0:00

It's Friday and today, live Q&A. Welcome

0:19

to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you

0:21

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

0:24

live a rich and meaningful life now, while building a

0:26

plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My

0:28

name is Joshua Sheets, today is Friday, April 26, 2024.

0:32

And on this Friday, as on any Friday,

0:35

in which I can arrange a microphone and

0:37

an internet connection and all of that fun

0:39

stuff, we record live Q&A. You call in,

0:41

talk about anything you want, raise any topics

0:43

you want, any questions you want, you

0:46

set the agenda. I am here to serve

0:48

you in any way that you desire. If

0:59

you're new to Radical Personal Finance, I welcome you here

1:01

on these Friday Q&A shows. It works just like Call

1:03

and Talk Radio, call it Open Line Friday if you

1:05

like. You call in, talk

1:08

about anything you want. If you would like

1:10

to gain access to one of these shows,

1:12

you can do that by becoming a patron

1:14

of the show. Go to patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.com/radicalpersonalfinance. That will

1:16

gain access for you to one of these

1:18

Friday Q&A shows. We begin with Liliana in

1:20

Seattle. Welcome Liliana, how can I serve you

1:23

today? Hello, Joshua. I'm

1:25

really glad to be here. Thank you for having me

1:28

and giving the opportunity to ask you a question.

1:31

Doing great. I've actually

1:33

been part of your Radical Family Camp,

1:36

which was amazing and fantastic. Wanted

1:39

to thank you for that experience. And also,

1:41

I have a question for you today. I

1:47

come from, let's say, post-Soviet,

1:50

from Russia, from one of the post-Soviet

1:53

countries. We

1:55

have this cultural thing that

1:58

kind of sets up. kids

2:00

have one kid who's just only one and a

2:02

half years old and We

2:05

have this cultural aspect of setting them

2:07

up for success by, you know working

2:09

hard grinding studying

2:11

a lot and kind of

2:16

And there is this overall belief

2:18

that only through the

2:20

hurdles and you know Disadvantages

2:25

of life one can become Truly

2:28

strong personality and successful

2:30

personality. So this is kind

2:32

of the mindset And

2:34

mentality I've grown up in I

2:37

also believe that some of my friends

2:39

from China and from India also have

2:41

similar Mindsets where they kind of train

2:44

their kids to be super

2:46

successful by studying

2:48

a lot and working a lot and my

2:52

question is in the realm of

2:55

Those concepts of bringing

2:57

kids because when

2:59

I came to the West so to speak I

3:02

found that a lot of families do not

3:04

like have more resources First

3:07

of all, probably our countries

3:09

that I've mentioned like Russia China India

3:12

have less resources that that's why it's like

3:14

more, you know Zero-sum

3:16

game attitude I could say to life in

3:19

general But here

3:21

in the West it's much more

3:23

comfortable life more resources family Sometimes

3:26

even have some assets in place

3:28

for their kids some Are

3:32

able to pay for the college

3:35

and such so my question

3:37

is What from

3:39

your perspective can we do to set

3:41

up our little? Kid

3:43

in the future like continue. I don't know

3:45

15 years 10 years whatever or to

3:48

be a Resilient so

3:51

to speak successful when I say

3:53

successful, I don't only mean money But overall,

3:55

you know kind of this resilient personalities, you

3:57

know what I mean person

4:00

without giving him a hard time, if you know

4:02

what I mean, and

4:04

making it difficult.

4:07

Because I've myself been brought up without

4:10

food, without money, after

4:12

the fall of the Soviet Union. It's really

4:15

a survival mode, which I

4:18

then had to take off myself

4:20

with a long years of therapy. And,

4:23

obviously, I don't want to put my

4:25

child in a survival mode and such.

4:28

So what do you think, how

4:30

can we raise children in a different way,

4:32

like to make them

4:35

still resilient and motivated to

4:38

work hard in life,

4:41

which every person definitely needs? I

4:44

would really love to hear your perspective on

4:46

that aspect. Thank you. I love the question.

4:49

Let's pretend that you are going to

4:51

raise your child the way

4:53

that you were raised, meaning that

4:56

you didn't question the culture, you didn't think, oh,

4:58

maybe there might be a better way. You

5:01

were just going to reproduce in your

5:03

child what your parents and your home

5:05

culture produced in you. How

5:08

specifically would you do that? What

5:10

would you do in order to

5:12

express that culture? That's

5:15

a great question to ask. I love it

5:17

because immediately I thought that

5:20

it's like 50-50. It's

5:24

like throwing your child into the

5:26

water hoping the kid can

5:28

swim, but maybe there will be some problems along

5:30

the way. I

5:32

can say that. That's a great question. No

5:36

money for education. No

5:39

pocket money. You have to start

5:42

working when you're like 16 years old,

5:44

really early to provide for yourself and

5:46

sometimes even for your family. A

5:49

really low resource. Also,

5:55

along the way, it would be

5:58

always kind of saying that. look

6:00

at the other, the others are

6:02

doing better than you do. Look

6:05

at that, look at like Mary, a neighbor's

6:09

daughter, she's performing better than you in

6:11

school, like what the hell are you

6:13

doing? And those type

6:15

of comparison, you know, bringing when

6:17

you compare the kid to others,

6:20

and this is how you,

6:22

like negative motivation and it's fine. And

6:26

like you could do better than this, so

6:28

kind of like negative motivation, and

6:32

also not providing any setup

6:36

for anything. Right, right. This

6:40

is a question that intrigues me quite

6:42

a lot. I have a few thoughts

6:44

on it. What I don't have

6:47

is a lot of hard

6:49

evidence of I

6:51

don't have any data that I could present

6:53

on this. I haven't found any data on

6:55

this yet. There may be

6:58

books or people who have researched this

7:01

out there, but so far I haven't

7:03

come across very much of that. So

7:06

I'll cite

7:08

what I have come across for

7:10

you, but just know that most

7:13

of my answers to this question

7:15

are coming from personal experience and

7:18

from observations of the world, and

7:20

just a little bit of thought about it, not coming

7:22

from a strong research base. And if

7:24

anybody knows of a strong research base to get

7:26

me started in the right direction, I would welcome

7:29

those comments. I think

7:31

that it's important to identify

7:34

specifically what you would

7:36

do differently because there

7:38

are two truths that I

7:41

think need to go together. Number one, having

7:44

character, we'll just describe it as

7:46

character. Having character is

7:48

foundational and fundamental to success

7:51

in life. Having

7:54

a strong work ethic, I think

7:57

is fundamental and foundational to success

7:59

in life. And so if

8:01

we have the choice between, let's say that

8:03

we could just magically produce a child who

8:05

did have a work ethic, or

8:07

we could magically produce a child who did not have

8:09

a work ethic, I don't think

8:12

anybody would argue that the

8:14

child without a work ethic is any better off. Similarly,

8:17

if we could

8:19

produce a child of strong character, versus

8:22

a child who's not of strong character,

8:24

nobody would argue that the child is

8:27

better off if he doesn't have a strong character. I

8:30

think probably the one word we could

8:32

use for this would be the word grit. That's

8:34

probably where the most research is done.

8:37

Angela Duckworth is probably the most famous

8:39

psychologist who's written extensively on this with

8:41

her work of grit, showing how gritty

8:43

children, children who have determination and

8:46

a desire to succeed are

8:48

often the ones who do the best. And

8:52

I think that a strong,

8:55

I'm gonna call it military upbringing, could

8:59

certainly produce people of character

9:01

and people of grit. I

9:05

think back to a society

9:07

like the Spartans. And if

9:09

you go back and you think about what, when like

9:11

Hurgis laid out the law for

9:14

Sparta, and he laid

9:16

out this just hardcore training regimen

9:18

for the way that children are to be

9:20

brought up as in very austere conditions with

9:23

constant discomfort and constant

9:27

discomfort, constant difficulty, constant

9:31

shortage, constant lack, then

9:34

that did succeed in creating men

9:36

who were warriors, who were strong

9:38

and capable warriors, who were able

9:41

to do many

9:43

remarkable things with that basic

9:45

grit that was built into

9:47

them. The

9:49

challenge is that I'm not sure that

9:52

grit alone is

9:54

a sufficient ingredient

9:57

in the recipe for success. I

10:01

think that grit is useful and

10:04

helpful but that it

10:07

also has downsides to it.

10:09

And so if we only

10:11

focus on that and

10:13

that alone, then it seems to

10:15

me like we're missing other important

10:19

attributes and traits that

10:21

children need in order to build successful

10:24

lives for the long term. So

10:26

as you alluded to, I have some friends who

10:28

grew up in the Soviet Union and under that

10:31

educational system. And if you go

10:33

back and you look at the Soviet Union and what

10:37

that empire was able to produce, it

10:40

truly was able to produce some

10:43

citizens who had

10:46

stellar academic ability, incredible

10:48

mathematicians and world class engineers

10:50

and things like that. I

10:53

see the same thing happening

10:56

in Asian educational systems today.

10:58

I don't know to what degree the current

11:01

Russian model of education

11:03

mirrors the culture that

11:05

you grew up in. But where I've spent

11:08

the most time reading about it is in

11:10

basically what I'll call the Asian system. And

11:12

I would include in that the

11:14

Chinese system, Singapore, we

11:16

could include India in that or just

11:19

this very grueling approach to academics. And

11:22

in Korea, they have a test day where

11:24

it's all about this one annual test and

11:26

the students just slave away

11:28

preparing for this test. And basically your

11:30

results on these tests determine

11:32

your life and where your life can go in

11:35

the future. And again, I

11:37

think that produces certain qualities, certain characteristics

11:39

that are positive, that give good outcomes.

11:42

But they also, there's a flip side to it.

11:44

There's a lack of creativity that can often

11:46

be found in that. I

11:49

can't cite this, so I could be mistaken

11:51

about this, but I have an impression that

11:53

I've read or seen analysis at some point

11:56

along the way of people talking

11:58

about how in the... American

12:00

model the American model Excells

12:03

and create in creating Individuals

12:06

who are able to be creative. I

12:09

have a friend of mine who works for

12:11

an international school And I spent a lot

12:13

of time talking with him about universities. He's

12:15

a guidance counselor for international

12:17

students who want to go to university and I

12:21

talked to him about why people choose different

12:23

universities Why would somebody go to the United

12:25

States as compared to other places around the

12:27

world where you can also go and study?

12:30

and You know there are many There's

12:33

incredible scholarship programs the Japanese government has

12:35

a scholarship program for people who want to come

12:37

to Japan and study there They're the pay if

12:39

you get the scholarship to pay all of your

12:41

tuition at a Japanese university China has

12:43

a number of scholarship programs where they'll pay

12:45

all of your university tuition in China the

12:51

Germ sorry Europe is full of

12:53

universities that are tuition free even

12:55

for non EU citizens to

12:57

participate in and yet many

12:59

of the wealthy families that he

13:02

advises and councils will still send

13:04

their children to the United States

13:06

and to go to college and

13:08

Pay enormous tuition fees for the

13:11

privilege of their attending universities. I

13:13

asked him. I said why and he says well One

13:16

of the things that the United

13:18

States University system can do and just

13:21

to be clear I considered the

13:23

current mainstream US University

13:25

system to be pretty flawed, but

13:27

one of the things that it can do is it can create students

13:30

who think creatively about solutions

13:32

who think Broadly

13:35

and are able to come up with

13:37

solutions that aren't just based upon grinding

13:39

out just applying more more work effort

13:41

Or more work ethic to the to the problem

13:44

and that can be a whole

13:46

different skill set and so I

13:49

guess my answer is that I think that both of those

13:51

things are important

13:54

that having work ethic is important

13:56

and necessary having character is important

13:58

and necessary, but it's not sufficient.

14:01

And in many cases, if you look at basically

14:04

success in life, if you take an individual

14:06

that you think is successful, very

14:09

rarely would I find

14:11

someone who I would characterize as successful

14:13

broadly. And we can use finances exclusively

14:15

or we can just say broadly successful

14:18

in life. Very rarely would

14:20

I find somebody who just puts

14:22

nose to the grindstone and does nothing

14:24

but work, work, work, work, work and characterize that

14:26

person as successful. If they

14:28

are successful, they're usually successful in one dimension,

14:30

in one domain of life and life is

14:33

more varied than that. So

14:36

my thought on it is, at least what

14:38

I aspire to do, is

14:40

I aspire to try to do both of those things.

14:43

And my answer for it is

14:45

to, so

14:47

specifically, usually we're talking about

14:50

something related to education and schooling. Now

14:52

you mentioned money and basically negative

14:54

reinforcement, compare yourself to that other person over there. I'll

14:56

get to those in just a moment. But

14:59

in terms of an educational system, I

15:02

myself have

15:05

a tendency to disparage those kinds

15:07

of educational systems that cause people

15:10

to just work all the time.

15:12

I don't think that they're effective. And I think

15:14

we have good data from learning science to show

15:17

that they're not nearly as effective as they could

15:19

be. And even in terms

15:21

of work, what a lot of people who

15:23

we would label as workaholics often do is

15:26

they confuse

15:29

effort with

15:32

effectiveness or they confuse

15:35

volume with effectiveness. And at its

15:37

core, while many disciplines

15:40

and skills need volume

15:43

in order to acquire skills, at

15:46

its core, most things can

15:48

be improved by proper

15:51

application and creative and

15:53

efficient methodologies. And so,

15:57

probably the best example from a master's degree is that you can do

15:59

that. mathematical from an educational perspective would

16:01

be to study the teaching

16:04

or the learning of mathematics and There's

16:06

a balance here. There's a war that wages

16:09

of What is often

16:11

labeled as the drill-and-kill approach where you just

16:13

do mathematics constantly non-stop mathematics more more more

16:15

more more more system it systematically as compared

16:18

to learning to think about why you're doing

16:20

what you're doing so that you understand the

16:22

math and and What

16:25

they have recently I finished and I would

16:27

cite here the book range by David Epstein

16:30

the subtitles why generalists Succeed

16:33

in a specialized world and

16:35

one of the things I learned from that book that I

16:37

read recently that I had never understood was

16:40

how why

16:44

Certain math techniques are being emphasized

16:46

the author of that book Epstein cited a study

16:49

that some learning Psychologists had done

16:51

where they had gone into math

16:53

classrooms all around the world and

16:56

they had recorded in detail

16:58

some of the math lessons that were

17:00

being taught and they Carefully

17:03

detailed everything that the teacher was doing

17:05

everything that was said they videotaped them

17:07

They had transcripts and then they followed

17:09

the students test scores and their long-term

17:11

effectiveness with mathematics and they discovered

17:14

that when

17:16

the teacher Basically

17:19

taught mathematics with a rote

17:21

learning approach Hey,

17:24

this is how you do long division. You just do

17:26

this into this into this into this you do this

17:28

step You bring down the number here then The

17:31

student was never able to incorporate

17:33

those mathematical techniques at a

17:35

deeper level But if the student if

17:38

the teacher Focused

17:40

on a conceptual teaching of it rather

17:42

than a procedural approach Then

17:44

they wound up with better outcomes and for

17:46

me that was an enormous light bulb moment

17:49

Because I like many have griped about the

17:51

modern Methods

17:53

of teaching mathematics in the United States

17:56

the debate over this has been related

17:58

to what is called the common core

18:00

standards. And what

18:02

many people find is they send their

18:04

child off to fourth grade math or

18:06

fifth grade math, sixth grade math, the

18:09

child comes home with some weird like

18:11

boxing approach and the is like, why

18:13

are you trying to solve your division problem with these weird

18:15

boxes? And the parent very well

18:17

meaning as I myself have done says, listen, I'm just

18:19

gonna teach you how to do it. This is the

18:21

easier way. And look, this is how you do long

18:24

division. I now understand what

18:26

the common core approach is trying to

18:28

accomplish in a way that I didn't

18:30

before is trying to get at

18:32

the conceptual thinking and the conceptual

18:34

understanding of mathematics, rather than just

18:36

the procedural basis. Now the

18:38

flip side we can't I don't think it's smart to

18:40

be extremist about it on the flip side, you could

18:42

say, well, it's just a drill and kill. But on

18:44

the other side, you need to have enough practice with

18:46

the actual concepts in order to

18:49

really master them practice leads to

18:51

mastery. And so with many

18:53

things related to education, I would

18:55

like to see it go through the

18:57

middle and benefit from

19:00

understanding and then have sufficient level

19:02

sufficient amounts of practice, rather

19:05

than just kind of drudgery, working

19:07

working it through nonstop. Taking

19:11

education further, if you look at

19:13

what different systems produce a

19:17

system that is based upon rote

19:19

learning rote practice rote repetition

19:23

can produce outcomes

19:25

where the student actually has

19:27

the ability to do the

19:29

work. But that doesn't seem

19:31

to be a very intelligent

19:34

preparation of the student for life.

19:36

And so if we if I'm running

19:39

a communist system where I'm trying to

19:41

create workers who will fit into the

19:43

collective, and I need workers who are

19:46

very skilled with the basics of engineering,

19:49

then I would be inclined to

19:51

go for that kind of approach. But

19:53

if I'm trying to create well educated

19:55

students who are prepared for life and

19:57

prepared and understand their strengths, their weaknesses,

20:00

skills, their interests, then I need to give

20:02

more time for that. My

20:04

observation of basically coaching a

20:06

lot of people with big life decisions has

20:09

been that if someone doesn't

20:11

have a diverse

20:13

exposure to the world and time

20:15

to get to know himself, then

20:18

he's unlikely to be able to make good life decisions

20:20

for himself. He feels lost once he gets out of

20:22

a constrained system. So

20:25

I'm opposed to just constant

20:28

never-ending rote learning from

20:30

an educational perspective because

20:33

I don't think it gives us the

20:35

outcome that we're looking for of a

20:37

prepared human being who is well-educated but

20:39

it is also prepared to succeed in

20:42

life generally. I think it just creates

20:44

a highly skilled drone who

20:46

is able to do computations

20:48

very quickly and very effectively. Now

20:51

going on to the handling of

20:54

money, this is another big question,

20:56

another big debate. I grew up probably

20:58

similar to how you did in the sense that

21:01

my family didn't have a lot of money and so

21:03

in even the

21:05

US American culture, there's

21:07

a strong ethos of pull

21:10

yourself up by your own bootstraps. I

21:13

didn't have a lot of money. When I was

21:15

in high school, I didn't own a car but

21:17

my dad would let me borrow one of the

21:19

family cars to drive myself to school and when

21:21

I asked him for some money on occasion, he

21:24

would give me some money and I worked and I had some of my own money

21:27

but I would go to the gas pump

21:29

and put in $6 of gas because I

21:31

couldn't afford anymore. So

21:34

I know what it's like to not have

21:36

pocket money. I know what it's like to

21:38

I paid for all of my schooling. My

21:40

parents paid for my high

21:42

school and then it was always

21:44

understood that when it comes to college that it

21:47

would all be on me and

21:49

I appreciate that because I do feel that

21:51

that was helpful to me in terms of

21:53

building character. From

21:56

a more mature perspective though, I don't think

21:58

that it was necessary. for

22:01

me to build character. And what

22:03

I now look at is I see how

22:05

much further behind I am

22:08

from where I could be if

22:10

my parents had had

22:12

more resources and if I had been

22:14

able to pursue more interesting opportunities. And

22:17

the specific example I would give is

22:19

this. When I was

22:21

in college, I heard of people doing

22:23

unpaid internships. And at

22:25

the time, I couldn't even imagine why somebody, how

22:27

could somebody go and do an unpaid internship? How

22:29

could I go and work for

22:32

free? I was working three

22:34

jobs my freshman year and I couldn't

22:36

imagine going and taking an unpaid internship.

22:38

And today, I look back and I

22:40

realize that I should have gone and

22:42

done the unpaid internship. And

22:44

I see very clearly that when

22:46

people, especially young people, get involved

22:48

and just constantly working, they

22:51

lose out on the opportunities to

22:54

advance based upon relationships, skill

22:56

building and creativity because

22:58

of this intense focus on money.

23:01

I was recently talking to somebody about my advice for

23:03

a teenager. And

23:06

this teenager is working at a

23:08

job in fast food earning

23:11

money. And my comment of

23:14

my kind of behind the scenes advice was I

23:16

said, that's wonderful. That's really great

23:18

that she has a job. She's 15 years

23:20

old, she has a job, she's making money,

23:22

she's working at a fast food restaurant. Awesome,

23:24

that's fantastic. That job should

23:26

not continue for more than three months. And

23:29

if she continues to try to work

23:31

a job like that for more than

23:33

three months, because she needs money, then

23:36

I consider that an enormous opportunity cost, a

23:38

lost opportunity for her to try something very,

23:40

very different. I think a 15 year old

23:43

should absolutely go and get a job as

23:45

you know, in fast food and do

23:48

it for three months. But then after three months, she should

23:50

go and get a job, you know,

23:52

as an orderly in a hospital or she should

23:54

tag along in a law office or

23:56

she should go and babysit in a

23:58

professional daycare. and then

24:01

she should go and you should try different things. You

24:03

need to get exposure to different things. And

24:05

so the big downside that poor people

24:07

who grow up poor face is that

24:09

they've never had the exposure to life.

24:11

They've never had the chance to build

24:13

relationships. They've never had exposure to interests.

24:15

And so they see the

24:18

world as a world of financial scarcity

24:20

and that's where

24:22

they only have one model

24:24

for making money, which is work harder at

24:26

my job, spend less,

24:28

save more in just that standard model.

24:31

And in my interactions with wealthy people

24:33

over the years, I've come to see

24:35

how that's

24:37

not what wealthy people do and there

24:41

are alternative models that are in many

24:43

ways superior. I'll just share one more

24:45

personal story. When I was with

24:49

when I was in the financial planning business, I

24:52

was mentoring for a time. I ran our

24:55

college internship program and I was recruiting college

24:57

students and I enjoyed working with new representatives

25:00

and I would go out and do joint work

25:02

with them and mentor them and do things like

25:04

that. And I was

25:07

good at what I did. I had a lot of

25:09

technical knowledge. If you want a question on some technical

25:11

thing related to financial planning, Josh was the guy. I

25:13

was always the guy who answered all the questions. And

25:16

so I had a good deal of pride in my knowledge

25:19

from financial planning perspectives. And

25:22

we hired this guy into our company

25:26

who was the son

25:28

of he was a rich kid and his

25:31

job working at the company was the

25:33

very first job that he had ever

25:35

had and I was

25:38

pretty jealous of him. I wouldn't

25:40

probably have said it at the time, but that's

25:42

truly what it what it was. His parents were

25:44

super wealthy lawyers from the Northeast. He'd come down

25:47

to Florida. They had a Florida home. He's staying

25:49

in their Florida home for free. He

25:51

was staying in you know, he had access to

25:53

his dad's 40-foot fishing boat. He was out

25:55

every weekend on the fishing boat with all the

25:57

guys and all the girls in this million-dollar boat

26:00

that he had access to and yet

26:02

he comes in and he knew nothing

26:04

about financial planning. He didn't have a

26:06

clue. He didn't know what a

26:09

Roth IRA was, didn't have a clue. He comes

26:11

in and gets this job selling insurance and ultimately

26:13

becoming a financial planner. He didn't have a clue

26:15

about any of that stuff. I was shocked at

26:17

how ignorant he was. I

26:19

thought there's no way this guy makes it.

26:22

There's not a chance in the world that he's going

26:24

to be successful. He doesn't have any

26:26

work ethic. He comes in and drives in his BMW

26:28

that daddy bought for him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

26:30

Here I am, Mr. Proud pulled myself

26:33

up by my bootstraps guy. That

26:37

guy went on to sell

26:39

more insurance and set enormous records and

26:41

today he's a managing partner with that

26:44

company making millions of dollars a year,

26:46

basically far

26:48

more successful than I ever was because

26:51

he had a totally different sphere of

26:53

knowledge. I had technical knowledge.

26:55

I was a good worker bee. I was

26:57

a good engineer. I had technical knowledge that

26:59

I had acquired from my hard work ethic

27:02

but he had a totally

27:08

different set of knowledge that I couldn't even relate to

27:10

and his parents did

27:12

nothing for him in his

27:14

career. They

27:17

probably introduced him to some of their friends. He

27:19

probably sold life insurance policies to some of their

27:21

friends but that was it. My parents did the

27:23

same things. I sold life insurance policies to my

27:25

parents' friends but they had

27:27

given him a totally different view

27:29

of the world and I couldn't

27:31

relate to it because I didn't grow up in it

27:34

but he makes millions and millions of

27:36

dollars with his business,

27:39

just a totally different skill set. It's

27:43

an interest of mine to try to say how

27:45

can you balance these things? I

27:48

don't think that work ethic

27:50

is always best achieved

27:53

through purely academics

27:55

or even just through working for money.

28:00

because my friend did have work

28:02

ethic. He had plenty of work

28:04

ethic. And I don't know all the tools that

28:06

his parents used to help him develop work ethic.

28:09

A lot of times it's sports or

28:11

athletic endeavors. There's

28:14

many ways to acquire work ethic, but

28:18

just doing more academics is not

28:20

actually helpful. And it's not

28:23

actually helpful for financial success or for

28:25

life success in a world, at

28:28

least the United States. I don't

28:30

know if it's any different in terms of

28:32

resources for the United States versus the Soviet

28:34

Union. I don't know, but I

28:37

think it's probably at the same in any

28:39

country, because it's not

28:41

those worker B skills that

28:43

often pay off the most.

28:45

It's relationship skills. It's the

28:48

ability to think creatively. It's the

28:51

courage to take risks and to

28:53

make intelligent decisions. These are what launch

28:56

people up the ladder so much faster.

28:58

It's not just doing

29:00

more. And I think

29:03

we have to acknowledge that and then look for

29:05

ways to incorporate that. Very

29:09

practically, I have a 10-year-old. And

29:11

I've noticed this to myself. My

29:13

10-year-old two or three years ago

29:15

says, you know, daddy, I need to get

29:17

a job. I wanna make money. And I look

29:19

at him, I was like, what do you need money for? I

29:22

pay for everything. And well, I don't know, but

29:24

I just need a good job. And my answer to him was, it

29:26

would be pointless for you to get a job right

29:28

now, because you're far better

29:31

off to spend your time on

29:33

intellectual pursuits and developing yourself. And

29:36

that's, I think, the same thing that if

29:38

we look at the pathway that wealthy people

29:41

take their children on, it's

29:43

not, yes, there are benefits to

29:45

going and working a summer job. You get

29:47

exposure to different things. Those things are helpful.

29:50

But at its core, I don't want my children

29:54

to struggle financially, because

29:56

that's gonna magically do something for them. I

29:58

don't think it does. I

30:00

think that if you are one who struggled

30:03

financially and if you come through that, that

30:05

can put a hunger in you. But

30:07

you're starting off way behind where you otherwise could

30:09

be. And I think it

30:11

makes a lot more sense for us

30:14

to support children while also having encouraging,

30:17

strong work ethic, strong focus. But it's

30:19

not a matter of just work, work,

30:22

work, work more. It's a matter of

30:24

doing better, of developing

30:27

the skills in another context. And then finally,

30:29

in terms of basically negative motivation,

30:33

I don't know that I'm

30:36

pretty uncomfortable with negative motivation. I

30:38

would not say to my

30:40

children, look at so-and-so, he's

30:42

doing better than you. So therefore, you

30:44

should do more poorly. I couldn't

30:47

cite this again with sociological data,

30:50

but I'm fairly confident that that

30:52

doesn't produce good

30:54

outcomes. It really doesn't. I

30:57

would never say that to an adult, and

31:00

it just doesn't produce good outcomes. The

31:02

best outcomes that

31:04

an individual experiences in his

31:07

life come from when

31:10

he has something that he

31:12

wants to do and he has motivation

31:14

for his own reasons to pursue that

31:16

thing. And parents

31:19

beating on children and saying, so-and-so is doing better

31:21

than you are, shape it up,

31:24

then that's not a helpful thing. It's

31:26

more likely to cause people

31:28

to say, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing any of your

31:30

goals, I'm not following your goals, I don't

31:32

care what so-and-so is doing. That's not important to me. And

31:36

then also, I think it's a toxic

31:38

trait for adults to have. We

31:40

should never take ourselves and

31:42

compare ourselves to other people as a

31:45

sign of how we're doing. The

31:49

only rational person that we

31:51

should use for comparison is the person that we

31:53

were. So we should focus

31:56

on looking back and taking satisfaction

31:58

and confidence and pride. in

32:00

the progress that I have made based

32:02

upon compared to who I was in the past

32:04

and look at how well I'm doing and

32:07

then learn to rejoice with other people who

32:09

are also doing well but not compare ourselves

32:11

to them. So in summary,

32:13

I think that those traits are useful and

32:15

important but I don't think that they're the

32:17

traits of wealth and of wealthy people. I

32:22

think that they are the traits of basically

32:24

poor people who become factory workers and

32:27

see the world through a scarcity model

32:29

who don't know themselves and they don't

32:31

prepare and equip people for success. And

32:33

I don't think, I think that you can

32:36

do both of those things. I think you

32:38

can be very skilled with academics. I think

32:40

you can have a strong work ethic and

32:42

I think that you can do it in

32:44

a generally positive environment where you haven't done

32:46

everything to basically

32:49

climb a mountain that you don't actually

32:52

care about climbing. What

32:57

do you think Leliana? Yeah,

33:05

I guess there's a lot to think about.

33:07

I want to thank you for bringing in

33:09

their perspective. I really love

33:11

the idea about looking into other ways

33:13

to bring up the

33:16

motivation, the work ethic through

33:18

athletics and sports and other

33:20

activities. And I

33:22

really love this thought about kind of the

33:25

financial need not to be

33:28

the main motivation

33:30

to work. I really

33:32

love this idea. I

33:34

think I will have a lot to think about and

33:38

thankfully I have some time before the

33:40

kid grows up enough to do any

33:42

work. So I

33:44

have a lot of information and thank you

33:47

for citing the

33:49

research. I have written it down so I'm going

33:51

to take a look at it and thanks a

33:53

lot. I really love your perspective. My

33:55

pleasure. I would add in closing

33:59

as I move on, I would add... that perhaps one

34:01

more comment would be appropriate. As a

34:03

parent, it's important to

34:06

always observe what

34:09

is happening and then respond to what

34:11

you see happening. So let's just use

34:13

the example I cited from my

34:16

own parenting role. Right

34:18

now, my 10-year-old, just as

34:20

the example, the one who's saying I

34:22

wanna get a job, my 10-year-old is

34:25

doing very well in academics and is

34:27

generally showing broadly good

34:29

work ethic, good focus, making good

34:31

progress in academics. Now

34:33

let's assume for a moment that all

34:35

of that stopped. Let's assume

34:37

that there's no progress being made. He's just

34:40

turning into a lazy bum, not

34:42

showing any character, no integrity, just

34:44

wanting to do nothing. Well

34:47

now, I would go in a different

34:49

direction and we would say, all

34:51

right, let's get you a job. Let's put the

34:53

screws to you. And

34:56

I could imagine myself, let's say I'm a mega-gazillionaire

34:59

and I have a child who is 20 years

35:02

old and

35:04

getting out of college and driving daddy's

35:06

BMW and has $10,000 a month on

35:08

his debit card that

35:12

I just put there automatically for him. And he

35:15

has no motivation. He's doing Coke in the

35:17

clubs on the weekend and sleeping in till

35:19

1 p.m. every day and doing nothing with

35:21

his life. Well now,

35:25

everything changes, right? Now you need

35:27

to bring a different system, a

35:29

different approach so that

35:31

there is motivation to change.

35:34

And so as a

35:36

parent, it's our job to identify and

35:38

say, are you progressing? Are you making

35:40

progress? Do you need to apply yourself

35:42

more? And is the environment

35:44

that you are in appropriate at this

35:46

stage of development? And so

35:48

I think that we should always be

35:51

aware of the fact that we can

35:53

and should change things as

35:55

necessary to respond to the actual

35:57

events happening. Ben in Arizona, welcome to

35:59

the- the show, how can I serve you today? Hey,

36:03

Joshua, I was glad

36:05

to finish your three hour podcast.

36:07

You recorded yesterday. It helps

36:10

inform the back half of my question

36:12

today. Great. I want to

36:14

know your thoughts on the GLP-1

36:17

drugs known, I

36:19

don't know, what Gobi Ozimpic

36:23

that will assist individuals

36:26

with unusually rapid weight

36:30

loss. I know you've

36:32

said before publicly on the podcast, and a

36:34

lot of people probably keep

36:36

it private to themselves that they have

36:38

a hard time getting those last few

36:40

pounds off. They have a hard time

36:42

either staying motivated or eating right

36:45

or whatever. The

36:47

GLP-1, semaglutide, Ozimpic as

36:49

most people call it, have

36:53

been called the miracle

36:55

drug. And you've seen probably a lot of

36:57

people have heard about people taking those. I

37:01

just want you to riff on it a little bit and

37:04

you can tie it back to in your

37:06

financial career as a financial planner, there's

37:09

probably been things not

37:13

lose weight fast, but gain

37:15

money fast. Maybe not

37:18

a get rich quickly, but oh, if you do this,

37:20

here's an unusually rapid way

37:23

to gain wealth.

37:26

What is the mindset or

37:29

long-term or what are your thoughts

37:31

on this? I haven't heard you

37:33

talk about this and it's been a couple

37:36

years now that these drugs have been on the

37:38

market. I

37:41

appreciate the question. I would generally not

37:43

comment on something like that because

37:46

while I'm aware of them and I read

37:48

casually, I wouldn't

37:50

want to profess any kind of expertise that

37:52

I don't have. So I

37:54

have not studied them deeply and

37:57

I'm not deeply knowledgeable about

37:59

them. of them, I've read about

38:01

them and so I'll give you my straight answer

38:03

but I ordinarily –

38:06

except in the context of a Friday Q&A when you toss

38:08

me up a softball and say, hey, what do you think

38:10

about this where I'll always answer, I don't

38:12

do podcasts about things that I don't know about. Okay.

38:16

I'm pushing the limit. Yeah. It's good. So

38:18

let me answer it. So

38:21

first, the only drug I use is

38:23

caffeine so I drink coffee and that's

38:25

the only drug that I use. In

38:28

general, it's important for us to be

38:30

skeptical of drugs because

38:32

they are miracles and

38:35

we should be skeptical of them for a

38:37

few different reasons. And so

38:39

specifically with regard to weight loss drugs, I

38:42

think that these drugs will probably turn

38:44

out to be real lifesavers for a lot

38:46

of people. And there are

38:48

many, many people who have been unable to lose

38:50

weight, they have diabetes, they have all kinds of

38:52

issues and if this drug can help that to

38:55

happen, then I think

38:57

that the downsides of their

38:59

obesity or their diabetes are

39:02

so severe that they will be better off

39:04

consuming the drug. And so

39:06

I have no problem with people taking them.

39:09

I think in general, we should be

39:11

slow to take any kind of external

39:13

substance. And the reason for

39:15

that is I think we

39:18

have an excessively high confidence in

39:20

the safety of bodily

39:23

inputs and we shouldn't

39:25

be so confident in that. The

39:27

body is a very complex, I don't

39:31

even want to use the word machine because that puts

39:33

the wrong image in our mind. It's a very complex

39:35

organism and it's very hard

39:37

to predict what a

39:41

particular substance or a particular input

39:43

or additive will do. And

39:47

I have very low confidence

39:49

in the current regime of

39:52

efficacy testing and safety

39:54

of most drugs

39:56

and most inputs

39:58

to the body. And

40:00

my reasons for that is partly

40:04

due to the testing process in terms

40:06

of how the

40:08

short-term trials work and

40:12

how they measure the harm. I

40:14

appreciate that biologists have

40:16

developed advanced models to

40:18

try to project long-term

40:20

effects based upon short-term

40:23

data and I don't trust them. I

40:26

think that there's abundant reasons

40:28

to see that in some

40:30

cases harmful effects from certain

40:33

types of drugs, certain types of medical

40:35

treatments only

40:38

show after decades of use

40:40

for some people. And

40:43

I could cite example after example after example

40:45

after this, I'll intentionally keep it just a

40:47

little vague in general but short-term

40:51

safety testing is

40:53

not sufficient for

40:56

somebody who's generally healthy. Let me use

40:58

a non-drug example. Recently

41:00

I was amazed to see the month

41:04

or two ago the patient

41:06

using Elon Musk's Neuralink technology

41:08

and he was using Neuralink

41:11

to control a computer

41:14

and it's remarkable

41:16

to see but this patient is

41:18

entirely paralyzed and he's able to

41:20

use this Neuralink technology to control

41:23

a computer. I think

41:25

that's a perfect application. He's obviously a perfect

41:27

study participant to be using this technology and

41:29

if I were paralyzed I would probably be

41:32

quickly on the list to try to say,

41:34

hey, I want to get Neuralink. But

41:37

for me as a healthy individual

41:39

with a properly functioning body, for

41:41

me to go and sign up for Neuralink and

41:44

say, let me just get started with this technology.

41:46

Somebody always be the early adopter is

41:48

a very foolish way of making

41:50

a decision. So it's much

41:52

wiser to be a little slow, to be a

41:55

late adopter and let technologies work their way

41:57

out and prove their way out. is

42:00

600 pounds

42:03

and they have failed for 20 years

42:05

at losing weight, bring

42:07

on the Ozimpic, right? Absolutely.

42:10

But if you've got an extra 15

42:12

or 20 pounds, then

42:14

I think it would be crazy for you to

42:16

try to treat that with a drug just from

42:19

a pure basic standpoint of risk

42:22

versus reward because

42:24

you wouldn't be a severe acute case of

42:26

somebody whose life is literally going to be,

42:28

you're going to be dead in 10 years

42:30

without this drug. Now that

42:34

doesn't mean that there's another element to it

42:37

as well. And so when there's

42:39

a drug available, people often go

42:42

for what they see as the quick fix. And

42:45

as you alluded to, people do this with money and

42:47

they do this with physical drugs. And so

42:50

they say, well, look, here's this magic thing.

42:52

I remember when I was in high

42:55

school and I was fat and

42:57

I would read these ads and

42:59

I would go and I bought these fat burning

43:01

powders and different things like that. I

43:04

was always looking for a quick fix.

43:06

I was looking for a way to

43:08

try to get a quick result. And

43:11

all I did was burn money and take stuff that, you

43:13

know, a Fedron and whatnot is at the time that

43:15

I have no idea what it did or didn't do

43:17

to my body. And it wound

43:19

up and it didn't wind up with any

43:21

long-term good. And so

43:23

it's really important, I think, to

43:25

do a good detailed analysis of

43:29

what actual

43:32

– what if you're actually doing

43:34

the fundamentals, if you're actually

43:36

doing the fundamentals of life building and

43:39

skill building. And so one of

43:41

the things that I found interesting when I got older

43:43

is I went back and I found some of my

43:45

fat pics, like the before pictures that fat people take

43:47

when they're going to go on a diet. And

43:50

I look back at them now with

43:52

detachment and I realize I wasn't actually

43:54

all that fat. I was just

43:56

what today would be labeled as skinny fat. I

43:58

didn't have as much money. muscles I should have had.

44:01

If I had just found a way to

44:04

build an active lifestyle and focused

44:06

on building an active lifestyle, if I had

44:08

become active, then all of the fatness that

44:10

I was worried about and I was looking

44:12

for drugs would have disappeared. The

44:15

same thing applies then to money. I

44:18

had an experience a year or so

44:20

ago where somebody was going on and

44:22

on about how he had

44:25

invested with this thing and he

44:27

was going to make millions and millions of dollars. I

44:30

asked him about it and it was

44:32

obvious to me that it

44:34

was a Ponzi scheme. It was

44:37

just a textbook Ponzi scheme. The guy is going on

44:39

and on about all the millions that

44:41

he is going to have in two months time because

44:43

of this incredible new thing that is being done. I

44:47

just thought this is so stupid. This is

44:49

such a stupid waste of time

44:51

for you to be going down this pathway when

44:53

you are not even doing the basics of

44:55

good personal finance. Maybe

44:58

it is necessary that we all do that. When

45:00

I was in college, we all got involved in trading futures

45:02

and doing orange juice futures and things like that. I did

45:04

not have a clue what we were doing and went flat

45:06

broke. It is the same thing

45:08

that maybe you just got to realize that it is

45:10

better for you to take the

45:12

long hard path because it is much

45:14

more predictable without necessarily denying that there

45:17

may be performance enhancing drugs that can

45:19

help you at certain times and there

45:21

may be really

45:23

great investments that come along at a

45:25

certain time. People who gain

45:27

the most from performance enhancing drugs

45:30

are not fat people sitting on their couch.

45:32

A guy who is just fat

45:34

and not going to the gym and starts taking trend,

45:36

all he is going to wind up with is terrible

45:39

bacchae and he is not going to look any different.

45:41

He is going to destroy his heart and have terrible

45:43

bacchae all over his back. The

45:45

guy who is in the gym

45:48

all the time and really

45:50

has the fundamentals down, that

45:53

is the guy who benefits from the performance enhancing

45:55

drugs if that is his goal. You can do

45:57

this in the mental space. I have never taken

45:59

Adderall. But I've

46:01

never used nicotine. I've never taken Adderall.

46:04

But I would be opposed to somebody

46:06

using those drugs, but

46:08

they need to be used in moderation

46:11

in a specific application. Or another example

46:13

would be caffeine, right? I

46:15

periodically stop using caffeine because I don't

46:18

wanna be addicted to anything.

46:20

And then we get to a point

46:22

where the caffeine, just the usefulness of caffeine wears

46:25

off. And if

46:27

you are already doing the good stuff,

46:29

if you already have good study habits

46:31

and you have good work habits, and

46:34

you're really making progress on your goals,

46:36

and then you wanna use nootropic. You

46:38

wanna use Adderall or some other nootropic,

46:41

or even just straight caffeine to

46:43

get you through and to amp

46:45

you up on just a big

46:49

project, to finish up a great project or get

46:51

you prepared for an important

46:53

presentation or something like that, then

46:55

great. That's a good use of a drug. But

46:57

it's not a good use of a drug on a standard thing.

47:00

If you go to the gas station where

47:02

you are, I was in Alabama, or

47:04

sorry, in Arkansas a couple weeks ago, and I was filling up

47:06

my car, and

47:09

there was a young

47:12

redneck dude, probably 20 years old,

47:14

and he's coming out of the gas station with

47:16

three Monster Energy drinks, getting

47:18

ready to go and mow lawns all day.

47:23

And it's just kind of the classic thing. It's happening

47:25

to so many young people. They're

47:28

consuming enormous amounts of caffeine,

47:31

and they're doing it because they're

47:33

not sleeping, and it's a destructive

47:35

thing that's ultimately gonna lead to

47:37

long-term problems. It's not a good

47:39

performance enhancer. So any

47:42

kind of enhancement, even

47:44

from an investment perspective, I have no

47:47

problem with people taking speculating on

47:50

various investments, trading very aggressively, and

47:52

things like that. I think that's

47:54

all perfectly fine. But the

47:56

people who profit the best off of that

47:58

are those who have. have all of

48:00

the basics covered. And then they

48:03

take a portion of their portfolio and they

48:05

speculate on something that could really work for

48:07

them. People who go after a

48:09

get rich quick scheme don't generally wind up

48:11

rich themselves, it's just the sponsor of the

48:13

scheme who winds up rich. And

48:16

I think the other aspect of it is that

48:18

if you take the easy way, even

48:22

when it works, there's two major

48:24

problems. When I was

48:26

in high school, I knew a guy

48:28

personally who had gotten super rich in

48:31

the.com mania. And

48:33

he was a young guy, had built some

48:35

random company that he had sold for and

48:38

was involved in, and he was in his

48:40

early 20s driving a Porsche, doing

48:43

awesome, going on and on about all

48:45

of his wealth. And I watched

48:47

it. And a year later, the dude was totally broke

48:49

back working some just dead

48:51

end job, trying to pay his bills. The

48:53

Porsche was gone and everything was gone. That

48:56

was the earliest exposure I had to people making

48:58

it big really quick. And I

49:00

realized the same principle that you

49:02

can trace with lottery winners, that when people

49:04

come into a windfall of any kind, if

49:07

they haven't grown and they haven't become

49:09

capable to handle the windfall, inevitably

49:12

the windfall disappears because they

49:14

didn't become the kind of person who could handle

49:16

it. And the way I like

49:18

to say it is that the most important thing

49:21

about becoming a millionaire is

49:23

becoming a millionaire. If

49:26

somebody dies and leaves you a million dollars

49:28

and you don't think like a millionaire and

49:30

you haven't had the hard-won experience that comes

49:32

from earning a million dollars yourself, there's

49:35

a pretty decent chance that you won't be

49:37

a millionaire for long because you yourself didn't

49:39

become a millionaire. That doesn't mean

49:41

that you can't quickly become a millionaire.

49:44

So when I counsel people who come into

49:46

a big windfall and here's a couple million

49:48

dollars that I wasn't expecting, then

49:50

I think that you can become a

49:52

millionaire very quickly, probably a

49:54

few years, a year, two years,

49:56

three years, but you have to

49:58

become the millionaire. It doesn't

50:00

happen just because you get these results and I

50:03

would say the same thing that happens is this

50:05

guy some guy starts using steroids to improve his

50:07

gym physique and he doing it after he just

50:09

spent six months in the gym, I don't think

50:12

he's ever gonna Mentally be as

50:14

strong as the guy who's been in

50:16

the gym for years and built his

50:18

body the hard way The

50:21

slow way getting slow results that guy is

50:23

gonna have a bulletproof Psychology and he's gonna

50:25

be confident in who he is and what

50:27

he's done And then if he

50:29

adds steroids to that in the future It's not

50:31

gonna affect him very much But the guy who

50:33

comes in and he's six weeks in the gym

50:35

and goes ahead and starts using steroids That's gonna

50:38

mess him up psychologically because he knows he'll never

50:40

know what it's like to not be fake and

50:42

he'll always be Insecure

50:45

about that so that's how I

50:47

would comment on it say that if somebody's in

50:49

a dire circumstances take drugs Absolutely take drugs to

50:51

try to try to save a life There's

50:54

no problem with that. But if not in

50:56

a dire circumstance, there's an enormous Productivity

50:59

to doing something the hard way because of the confidence

51:01

that it builds in you You

51:05

know for not wanting to answer the question

51:07

you gave a really good answer to the

51:10

question I appreciate that my I

51:13

asked the back half of that question. Sure. Go ahead

51:17

So With

51:20

your podcast yesterday, I got thinking

51:22

I am your

51:26

I'm within your demographic that you talk about

51:28

with your podcast audience Except

51:30

for I'm single. I know

51:33

you have a lot of families listening. I'm 35

51:35

I'm single I'm five foot eight and

51:37

not yeah, I have a few extra pounds, but

51:39

I'm I'm decently average

51:41

pretty Decent

51:44

looking with an above average income

51:46

and above average savings. That's Except

51:49

for the family part. That's your demographic free

51:51

audience. Sure. One thing you mentioned yesterday is

51:55

That when you're looking for a partner and you

51:57

do want to get married You should

51:59

opt. The my for

52:01

physical attractiveness. One.

52:03

Thing that when you're in your. When.

52:07

You been working the while you have as

52:09

say the i've been in the gym but.

52:11

There's. Various. Other

52:14

options that are available to

52:16

you when you have money

52:18

to optimize for physical attractiveness.

52:20

His various a list of

52:22

hucks. Augmentations.

52:26

Whereas. How

52:28

do you have used at and

52:30

surgeries or things like that? In

52:32

terms of. Optimizing. Yourself.

52:35

Or. Physical attractiveness, Would

52:39

give basically the same answer

52:41

to it median. I don't

52:43

have any any particular reason

52:45

to say that somebody shouldn't.

52:47

Do somebody shouldn't. Engage

52:50

in some form of plastic surgery.

52:52

I've recommended it to people. I

52:54

have a child whose years dugout.

52:57

And afar and I've changed that child's

52:59

hairstyle a bit. But if it is

53:01

something in the future and and you

53:03

can just get your years tuck back

53:05

and that helps you than great. I

53:07

don't think of, I don't think it's

53:09

that severe. but just saying that, I

53:11

don't think there's a problem to engage

53:13

in plastic surgery or anything that you

53:15

think it could help you. What? I

53:18

think the problem is exactly

53:20

what I just described is simply

53:22

that have you done the

53:24

necessary kind of initial work? So

53:27

I do think that you,

53:29

if you want to marry,

53:31

I think that it's important that

53:33

you optimize attractiveness at every

53:35

level, But. It's important to

53:37

be aware of what are the basic things

53:39

that actually. Really are

53:41

fundamental for attractiveness. So here would

53:44

be an example. The most attractive

53:46

trait I think for men is

53:48

generally confidence. Personal confidence. You can

53:50

be a man and your body

53:53

can look anything your body can

53:55

be. You know any shape, any

53:57

size. You can have all kinds

53:59

of wacky things quote unquote wrong

54:02

with you. But if you are

54:04

a confident person and you just

54:06

express the self confidence you're ambitious,

54:08

You know where you're you're going.

54:10

then that I think is probably

54:13

the fundamental thing that is the

54:15

most attractive to women. So that's

54:17

the first thing to focus on.

54:19

Then let's say that your ears

54:22

make the see you have one

54:24

year the sticks out in one

54:26

ear. that doesn't. That's.

54:29

Not the then. The second thing

54:31

after to psych personal confidence would

54:33

be to come back and say

54:35

well are you in shape You

54:37

know if I'm if I'm coaching

54:39

you and I'm saying how can

54:41

you attract a really high quality

54:43

wise then I think assessing your

54:45

fashion and. And all of those

54:47

things are really important. But what's funny about

54:49

fashion is that if you're in great shape,

54:52

if you're strong as your muscular, if you're

54:54

athletic, you can put on any clothes and

54:56

they all look good on you. But if

54:58

you're fat and and lumpy, then you can

55:00

spend a thousand dollars on some fancy duds

55:02

and it just doesn't look very good on

55:04

you. And so trying to optimize for the

55:06

most important thing is personal confidence, then trying

55:09

to get in as much shape as possible.

55:11

Then you go. You say? You know what?

55:13

I got? this one here that sticks out

55:15

on the other years. Not. So much and

55:17

I go and see a plastic surgeon and

55:19

see if I get my your tucked in

55:22

serve fine you know go ahead and get

55:24

attacked and and that may be something that

55:26

improves your confidence and then but everything does.

55:28

It's not the you have to do one

55:31

thing or another so if let's say you're

55:33

going to the gym and you're working out

55:35

and your your count your calories and you

55:37

can't macros and making progress then does that

55:40

mean that you can't go ahead and buy

55:42

new clothes and then feel better because you

55:44

don't look like a bomb? Know it doesn't.

55:46

You can do all of these things simultaneously

55:49

and there's no reason not to do them

55:51

basically simultaneously. But don't go down the path

55:53

way we think. wow You know what? I'm

55:55

thirty pounds, overweight and address like a slob.

55:58

But if I just had you know. And

56:00

another Tommy Taco. Whatever that would make

56:03

a difference, Know is it. Don't Don't

56:05

look at them. Do and eighty twenty

56:07

analysis and say what are the twenty

56:09

percent of things that if those were

56:11

right, would solve all the difference. And

56:14

in terms of optimizing for attractiveness, everything

56:16

matters. The most important thing is building

56:18

confidence and having and expressing confidence. Them

56:20

and that. and we talk about how

56:22

to do that but like that's the

56:25

fundamental thing and then becoming a as

56:27

strong and as athletic as you are

56:29

capable of. Being which also feeds into

56:31

confidence Those that those are the twenty percent

56:33

of things that give you eighty percent of

56:35

the results. Then you out on the clothes

56:38

and you out on charisma and you practice

56:40

digger dance. We take some dancing lessons and

56:42

you can do those other things that those

56:44

will all at in and help you to

56:46

feel more confident. but don't think that's if

56:49

you just. Pay. A plastic surgeon

56:51

to cut off the Ndp knows that somehow

56:53

that magically changes anything. That's that would be

56:55

how I would approach it. Or

57:01

fit Raid and Eighty Four

57:03

Expounding. On the question, I didn't

57:05

think that those two would lead into each other.

57:08

But after. Putting. Your part as

57:10

I thought well let's Asda second asked the

57:12

question to i don't sell for any of

57:14

my pleasure and I would just say I

57:16

mean of his outlining about your your situation

57:18

or to say that if you do want

57:21

to get married the end in in line

57:23

with kind of the most recent podcast that

57:25

I did. you need to I'll do another

57:27

podcast are probably I'm planning to do another

57:29

podcast in the coming days while go over

57:32

this specific question and little bit more detail.

57:34

But what I want you to know is

57:36

that. It. Is

57:38

it comes down to number one,

57:40

who you are And do you

57:43

have the express or do you

57:45

express that characteristics and qualities that

57:47

are attractive to someone who you

57:49

would consider to be an ideal

57:51

wife. So you need to have

57:54

those characteristics and qualities and the

57:56

need to be expressed as. The

57:58

first thing and then assist the numbers. And

58:00

so what? Because there are two things that

58:02

can be true. You can be a guy

58:05

who's just full of self confidence and totally

58:07

jacked and you dress like of like you

58:09

on the cover of a fashion magazine and

58:11

everything is great. and you have all the

58:13

money in the world and all the income.

58:15

And you sit in your house and you

58:17

don't ever meet women mobile hearing it ain't

58:19

gonna work rights. On the other hand, you

58:22

could be out there meeting twenty two women

58:24

a week and none of them say yes

58:26

when you ask him on a date and

58:28

now we know. Hey, there's something. Fundamentally wrong

58:30

with the basic express that you

58:32

do the basics attractive as you

58:34

have a the character the you

58:36

have and your ability to express

58:38

it so both of those are

58:41

important. You want to cultivate the

58:43

the characteristics and traits that are

58:45

going to express attractiveness and then.

58:47

Calculate. How many opportunities you

58:49

have for that? And take a look

58:51

at that and then to see which

58:54

of these needs to be optimized? Chances

58:56

are it's probably more on option Be

58:58

than it is on option A because.

59:02

You probably are like just a

59:04

normal attractive guys, but what often

59:06

happens is that. Men:

59:08

Don't actually set a goal to get married and

59:10

they don't go out. And then they don't go

59:12

meet women. they don't try that on. do it.

59:14

And then they sit around a wonder why year

59:16

after year after year they continued to be single,

59:18

so just calculate both of those things. They should

59:20

be optimized. But there's two sides of the suicides

59:22

of the equation. We go to Marva in Texas.

59:24

Mother welcome of us are going to serve you

59:26

today. Shopping

59:29

for the rock hall and

59:31

to afford to fall out

59:34

boy glasses. Hello

59:36

That mark. To

59:38

your spine and. Of.

59:41

How to put in Berkeley Express what

59:44

it is I've been thinking about sir

59:46

are just as the at several. Working.

59:50

Moms are so full time on.

59:53

Comparison to At. all

1:00:00

And I think kind of with the three

1:00:02

options you presented, you know, mother

1:00:06

being a caregiver, daycare or third

1:00:08

option, just kind

1:00:11

of with my situation has

1:00:13

actively explored and participating in

1:00:15

the third option, which is conducive

1:00:18

to like, or a fully remote role and

1:00:20

just kind of the lifestyle

1:00:22

that my family currently has.

1:00:25

But I think what you said that resonated

1:00:27

was not to decide now, but put a

1:00:29

plan in place such

1:00:32

that being a full-time parent at

1:00:34

home and considering home

1:00:37

education and similar kind

1:00:40

of lifestyle would be possible. So I

1:00:42

just wanted to kind of explore that avenue

1:00:44

further in terms of the plan

1:00:47

in place. And I think

1:00:49

from, you know, a financial

1:00:51

standpoint, I've consumed enough of

1:00:53

a general personal finance content,

1:00:55

including your podcast over the

1:00:57

last like seven, eight years,

1:00:59

that the financial

1:01:02

piece seems fairly understood

1:01:04

and straightforward. But thinking kind of in terms

1:01:06

of what are my general,

1:01:09

I hesitate to use such a strong word,

1:01:12

but like reservations or what concerns me, what

1:01:14

causes me to be afraid

1:01:16

about being just kind of

1:01:19

in the home instead of in the workplace

1:01:22

kind of comes down to three

1:01:24

main points. So I'd

1:01:26

be interested just to kind of hear your

1:01:28

thoughts on how you would go about addressing these

1:01:31

reservations that I have from

1:01:33

your perspective personally,

1:01:35

but also just kind of being

1:01:38

part of a homeschool,

1:01:41

non-traditional, single income

1:01:44

community seeing trends at large. So my first

1:01:46

concern is just kind of around losing

1:01:51

intellectual trajectory because it's

1:01:53

kind of stereotypical, but

1:01:56

mom, kid at

1:01:59

home. not able to

1:02:01

engage in continued growth and

1:02:03

I really value

1:02:06

just kind of engaging with

1:02:08

ideas, engaging with other

1:02:10

adults to explore

1:02:13

ideas and that's really been

1:02:15

helpful to have a professional setting to explore

1:02:18

that, but just kind of thinking how to continue

1:02:20

that if I was fully

1:02:22

at home. And then the second reservation is just

1:02:24

kind of not

1:02:26

wanting to land in a scarcity

1:02:29

mindset because I know just to think about

1:02:32

the five points you have in

1:02:34

approach to building wealth of increased

1:02:36

income, decreased expenses, invest,

1:02:38

avoid catastrophe, optimize lifestyle. A

1:02:41

lot of times the stay-at-home mom,

1:02:43

the stay-at-home parent gets really obsessed

1:02:45

with number two, decreasing expenses and

1:02:47

I would say that I have

1:02:49

a decent approach to optimize and

1:02:52

know which expenses actually

1:02:54

bring value to my life, but

1:02:56

I just don't

1:02:59

care for that mentality where you

1:03:02

feel as though you can't make a

1:03:04

difference on the top line, so suddenly

1:03:06

your impact for the family gets really

1:03:09

invested on that line too, it's just

1:03:11

like decreasing expenses and of

1:03:13

course supporting numbers three through five,

1:03:16

but basically just all

1:03:19

concerns about landing in a scarcity mindset

1:03:21

kind of financially or

1:03:23

even just as an outlook on

1:03:25

as to what

1:03:28

I bring or deliver because

1:03:30

I don't

1:03:36

want to just get stuck there. And then

1:03:38

the third reservation would just be kind of because

1:03:41

I tend to be results-oriented, quite

1:03:44

concerned about starting to view

1:03:46

children or home like as a project to,

1:03:48

I don't know, optimize their

1:03:51

education, try these different things with

1:03:53

whether it be curriculum or learning

1:03:56

styles or just something that becomes

1:03:58

perhaps too intense. where suddenly

1:04:01

if I'm viewing too much of children's

1:04:05

success, like as a metric to

1:04:07

be optimized, it becomes kind of oppressive

1:04:10

or there's like a risk of

1:04:12

losing relationship because my

1:04:15

focus is very solely

1:04:17

and squarely on

1:04:20

my children. So just

1:04:23

curious what you would say maybe to each

1:04:26

of those reservations or if you kind

1:04:28

of have a broad response, I appreciate

1:04:30

your thoughts. You're turning into one of my favorite

1:04:32

callers. I hope you'll keep this up because these are such useful

1:04:35

and interesting questions and I really

1:04:38

appreciate them. First,

1:04:41

with regard to losing the concern

1:04:45

of basically losing intellectual

1:04:47

engagement in

1:04:49

terms of if you became a full-time mom, I

1:04:52

think this is absolutely something to be cautious

1:04:54

of and be aware of and to be

1:04:57

asking the question but it's

1:04:59

relatively easily solved. It's

1:05:02

not going to be relatively easily solved at

1:05:05

all times but it's relatively easily

1:05:08

solved if you have

1:05:10

it as a specific

1:05:12

goal. So I have

1:05:14

heard lots of full-time mothers complain

1:05:17

about this and talk about this and

1:05:19

say, well, I just spent all my

1:05:21

time all my day with children and

1:05:24

where's my adult interaction? Adult interaction I

1:05:26

think is necessary. It's something that is

1:05:28

really good for you. It's good for

1:05:30

all of us. I

1:05:32

would say that in many ways, the

1:05:34

same exact concern that you have is

1:05:36

the same concern that I have and

1:05:38

it's something just simply that relates to

1:05:41

being an entrepreneur, being a solopreneur,

1:05:43

somebody who's fairly isolated because I

1:05:45

work by myself in my home

1:05:47

office. It's the same basic risk.

1:05:51

Children can be demanding

1:05:53

and there will be phases in life in

1:05:56

which you really don't want to see

1:05:58

anybody. So my work wife when she

1:06:00

has a baby, she doesn't want to go anywhere, she doesn't want

1:06:02

to see anybody, she just wants to be at home and

1:06:05

be with her baby and I don't

1:06:07

want to go and see anybody. I

1:06:09

wouldn't say to you if you have a baby and you're

1:06:11

at home for a month that

1:06:14

you should expect to go and

1:06:16

engage with your intellectual engagement.

1:06:20

That's what I'm trying to be honest to

1:06:23

say that you're probably going to be isolated

1:06:25

and intellectually stultified at that period of life

1:06:27

because your sleep schedule is all erratic and

1:06:29

you're just happy to nest and be at home

1:06:31

and not go anywhere, not see anybody, not do anything.

1:06:34

That doesn't mean that when you have

1:06:36

a six-month-old baby that you have no

1:06:39

further intellectual engagement with the world. Let's

1:06:41

break intellectual engagement into two things. The

1:06:43

first thing is adult

1:06:46

contact. Do you have adult

1:06:49

contact with other people? What

1:06:51

I found really remarkable when I

1:06:53

left my job was that I

1:06:57

basically also left all my friends that were

1:06:59

from that job. I

1:07:01

think that's normal but it was surprising to me.

1:07:03

I didn't expect it. The

1:07:06

first thing is just to probably squarely look in

1:07:08

the eye and say that if I were to

1:07:11

leave my job and be a full-time mom, most

1:07:14

of the friends that I have at my job

1:07:16

probably aren't going to continue to be

1:07:18

my close friends. Maybe

1:07:20

it's easier for women. I've observed some of

1:07:23

the women in my life that they do

1:07:25

have the ability to keep friendships more. Maybe

1:07:28

it's easier for women than it is for men but in

1:07:31

general, your reason for being friends

1:07:33

with those specific people is probably

1:07:35

your job and your workplace. If

1:07:39

the job and the workplace end, then

1:07:41

that ends some of that adult social

1:07:43

contact. That doesn't mean

1:07:46

that you can't bring adult social

1:07:48

contact into your life. How

1:07:50

I would look at it would be to say that the

1:07:53

time that you spend working at a

1:07:56

job can also be viewed as

1:07:58

an impediment to your social contact

1:08:01

with adults. I

1:08:03

think that if you had a vision

1:08:05

for this as a mother, even if

1:08:07

as a full-time mother, if you had

1:08:09

a vision for your social life, you

1:08:11

can pack your schedule as full of

1:08:13

social contact as you want. The

1:08:16

natural and obvious thing that often happens

1:08:18

is you wind up building friendships and

1:08:20

relationships with other mothers. Very

1:08:23

commonly, I see mothers will have a

1:08:25

play group. They go to the park

1:08:27

with their friends and everyone goes and

1:08:30

sits at the park on Tuesday morning from

1:08:32

9 o'clock to noon. You

1:08:34

go to the latte and play place and

1:08:36

you get your latte with your girlfriends and

1:08:39

the kids play on the play place and

1:08:41

you enjoy contact that way. There's

1:08:44

all kinds of opportunities that you have

1:08:46

where you wind up interacting with other

1:08:48

moms, moms of young

1:08:50

children because often there's an age banding

1:08:53

to that. Usually you would

1:08:55

meet those moms. They're

1:08:57

all at the park probably now and

1:08:59

so you just don't see them because you're at the office.

1:09:02

It's not that hard to basically

1:09:04

build friendships with people at your local park,

1:09:06

at your local gyms, at your

1:09:08

local activities. A lot of times

1:09:10

also a mother will have some kind of group

1:09:13

of people that she meets from her local church.

1:09:15

Even if you don't attend a local church, a

1:09:17

lot of churches will have various moms groups where

1:09:20

they'll get together on Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock

1:09:22

and there'll be lots of other women and those

1:09:24

are great outlet because those other mothers have the

1:09:26

same need and desire you have for adult contact.

1:09:29

In addition, I think

1:09:31

that one of the things that

1:09:33

I see is often not talked

1:09:35

about is basically the

1:09:37

idea of mother or wife

1:09:39

as a socialite in

1:09:42

our current era. Now I don't know how

1:09:44

much of this is true. I'm stereotyping here

1:09:46

just as an observation. I don't know how

1:09:48

much of this is true. If

1:09:50

you went back and you thought of

1:09:52

a stereotypical 1940s housewife,

1:09:55

the way that she's viewed on some

1:09:57

TV program or some other TV program.

1:09:59

some book that you read. Then

1:10:02

the 1940s housewife often had

1:10:04

a very, very active social

1:10:06

life and you'll see things

1:10:09

in a movie where Tuesday night there's a

1:10:11

bridge club at her home and on Thursday

1:10:13

morning she's down at the ladies charity

1:10:16

relief service that she's being involved

1:10:18

in and then on Friday night

1:10:21

she and her husband are hosting a cocktail

1:10:23

party and then on Saturday they're hosting an

1:10:25

event at the local pool and you can

1:10:27

just kind of expand from there. But

1:10:30

there's a whole element of

1:10:32

wives and mothers being responsible

1:10:35

for community events and creating

1:10:37

community culture that has

1:10:39

been lost because most women are

1:10:41

now at their jobs. So

1:10:43

if you're at your job all day

1:10:46

and that's where you're getting your social

1:10:48

contact from then it's an unusual woman

1:10:50

who wants to host a Tuesday night

1:10:52

bridge club or a

1:10:54

Friday night cocktail party. But

1:10:56

if you are an active energetic

1:10:58

mother who wants to be more

1:11:00

social then you have the opportunity with

1:11:03

your time being freed up to engage

1:11:05

in more of those activities and to

1:11:07

host more of those things. And

1:11:09

probably once you get your baby to six

1:11:12

months old, six months old are

1:11:14

pretty easy because usually by then they've

1:11:16

sometimes as long as they're not sick I've had a bunch

1:11:18

of sick babies. So ideally six months

1:11:20

old can be fairly easy. They've kind of

1:11:22

settled into the world and no longer newborns.

1:11:24

They're strong and they're healthy but they're not

1:11:27

running around everywhere. Then you can create

1:11:30

those points of social contact and you

1:11:32

can have time to do them more

1:11:34

than you otherwise have time to

1:11:36

do. And so this is a

1:11:39

big benefit. I see this as a benefit

1:11:41

for me as a husband is

1:11:43

if my wife had a job and

1:11:46

she had to go to a job every

1:11:48

day and she's going to get off at

1:11:50

five o'clock then I don't feel good as

1:11:52

a husband about saying to her, hey let's

1:11:54

have three families over on

1:11:56

Tuesday night and let's

1:11:59

have a nice meal. for them. But

1:12:01

if you don't have a job and you're

1:12:04

not tired from working all the time,

1:12:15

you're not stuck going to work every day. And

1:12:17

I think that you can do a lot

1:12:19

of those things. And depending on

1:12:21

your lifestyle, I've given the 1940s

1:12:24

examples in today's world, a

1:12:27

lot of times, and we'll get to kind

1:12:29

of homeschooling or home education in a moment,

1:12:31

but a lot of times a lot of moms

1:12:34

will have a homeschool co-op and hey, on Thursday

1:12:36

afternoon, I'm going to have the homeschool co-op over

1:12:38

and then we're going to have small group for

1:12:40

our church. We're going to host that on Wednesday

1:12:43

night. There's just so many things that could be

1:12:45

done if you were socially and if

1:12:47

you're interested in socializing with other adults. There

1:12:49

are lots and lots of things that could

1:12:51

be done by you when you

1:12:53

have time that opens up and is freed up

1:12:56

for you. But most, again,

1:12:58

I'm stereotyping, but it just

1:13:00

seems to me because most

1:13:02

women today have jobs, they

1:13:05

don't have the time or the energy

1:13:07

to engage in hosting

1:13:09

people in their homes, nor

1:13:11

do they have the time and energy

1:13:13

to engage in the charity functions, all

1:13:17

the community things that were once

1:13:20

done by many

1:13:22

women as far as building the base

1:13:25

in the community. So let me just go go to community

1:13:27

things as well. Impact

1:13:30

or intellectual engagement doesn't

1:13:33

have to only come from paid

1:13:35

work. I'm skeptical.

1:13:37

I mean you might have a really

1:13:40

intellectually engaging job, but most of us,

1:13:42

our jobs become somewhat repetitive over time.

1:13:45

And I think that in many

1:13:47

cases you would have opportunity

1:13:49

for you to

1:13:51

build more intellectual engagement with something that

1:13:54

you care about if you have more

1:13:56

time. And so this

1:13:58

is why people are often pursuing early

1:14:01

retirement and financial independence. So they have these things they

1:14:03

want to do if they have more time. Well,

1:14:05

if your husband was able to

1:14:07

earn the income that your family needed and you

1:14:10

then had your time

1:14:12

freed up, you've achieved

1:14:15

an expression of financial

1:14:17

independence. No, you're not

1:14:19

together living on the income from your

1:14:21

investments. But I'll tell you a secret.

1:14:24

He's probably happier having a job to go

1:14:26

to and you probably are happier having your

1:14:28

time now and you can then

1:14:31

go ahead and engage in those intellectual engagements.

1:14:33

And so I used to go to all

1:14:35

these charity meetings and political

1:14:37

clubs and socialite things all around Palm Beach

1:14:39

and I did it because I was prospecting

1:14:41

for clients in my financial

1:14:43

planning business. And women

1:14:45

are the cornerstone of those things. Women

1:14:48

are the activists of local organizations. And

1:14:51

what's cool about those kinds of opportunities, let's

1:14:53

say that you have an issue that you're

1:14:55

really passionate about and you become a local

1:14:57

activist for that issue and you're hosting clubs

1:15:00

and events and maybe you're hosting breakfasts for

1:15:02

a political candidate or I don't know, whatever

1:15:04

it is that you're doing and

1:15:06

you're really involved in those things, you'll

1:15:08

get more actual socializing and actual intellectual

1:15:11

engagement from those pursuits than you ever

1:15:13

get with your current dozen

1:15:15

coworkers that you interact with in the context

1:15:17

of your profession. But probably

1:15:19

right now, you're not doing very much

1:15:21

of that because the job is an

1:15:24

impediment to that kind of socializing. In

1:15:26

addition, if you really want

1:15:29

to have intellectual engagement, I think that

1:15:31

– and here I'm switching to be

1:15:34

clear from social engagement, of socializing with

1:15:36

other adults to intellectual engagement. If

1:15:38

you want to have intellectual engagement, then

1:15:40

I think that being a full-time

1:15:43

mom is a really great way to do

1:15:45

that. Some of my

1:15:47

favorite writers that I enjoy reading

1:15:50

are full-time moms. They're

1:15:52

also academic and engaged in

1:15:55

writing, but there's a good

1:15:57

synergy between their family

1:16:00

life and their intellectual pursuits.

1:16:02

And so I see this with

1:16:05

professionals who are writing books, there are

1:16:07

people who write influential blogs or

1:16:10

write published essays frequently, there

1:16:12

are people who are doing original research.

1:16:14

I know a lot of women who

1:16:16

do activism of various kinds and

1:16:18

they're engaging in activism and it's

1:16:21

all around their children's schedules because

1:16:23

that kind of work and that

1:16:25

kind of intellectual engagement can clearly

1:16:27

be done with children involved.

1:16:31

It doesn't require them to go to an office outside

1:16:33

the house for eight hours a day and be there

1:16:35

eight hours a day every single day. And

1:16:38

so intellectually you can have all kinds of

1:16:40

intellectual engagement and you can have all kinds

1:16:42

of professional engagement around children.

1:16:45

Now I would just give one caution to

1:16:47

say that I have found it

1:16:49

very hard to see how I don't know

1:16:55

how moms run a business

1:16:57

and take care of their

1:16:59

children full time. I've

1:17:01

tried this, I've tested this with my

1:17:03

children. Maybe if it's one or two

1:17:06

children, maybe you can do it more

1:17:08

easily. You can certainly do it more easily when you

1:17:10

enroll your children in school, if you enroll your children

1:17:12

in school when they're older. But the

1:17:14

caution I would give is that don't expect to be

1:17:16

running a business as a mom and

1:17:18

think that you're going to be able to do

1:17:20

six hours of productive work because the way that

1:17:22

the work changes, I don't think

1:17:25

that being a mom is the hardest job in the world.

1:17:27

And I think that it's wrong for us to

1:17:30

say that. It's not the hardest job in the

1:17:32

world. What it is,

1:17:34

however, is it's difficult because it is a

1:17:37

continual, constant job.

1:17:41

And so because you're

1:17:43

responsible throughout the day, then

1:17:45

you can't put together,

1:17:47

right now I can go to

1:17:49

my office and I can sit down in my office and I can

1:17:51

spend eight hours alone and I can just get in the flow and

1:17:54

the zone and just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. When

1:17:56

I'm with children, I can get 15 minutes here, I can

1:17:58

get 20 minutes there, I can get at

1:18:00

nap time but I can't get like five

1:18:02

hours put together just because I told my

1:18:04

children okay I'm gonna go and work now.

1:18:07

And I think that's what's demanding about being

1:18:09

a mom is that you're on all the

1:18:11

time and you're continually, you don't get that

1:18:14

like focused mental time. But

1:18:16

if you can come up with activities that

1:18:18

fit into that life and work, you know,

1:18:20

okay I'm gonna read an hour here on

1:18:22

this subject, I'm gonna browse, I'm gonna do

1:18:24

a few minutes of my Twitter feed here,

1:18:26

15 minutes here, I'm gonna answer some emails

1:18:29

there. You can insert this work into your

1:18:31

work day. Now in

1:18:33

addition to that, I think that if you

1:18:35

were interested or became interested in home education

1:18:38

that I think a lot of

1:18:40

home educators, I myself included,

1:18:42

find that one of the most interesting

1:18:44

things about having children is

1:18:46

that you can fix

1:18:49

your own educational deficits in your homeschooling because

1:18:51

now you get the chance to go through

1:18:53

and teach them all the stuff and you

1:18:55

get to learn a lot of stuff alongside

1:18:57

them. And I see this, my

1:18:59

wife talks about this, about all the stuff that she's

1:19:01

learned homeschooling our children. I

1:19:04

see this with all the stuff that I've learned about

1:19:06

homeschooling our children. You can go through and you can

1:19:08

read things alongside your children, you can learn things, you

1:19:10

can find new applications. And I

1:19:12

find home education to be very intellectually

1:19:14

rewarding especially if you're doing it in

1:19:16

a serious manner and you're shooting

1:19:19

for a high level education. And

1:19:21

so even if I don't think the right model is

1:19:23

to think that you, the model of home education that

1:19:25

I think is incorrect is to think that somehow you

1:19:27

have to teach your children all the stuff, you don't.

1:19:30

Your job is to be a facilitator but

1:19:32

you can read along with them, you can

1:19:34

read to them, you can be looking through

1:19:36

their books. And if you choose a really

1:19:39

challenging curriculum for your children's home education, you'll

1:19:41

learn more from that curriculum than you ever

1:19:43

did from your own

1:19:45

schooling back in the day. So

1:19:47

it is important to plan for losing

1:19:49

social contact with other adults but

1:19:52

that can be planned with actually

1:19:54

proactively going for it. And

1:19:58

intellectual engagement is just a matter of

1:20:00

time. a choice. Either you disengage and

1:20:02

you are

1:20:04

engaged or you keep intellectual engagement as part

1:20:06

of your life and your lifestyle and I

1:20:09

think that it's perfectly possible to be very

1:20:11

socially connected with other adults

1:20:13

and highly intellectually stimulated even if

1:20:15

you were a full-time mom. I'll

1:20:18

pause there. What are your thoughts on that? I'm going to answer

1:20:20

to your first question. Yeah,

1:20:24

I think that was a helpful

1:20:26

overview. You basically were outlining

1:20:29

points about looking to history, for

1:20:31

example. No need to reinvent

1:20:33

and that maybe even my few

1:20:37

were thought about. The stereotype of

1:20:39

losing adult contact is kind of exposed

1:20:43

to because I

1:20:46

am occupied during business hours

1:20:49

and not aware of what else

1:20:51

is happening. I think you know, through this

1:20:54

avenue, thinking unintentionally and exploring it before necessarily

1:20:59

committing, deciding or exiting the

1:21:02

workforce is a good avenue

1:21:04

to kind of remove

1:21:07

some of the concerns that have and

1:21:10

so those are good avenues

1:21:12

to explore. Appreciate those thoughts. Good.

1:21:14

What you have right now is

1:21:17

financial freedom because you have a

1:21:19

high income. What you don't

1:21:21

have right now is time freedom. If

1:21:24

you did choose to become a full-time mother,

1:21:27

you would give up a measure of your financial

1:21:29

freedom of the excess income,

1:21:31

the extra disposable income that you're earning

1:21:33

from your salary but what you

1:21:35

would gain would be time freedom and time

1:21:37

control. I want to be

1:21:40

honest and say you don't get total

1:21:42

time freedom because now you're caring for

1:21:44

a child and so that structure is

1:21:46

your life in a certain way but

1:21:48

you do have full control over how

1:21:50

you use your time and

1:21:52

children can be easily integrated into

1:21:54

life and so you could, if you're

1:21:56

the kind of person, if you're the kind of woman

1:21:58

who is motivated to be you know

1:22:01

socially connected to others you

1:22:04

can have a Much

1:22:06

more active social life than you have right

1:22:09

now As

1:22:11

you engage in it and as you build

1:22:13

your skills and

1:22:16

so reason I say skills is

1:22:18

that as a parent you do

1:22:20

acquire some different skills So I take my

1:22:22

children out to eat all the time. We've

1:22:25

got a baby I've got a 15 month old baby

1:22:27

There are many times where I need to sit the

1:22:29

baby next to me sit the baby on my lap

1:22:31

and I have to carry On a conversation while listening

1:22:33

to four other children and just making sure that everything

1:22:35

is okay That's a skill that you develop and before

1:22:37

you have children you I always when

1:22:39

I'm with single people I'm like listen I've got my

1:22:42

full attention Just because I'm looking and listening to four

1:22:44

other people doesn't mean my attention is not on you

1:22:46

and so that you'll you'll observe that You'll build

1:22:49

those skills naturally they'll be acquired But you can

1:22:51

have a very very active Social life if you

1:22:53

want it and you can and

1:22:55

I also say that you can do

1:22:58

this really beautifully as you build a

1:23:00

network Let's pretend that you couldn't pay

1:23:02

a babysitter, but you still wanted

1:23:04

to engage in an active social life Well life

1:23:06

well when you have time freedom you can have

1:23:09

a thing where on Tuesday morning every other Tuesday

1:23:11

morning I've got my girlfriend who lives across town

1:23:13

has got a two-year-old and I've got a baby

1:23:16

She's gonna come over here and bring her baby one

1:23:18

Tuesday morning and the next Tuesday morning I'm gonna swap

1:23:20

with her and that's gonna be my morning where I

1:23:22

go to my favorite Pilates class and and have a

1:23:24

latte by Myself at Starbucks on my way home She's

1:23:27

gonna take care of my baby for two or three

1:23:29

hours while I go and do that and there's one

1:23:31

thing Oh, by the way Let's just go ahead and

1:23:33

visit for an hour or two after I get back

1:23:35

after each of us gets back and we'll swap that

1:23:37

Out every other Tuesday on Wednesday. I'm

1:23:39

gonna have my mom come over and take care of

1:23:42

the children at lunchtime Just

1:23:44

be here for an hour to feed them lunch and

1:23:46

be in play with them While I go and

1:23:48

have lunch with my former co-workers every Wednesday and

1:23:50

then on Thursday night We're gonna have all we're

1:23:53

gonna invite people over from church or I'm gonna

1:23:55

you know, that's gonna be our hosting night So

1:23:57

every Thursday night is gonna be someone coming over

1:24:00

And my point is that you can do this

1:24:02

if you have the motivation and the vision for

1:24:04

it. You can do it without

1:24:06

spending money on it and you can have access

1:24:09

to childcare and you can have access

1:24:12

to social contact.

1:24:15

It's totally doable if you have the vision

1:24:17

for it and the desire for

1:24:19

it. The reason I keep emphasizing if you

1:24:21

have the desire for it is that some

1:24:23

moms, they just do well in a

1:24:26

kind of an isolated environment and they find

1:24:28

that they're so focused on doing

1:24:30

all my homeschooling. I don't want to go and socialize all

1:24:32

the time. And so not all women

1:24:34

do this but it's not because they couldn't, it's

1:24:36

often because they don't want to at this particular

1:24:38

phase in life. Moving on

1:24:41

to the second question you asked of not wanting

1:24:43

to land in financial scarcity. Two

1:24:46

things occur to me. Number

1:24:48

one, I

1:24:50

don't know about the nature of your husband's income and

1:24:54

I don't particularly want to ask. I

1:24:56

would say that one of the things that

1:24:59

many men find is

1:25:01

that when

1:25:04

they don't have to think about

1:25:06

managing two careers, the

1:25:09

opportunities that they have are much bigger.

1:25:13

I can't guarantee it because if your husband

1:25:15

just has a straight up job and okay

1:25:18

he has a job and he's not going

1:25:20

to change and he's going to get cost

1:25:22

of living raises and he's not super aggressive

1:25:25

about building his income or anything like

1:25:27

that, fine. But I

1:25:29

think in general if you put

1:25:31

a dual income two people together

1:25:34

and you contrast that with a

1:25:36

motivated man whose wife is a

1:25:39

full time mother, I

1:25:41

think the motivated man can often

1:25:43

wind up earning much more

1:25:45

money because of his

1:25:48

freedom to go after bigger opportunities.

1:25:51

So let's say that he was offered

1:25:53

a promotion. Well if you've

1:25:55

got a job and you live in Dallas

1:25:57

and he lives in Dallas and he's offered

1:25:59

a promotion. to move to Washington DC. If

1:26:02

you have a dual income couple, then you've

1:26:04

got to negotiate that between two jobs and

1:26:06

it comes a real tussle. What about my

1:26:08

career? What about my job? And what am

1:26:10

I gonna do in Washington DC? If

1:26:13

you have one job, then it just comes down

1:26:15

to is this the right move for our family,

1:26:17

for our social contact, for our children? And

1:26:20

if you want to pick up and move to Washington DC,

1:26:22

you pick up and move to Washington DC. In

1:26:25

addition to that, especially if you

1:26:27

have children, a problem that dual income families

1:26:29

face with children is they're always

1:26:31

trying to split all of the parental duties right

1:26:33

up the middle to keep it fair and equitable.

1:26:35

And so, okay, you pick up the children from

1:26:37

daycare on Monday and you've gotta be there at

1:26:39

5.05 to pick them up, otherwise we get charged

1:26:41

extra if we're late and I'll pick them up

1:26:43

on Tuesday and you pick them up on Wednesday.

1:26:46

And so, your husband's at the

1:26:48

office on Monday afternoon and

1:26:51

there's a big meeting and a big client opportunity and

1:26:53

someone says, hey, why don't you come to dinner with

1:26:55

us? I'm meeting so and so big

1:26:57

shot. Oh no, I can't, because I gotta go

1:26:59

and pick up the baby from daycare and I

1:27:01

can't do that because then my wife will be mad at me

1:27:03

because this was her night that I'm supposed to go pick up

1:27:06

the baby for daycare. There's an enormous pressure. Now,

1:27:08

I don't want husbands to ignore

1:27:10

their wives or be not present

1:27:13

or anything like that. There

1:27:16

are times in a man's career, however,

1:27:18

where if he has the mental freedom

1:27:21

to pour on the work during a

1:27:23

period of time, because his wife,

1:27:25

he knows that his wife and his children are

1:27:27

taken care of, then he can

1:27:29

make much bigger moves and get much farther

1:27:31

ahead in his career quicker. So,

1:27:34

I'm not convinced that it's

1:27:36

just an automatic given that

1:27:40

will always have lower income because a mom

1:27:42

becomes a stay-at-home mom. I

1:27:44

think in some cases, and I don't wanna say many

1:27:46

because I can't prove many, but I would also say

1:27:48

some, in some cases, being

1:27:51

freed up as a man to

1:27:53

really go after your career without having

1:27:55

to try to simultaneously negotiate with your

1:27:57

wife around her career about

1:28:00

who's going to take care of the children and I've

1:28:02

got to go on this business trip and all these

1:28:04

other things, it allows you to make potentially bigger moves

1:28:07

and to go farther faster. Many,

1:28:09

if you look at the most

1:28:11

successful businessmen in America, it's

1:28:14

very unusual to find them being a

1:28:16

dual income family. It's

1:28:18

very common that the most

1:28:20

financially successful men will

1:28:23

have a full-time wife who so

1:28:25

that they know my children are well cared for,

1:28:27

my wife is well cared for and I can

1:28:29

focus on the money and I can make a lot

1:28:31

more of it because of my

1:28:33

freedom. So I view this

1:28:35

as an enormous benefit for me as

1:28:38

a husband and as a man. I

1:28:40

view the fact that my wife doesn't

1:28:43

have a job as an enormous

1:28:45

asset rather than a financial liability because it

1:28:47

frees me up to be able to travel

1:28:49

if I need to, to be able to

1:28:52

go after opportunities, to work early and late

1:28:54

when I need to, to take spur-of-the-moment meetings.

1:28:57

I would not make as much money as I

1:28:59

do if we were both

1:29:01

earning an income and then trying to

1:29:04

negotiate our parental responsibilities evenly down the

1:29:06

middle to try to

1:29:09

handle things. So one thought

1:29:11

on finances is that you

1:29:14

may wind up in the fullness of

1:29:16

time if your husband has a career that offers him

1:29:18

where there's opportunity and if he's making,

1:29:20

if my memory is right, a couple

1:29:23

hundred thousand dollars, there's clearly opportunity. You

1:29:25

may wind up four years from now

1:29:27

having a much higher household income than

1:29:29

you do today because he has additional

1:29:31

flexibility. I can't guarantee it but I

1:29:33

would say it's a strong possibility. On

1:29:36

the flip side also is that

1:29:38

you are depending on your professional

1:29:40

training and your interests, I

1:29:43

think that you can

1:29:45

massively contribute to your family's

1:29:48

finances in ways that

1:29:50

go far beyond clipping coupons and cutting

1:29:52

costs. If

1:29:54

especially if you hone your skills or

1:29:56

have any interest in doing things like

1:29:59

managing your family. family's investments. One

1:30:02

of the great problems that dual income couples

1:30:04

face is generally both of them are always

1:30:06

focused on their jobs and always focused on

1:30:08

their careers and they just got to make

1:30:10

more money, make more money. And

1:30:12

so because of the cost

1:30:15

of working, generally expenses

1:30:17

are higher than they otherwise need to

1:30:19

be and generally there's very little time

1:30:22

available for focusing on investments and finding

1:30:24

good investments. In the

1:30:26

beginning that's okay but as your family

1:30:28

accumulates capital it becomes much more important

1:30:31

that you manage the capital effectively to

1:30:33

make good investments than that you make

1:30:36

more money. And so looking

1:30:38

at your $120,000 income, you have an income amount that is being reduced by

1:30:45

taxes. You could probably save some money by

1:30:47

running your family's budget efficiently because you have

1:30:49

time to take over the finances of the

1:30:51

management of the budget and make sure that

1:30:53

we've got all the best packages and all

1:30:56

of our expenses are as low as possible.

1:30:59

But if you also focus on

1:31:01

developing interest and expertise in investment

1:31:03

management and you manage your family's

1:31:05

investments, you can contribute to

1:31:07

your family enormously in an enormous

1:31:09

amount. The most common

1:31:11

way I see this is if

1:31:14

a husband has a business and his wife

1:31:16

does real estate, that's a very, very common

1:31:18

thing. A lot of times she'll get a

1:31:20

real estate license and because

1:31:22

she may sell a couple houses a year

1:31:24

just from personal contacts especially if she's very

1:31:26

social, you can take the baby with you

1:31:28

to a lot of stuff. You can work

1:31:31

the work around some of the other things.

1:31:33

But more importantly if you become the one

1:31:35

who's finding the real estate, finding the deals,

1:31:37

managing the tenants, managing the contractors, managing the

1:31:39

investments, you can get really great

1:31:42

performance out of an investment portfolio. If

1:31:44

you're interested in other avenues of investing

1:31:46

and you become Miss

1:31:48

Crypto or Miss Air Drop

1:31:51

or Miss Gold

1:31:53

Coin Collector, whatever it is, you

1:31:56

can start to develop and exercise

1:31:58

knowledge. in ways that you

1:32:01

can't right now and so i think

1:32:03

that if you're interested in

1:32:05

the family's overall financial well being

1:32:07

that you can contribute enormously even

1:32:09

if you're not generating income. What

1:32:12

i love about this is in the best to

1:32:14

say nothing finally that's the same nothing of you

1:32:16

having a business of your

1:32:18

own as well that you manage and

1:32:21

so i really get

1:32:23

annoyed. If i am

1:32:25

counseling a couple weather a

1:32:27

dual income couple with both of them

1:32:29

earning w two income that is the

1:32:31

least efficient way to build wealth in

1:32:33

the united states you're highly taxed. You

1:32:35

have no time freedom and there's a

1:32:37

black of time freedom means you can't

1:32:40

do you can't exercise. You

1:32:43

can't find inefficiencies investment markets whatever

1:32:45

market you're interested in to

1:32:47

exercise my favorite is to have

1:32:50

one high income because that gives

1:32:52

you stability of stability

1:32:54

of income that can be useful for

1:32:56

borrowing ability just for stable financial management.

1:32:58

And then to have you be the

1:33:00

one who manages the contractors of the

1:33:02

rehab the flip house that you guys

1:33:05

are working on and and find

1:33:07

the next deal and and build a little

1:33:09

business that you know we have a. Build

1:33:12

a little very tax friendly business that gives

1:33:14

you guys the ability to think to have

1:33:16

a whole bunch of deductions for things that

1:33:19

you enjoy doing anyway so there's a lot

1:33:21

of opportunities to go much beyond cost cutting

1:33:23

that if you're motivated to pursue you could

1:33:25

pursue that would have enhance your family's financial

1:33:27

standing. I

1:33:33

appreciate your thoughts yeah just to kind

1:33:35

of think of what works

1:33:39

lifestyle and vision I get the kind of

1:33:41

facts of vision that's kind

1:33:43

of the theme kind

1:33:45

of have some idea of

1:33:48

what I might be interested in and actively

1:33:51

explore it to kind of address some of these concerns that

1:33:53

I have thanks for sharing those thoughts. Yeah

1:33:55

my pleasure now to number three. You

1:34:00

said, okay, well, I don't want to be this

1:34:02

like hyper focused. I'm going

1:34:04

to use the term tiger mom who's just

1:34:06

all obsessed with how my child is doing

1:34:08

and you just a little

1:34:10

bit better and we need to raise your IQ just a little better and

1:34:13

blah, blah, blah. I would say

1:34:15

that my answer to this is just the fact

1:34:17

that you're concerned about that means you're not going

1:34:19

to be that. On

1:34:22

the contrary, I think it's much more important

1:34:24

that you be the kind of really engaged

1:34:26

mother that your children ultimately will

1:34:28

need. You probably listened to my

1:34:30

series on how to invest in your child.

1:34:32

I think that, now, I don't know

1:34:34

what time will tell

1:34:38

because some psychologists just basically say, none

1:34:40

of it matters. It's all innate characteristics

1:34:42

and blah, blah, blah. Here's all the

1:34:44

evidence that parental input really doesn't make any

1:34:46

difference. How you're born is how you're born.

1:34:49

I don't really believe it although I'm sensitive to

1:34:51

their data and I don't believe it. I

1:34:53

think you can make an enormous difference in

1:34:56

your child's long term outcomes. That's

1:34:59

why I really

1:35:01

want moms to be engaged and I want you

1:35:03

to feel like you do have a mission. I

1:35:05

want you to be on a mission for your children and

1:35:08

I want you to engage in that

1:35:10

fully. I think that there is enormous

1:35:13

evidence on basically everywhere you look

1:35:16

of the power that you as

1:35:18

a mother have in the long

1:35:20

term outcomes that your children experience.

1:35:23

Everything from the bonding that you have with

1:35:26

the baby and the importance of breastfeeding in

1:35:28

your baby's long term outcomes and just the

1:35:30

engagement and the play and the character formation

1:35:32

and the vocabulary formation and the intellectual ability

1:35:34

that you can instill and everything. It just

1:35:36

goes on and on and on of the

1:35:38

things that can be done. I

1:35:41

would say that it's – I

1:35:44

don't know how – I mean, could you be too obsessed

1:35:46

with the outcomes that your children are

1:35:49

having? Yeah, you probably could. I

1:35:51

would say that probably the best solution to that is have

1:35:53

three babies because if you

1:35:55

have one and it's all about that one, my

1:35:58

one little precious and you're just – hyper

1:36:00

focused on that one baby, then you could

1:36:02

probably smother your one baby. If you have

1:36:04

three children, then you're probably not going to

1:36:07

smother the one because you're too busy managing

1:36:09

three and you can still

1:36:11

make enormous progress. But on

1:36:13

every single metric, an involved

1:36:15

parent, there's no,

1:36:18

we don't know where the limits of

1:36:20

human capacity are. So I'm, I

1:36:23

have proved and am proving this in my

1:36:26

experiment. I'm probably more obsessed with this than

1:36:28

you could ever be. And testing

1:36:30

this and trying that and doing this and let's

1:36:32

see what this outcome, this outcome could be. But

1:36:35

on basically every level, if you care about

1:36:37

your child's physical formation,

1:36:39

you can have the healthiest athlete in the

1:36:42

world. If you care about your child's academic

1:36:44

formation, you know, he can finish a master's

1:36:46

degree by the time he's 19 years old.

1:36:48

If you care about your child's social

1:36:53

life, he can have friends on

1:36:55

every continent. There's no limit to what's available.

1:36:58

And I think that your children

1:37:00

are enormously privileged when you

1:37:02

can create that kind of environment for

1:37:04

them. And you can be their coach.

1:37:07

You can be the person who is digging into the

1:37:09

research and who's doing it. And we, I think we

1:37:11

need more of that. And so if

1:37:13

you become hyper obsessed with it, my only comment

1:37:15

would be create an outlet for it. So I'll

1:37:17

read your mom blog. I love mom blogs. I'll

1:37:20

read everything that you're doing and I'll try to

1:37:22

learn from them and try to apply them. But

1:37:25

our children are our future.

1:37:27

And I believe personally that,

1:37:30

um, motherhood specifically

1:37:32

fatherhood also, I believe that motherhood

1:37:34

is a noble calling and

1:37:37

that you can accomplish

1:37:39

that the world needs

1:37:42

your children. And I mean

1:37:45

that on a physical sense, that the world

1:37:47

needs your babies. And I

1:37:49

mean that on the sense that the world

1:37:51

needs your children and the

1:37:53

world needs you to be engaged with them

1:37:55

and productive so that

1:37:57

they become pillars of society.

1:38:00

Our children are the asset that we most

1:38:03

need. And I stole

1:38:05

that line from my

1:38:08

mom because she used

1:38:10

to have a lot of children and

1:38:12

people would make nasty comments to her

1:38:14

that anybody with big families

1:38:16

always hears. And her answer,

1:38:19

which is remarkable because she's a very humble woman

1:38:21

and usually not this snarky, but I don't know how

1:38:23

many times she actually said it. But she said, you

1:38:26

know, the answer I finally settled on is just simply

1:38:28

the world needs my children. And

1:38:30

I'm talking to you right now because

1:38:33

of my mother and the work that

1:38:35

she did for me. And

1:38:39

she is enormously responsible

1:38:42

for who I am. She's

1:38:44

not a perfect mother, but I'm grateful for her

1:38:47

labor in my life. And

1:38:49

to the extent that I have the opportunity

1:38:51

to be here speaking to you at the

1:38:53

moment, I owe an enormous

1:38:55

portion of that to my mother. And

1:38:58

I honor her for

1:39:01

my life and the idea to me that somehow this

1:39:03

is why I don't like to

1:39:06

tell women that they shouldn't have jobs. I don't

1:39:08

feel like that's my place. That's up to them

1:39:10

and their husbands to work it out. But

1:39:13

I do want to really solidly,

1:39:15

solidly represent the fact that not

1:39:17

all important work is measured in

1:39:19

dollars. If my mom needed money,

1:39:21

there's not a limit to how much I would give

1:39:23

her. If my mom were

1:39:26

in need, there's no limit to that.

1:39:28

And I look at my mom at

1:39:30

80 years old with her six

1:39:33

children and her 16 grandchildren. And

1:39:35

as far as I can tell, she

1:39:38

has an enormous reward

1:39:42

for her years and years of labor.

1:39:45

And it seems to me

1:39:47

much more satisfying for

1:39:50

her to have the joy of that

1:39:53

than if

1:39:56

she had earned whatever she would have earned

1:39:58

through her working lifetime. time. My

1:40:01

mom did take a job. So

1:40:04

when my parents were younger, my dad was

1:40:06

in the Navy. He was gone for six

1:40:09

months at a time and so she didn't have an income at

1:40:11

that point in time. She was trained.

1:40:13

She had a training certification. She had a college

1:40:15

degree. She was a trained teacher and

1:40:17

then they had children. My parents were missionaries

1:40:19

abroad and they had children and she was

1:40:22

raising with small children. Then there was a

1:40:24

point in time at which they

1:40:26

decided they didn't want to continue homeschooling and

1:40:28

so she took a job at the local

1:40:31

private Christian school in order to get the

1:40:33

tuition reduction for my family. She worked that

1:40:35

job while all of us worked our way

1:40:37

through and then after they didn't need the

1:40:39

tuition reduction anymore, then she came back and

1:40:42

was a full-time wife and wife and mother

1:40:45

again and that was the time that she

1:40:47

had a job. My point

1:40:49

when I'm saying is that so it's not that

1:40:51

I don't think that you can't have a job

1:40:53

and you're having a job may be strategically useful

1:40:55

and helpful and important but the

1:40:58

impact that you can have at your job

1:41:02

can be measured in one dimension. The impact that

1:41:05

you can have as a mother can

1:41:07

be measured in a different dimension and

1:41:09

if you did become very results oriented

1:41:11

and focused on your children as a

1:41:13

project, I don't see that as

1:41:16

a bad thing and if you're too weird

1:41:18

about it, then someone will correct you and

1:41:20

you'll recognize, hey, I don't want to be

1:41:23

that weird. On the contrary,

1:41:25

I think that work is really important

1:41:28

and it's to be

1:41:30