have years

13:58

ago, this is a major change that I'm made

14:00

in the last 10 years. Years ago, I thought

14:02

that the point of working was to get financially

14:04

independent so I could quit working. I

14:06

now don't see it that way and I think

14:09

I was foolish and naive to formally even consider

14:11

that as an appropriate scenario. Rather,

14:13

you need to bear responsibility and

14:15

bearing responsibility in society and in

14:18

your community and in your company,

14:20

etc. is going to mean saying

14:22

yes to additional responsibility when it's

14:24

offered to you. Your

14:27

default answer to that should be yes and

14:29

it's only if there's a strong compelling reason

14:32

not to do that as in, you know,

14:34

my wife is sick and dying and I've

14:36

got to care for her or my children

14:38

are heading into a ditch and

14:40

I got to rescue them or my parents

14:43

desperately need me or something like that. Then

14:45

the general default should be say yes

14:47

to more responsibility because

14:49

that will broaden your impact in

14:52

your family, your community and in

14:54

the world around and it's

14:56

a good thing. Number two, if you work for

14:58

one or two more years and then move, would

15:01

that work? I think absolutely. Now, you

15:03

should consider of course things like the age of your

15:05

parents or your parents younger or older. We, none of

15:07

us know how long our parents would live but if

15:10

your parents are say 50 years

15:13

old and there's a decent chance

15:15

that they're going to have a long and healthy

15:17

life, then now it's easier for you to stay

15:20

away for another couple of years until you make

15:22

this move. If your parents are 99

15:24

years old and they don't know your children, then

15:27

now there's more of a reason for you to

15:29

move closer. But doing this for

15:32

one or two more years I think is absolutely great.

15:36

I don't think that there's

15:38

any reason to give much thought

15:41

to what children need in

15:43

a specific location until

15:45

you reach the early teenage years,

15:48

something like 12 years old or

15:50

so. What I mean by that

15:52

is that if you have

15:55

a 4-year-old and you move your 4-year-old across

15:57

the country and your 4-year-old's best

16:00

friend that he played with every day

16:02

becomes someone else, is

16:04

that harmful to the child? I

16:06

don't think so. And I don't

16:08

think that you need to worry too much about really

16:11

almost any of those things until

16:13

you again reach those early teen years where

16:15

a child is starting to develop an independent

16:17

vision of life of what his life

16:19

is going to look like after

16:22

he passes out of your immediate family.

16:24

And that's where you want to be

16:26

thoughtful about how can I help this

16:28

child enhance his

16:30

career, how can I help him pursue

16:33

the path that's going to be best for him, I need

16:35

to be respectful of his wishes and

16:38

his vision for his life, things like

16:40

that in addition to just

16:42

what's best for the family. But up until that point,

16:44

I think that you should just consider your family unit

16:46

as a whole and you don't

16:48

need to worry too much about moving

16:51

people around, etc. You can figure out

16:53

the best circumstances in any particular schedule.

16:56

And then number three, negotiating the schedule for

16:58

one month here, one month there, etc. I

17:01

don't know, you would have to test that out. What

17:03

I would say is that it's probably more stressful on

17:06

your family than it will

17:08

be on you. You can come and

17:10

go pretty easily, but unless you have a

17:12

really great home in both places, then

17:15

that's going to be super stressful. So

17:18

just as like a practical discussion of

17:21

this, my

17:23

wife and I, we've done quite a lot of traveling with

17:25

young children. And generally speaking, my

17:27

wife doesn't enjoy it and I don't really

17:29

enjoy it either, but with a lot with

17:31

young children. But the reason is that

17:34

when you have one space that you know,

17:36

you know what the risks are, you know

17:38

what's there, you know what the toys are,

17:41

you know where the boundaries are, etc. That

17:43

makes your job as a parent of young

17:45

children a lot easier. My

17:47

wife didn't enjoy traveling around the country in

17:49

an RV because even though we had an

17:51

RV, she didn't have any continuity

17:54

between what was outside of the RV. So

17:56

you can't just send the children off randomly

17:58

to go ride their bikes. because

18:01

you don't know what's out there. You have to go

18:03

out and scout it for danger and try to figure

18:05

out what's appropriate and what's here. So that just adds

18:07

a lot of work to caring for little children. Whereas

18:09

if you're in one place, one home, and we know

18:11

where all the toys are and

18:14

the children have their own things, then they

18:16

can be a little bit more independent and

18:18

that really reduces the burden on the parents

18:21

when you are in one place. And so

18:23

I'm skeptical that kind of flipping back and

18:26

forth, unless you're going between two houses that

18:28

you own, that you have a good infrastructure

18:30

set up in both places, I'm skeptical of

18:32

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Jeep is a registered trademark. All

19:07

right, perfect, man. Yeah, totally agree with all

19:10

of that. And you

19:13

always offer some new insight too, so really

19:15

appreciate it. My pleasure. At

19:18

its core, if we're going to do anything, then

19:21

we need to have a

19:23

reason for doing it. And so being

19:26

close to family needs to

19:30

be part of the broader purpose,

19:32

not the sole and exclusive thing,

19:35

unless there's a clear, again, service-related

19:38

focus to it. And I'll keep working on

19:40

it. I reassess continually my

19:42

own decisions, et

19:45

cetera. But I'm

19:48

not sure of these answers that I'm giving you. It's just the best

19:50

that I've given you, and I've tried to explain it

19:53

as clearly as I'm able. We move to Taylor in

19:55

Alabama. Taylor, welcome to the show. How can I serve

19:57

you today? Hey,

19:59

Josh. with thanks for taking my call. I

20:02

wanted to see if you might

20:04

have some thoughts about allowances for

20:06

kids and in particular

20:08

in my situation I've got 13

20:11

year old daughters, twins, seventh

20:13

grade and we've never

20:15

given them an allowance before but we're thinking

20:17

that they're getting to an age where it

20:20

might be nice for them to have to

20:22

kind of budget their money

20:24

a little bit and learn you know how

20:26

to use a bank accountant, perhaps

20:29

a debit card, other things like that and

20:31

so I've looked into it a little bit.

20:33

I've seen a lot of differing advice about

20:35

you know the best way to

20:37

structure it, the best

20:39

mechanics of how to do it. I

20:42

guess first of all do you think it's a good

20:44

idea at all but anyway I

20:46

figure you probably do have some ideas and wanted

20:48

to see if you could share them. Yeah I'll

20:51

make this fairly concise because I think

20:54

it's relatively straightforward. To begin

20:56

with I was never given an allowance

20:58

when I was young and

21:00

I think I have to confirm this with

21:03

my parents but basically I think my

21:06

parents probably would have been sympathetic to the

21:08

viewpoint of simply saying that

21:10

if you give you know we're not welfare, we're

21:13

not well we're not giving out welfare here. I think

21:15

Dave Ramsey at least used to say this I would

21:18

assume he still does unless he's changed on something. We'd

21:20

say you know I'm not giving out welfare to my

21:22

children so giving money to my children doesn't seem like

21:24

the right the right pathway and that's a common mindset

21:28

especially common in our US

21:30

American culture where we believe

21:32

strongly in instilling a work

21:34

ethic into our children and

21:36

we and so we don't

21:38

want to give away free money. I used

21:41

so that was my basic idea when I first had

21:44

children. I then came to

21:46

see the other side and

21:48

I realized that if I

21:50

don't give my children money

21:53

then they're not going to handle

21:56

money until they can earn it

21:58

for themselves and I really I realized

22:00

that if I want my children

22:02

to manage money, they're going to

22:04

need practice and skill in managing

22:07

money. And so I decided

22:09

that I would change, and I decided that

22:11

I would, in fact, give an allowance. And

22:14

my reason for deciding to give

22:16

my children an allowance is

22:19

that I want them to have money that

22:22

they have to decide what to do

22:24

with so that they can

22:26

experience the joys of

22:29

having money, using money, spending money, et

22:31

cetera. And I'm hoping that

22:33

they will make lots and lots

22:35

of mistakes with the handling of their money.

22:38

And so I'm hoping that they'll blow their money

22:40

on stupid things. I'm hoping that they'll waste it

22:42

and feel the emotions of

22:44

poorly considered purchases and things like that.

22:47

And I want those lessons to happen early.

22:50

I want them to happen at a young

22:52

age, not till a later age. Because

22:54

when we talk about blowing it, I want

22:57

them to blow $2 on some worthless trinket

22:59

and experience how it gets thrown away at it. I

23:01

don't want them to wait and blow $2,000 on

23:04

a worthless trinket when they're teenagers. And

23:07

so I realized that money management

23:09

and the handling of money is a skill

23:11

in and of itself that needs to

23:13

be taught. And in order for it to

23:15

be taught, since the children are

23:17

going to be too young to handle money, they

23:21

need to be able to have money flowing through their

23:23

hands. Also, I want

23:26

them to have money flowing through their hands

23:29

over which they don't have full

23:31

control. And so I think

23:33

the downside is if we wait, let's say we

23:35

wait until a child is 15 and

23:38

your daughter goes out and gets her first job at 15 and

23:41

she's got her paycheck and she brings home her paycheck and

23:43

$400. And

23:45

then you try to tell her what to do with it.

23:47

Well, then there's a question is do I have the right

23:49

to tell her what to do with it? On the one

23:52

hand, obviously, yes, she's a minor. You could tell her what

23:54

to do with it, but we're respecting her person. She's a

23:56

young adult, et cetera. And so we

23:58

would be more thoughtful about... would give

24:00

advice etc but would be more thoughtful.

24:02

But if you start when she's 5

24:04

then it's not such

24:07

a big deal. And so what

24:09

I have done is I have

24:11

given my children an allowance and

24:13

then required them to divert

24:16

to spend the money in

24:18

the way that I say. And so I just

24:24

split it into thirds and a third of the money we give away,

24:26

they give away, excuse me, a third of the money they give away,

24:28

I don't tell them who to give it to, I just tell them

24:30

they got to give it away. A third

24:32

of the money goes into their investment fund,

24:35

I don't tell them what they have to be invested in,

24:37

I just tell them it has to be invested and I

24:39

explain what that means. And then a third of the money

24:41

goes into their spending fund. And then

24:43

in their spending fund that's where they naturally

24:46

save. So we don't have a save jar,

24:49

it bothers me that people say, oh we're going to save money

24:51

but they're saving money for accumulation. They're not saving

24:54

money to grow it as a capital. So

24:56

I allow them to

24:58

experience accumulation in their spending

25:00

funds so that they

25:02

can have the skill of saving money

25:04

for things, bigger purchases that they want

25:07

to make but that's separate from investing.

25:10

And then I look to try to have opportunities

25:12

for that money to flow through their hands. So

25:15

if we see somebody who needs money or we're

25:17

aware of a need or something like that then

25:19

they can give it. They have money that's set

25:21

aside in advance for giving away to other

25:23

people. If they see a way

25:26

to make money then they have investment

25:28

funds. And my goal is

25:31

that my children get richer every

25:33

single year of their life because

25:35

what I tell them is

25:38

that your investment capital is how

25:40

you get richer. You put

25:42

money into your investment capital, as it grows

25:44

you start off with $10 and

25:46

you figure out what can I buy and sell. So you go

25:48

and you buy something for $10 and you

25:50

turn around and sell it for $20.

25:53

Then we take the profits and we split those profits a

25:55

third, a third, a third. So a third

25:57

gets given away, a third gets… set

26:01

aside for spending and a third goes back into the

26:03

investment capital. So then

26:05

that investment capital should grow and grow and it should

26:07

be hundreds of dollars when

26:09

a child is say under 10. It

26:11

should be thousands of dollars when a child is in his

26:13

or her teen age years and it should be tens of

26:16

thousands of dollars when a child is in his or her

26:18

20s. And we want to

26:20

train the idea of looking for opportunities to invest

26:22

money like Jim Rohn said. You

26:24

know you should always have a bike to ride and a

26:26

bike to rent, two bikes, one to ride, one to rent.

26:29

And so we want to train children

26:31

to look for opportunities to grow money

26:33

and we can't do that if investing

26:35

is just something that they get tossed

26:38

at them at 15 years old. It's

26:40

a way of thinking that I think should be

26:42

cultivated from say you know four

26:44

or five on a continual

26:46

basis. And then

26:49

so I believe in giving an allowance for that

26:51

reason. Now I don't think that an allowance should

26:54

be a permanent thing nor do I think it

26:56

should be a particularly luxurious thing. But as a

26:58

father I find it a nice thing because

27:00

it allows me

27:03

to be more of a stick

27:07

in the mud in some cases than I otherwise

27:09

would be. Because as a father you want to

27:11

give your children great things, right? We spend lots

27:13

of money on our children and we derive a

27:15

great deal of joy and pleasure on spending money

27:18

on them. But if they don't have

27:20

any money then everything comes down to a decision of

27:22

am I going to make you happy by buying this

27:24

for you or am I not going to make you

27:26

happy by buying this for you? And

27:28

so I find it really satisfying that my

27:30

children have money and I've given

27:32

them a modest amount of money and now they can

27:34

go and do that. Hey you want to go and

27:37

buy that dumb trinket over there? I

27:39

don't have to sit here and decide well am

27:41

I going to hurt Johnny's future

27:43

because I said no or fine.

27:46

If you want to buy it you buy whatever you

27:48

want. If you have enough money you're welcome to buy

27:50

it. And so I find it to be a useful

27:52

parenting technique for me as well to make sure that

27:54

they have some money because then they have to go

27:56

through those choices. And I always get to choose more

27:59

things that I... give etc. That's my prerogative

28:01

as a parent. Now continuing on, I

28:03

think this should change as time goes

28:06

on. I don't know, years

28:08

ago I thought we should just end the allowance

28:10

entirely at say 12 years old because after all

28:13

you can work now, you should make your own

28:15

money. But then we move

28:17

into a different expression. The same

28:19

reason that we started the allowance

28:21

in the first place under my thinking which

28:23

is to have money flowing through your hands

28:26

is probably the same reason we should

28:28

continue it. But there

28:31

should be more demands placed upon it.

28:33

So I think part of training of

28:35

a young adult needs to

28:37

be to train a young adult

28:39

to make proper decisions with the handling of

28:42

money. So I think

28:44

that as a parent, let's

28:47

say you have a 14 year old or

28:49

15 year old, there are certain things that

28:51

you as a parent are obligated to do

28:53

for your child. For example,

28:55

you're obligated to feed your child, you're

28:57

obligated to clothe your child. And so

28:59

I think that those are

29:02

things that you should decide your

29:04

budget as to how much money

29:06

you're going to spend on those things and

29:08

then ideally you should transition

29:10

the control of those things over

29:12

to your child. And so

29:14

your child should be responsible for

29:17

purchasing her own clothing. Your

29:19

annual clothing budget, we're going to spend

29:21

$200 a quarter or whatever your family's

29:23

number is. This is going to be

29:25

your clothing budget. This is the amount

29:27

of money and you're required to clothe

29:29

yourself. Now you let

29:32

her be the one who chooses where

29:34

she gets the clothes. Does she go to the

29:36

expensive place or the inexpensive place? And

29:40

then what she wears, how many

29:42

outfits she buys or whatever the

29:44

application of this. Obviously you

29:46

still have authority over her

29:49

decisions on that. But in general,

29:51

your goal is to teach her a model. This

29:54

is how a young lady dresses. These are the kinds of clothes that

29:56

are appealing. These are the kinds of clothes that are becoming. These are

29:58

the kinds of things you should do. do, let me show

30:00

you how to get a great value for them,

30:03

etc. But she should have experience

30:05

doing those things. The money is you're just changing

30:08

the purchasing decisions out of your hands

30:10

into her hands. Then

30:12

secondarily is that

30:14

you're also not in secondary

30:17

priority but also then you're working hard

30:19

to find opportunities for your child to

30:22

earn his or her own money. That's

30:25

where the real money should come from. I

30:28

think the allowance should be reasonably

30:31

high enough that there's enough

30:34

money for your child to buy the things that

30:36

you can transition responsibility over for

30:39

her to make

30:41

the decisions on. But it

30:43

should be a low enough amount that she's still excited

30:45

to get a job. When you get

30:47

that first paycheck, it should be enough money lumped together

30:49

that it's exciting. Those

30:52

are the basic rules that I've come up with

30:54

and the logic behind them. At its

30:56

core, money management

30:58

is a skill. It's

31:00

not something that you're born with. It's not

31:02

innate and natural. It's not like there's some

31:05

people who are just naturally savers and some

31:07

people who aren't. I deny

31:09

that entirely. There may be

31:11

people who have an environmental

31:13

compulsion in a certain direction but

31:15

people who save money, save

31:17

money because they've learned the skills of saving

31:20

money and they have enough reasons to save

31:22

money. People who don't save money

31:24

don't save money because they don't have

31:26

any reasons to save money and they

31:28

haven't accumulated the skills of saving money. What

31:31

we should do is focus on laying

31:33

out a clear vision of the reasons

31:35

and goals as to how money gets

31:37

handled in a young man or woman's

31:39

life and then help them practice the

31:41

skills on a continual basis until they

31:43

become really good with them. I

31:46

have changed. I now support an allowance

31:48

for that reason with the

31:51

caveats that we're not just trying to

31:53

get people accustomed to free money but

31:55

we're trying to make money pass through

31:57

their hands recognizing that that's a component.

32:00

of our responsibility as parents. That

32:04

sounds really good. Those are sort of the

32:06

ideas that I had in mind. Do you

32:08

also have any thoughts about the mechanics of

32:10

it? Do you use cash? Do you use

32:12

a debit card with some sort of shared

32:14

bank account with them? Or how do you

32:16

do it? I think in the beginning years,

32:18

it should all be cash, because

32:20

it keeps it very simple. So

32:22

my children have a

32:24

spending bag. I use little money bags. And

32:27

one, I have a big collection of them. They're all

32:29

color coded for each child. And so

32:31

you have your giving bag, your saving bag, and

32:33

your spending bag. When

32:36

I started this plan, I was

32:38

overly complicated, as is my want.

32:43

And so I had a careful ledger of

32:45

every dollar made and investment return, et cetera.

32:47

And that was too much. And

32:50

so I don't think that there needs to

32:52

be careful records kept on it in the

32:54

beginning. But there should be

32:56

then a transition over to

32:58

careful record keeping. And

33:00

I think that cash has far

33:03

more advantages than disadvantages. We're

33:06

much too quick to search

33:08

for an electronic solution to

33:11

a problem that doesn't exist. And

33:13

the vast majority of us, if

33:16

we ran our lives quite

33:18

literally with physical currency, we

33:21

would all be richer and better

33:23

off, even at our advanced, sophisticated

33:26

stage of life. Now,

33:28

I don't run my life

33:30

entirely on physical currency. So

33:32

I understand that there is

33:34

important value in these other

33:36

forms of money management.

33:39

But they're

33:42

all inferior to

33:44

physical currency, especially

33:46

for young people.

33:49

Most of us have no

33:52

basic concept of what digits

33:54

feel like to spend. And

33:57

our children definitely don't have it. And

34:00

so if you

34:02

and I, I routinely

34:04

encourage people to use physical currency and forgive the

34:07

slightly roundabout but it's important to make the point

34:09

as to why I'm making the recommendation I am.

34:12

I routinely encourage people to use

34:15

physical currency because you feel what physical

34:17

currency feels like. So let's say you're

34:19

at an adult stage of life and

34:22

it's very normal for you to spend hundreds of

34:24

dollars and thousands of dollars. It

34:26

wouldn't be unusual for you to spend $1,000 on

34:29

a weekend, right? You'll have a $700 Costco trip

34:31

and $150 dinner out and $100 gas bill, right?

34:35

That would be a very reasonable weekend for most

34:38

of us. If

34:40

you make all those purchases with a

34:43

card and I ask

34:45

you to estimate how much money you

34:48

spent, let's say it's Tuesday or

34:50

even at the end of your Saturday or Sunday, then

34:53

you won't have much of a sense of

34:55

exactly how much money you spent. It's too

34:57

hard to keep track of. Our brains do

34:59

not track digits. But if

35:01

you routinely take out $1,000 or $2,000

35:03

in $100 bills and you put them in your wallet, every

35:08

bill has a feeling to you. And so

35:10

if you know you've spent about half the

35:12

stack, every time you hand over the seven

35:16

$100 bills at Costco, you feel about

35:18

what that's like because five bills feels

35:21

different from seven bills, feels different from

35:23

10 bills. And so it's

35:25

much easier to track. Now that's, you

35:27

are in my situation after years of

35:30

managing money and most of us who

35:32

are older, years of managing money in

35:34

a non-digital context. So then we

35:36

just assume that we have to train our children to

35:38

manage digital money and so the answer to that is

35:40

give them a debit card. But they

35:42

have the same problem. They don't have a feeling of

35:44

what that feels like. And

35:46

so I think it's perfectly reasonable

35:49

to do all money management with

35:51

currency until you get into the

35:53

teenage years. And

35:55

Then you need to bring in

35:57

additional skills. So

36:00

then I think the idea should be

36:03

we should probably have multiple accounts. I

36:05

have not gotten to the stage yet

36:07

at tested a few solutions. There are

36:10

some financial I'm. There

36:12

are some financial companies that are that have

36:14

products for this. I'm a big fan of

36:16

Rebel Loot. I think they've got a decent

36:19

such such system for this, but I think

36:21

it really can be any any i'm any

36:23

bank can do it. but in essence I

36:25

think that we should. Simply

36:27

teach our children to have multiple accounts.

36:29

So we take the physical account structure

36:32

that I have described and we transfer

36:34

the physical account struck for into a

36:36

bank account structure. So you should have

36:38

three accounts, he should have a giving

36:40

account, you should have a spending a

36:42

towel and you should have and investing

36:44

account and any time you spend money

36:46

should all be out of the spending

36:48

account and he can be give money

36:50

you give out of the giving accounts

36:53

and then obviously investing at never get

36:55

spend it only gets invested profits. Go

36:57

back. And profit gets split etc.

36:59

And so I think choosing some

37:01

kind of of or debit card

37:03

system that will work for your

37:05

for you and give you a.product

37:07

for your child. the split money

37:09

into I think is what you're

37:11

looking for. Again a lot of

37:13

the by I wish I haven't

37:15

created a list of all the

37:17

things I'm sure most banks are

37:19

looking for. options. I I'm a

37:21

fan of Resolute Like I said

37:23

because it allows people to have

37:26

a prepaid debit card that. Doesn't have

37:28

ah, he don't overdraft I'd on Kerr fees,

37:30

etc. It's looking the Countess or money there

37:32

I could spend it at. There's not a

37:34

dump and that works really well. And by

37:37

the way, to be clear, generally the child

37:39

only need one debit card for her spending

37:41

accounts, that's it and see, need some way

37:43

to keep track of it And so if

37:45

it's attached to a phone app as he

37:47

has a phone, that's an ideal thing as

37:50

well. This is where I see enormous value

37:52

in teaching all the old skills of checkbook,

37:54

balancing, etc. I think it's really great to

37:56

have those those. records etc but i also

37:58

know that fact that nobody does it. And

38:01

so those are some of those skills that are probably going to

38:03

go by the wayside. But

38:07

that's my answer. It's three different accounts, one with a

38:09

debit card for spending, making sure that there's an easy

38:11

way to check the balance to see if there's money

38:13

in the account, things like that. That

38:17

sounds great. I really, really appreciate it.

38:19

My pleasure. All right, we

38:21

move on to Garth. What's next? Garth in

38:23

Minnesota, welcome to the show. How

38:26

can I serve you today? Hey,

38:28

Joshua. My wife and I are in our

38:31

mid-40s. We have two kids that are in

38:34

their tween years. And

38:37

in the past few years, our income, our net worth have

38:39

ramped up quite a bit. Careers have

38:41

grown, and it's unlocking more options,

38:44

I think, than we would have anticipated

38:47

maybe five, 10 years ago. And

38:49

as our kids are getting a little older, I'm starting

38:51

to think more and more about like the next stages

38:53

of life. And my

38:55

wife has always preferred to be a little

38:57

bit more spontaneous. We've

38:59

been really focused on, we both work full

39:02

time, focusing on raising our children and thinking

39:04

and planning in terms of the coming months

39:06

and what needs to get done today. Maybe

39:10

it's a midlife thing, but as

39:16

my perspective is changing,

39:18

I'm trying to think

39:20

more longer term about money, career, and

39:22

us building the next stage of our

39:24

life together. And

39:27

again, I think she

39:30

thinks in terms of more that's spontaneous,

39:32

which provides a nice balance in our

39:34

relationship. But

39:37

I'd love to get your perspective on that.

39:39

I'd love to be able to unlock that

39:41

power of long-term goal setting and move in

39:43

a direction together. But I

39:46

don't know. Hopefully that's enough

39:48

to riff on for you. It

39:51

sounds like, at first I thought

39:53

you were going to, how does this relate to

39:55

children? But that's not the question you're asking. You're

39:57

primarily saying, how do we build a vision? for

40:00

our life in the coming decades,

40:03

given that we're likely to be wealthier

40:05

than we ever imagined, is that right?

40:08

Yeah, that's exactly it. Okay.

40:13

As you stated, it's a wide question, but I'll

40:16

give you my best shot. First,

40:19

it's perfectly fine to focus

40:21

on short and medium term

40:24

goals. And there is,

40:27

you are in a stage of life that is

40:29

only going to be here for a short

40:32

period of time. And

40:34

if you need to set aside the

40:36

long-term goal planning to really focus on

40:38

this stage, I think that is perfectly

40:41

reasonable and appropriate. I

40:45

think a lot about time bound goals

40:47

versus money bound goals. And

40:50

right now, you have some very

40:53

intensely time bound goals. You

40:55

have two tween children that

40:59

are with you and most

41:02

of your experiences of long-term of

41:05

life, most

41:09

of the positive experiences that you're looking

41:11

forward to in your life, and

41:14

most of the negative experiences that could

41:16

destroy your life will

41:18

be dependent upon the success

41:20

of your children and

41:23

your relationship, the quality of

41:25

your relationship with your children.

41:28

When I say success, let me define the

41:30

context I'm saying that. If

41:32

you have a child who becomes a

41:34

drug addict and

41:38

bears you a grandchild while a

41:40

drug addict, and now you

41:43

have to raise your grandchild while

41:46

your daughter is off in the streets or your

41:48

son is off shooting up

41:51

people in the hood or something like that, the

41:54

coming decades of your life are going to

41:56

be extraordinarily painful. On the

41:58

other hand, if you're... children do

42:00

well in school, they have a good sense

42:02

of who they are, they know what they

42:04

like, what they don't like, they have a

42:07

good sense of kind of the kinds of

42:09

lifestyles that would be a good fit for them. If

42:12

they proceed smoothly through the stages of

42:14

life, they become competent and mature adults,

42:17

they attract a high

42:20

quality husband or a high

42:23

quality wife, they

42:25

get married, they have

42:27

children, they have a satisfying life

42:30

full of rich family relationships, etc.

42:33

and they live stable productive lives,

42:35

then you can look forward to

42:38

enormous amounts of pleasure for the

42:40

coming decades. Pleasure in watching your

42:42

children thrive and succeed, watching them

42:44

experience all of the joys of

42:47

young adulthood and passing through the

42:49

stages, watching them bear grandchildren, raise

42:51

grandchildren, etc. That's

42:53

going to be an enormous source of pleasure

42:55

and you will wind up like many

42:58

grandparents moving across the country so you can

43:00

be close to your grandchildren, etc. And

43:04

so to the extent that there's anything

43:06

that you could do to determine the

43:08

pathway of your

43:11

children, whether they were on

43:13

the pathway of success or the

43:15

pathway of failure as human

43:17

beings, then you should do those

43:20

things. And yet, there's

43:23

a relatively narrow window in which

43:25

you can do those things because

43:28

you are launching your

43:30

children into independence over

43:33

let's say the next five to

43:35

seven years depending on the specific

43:37

ages and each individual child's process

43:40

of maturity. So

43:43

for you to be intensely focused on this

43:46

over the course of these five

43:48

years is a perfectly adequate

43:51

thing to focus on because that's what's going

43:53

to set the course for the next 50

43:55

years of your life. So

43:58

if 80% of your attention is in the future, then you have to

44:00

be very clear. is on that and 20% is on the 50-year

44:02

vision, then that's not wrong

44:04

as a result. Now

44:07

what will happen is that as your

44:10

children move from tweens to

44:13

upper high school students and ultimately college

44:16

students, you'll have naturally

44:18

a lot more time available to

44:20

you to think about those 50-year

44:23

goals just due to the natural

44:25

process of independence. But

44:27

don't think that it's more important to

44:29

focus on the 50-year goals to

44:32

the neglect of your work

44:34

right now. It's not. It's your work

44:36

right now that's going to make a big difference. Now

44:39

what is an enormous danger to

44:41

be guarded against of where

44:44

you are right now? Well,

44:46

I think a danger is

44:48

that your identity as husband

44:50

and wife doesn't exist.

44:54

Instead your identity is father and mother. And

44:57

so then if we think forward to

44:59

a period of

45:01

time, just a few short years from now when you're

45:03

empty nesters, if you wake up and you

45:05

don't know your wife and you don't

45:08

know anything about her goals and

45:10

dreams for the future and her ambition for

45:12

the future, etc., then you're

45:14

doomed. And there's divorce court,

45:16

in some worst case scenarios,

45:18

waiting for you. And it's

45:20

not necessary. So you do need to give

45:23

attention to those long-term goals and dreams. But

45:26

I'm just acknowledging that it may be

45:28

a modest amount of attention. What

45:31

I would say is the most important thing

45:33

is for you and your wife to spend

45:35

time together as husband and wife and

45:38

to really make a priority of it.

45:40

So having tweens is different than having

45:42

very young children. I

45:45

just took my wife away for a short getaway

45:48

for Valentine's Day. And

45:51

when we're in baby mode, as we are right now, we still

45:53

have a baby with us. But I've

45:55

got to find multiple families to have multiple

45:57

people who can take all the children because

45:59

they're... Tons of children and they're all young. And

46:02

so it's a lot of work.

46:05

As you pass into the teenage years, it's relatively easy for

46:07

you and your wife to get away. And

46:09

so get away. Get away for a weekend every quarter and

46:11

just the two of you. And just

46:14

talk about and think about what is in

46:16

the future. And you need to make certain

46:18

that you really understand her and her

46:21

ambitions and what she's going to,

46:24

what are the kinds of things that

46:26

she wants more of in her life.

46:28

The fact that she is more serendipitous

46:30

in nature and more willing to accept

46:32

what comes doesn't absolve you of your

46:35

responsibility to plan for her to have

46:37

all the things that she's serendipitous is

46:39

going to be serendipitously happy about. And

46:42

so in some ways what you're describing is

46:44

a function of my own relationship with my

46:46

wife. I'm the long term thinker.

46:49

Here's the plan. Here's the, okay, this

46:51

decade is going to be this strategy. The following decade

46:53

is going to be these things. Here's what we're going

46:55

to do. Here's what we're going to do, etc. But

46:57

I still need to make sure that

46:59

I know her because the fact that

47:01

her way of planning is different than mine

47:03

and her way of envisioning the future is

47:05

different than mine doesn't make it more or

47:08

less valid. And so I have to get

47:10

out of her, her vision, and I have

47:12

to make certain that our family plan accounts

47:14

for that, accounts for her to achieve those

47:16

things. And that just comes with knowing

47:19

your wife in an intimate way and

47:22

then talking to her in

47:25

a context that is going to suss

47:29

out what she's into. And

47:31

so here's where I think some good goal setting

47:33

questions are important. And I'm

47:35

just taking them and doing this as a

47:37

couple. You go to a nice resort once

47:41

a quarter, once every six months or whatever, get

47:43

away, and don't pack your schedule full of activities

47:45

but spend some time talking about it. Make the

47:47

list, right? Here are 30 things I want to

47:49

do, 30 things I want to be, 30 things

47:51

I want to have before I die. Go

47:54

through, envision, okay, if we could do anything in

47:56

the world, what would it look like? If

47:58

there was... If there was... do if we

48:00

knew there was no possibility of failure? All

48:03

the many dozens of great goal-setting questions and

48:05

visioning exercises, do those exercises and look for

48:07

the themes and then start to schedule those

48:09

things in intentionally. Recognize

48:12

that your lives will be very

48:14

different as you launch your children

48:16

than they are now. I guess

48:19

that's a

48:21

starting point. Is that

48:25

directionally helpful in any way? Yes,

48:29

absolutely. I logged

48:31

you a non-specific question and I think you hit

48:33

on all the key points. I was hoping you

48:35

would riff on it. I guess more than anything,

48:38

it's a function of if

48:40

we're following the 80-20 framework that you looked at

48:42

and making sure that we're focused

48:44

on that. That's some really

48:47

sage advice and probably what I needed

48:49

to hear on the call today. Thank

48:51

you, Joshua. It

48:53

does really matter and you

48:55

won't regret if you spend more

48:57

money now with your tweens, if

48:59

you build more intimacy of relationship

49:02

with them, etc. I think

49:04

that you don't have to spend money.

49:06

My point is that if you're thinking about, should

49:08

we get richer ourselves or should we really

49:11

do this dream thing that we want to

49:13

do with our children? Take six months off

49:16

and backpack Europe or whatever. You

49:18

are in a very precious period of time

49:20

where in terms

49:22

of investing into relationship,

49:25

it's just a very narrow window

49:28

where your children are old enough

49:30

to basically interact with you as

49:32

adults but they are not yet

49:34

transitioning to full independence to where

49:36

they are, legal adults, etc.

49:39

I think that's a really satisfying phase

49:42

of life where you can have

49:44

enormous amounts of input into your

49:46

children's lives and

49:50

also but

49:52

yet interact with them as adults.

49:55

When you've got a 20-year-old who's

49:57

telling you, your daughter's telling you

50:00

what she's thinking about etc. You're

50:03

not going to be interfering in her life. You're not going

50:05

to be directing her life like you do when she's 13.

50:08

You're going to be listening. You're going to be coaching.

50:10

You're going to be asking good questions. But

50:12

you're not going to be telling her what to do. She's 20 years old.

50:15

But when she's 13, you're able to direct her in a better way.

50:20

So anything you can do to really

50:22

engage in relationship and help

50:25

your children at this stage should

50:27

be the 80% of your activities. I

50:32

guess there's just one more

50:34

thing. I really think that

50:36

I'm blanking on the name of the

50:38

book. I think if you haven't read it, you should

50:41

read Gabor and Mate's book on

50:43

– I'll find the title here real

50:49

quick – called Hold On to Your Kids. I

50:51

think that's a really valuable book,

50:53

a really valuable parenting book. Basically,

50:57

my two-sentence summary of it

50:59

is that you should

51:02

be very intentional about keeping your

51:04

children connected to you as a

51:06

father and to your wife as a

51:08

mother rather than forcing

51:11

your children onto their peers

51:13

as a primary source

51:16

of direction in

51:18

the culture. Mate

51:20

makes the point in that book

51:22

about the novelty

51:24

that is modern youth culture.

51:29

I realize this is a big blind

51:31

spot for me as a parent is

51:33

that I've always believed that we should

51:35

help children to develop independence at an

51:37

early age. It's my basic belief

51:39

that we should – kind of like

51:41

they used to do – our vision should be

51:44

that by 13 or 14 or 15

51:46

that our children are fully independent adults.

51:48

Now obviously, they're not going to be

51:50

fully independent adults, but you're dealing with

51:52

an adult at that point in time

51:54

that in all historical cultures has been

51:56

considered an adult, so we shouldn't aim

51:58

for 18. for 13

52:00

as the age at which to produce adults with

52:03

various modifications of that due to

52:06

the reality of the fact that they're not

52:08

legal adults and that we're not trying to

52:10

force them into a path in a –

52:13

you don't want your 13-year-old getting married. Your

52:15

– but your ambition

52:17

is not to extend childhood. However,

52:20

what I realized when I read Matei's report

52:24

was that it's very

52:26

easy to – if you

52:29

have a mindset of independence, it's very easy

52:31

to force your children to go out into their

52:33

peer culture and to attach to

52:35

their peer culture instead of being attached in

52:38

their family and in their community. And

52:40

we don't want that because the peer culture

52:42

is toxic. What we want

52:44

is them to have great and fulfilling

52:46

relationships with peers but not to look

52:48

for their peer – to their peers

52:50

for wisdom and for direction. But we

52:52

want them to be very consciously attached

52:54

to us as parents, to our community

52:57

that we're in across the

52:59

generations. And so check that

53:01

out and think about how you can apply anything that

53:03

is relevant from that as well. All right.

53:05

We go to the great state of Ontario. Welcome to the show. How can I

53:07

serve you today? Oh,

53:11

Joshua, thank you so much for those

53:14

last couple of answers. They were excellent. My pleasure. Thank

53:16

you very much. So

53:19

my basic question is to do

53:22

with real estate versus Bitcoin.

53:26

So I'll give you a quick background. I

53:28

have some real estate properties I purchased about

53:31

20 years ago in a fairly depressed market

53:33

which sat quite still for about 15 years.

53:35

And then approximately five years ago, things turned

53:38

around here as they did so many places where

53:40

about four times are purchased to

53:42

Christ now. And basically,

53:44

they've cash load all the way along.

53:46

They're still doing fine. However,

53:49

I'm thinking in terms of the –

53:51

sort of that 4X that happened

53:54

that is unlikely to happen again at that class.

53:56

So I'm just trying to consider if I should

53:58

– I've asked

54:00

myself of some portion of the properties

54:03

and put and consider other asset

54:05

classes. To give

54:07

some context, I'm not like new to

54:09

Bitcoin, I would say about 18% of my

54:11

net worth is

54:13

there. And so

54:16

investing in that for about 2017. So

54:20

I've weathered the highs and lows of

54:22

it and I'm not afraid of it. But I

54:24

guess you've always given great advice in

54:26

these kinds of scenarios. I'm not going to

54:28

give you,

54:30

obviously I'm not going to tell you what to

54:32

do. I'm

54:37

not looking for your specific advice on them. But

54:41

we can break it apart and we can kind of

54:43

make good strategic decision making I think if we break

54:46

it apart. So first, recognize that

54:48

the decision that you have in front of

54:50

you is not either

54:52

Ontario real estate or

54:55

Bitcoin. And forgive me, the

54:57

next caller is from Oregon and I misread on

54:59

my screen Ontario versus Oregon, ON versus OR. But

55:02

we're talking about Ontario here. So the decision is not

55:05

Ontario Canada real estate or

55:08

Bitcoin. But there

55:10

are a variety of other options available.

55:12

So the first decision is, should

55:15

I sell my Ontario

55:17

real estate that has been good to me, I made a lot

55:19

of money. Or should I not

55:21

sell my Ontario real estate that has

55:23

made a good amount of money?

55:25

So let's start with that. Let me just simplify it to

55:27

that. If you were

55:29

starting over today with the amount of

55:31

and we're talking half a

55:34

million dollars, a million dollars, basically just big picture, how

55:36

much money we're talking about that you're considering making a

55:38

change with? It

55:41

could be, yeah, probably a half a million. Okay,

55:43

so if you had a half a million dollars of cash

55:45

sitting in the bank account, would you

55:48

purchase Ontario real estate today on

55:50

February 16, 2024? No.

55:54

Okay. So then the answer is you should

55:56

sell it. the

56:00

money and you put it in the bank, you

56:03

wouldn't purchase it again so you should sell it. That

56:06

was a very different decision than previous when

56:08

you bought it and you've had a 4X

56:10

return etc. So you

56:12

should sell the real estate and

56:14

you should get out of it

56:17

for I think the reasons that were obvious

56:19

in the quickness of your answer and I

56:21

would generally affirm that. It seems that to

56:23

me that real estate in Canada doesn't

56:25

have – I don't want to get –

56:28

I am not out trying to buy real estate in

56:31

Canada with what I see today. But

56:35

you know the market and you are confident in that. So you

56:37

should sell the real estate in Canada. Now what

56:40

should you do with the money? Well, I don't

56:42

know and if you don't know

56:44

then that is a perfectly – it's perfectly reasonable

56:46

just to put the money in the bank and

56:49

sit tight and wait until you do know. But

56:53

one option that you have is

56:55

to put the money into Bitcoin

56:57

or put some money into Bitcoin.

57:00

So now tell me why

57:02

you would buy Bitcoin and

57:05

what you would hope that Bitcoin can do

57:07

for you in your life. Hey,

57:10

I can sell it.

57:14

I like that. So

57:17

it's interesting

57:20

because I first started thinking about this with

57:22

Bitcoin that is significantly lower

57:25

value than it is today. So

57:31

I have become

57:34

overwhelmingly convinced that it's not

57:38

going to zero. It's

57:41

not going to zero and the

57:43

money continues to flow into it and

57:45

I only see one direction

57:48

it can go. So

57:50

it seems to me like it is – I

57:53

believe it to be currently undervalued.

57:57

And I

57:59

– I'm

58:02

enjoying all the

58:07

purchases I've ever made of it, including ones

58:09

that I'm currently, you know, in

58:11

the red on. And

58:16

it's not like they've

58:18

increased my personal security and

58:20

happiness automatically. Okay.

58:24

Okay. Fair and simple. Yeah.

58:27

All right. So it sounds to me then like

58:29

you should buy some Bitcoin. So

58:34

how much Bitcoin do you think you should

58:36

buy? How much do you

58:38

want to own and why? I

58:43

don't have that answer. I

58:46

don't know. And

58:49

that's the hardest question, right? Because

58:51

you could have conviction about an

58:54

investment thesis. In your case, you believe that

58:57

this is an asset class. It's not going

58:59

to zero. It probably has good room to

59:01

run from your perspective. So

59:04

you have the idea that I want to

59:06

go after this with some of my money, but how do

59:08

we figure out how to do it? And

59:10

that's the hardest question. So

59:14

what I would say is the framework

59:16

without getting into all the personal details

59:18

of your fairs is to think about

59:21

what would happen if there were big wins and what

59:23

would happen if there were big losses. So

59:26

there are two basic models that I

59:28

think can make a lot of sense. First

59:30

of all is you can just simply

59:32

have a simple strong

59:34

asset allocation model. And

59:37

the model doesn't have to

59:39

be something that you

59:41

necessarily have to defend to someone else. It

59:44

just needs to be something that makes sense to you. So

59:46

here would be an example of something that

59:49

I think would make sense

59:51

in terms of somebody who had that perspective. I'll

59:53

give you two examples. So the

59:56

first example would be somebody who says, you know

59:58

what, this is very common in personal

1:00:00

finance. This would be the most – of all

1:00:02

the things I'm going to say, this is the

1:00:04

most conventional where you're sitting down with most financial

1:00:07

advisors. They wouldn't say you're stupid if you said

1:00:09

this. If you said, you

1:00:11

know what, I'm going to – with my investment

1:00:13

capital, I'm not going to include my personal residence

1:00:15

or et cetera, but with my investment capital, I'm

1:00:18

going to keep 80% of my investment

1:00:20

capital into mutual funds. I'm

1:00:22

going to take 20% of my

1:00:24

capital and not put it in mutual funds. Of

1:00:27

that 20%, I'm going to put 5% in physical gold

1:00:32

and I'm going to put 5%

1:00:34

in Bitcoin and as insurance policies

1:00:36

against crazy stuff happening

1:00:40

with the bulk of my investment account

1:00:42

and I'm going to keep 10% for

1:00:44

my stock trading account

1:00:47

where I'm going to trade stocks and

1:00:49

derivatives. That would

1:00:51

be – nobody would argue with that. They would

1:00:53

say, okay, well, you've got 80% of your money

1:00:55

in good, safe mutual funds and stocks et cetera.

1:00:59

We know that those have a pretty decent history. We

1:01:02

think that they'll probably be okay in the

1:01:04

future and you've got 5% in investment funds.

1:01:06

That would be a reasonable thing. Now,

1:01:09

this would not be normal, but this

1:01:11

would also be still in the realm

1:01:13

of not crazy thinking. It would be if you

1:01:15

said something like, you know what, I don't know what's going

1:01:17

to happen and so I just want to own all the

1:01:19

asset classes. I'm going to put

1:01:22

20% of my money in stocks.

1:01:24

I'm going to put 20% of my money in

1:01:26

gold. I'm going to put 20% of my money into Bitcoin. I'm

1:01:30

going to put 20% of my money in real

1:01:32

estate and I'm going to put 20% of my

1:01:34

money in long-term bonds. That would be a model that

1:01:36

is kind of interesting is that

1:01:38

we've got quite a lot of exposure to

1:01:40

different asset classes. We could back test that.

1:01:42

It's kind of interesting when you do it,

1:01:44

but it's still kind of a spread it

1:01:46

around type of scenario. You

1:01:49

could come up with some version of that that's going

1:01:51

to feel good to you. It's

1:01:54

probably more, I'm guessing would be your number would

1:01:56

be more than 1% and less than 90% in

1:01:58

terms of the

1:02:00

amount of money that you're going to invest

1:02:02

in Bitcoin. And you don't have to have

1:02:04

a great logical argument for this necessarily. If

1:02:07

you just instinctively know that my number is 20% or 10% or

1:02:09

5% and

1:02:12

that's the amount of money I want to have

1:02:14

in this asset class, that's a reasonable way to

1:02:16

go about it even if you can't justify it.

1:02:19

That kind of initial reaction that you have

1:02:21

to me throwing out some numbers, pay

1:02:24

attention to that. The second thing

1:02:26

would be to analyze it based

1:02:28

upon kind of potential. And

1:02:31

so the best I've come

1:02:33

up with, if we're speculating

1:02:35

on something, then my

1:02:37

rules of speculation are these. Your

1:02:40

speculation needs to be big enough to

1:02:42

make a difference if it wins

1:02:44

big and small enough

1:02:46

not to wipe you out if it

1:02:49

completely loses. So let's put a

1:02:51

little texture on this. What

1:02:53

do you think is the

1:02:56

absolute maximum thing

1:02:59

that could happen to the value of Bitcoin?

1:03:05

I don't... I

1:03:07

mean, it depends on the

1:03:09

timeline. It's 10

1:03:12

years and I don't see

1:03:14

it yet. It's a

1:03:16

lot. People

1:03:19

try to put a number on it

1:03:21

and they're so wildly diverted. Alright, so

1:03:23

let's just make some things up. So

1:03:26

as we talk today, Bitcoin

1:03:28

is trading for something

1:03:31

like 50, just a little less than 52,000 US

1:03:34

dollar tokens to each

1:03:36

Bitcoin token in the current market. So

1:03:40

let's say that the value of

1:03:42

Bitcoin tokens compared to US dollar

1:03:45

tokens, let's

1:03:47

say that the ratio between those doubled. And

1:03:50

then you were trading with Bitcoin

1:03:53

at 100,000 US dollar tokens as

1:03:56

compared to today. That'd be

1:03:58

pretty amazing investment performance, right? Yeah. All

1:04:01

right. Let's say that it quadrupled

1:04:04

and we were talking about 400,000 US dollar tokens

1:04:06

for every

1:04:09

one Bitcoin token. So that

1:04:11

would be amazing, right? Amazing. And a

1:04:13

lot harder to see how it quadruples

1:04:15

than where we went from

1:04:17

a dollar to whatever,

1:04:19

40,000. But it

1:04:22

would be amazing if it forexed. So you just

1:04:24

figure out whatever you think is the most

1:04:26

optimistic thing that could happen. Now

1:04:29

let's assume that you invested 50,000

1:04:31

US dollars

1:04:34

into Bitcoin at

1:04:37

today's prices. And then

1:04:39

it quadrupled in value from 50,000 US

1:04:41

dollars to 200,000 US dollars. Would

1:04:46

that make any meaningful difference in your financial

1:04:48

life? The. G

1:04:50

President's Day sales event is going on now. Korean

1:04:52

your local G dealer for great offers now well

1:04:55

qualified lists he still low mileage lease on the

1:04:57

Twenty Twenty Four G Grand Cherokee, Laredo X Four

1:04:59

by Four for Four, Thirty Nine a month for

1:05:01

thirty nine months with Three Thousand Nine Nine. Do

1:05:03

it. signing tax, title license extra, no security deposit

1:05:06

require calm and Eighty Eight Nine to Five Ci

1:05:08

for details requires dealer contribution and least through Stella.

1:05:10

Just financial extra charge for miles over thirty two

1:05:12

thousand and five hundred, not all customers will qualify.

1:05:15

Residency restrictions apply. Take delivery by two Twenty Nine.

1:05:17

Twenty Four Cheap is a registered trademark. Hmm.

1:05:20

I mean, yes it would.

1:05:24

But at the same time, it would just sit there

1:05:26

because outside of that, there's still

1:05:28

lots of liquidity available. So it

1:05:31

would just, I guess, be

1:05:33

a number. Right. I think

1:05:35

it would probably be largely a number because

1:05:37

there's, from what you described,

1:05:39

if you got half a million dollars of real estate, I don't

1:05:41

think having an extra $200,000 sitting

1:05:44

here and not sitting here is going to make much of a

1:05:46

difference in your case. Now, I made up the numbers, so you

1:05:48

feel free to judge for yourself. But

1:05:50

you wouldn't quit working today because now you're independent for

1:05:52

the rest of your life. It

1:05:55

would just be a little bit more money than what you have

1:05:57

right now. And now on

1:05:59

the flip side. Let's say that your $50,000 that you invested

1:06:01

today went to zero. Would

1:06:05

that make any meaningful difference in

1:06:07

your life? I

1:06:12

mean, it wouldn't be any fun,

1:06:14

but no, it would not end anything.

1:06:17

Right. And so you see the point

1:06:19

that I'm driving at is that if

1:06:21

you really believe in the Bitcoin thesis,

1:06:24

the idea that Bitcoin is going to

1:06:26

increase in value and you want to

1:06:28

speculate on that, then you need to

1:06:30

speculate with enough money so that whatever

1:06:32

your biggest winning opportunity is

1:06:35

that you believe could happen, that

1:06:37

that would make a meaningful difference

1:06:39

in your life. But

1:06:41

you don't want to speculate with so much money

1:06:43

that whatever you think is the worst case scenario

1:06:46

would wipe you out. That's

1:06:48

the idea that I'm driving at. And so if

1:06:51

you think about those two extremes, there's

1:06:53

probably some amount and those numbers will

1:06:55

vary based upon where you are in

1:06:57

life. And so let's use, I

1:07:00

have a lot of Bitcoin millionaires in

1:07:02

my audience. Here's what has

1:07:04

happened with many of them. Many

1:07:07

of them saw the Bitcoin thesis

1:07:09

early on and they believed in

1:07:11

it. They were often young and

1:07:14

they often didn't have a lot of money, but

1:07:16

they took everything that they had and they

1:07:18

put it into Bitcoin. And

1:07:21

so there are lots of people out there who were

1:07:23

working a job as a waiter and putting every

1:07:27

dollar they earned, sleeping on an air mattress

1:07:29

in a friend's living room, putting every dollar

1:07:31

they earned into Bitcoin because they

1:07:33

really believed in it. So that

1:07:36

kind of speculation for somebody who's

1:07:38

say 23 years old, for a

1:07:40

23-year-old who's gained

1:07:43

$50,000 of life savings to put

1:07:45

all of it into Bitcoin and

1:07:47

every dollar beside, for that

1:07:49

23-year-old to get wiped out, that's not that big

1:07:51

of a deal because there's not a big

1:07:53

crash in lifestyle that if

1:07:56

things get wiped out, okay, I get another job and

1:07:58

I start again. And so that

1:08:01

guy could put 100% of

1:08:03

his money into Bitcoin because

1:08:05

he really believed in the long-term outcome

1:08:07

and he, yeah, losing his life savings

1:08:09

was no fun, but he was depending

1:08:12

on his job primarily as a pathway

1:08:14

through that. After all, there's lots of

1:08:16

23-year-olds who don't have any money and

1:08:18

they just depend upon their job. Now

1:08:21

compare that with, you know,

1:08:23

I've got a client of mine who's a

1:08:25

physician and he sold his practice. I

1:08:28

forget the exact number, but it was a 10-figure

1:08:30

payday after taxes, a 10-figure

1:08:32

payout after taxes. He's

1:08:35

in his early 40s and

1:08:37

he's still making money as

1:08:39

a physician, etc. But

1:08:42

he basically was set up for the rest of his

1:08:44

life based upon his lifestyle if he wanted to be.

1:08:47

So imagine you're in your early 40s or

1:08:49

actually, yeah, maybe younger, anyway, about 40 or

1:08:51

so, and you've got

1:08:53

a 10-figure payday after taxes.

1:08:56

Do you really want to take your 10-figure

1:08:58

payday and put it all in Bitcoin because

1:09:00

Bitcoin is going to the moon? That

1:09:04

would be an enormous price tag if

1:09:06

Bitcoin disappeared. And so you

1:09:09

would be much more thoughtful

1:09:11

about how much and you

1:09:13

might actually wager significant amounts

1:09:15

of money on your

1:09:18

bet. You might invest seven figures,

1:09:21

but you need to make certain your

1:09:23

goal is not – there's not going to be

1:09:25

a big difference in your life between, you

1:09:28

know, a $12 million net worth and a

1:09:30

$30 million net worth. There's not that much

1:09:32

there. There could be a difference between $12 million

1:09:34

and $120 million. Sure,

1:09:36

okay, fine. But the difference of

1:09:38

you going from a $12 million lifestyle to a $2

1:09:40

million lifestyle is

1:09:45

you risk it all on Bitcoin.

1:09:47

That's enormously costly. So my point

1:09:49

is you're basically playing a game

1:09:51

with your speculation of best-case scenario,

1:09:53

worst-case scenario, where I'm at in

1:09:56

life, cost of a loss, time

1:09:59

that I have. to make up for it, how much

1:10:01

income do I have, what percentage of my net worth,

1:10:03

and that's a very personalized game that I couldn't answer

1:10:05

for you. But I think that's

1:10:07

a decent model to begin with to figure out

1:10:10

how much money you're going to speculate with. That

1:10:13

framework is exactly the type of answer I

1:10:15

was looking for from you, just to help

1:10:18

think this through better. I appreciate that.

1:10:20

And also, the last couple of answers

1:10:22

on parenting, always appreciated your

1:10:24

parenting, your podcast that

1:10:27

was Radical Fatherhood, Radical something.

1:10:30

Anyway, that was very helpful to me. We've

1:10:33

got a bunch of kids that have

1:10:35

appreciated your advice on

1:10:38

that over the years. Thank you so much. My

1:10:40

pleasure, my pleasure. All right, we move on. Now we

1:10:42

go to Oregon. Oregon, you're going to wrap us up

1:10:45

today. Welcome to the show. How can I serve

1:10:47

you today? Hey there. I

1:10:49

just wanted to say I really wish I could

1:10:51

come to your family camp. So

1:10:53

I'm a little irritated I can't go. I hope you do it

1:10:55

some other year, first of all. Sounds

1:10:57

a lot of fun. Absolutely. Yeah,

1:11:00

and then two questions.

1:11:03

First one's really short. You had

1:11:05

an episode where you kind of did some self-talk. You

1:11:07

told us your kind of rhythm in

1:11:09

the morning where you talked to yourself. So I

1:11:11

was wondering if you still do that

1:11:13

one and if you could tell me which

1:11:15

episode that is because I've looked and looked and cannot find

1:11:18

it. Sure,

1:11:20

sure. By the way, for the

1:11:22

uninitiated, I meant to do an ad for this earlier, but

1:11:25

I am hosting in

1:11:27

April, the middle of April, just the

1:11:29

weekend before tax day, I'm hosting Radical

1:11:31

Family Camp in Indiana. You can find

1:11:33

details at radicalfamilycamp.com and at the end

1:11:35

of the episode I'll say more about

1:11:37

that. The initial sale

1:11:39

tickets are more than half sold out

1:11:41

now. So radicalfamilycamp.com if you're interested in coming

1:11:44

and spending a weekend with me and other

1:11:46

listeners. So the self-talk, I

1:11:48

learned that years ago primarily from

1:11:50

Zig Ziglar. In

1:11:55

the early days of podcasting, one

1:11:58

of the first podcasts I was... Apple

1:12:00

podcasts had almost nothing and I was

1:12:02

working a job where I Could

1:12:05

listen to stuff while I was working and I didn't

1:12:07

have much tips to listen to this is I guess

1:12:10

when I was I don't Remember it was in college

1:12:12

in early years of college and so I would load

1:12:14

up iTunes and I was looking for podcasts and at

1:12:16

the time Zig Zigglers

1:12:18

company had his stuff going out as

1:12:20

podcasts. I listened to all his podcast

1:12:22

episodes then I started listening to the

1:12:26

then I started listening to the About

1:12:30

his started buying his CDs of his courses,

1:12:32

you know, I would listen to them driving

1:12:34

to work every morning and I just found them to be incredibly

1:12:37

insightful and incredibly incredibly

1:12:40

useful and what

1:12:43

the basic idea behind Zigglers

1:12:47

version of affirmations, which was again

1:12:50

1980s 90s kind

1:12:53

of stuff where Personal

1:12:55

development had not gotten as popularly known as

1:12:57

today and affirmations were still going Was

1:13:00

that he used his affirmations and

1:13:02

talked about character qualities and

1:13:04

the point that he made that Rocked my

1:13:07

world as a young man was he pointed

1:13:09

out that character qualities are

1:13:11

all skills that they are

1:13:13

not Innate attributes you're

1:13:16

not born honest or born

1:13:18

dishonest Rather honesty

1:13:20

is something that you exercise and

1:13:23

you can become increasingly honest

1:13:25

or increasingly dishonest based upon

1:13:27

the based

1:13:29

upon the way that you live in the way that you

1:13:32

act and Things like

1:13:34

discipline you're not you don't come out of

1:13:36

your mother's womb and the doctor holds you

1:13:38

up and says hey Here's a disciplined boy,

1:13:40

you know It's discipline is something

1:13:43

that is developed So if you're a disciplined

1:13:45

person or you're focused or you're compassionate or

1:13:47

you're respectful or you're kind You

1:13:49

know kindness is not an innate attribute and

1:13:52

that rocks my world It started a process

1:13:54

of self-development that continues to this

1:13:56

day with even just a lot of

1:13:58

my recent interests.

1:14:01

I've recently been really into

1:14:03

Peak by Anders Ericsson. His

1:14:05

insight into Genius. I

1:14:08

read Talent is Overrated by Jeff Colvin.

1:14:10

His research into kind of synthesizing the

1:14:12

field. I'm reading Range at the moment.

1:14:16

Basically, these books

1:14:18

and these concepts for me

1:14:21

has been an enormous mindset

1:14:23

shift because I grew

1:14:25

up thinking that all of these things

1:14:27

were innate that either you had them

1:14:29

or you didn't have them. I thought

1:14:32

that character qualities were either things that

1:14:34

you were born with or weren't born

1:14:36

with. Just like I thought that innate

1:14:38

ability and talent and

1:14:40

genius was something that you're either born

1:14:43

with or you're not born with. I

1:14:45

distinctly remember an experience

1:14:47

I had when I was in

1:14:49

college, sorry, in high school,

1:14:51

where I had a friend of mine.

1:14:53

We were signing up for our classes

1:14:55

and choosing our electives. A

1:14:57

friend of mine signed up for an art class. I

1:15:00

thought, wow, that's pretty cool. I thought, wouldn't that be

1:15:02

fun to be a taken art class? I

1:15:05

can't draw. I'm not artistic. It never

1:15:07

dawned on

1:15:09

me as a high school student. It never even occurred to

1:15:11

me that artistic ability

1:15:13

is something that can

1:15:16

be developed. I never imagined that it

1:15:18

could be taught. I just assumed and

1:15:20

thought that you either are

1:15:22

an artist or you're not an artist and

1:15:24

you're born an artist with artistic skill or

1:15:26

you're not. I knew I didn't have

1:15:28

it, so therefore, there's no point in taking an art class.

1:15:31

It sounds stupid when you say it out

1:15:33

loud, but I distinctly recall having that experience

1:15:35

and thinking, oh, bummer, wouldn't it be neat

1:15:37

to be good at art? I never thought

1:15:39

I should sign up for the

1:15:42

class. It continues to this day when I've

1:15:44

realized that a lot of us think the same way. We

1:15:47

think that these things are

1:15:49

fixed and all of the research that I can

1:15:51

find indicates that all

1:15:53

of these things that we

1:15:55

think in some cases are

1:15:57

innate, they're not in any way

1:15:59

an Nate, they are talent. Let

1:16:03

me continue on this theme. Sorry, they're developed. Let me continue for

1:16:05

a moment. I'm gonna come back and tell you where to find

1:16:07

these affirmations and go over them with you. But

1:16:09

it's important to understand the basis of them

1:16:12

as I see them as being useful.

1:16:16

The most interesting book to me that I read was

1:16:19

Anders Ericsson's book called Peak. And

1:16:22

in this book, Ericsson, who dedicated

1:16:25

his entire career to

1:16:27

studying the genius performers

1:16:29

of the world, he

1:16:31

came away and wrote this book at the end of his

1:16:33

career. And as I understand his

1:16:35

thesis, basically says that

1:16:38

all genius level performance is

1:16:41

attributable to two functions.

1:16:44

Number one is proper training and practice

1:16:48

techniques. He

1:16:51

has developed a term of what he calls

1:16:54

deliberate practice, which means something

1:16:56

very specific. It's a type

1:16:58

of coached practice

1:17:02

in a chosen field

1:17:04

or discipline that causes

1:17:07

you to get better because

1:17:09

you're working continually on the things that

1:17:11

you're not good at. And

1:17:13

this could be contrasted with what could be

1:17:15

called naive practice. The idea is that sometimes

1:17:18

people think, well, if I just do something

1:17:20

more, if I do something more frequently, then

1:17:22

I'll get better at it. But

1:17:24

this turns out not to be the case. And

1:17:27

that's what we call naive practice. So a good

1:17:29

example would be driving. You may drive over the

1:17:31

next five years if you're an adult, you may

1:17:33

drive say a thousand hours. But at the

1:17:35

end of those 1000 hours, you're

1:17:38

unlikely to be in any way a

1:17:40

better driver than you are today. And

1:17:42

in fact, you're probably going to be a

1:17:45

worse driver than you are today because there's

1:17:47

some amount of entropy that's happening in your

1:17:49

skills from when you were more focused. And

1:17:51

so what they've shown is that in many

1:17:54

fields, even fields with experience,

1:17:56

for example, medicine, That if

1:17:58

you're a physician and you... Stupid

1:18:00

practicing medicine for a long

1:18:02

time. You're actually not any

1:18:04

more likely to give better

1:18:06

medical advice and somebody who's

1:18:08

been practicing medicine for a

1:18:10

very short period of time,

1:18:12

unless you have been engaging

1:18:14

in very focused personal development

1:18:16

and deliberate practice, just doing

1:18:18

more of a thing doesn't

1:18:20

make you better At Ah,

1:18:22

you have to engage in

1:18:24

deliberate practice where you are

1:18:26

intentionally. Choosing to get better

1:18:28

uses gonna be your being coached

1:18:31

to get better or you're coaching

1:18:33

yourself to get better. You are

1:18:35

specifically focusing on specific skills that

1:18:37

relate to the field that you're

1:18:39

trying to improve. It's vast. Number

1:18:42

one is deliberate practice. Number two

1:18:44

is just enough time, And so

1:18:46

if you engage in deliberate practice

1:18:48

for a sufficient amount of time,

1:18:50

that accounts for all world class

1:18:53

performers for all genius at least

1:18:55

according to Eric. That and he.

1:18:57

Has made a personal study of studying

1:18:59

all of a child prodigies and all

1:19:01

the surveillance and all the hard cases,

1:19:04

etc. That's his conclusions, and I find

1:19:06

you know I don't have any reason

1:19:08

to doubt him. He's the expert on

1:19:10

not and so what's fascinating about that?

1:19:12

His. I. Find it A

1:19:14

very freeing concept is that I can

1:19:17

be a world class performer in anything

1:19:19

that I choose to focus on his

1:19:21

I'm willing to engage and my if

1:19:24

I'm willing and motivated to engage and

1:19:26

in deliberate practice for a sufficient period

1:19:28

of time as is necessary for each

1:19:31

field. In some fields, if I didn't

1:19:33

begin as a child are probably will

1:19:35

never achieve that genius level. In other

1:19:37

fields I may be able to, but

1:19:40

it comes down to me and what

1:19:42

I do and so. art is

1:19:44

no difference that artistic skills even

1:19:46

artistic of arts of aunts and

1:19:49

children who just you know create

1:19:51

beautiful pictures that eight years old

1:19:53

things like that they're not born

1:19:55

with an artsy there's no evidence

1:19:58

of artistic genes it's not in

1:20:00

eight it's base based upon environment,

1:20:02

environmental cues, practice, good coaching and

1:20:04

enough time to develop those skills.

1:20:07

Even Mozart, young child prodigies all

1:20:09

included. Even things that

1:20:11

are fixed, so for example

1:20:13

Anderson talks about things like IQ. IQ

1:20:15

is a really fascinating thing because it

1:20:17

seems to be broadly heritable

1:20:20

and broadly fixed. It

1:20:22

doesn't seem to be, it's not like we

1:20:25

have a long list of things that dramatically

1:20:27

affect IQ. There are some things

1:20:30

but it doesn't, dramatic

1:20:32

effects. But even IQ,

1:20:34

that thing that we can measure

1:20:36

sort of that has some reflection

1:20:38

of innate ability doesn't turn out

1:20:40

to be particularly important in

1:20:42

the development or expression of genius level

1:20:45

performance in any field of human endeavor.

1:20:48

Erickson talks about chess players

1:20:50

and he indicates that they did a very careful

1:20:53

study of IQ test performance

1:20:56

among chess players. What they found

1:20:58

is that IQ seemed to

1:21:01

give chess players a

1:21:04

slight advantage in the early stages of

1:21:06

learning chess. So chess players

1:21:08

with a higher measured IQ than other chess

1:21:10

players with a lower measured IQ

1:21:12

seemed to learn and grasp the

1:21:15

basic concepts of chess more

1:21:17

quickly. That

1:21:20

difference very quickly disappeared and

1:21:22

at the highest level of chess

1:21:24

grandmasters, chess grandmasters don't

1:21:26

show any higher

1:21:29

level of IQ than is

1:21:31

expected based upon the general population

1:21:34

and their performance doesn't seem

1:21:36

to be driven

1:21:38

by IQ in any way. So

1:21:41

really it does come down

1:21:43

to practice and development of

1:21:45

oneself. Now back to

1:21:47

affirmations. When

1:21:50

Ziegler convinced me of the

1:21:52

fact that skills, that character

1:21:54

qualities are skills, then

1:21:59

that The. Convinced me

1:22:01

of the value of affirmations because

1:22:04

I've never liked or been in

1:22:06

any way comfortable with the woo

1:22:08

woo side of kind of personal

1:22:11

development because the woo woo side

1:22:13

is is. Again,

1:22:16

It it. It's

1:22:18

just something that's ah yeah we say

1:22:20

says like a look in the mirror

1:22:23

and say i'm rich In reality I

1:22:25

know I'm broke to me like how

1:22:27

do you ever do that You're lying

1:22:29

to yourself, Start by telling the truth

1:22:32

I'd I'd rather to look at the

1:22:34

mere and say a broken i don't

1:22:36

wanna be then kill rich etc but

1:22:38

based upon been convinced of that those

1:22:41

those attributes being. Genuine.

1:22:43

Skills Then I realize that if I

1:22:45

have from these skills to myself than

1:22:47

that may have some valuable effect that

1:22:50

may help me to to to do

1:22:52

better and to be able to ah

1:22:54

to be able to to develop these

1:22:56

things and then I can focus on

1:22:59

different skills at different parts of mine

1:23:01

day and in my life and I

1:23:03

can develop them. Ah I don't know

1:23:05

how to say it and he any

1:23:08

differently than that so that was where

1:23:10

it. What's if you want to find.

1:23:12

The affirmations just search zigzag were affirmations

1:23:14

and you'll find you can find a

1:23:17

pdf of the car that he would

1:23:19

send out with his stuff and then

1:23:21

what I will do is I will

1:23:23

play for you the audio here of

1:23:25

the morning affirmations that that I use

1:23:27

an them have a plate for you

1:23:29

here I think the scissors or works

1:23:31

well on according. To

1:23:34

him by moments. or

1:23:43

it's that's not gonna work based on how i

1:23:45

have a computer setup for today so i'll just

1:23:47

read these to you and when i did was

1:23:49

i just found some music and record of them

1:23:51

are record of them but here here that here

1:23:53

they are the sex with them and as i

1:23:55

say these i'll read them a little bit slowly

1:23:57

but it just wants you to recognize that

1:24:01

these things are, these

1:24:05

things are, just recognize that these are skills that

1:24:07

you can grow in. So here's how I say

1:24:09

them. I

1:24:11

Joshua Sheets am a child of the

1:24:13

king, living in the will of

1:24:15

God, and I can do

1:24:17

all things through Christ who gives me strength. I

1:24:20

claim the following attributes because I have the mind

1:24:22

of Christ. I am a confidant of

1:24:24

God. And by the way, I have scriptures that I use

1:24:26

for these to convince myself of these things biblically.

1:24:29

And although I am weak in many of

1:24:31

these qualities, I am specifically told to let

1:24:34

the weak say, I am strong. So

1:24:37

I am strong. By claiming,

1:24:40

developing and using these biblical qualities,

1:24:42

I will become the person God

1:24:44

created me to be and I

1:24:47

will glorify God and benefit mankind.

1:24:49

I, Joshua Sheets, am an honest,

1:24:52

intelligent, organized,

1:24:54

responsible, committed, teachable person

1:24:57

who is sober, loyal,

1:25:00

and who clearly understands that regardless of

1:25:02

who signs my paycheck, I

1:25:04

am self-employed. I am

1:25:07

an optimistic, punctual, enthusiastic,

1:25:09

goal-setting, smart-working self-starter who

1:25:11

is a disciplined, focused,

1:25:14

dependable, persistent, positive thinker

1:25:16

with great self-control. And

1:25:19

I am an energetic and diligent

1:25:21

team player and hard worker who

1:25:24

appreciates the opportunity my company and

1:25:26

the free enterprise system offer me.

1:25:29

I am thrifty with my resources and

1:25:31

I apply common sense to my daily

1:25:33

tasks. I take honest pride

1:25:35

in my competence, appearance, and

1:25:38

manners, and am motivated

1:25:40

to be and do my best so

1:25:42

that my healthy self-image will remain on

1:25:44

solid ground. These are the

1:25:46

qualities which enable me to manage myself and

1:25:49

help give me employment and security in

1:25:52

a no-job-security world.

1:25:54

I, Joshua Sheets, am

1:25:56

a compassionate, respectful, encourager

1:25:59

who is a consider it generous,

1:26:02

gentle, patient, caring,

1:26:06

sensitive, personable, attentive,

1:26:09

fun-loving person. I am

1:26:11

a supportive, giving

1:26:13

and forgiving, clean,

1:26:16

kind, unselfish, affectionate,

1:26:19

loving, family-oriented man, and I

1:26:21

am a sincere and open-minded

1:26:23

good listener and a good

1:26:26

finder who is trustworthy. These

1:26:28

are the qualities which enable me to build

1:26:31

good relationships. I, Joshua Sheets,

1:26:33

am a person of integrity, with

1:26:35

the faith and wisdom to know what

1:26:37

I should do and the courage and

1:26:39

conviction to follow through. I

1:26:41

have the vision to manage myself and to

1:26:43

lead others. I am

1:26:46

authoritative, confident, and humbly

1:26:48

grateful for the opportunity life offers

1:26:50

me. I am fair, flexible,

1:26:53

resourceful, creative, knowledgeable,

1:26:56

decisive, and an extra miler with

1:26:59

a servant's attitude who communicates well

1:27:01

with others. I

1:27:03

am a consistent, pragmatic teacher

1:27:05

with character, and I

1:27:08

have a finely tuned sense of humor. I

1:27:10

am an honorable person and am

1:27:13

balanced in my personal, family, and

1:27:15

business life, and I have a

1:27:17

passion for being, doing, and learning

1:27:19

more today so I can be,

1:27:22

do, and have more

1:27:24

tomorrow. These

1:27:26

are the qualities of the winner

1:27:28

I was born to be, and

1:27:30

I am fully committed to developing

1:27:32

these marvelous qualities with which I

1:27:34

have been entrusted. And

1:27:36

then you can go into either the morning version

1:27:39

or the daytime

1:27:41

version, etc. The

1:27:44

last sentence that I like from the

1:27:46

nighttime version is, recognizing, claiming, and developing

1:27:48

these qualities, which I already have, gives

1:27:51

me a legitimate chance to be

1:27:54

happier, healthier, more prosperous, more secure,

1:27:56

have more friends, greater peace

1:27:58

of mind, better family. relationships and

1:28:00

legitimate hope that the future

1:28:02

will be even better. So

1:28:05

you can find the text of that. As I said,

1:28:07

go online, search Zig Ziglar Affirmations and you'll find it.

1:28:10

But that's the basis of it. And

1:28:13

I wish that I did

1:28:15

this every day, but since

1:28:18

I am honest, I cannot say that. What

1:28:21

I can say is that every time I

1:28:23

engage in this practice, I feel

1:28:25

better. And as

1:28:27

is common, when we do something that

1:28:29

works, then we, because it works, we

1:28:32

usually stop doing it and it's frustrating

1:28:34

about that. And so

1:28:36

what I will do is I tend to do it in phases

1:28:38

though, is that I listen to

1:28:40

the recording, usually when I make my coffee,

1:28:43

I have the little recording that I made with

1:28:45

some dramatic movie score music, etc. of my voice

1:28:47

reading it to myself. I put my

1:28:49

earbuds in while I wait for the water to heat and

1:28:52

I listen to that in the morning and I like it because

1:28:55

it just causes me to want

1:28:57

to, it makes me stand up

1:28:59

straighter. If I recognize, yes, I

1:29:01

am those things, those things do

1:29:03

describe me. They do describe me

1:29:05

in a measure and I want them to describe me

1:29:07

more and more. And what usually

1:29:10

happens is as I'm reading the list or

1:29:12

listening to the list, etc., I'll

1:29:14

find something where there's a little twinge of conscience.

1:29:18

And for example, as I go through

1:29:20

this now and it says, discipline, right? Well, am

1:29:22

I disciplined to do this thing that I'm telling

1:29:25

you about that has been a good factor of

1:29:27

my life? Well, no, and I haven't

1:29:30

been super disciplined. But even as I'm recording this, then

1:29:33

I sit up a little bit straighter, my

1:29:35

chest goes up, no, I'm going to express discipline, I'm

1:29:37

going to cultivate discipline and I'm going to do this

1:29:39

more frequently because it's a healthy thing. And

1:29:42

then you recognize times when I wasn't

1:29:44

compassionate or I was unkind to someone

1:29:46

and it tweaks your conscience and

1:29:48

you can go and apologize or fix something. But I

1:29:51

think it's a very healthy habit. And then the final

1:29:53

thing is I'm making that right now. I'm

1:29:56

planning to give my children, I'm going to get it done

1:29:58

because it's a long list. I'm making books for

1:30:00

my children, and I'm gonna teach this affirmation

1:30:03

to my children. So what I'm using

1:30:05

AI to make inspirational,

1:30:09

forward-looking pictures of these

1:30:11

things, and then I've created a set

1:30:14

of text that's associated with

1:30:16

each of these character qualities, and

1:30:18

this is kind of a component of my

1:30:20

character education with my children, as I'm gonna

1:30:23

give them all a

1:30:25

printed photo book that have the AI images. They love

1:30:27

it when I make AI images for them. So AI

1:30:29

images of each of my children forward

1:30:33

expressing these qualities, and I believe that this is

1:30:35

something that we need to do as

1:30:38

part of our education, the same way that,

1:30:41

so character education is important for

1:30:43

us, and it's also important for

1:30:45

our children, and so that begins

1:30:47

by identifying character qualities, and

1:30:49

I've got a collection of about a half dozen books

1:30:52

that we go through that discuss different

1:30:54

character qualities, so integrity, what does that

1:30:56

mean? Responsibility, what is that? And my

1:30:58

ambition and my hope is that I

1:31:01

can set them on a stronger foundation

1:31:04

by being intimately aware

1:31:08

of the definition of these qualities, the

1:31:10

fact that they have them, and the fact

1:31:12

that they need to be developed, and

1:31:15

then I try to supplement that with

1:31:17

lots of literature, et cetera, to reinforce

1:31:19

that, but that's the affirmations,

1:31:23

that's how I use them. Yes, I do them not

1:31:25

as much as I should, not

1:31:28

as much as I will based upon your reminding me of

1:31:30

the importance of them, et cetera. Well,

1:31:35

I'm looking forward to stealing a lot of that, and

1:31:38

I'm inspired with my family as well to try to

1:31:40

figure out how to implement that, just not

1:31:42

for me, but also for my

1:31:44

family. I don't know if you have

1:31:46

time for another question, but it was totally different on,

1:31:48

go ahead. Is

1:31:50

Texas Guinness a seed? What do you

1:31:52

think are the odds of that, and do you think there are, it's

1:31:55

a good plan B potential, and if so,

1:31:57

how might we do that beforehand?

1:32:00

Maybe buying a piece

1:32:02

of property, do you think that might help with

1:32:04

the residency at some point down the line? What

1:32:06

are your thoughts on that? Because you're one of

1:32:08

the only people weird enough that I respect that

1:32:10

might actually have an opinion on this matter. Yeah.

1:32:13

It's a fun question. Buying

1:32:16

a piece of property, if you

1:32:18

could do it and it were a small,

1:32:20

modest part of your life

1:32:22

and your component, then absolutely I would say

1:32:25

go for it. Texas

1:32:27

after all, isn't it

1:32:29

fun to have a little flag planted

1:32:31

in a place that you appreciate or

1:32:34

that you are interested in, etc. I

1:32:36

think what would be a more

1:32:39

practical thing than necessarily buying property

1:32:42

is to change

1:32:45

if it were appropriate. Again,

1:32:47

you can't commit fraud, but

1:32:49

Texas is one of the states

1:32:52

that allows nomad residency. You

1:32:55

can be a resident of the state of Texas. If

1:32:57

you were deeply convinced of the thesis

1:33:00

that you're describing, that Texas may secede and

1:33:02

I want to have a

1:33:05

flag planted there, then you

1:33:07

can be a resident of the state of Texas

1:33:09

with a Texas driver's license, a Texas mailing address,

1:33:11

etc., even if you don't spend all

1:33:13

of your time in Texas. There

1:33:16

are a few things to be

1:33:18

careful of. That's not a system that should be abused.

1:33:21

If you live in Minnesota and that's where you

1:33:23

are all the time, then obviously you need to

1:33:25

– then you're probably

1:33:27

going to – a lot of your stuff

1:33:29

is going to reflect that. But Texas

1:33:31

is a state that would be relatively easy for

1:33:34

many people to place a flag in. Again, as

1:33:36

I said, you could be a resident of the

1:33:38

state of Texas formally, officially, legally with the court

1:33:40

system, etc. You would just need

1:33:42

to make sure that you weren't violating any local laws of

1:33:45

where you spent more time if you weren't spending time in

1:33:47

Texas. I think the future of Texas is

1:33:49

very strong. It

1:33:51

just seems that Texas has a great

1:33:56

structure. I listened to Peter Zihan's

1:33:58

analysis of it and he goes on. on and

1:34:00

on about the future of Texas. And

1:34:03

I can't argue with his comments. I think he's

1:34:05

correct. And I've said

1:34:07

to various people, I was like, hey, you probably

1:34:09

ought to move to Texas and get

1:34:12

potentially involved into the future

1:34:16

growth of Texas. The

1:34:18

Texas triangle is powerfully

1:34:21

enormous growth potential. And

1:34:24

the integration of Texas with Mexico, enormous

1:34:26

potential, et cetera. So I think Texas

1:34:28

has a very strong economic future.

1:34:31

I don't think there's any chance

1:34:33

of Texas seceding. And it's

1:34:36

not that technically they couldn't in

1:34:38

the sense that all the arguments for Texas secession,

1:34:40

and look, we've got, we're

1:34:42

a, oh, what do they call the state? What's

1:34:46

the name they use for the Republic

1:34:48

of Texas, I guess? Is

1:34:50

that the name that they call Texas? I'm

1:34:53

sorry. Go ahead. What was that? Sorry. What is

1:34:55

the thing that Texans call themselves? Not

1:34:57

a republic, but they

1:35:00

don't call themselves a state. They call themselves something else.

1:35:03

Anyway, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I think it's the

1:35:05

Republic of Texas, I think. So

1:35:07

in their state constitution, we've got the

1:35:09

Republic of Texas, et cetera. And

1:35:15

we're the Republic of Texas. We've got an independent power grid. We're

1:35:17

one of the few people that could secede. So

1:35:20

could they do it? Yeah, probably

1:35:22

so. My answer on that is,

1:35:25

quite simply, that I

1:35:27

think the entire idea of a

1:35:29

state being able to secede from

1:35:31

the United States federal

1:35:35

entity was decided in the Civil War. And

1:35:38

I'm no Civil War historian. But as far

1:35:40

as I can tell, the actions

1:35:43

of the South to secede from the Union

1:35:45

were entirely legal. I

1:35:48

can't see any law that they

1:35:50

broke by seceding from the South.

1:35:52

As distasteful as it is to

1:35:54

talk about slavery and all of

1:35:56

the issues associated with it, as

1:35:58

far as I can tell, strict legal

1:36:01

perspective, it seems persuasive

1:36:03

to me that the South and the

1:36:05

Southern States were able, legally

1:36:07

speaking, to secede from the Union.

1:36:11

And Abraham Lincoln, as much as we

1:36:13

wish to lionize him for his anti-slavery

1:36:16

work, Abraham Lincoln

1:36:19

broke enormous swaths

1:36:21

of law and precedent in

1:36:23

order to prosecute the war against the South. And

1:36:27

the war happened, and I think

1:36:29

that was where it was settled, is

1:36:31

that the official stance

1:36:33

of the United States is basically,

1:36:36

once you're in, you ain't getting out. I'm

1:36:40

just shooting from the hip. You know, imagine we're having

1:36:42

a cold drink together, that's what I would say. Maybe

1:36:45

someone could convince me of that. But

1:36:47

when I think about the clear

1:36:49

legal arguments that the Southern States

1:36:51

had for the Confederacy, when

1:36:54

I think about what

1:36:57

the process they did secede from the

1:36:59

Union to establish the Confederate States of

1:37:01

America, etc., and then

1:37:03

how that war was ultimately

1:37:05

prosecuted, then I

1:37:08

think the same basic thing that happened

1:37:11

then would happen again. And

1:37:13

so as I understand the history of

1:37:15

the Civil War, an

1:37:18

enormous component of

1:37:20

the Civil War was

1:37:23

around tariffs and

1:37:25

around basically economic

1:37:27

policies of keeping

1:37:29

the country integrated. A

1:37:31

significant component of it was also

1:37:34

the arguments over slavery. But

1:37:37

it wasn't exclusively over

1:37:39

slavery, and it wasn't

1:37:41

exclusively over economics and

1:37:44

tariffs, and

1:37:48

who had the right to collect taxes. When

1:37:50

I was in high school, I wrote a paper for

1:37:53

a history class in which I argued that

1:37:55

the Civil War was not about slavery, not

1:37:57

about ending slavery. And in that paper, I

1:37:59

quote all of President

1:38:01

Lincoln's addresses in which he said,

1:38:04

I'm not interested in

1:38:06

ending slavery. I

1:38:08

now believe that I was wrong in high

1:38:10

school, I was naive, and that Lincoln was

1:38:12

engaging in political convenience by

1:38:15

not fully stating publicly

1:38:17

his ambition to end

1:38:19

slavery, but simply

1:38:22

keeping that in reserve as

1:38:26

trying to basically say one thing. Basically the

1:38:28

same thing Barack Obama did around the concept

1:38:30

of homosexual marriage, et cetera. I'm gonna say

1:38:32

one thing, do another, et cetera, no difference.

1:38:34

So I think Lincoln did the same thing.

1:38:36

But those issues were related. And

1:38:39

so if Texas seceded, what

1:38:41

would be the justification for that secession? So

1:38:44

there would have to be a lot of

1:38:46

change that would happen

1:38:48

in order for that kind of thing to be

1:38:50

supported more broadly. Now, I was encouraged to see

1:38:52

that, what was it, like 20

1:38:55

states, 22 states or something like that, signed

1:38:57

a letter about the recent skiffuffle

1:38:59

at the border, and that a lot of other

1:39:02

state governors are willing to put their names down. And

1:39:04

so I think that there is

1:39:06

enough of a pressure

1:39:10

that I think the action to the

1:39:12

federal government may be somewhat limited because

1:39:14

of some of this pressure. So I

1:39:16

expect some kind of significant political change,

1:39:19

and I think that this is much

1:39:21

more, I'm pretty persuaded

1:39:23

of the thesis that

1:39:26

the current scenario in the United States,

1:39:29

the frustration, the vitriol, the arguing, the

1:39:31

fighting, is more of a

1:39:33

turning of the age than it is

1:39:36

of any specific thing. And

1:39:39

I first became persuaded

1:39:41

of that by

1:39:43

reading George, the

1:39:48

geopolitical, George Friedman's book called

1:39:50

The Storm Before the Comb. And

1:39:52

he talked about the cyclical nature and the two trends

1:39:55

in the United States that are converging on the 2020s

1:39:58

and why he predicted years ago. the 2020s

1:40:00

were going to be hugely

1:40:04

frustrating and filled

1:40:07

with anger and vitriol, etc. But

1:40:09

it was going to lead to a complete transformation of

1:40:11

the political system and of the economic system in the

1:40:14

United States. And then finally, a listener

1:40:16

convinced me, and I'm halfway through the

1:40:19

recent book, The Fourth Turning is Here,

1:40:21

and I find his

1:40:23

arguments persuasive of the cyclical nature

1:40:26

of the seculum in the fourth turning arguments. I never

1:40:28

read the original one, and I knew that I should,

1:40:30

but I just got annoyed by everyone who went on

1:40:32

and on about the fourth turning, and so I never

1:40:34

read the book because I just got annoyed by the

1:40:37

people who promoted the book. So I'm reading The

1:40:39

Fourth Turning is Here, and it seems persuasive to

1:40:41

me. So I think that

1:40:43

we're just in kind of a fairly intense

1:40:45

period in the 2020s, and that intensity is

1:40:50

going to lead to a transformation of the

1:40:52

political system, a transformation of the economic

1:40:54

system, and we're going to emerge in the 2030s, mid-2030s,

1:40:56

something like that, with

1:40:59

a new and unrecognizable system, because that's

1:41:02

what happened about four or five times

1:41:04

before in the American system.

1:41:07

And I see good historical evidence

1:41:09

for that, that goes

1:41:11

a lot farther than expecting a

1:41:13

civil war. So those are

1:41:15

my thoughts. Who knows? We'll sit back and

1:41:18

watch and see what happens. Thank

1:41:21

you very much. Love hearing it. My

1:41:24

pleasure. And thank you for the

1:41:27

good questions. As we close, I think

1:41:29

it was that caller who mentioned that I am

1:41:31

indeed hosting a Radical Family Camp. If

1:41:34

you are interested in that, check out the

1:41:36

previous show that I just did, the

1:41:38

one before this show in the podcast feed.

1:41:40

You can find all of the details on

1:41:42

that. And if you'd like to sign up

1:41:44

for that, go to www.radicalfamilycamp.com. Move

1:41:46

soon. Again, the early bird sale tickets are

1:41:49

more than half sold out. So go

1:41:52

to www.radicalfamilycamp.com. Basically, the short version

1:41:54

is that we're going to have

1:41:56