441 | The Valuist Returns | FI Roundup with Bo Loy

23:29It's five or six years. and it's hard for you to envision being that person who was so thrilled about saving the$10, but that was so important. Hey,$10 per month. Yeah, right. $10 per month. Okay. So 120 bucks a year, compounding interest. Yeah, exactly. But right. But that doesn't make that any less important. And I think all of us should be celebrating our wins. And I think that's one of the beautiful things again, about having it as that North star of taking those 1 % actions to make your life better. It doesn't matter if that 1 % is, Hey, I cut Netflix this month because I wasn't watching it, even though it's only saving me whatever it is, 10 bucks or 12 bucks a month.

24:09That's really important to you there versus you're saying your 1 % is actually, Hey, I'm going to save a half hour of my time, which is really important and not drive to that other grocery store to maybe save five, 10 bucks, maybe 20 bucks, whatever it is, there's some threshold or maybe there's no threshold at this point because you just know realistically you're not going to save that much. It's going to be $5 to$15 that you're going to save at the cost of a half hour of your time. And I think it's important for people at the beginning of FI to understand that you will eventually get there and that doesn't negate where you are in your journey now because every step is important.

24:49And really these building blocks are critical to just building this conceptual framework of this is a financially independent life. Right. And I think one of the important things is no one has to go out and try to save$10 a month, but I think it's worth going through your financial life to figure out where you can and then decide, you know what? Heck no, that$10 a month is awesome to me. And it allows me to do this. And even at a younger age, and this is maybe like, maybe this doesn't sit well with everybody, but what if you even did it when you were younger and you were in debt and in college and you still paid to free up your time to allow yourself to do something.

25:28Now, I'm not saying you have to be 100 % efficient like, oh, I chose not to go to the second grocery store and I didn't go hang out with my children. Therefore, I failed and I lost the money. No, no, no. You don't have to capitalize on everything. But if you can free up your time and it does allow you to do something and pursue a true interest, especially at a younger age and give yourself time to breathe, that's important. But there's certain times where at least for me, I like dove down deep into it. And I was like, I'm going to find out everything. And then I examined myself and I was like, oh, wow, there's a, there's a lot of fat on this.

25:57I can trim it up a little bit. And it was fun to go through that process. Yeah, it is fun. And I think it's fun to figure out what do you value? And that's actually what you've become known for and has really your impact on the five community so far is that term that you coin, which is the valuest. I am a valuest. And it's, it means I spend on what I value and it's not a just miserly counting pennies concept of I'm trying to save every dollar. Okay. Saving is really important. It obviously is, but not at the expense of living a good life and not at the expense of cutting things out of your life that you truly value and you get value from.

26:37And I think that is truly, Beau, it's an enduring legacy, just that concept. I appreciate you saying like that. And I was talking to you about this before the show. I was like, I think we live on our last podcast or whatever. We just created it, or I don't remember how, but anyhow. And then immediately afterwards, I went online. I found that thevaluist.com was taken. I was like, oh, okay. Not like I would have put content on there. I don't think I'm ready to do that. But you coined that years ago. I mean, that was in our - Was it years ago? When was it? Was it a conversation? I think it was 2017, 2018.

27:06We're like way back in email. I'd have to search my email. Yeah, okay, cool. But I've always lived that way. And I've always thought about that because it's freeing when you say it that way that I don't always value what other people value. And right on, you pursue your stuff. I have friends who get so much satisfaction out of certain things. And I'm like, ah, that doesn't light me up. But who cares? That's not the point. And then you just have to pick and choose, right? Money's fungible. If you're going to spend that much money on a certain thing, and yet you could have spent half as much on something else that gives you true value, then you know.

27:37And then you examine yourself and you examine your happiness and you go after it. And I guess I'll pose a question, Brad. What is something, truly something real? Not like I value time and family. Like, of course. Okay, that's easy. So not abstract. But what's something that you value? And then I always do this. I always do the so what? So I'm going to ask you the so what? Like, so what, Brad? Now what? So what's something you value, Brad? My health and fitness. So what? What are you doing about it? Yeah, I mean, this year, I'm really attacking it. I have to say, I know I've mentioned that's my kind of like bold move for this to be my healthiest year ever, but I'm really going after it.

28:13And frankly, I'm spending a good bit of money on it. So I think I would affirmatively answer the so what is I'm actually passing with flying colors. So I mentioned a couple of weeks back, I think on the show that I actually hired an online personal trainer. So I know I mentioned this to you, but it has been just like the single best thing that I've ever done for my fitness. It's remarkable. The guy's name is Dean Turner. and he's on Twitter at Dean T training. And the guy's just awesome. He's pretty young. I think he's in his twenties, but he is just incredibly fit. He's incredibly smart. I love the framework that he brings mentally to fitness and training.

28:54He's also a value investor. He like has tweets every now and again about Berkshire Hathaway and stocks. It's just, it's cool. I just liked the guy a lot. And the accountability has been remarkable. my like the actual programming has been just the best exercise that I've ever done it's just like I'm excited to go to the gym I'm increasing my strength and just overall fitness level but I mean leaps and bounds that I could have never imagined like to the point honestly but where I'm like I'm literally like maxing out machines at the gym at this point like the leg extension machine like maxed out I just completely maxed out I'm uh doing like just absurd I don't want I'm going to talk about the numbers because it's kind of - You're going to go from doing a podcast to a video blog to show off your thighs.

29:39Yeah, seriously. Ripping out of jeans. But yeah, man, it's just, it's really great. And I think the amount of money that I pay for this accountability and fitness programming is more than I would have been comfortable with, certainly a couple of years ago. But it is the difference maker that is really, truly the difference between getting mediocre results and getting top 1 % results. as far as I'm concerned. So for me at the stage I'm in with, with my fitness and the answer to that, so what question is it's worth it. It's absolutely worth it for me. And again, I am a little bit uncomfortable because I still have the vestiges of the old Brad and me, but I'm, but I'm truly not uncomfortable anymore because it's, it's important.

30:21And yeah, I mean, other things like I've mentioned that a DNS doctor. So Dr. Peter Atiyah, who is now like world famous, And he put out a book called Outlive and he has a podcast called The Drive. He talked about this methodology called dynamic neuromuscular stabilization. And he's talked about that for the last couple of years and something that he basically kind of stopped everything to more or less figure out how should my body work and found a DNS doctor that he loved. And it's unusual. It's definitely very different type of therapy or training. but I found luckily a DNS doctor here in Richmond and I've been going faithfully once or twice a week for the last handful of months.

31:03And my body just feels good. I mean, Beau, it's amazing. Like I just, I feel lighter. I feel like I can move. I feel like also I'm not getting hurt. And I think that was something that, that plagued me. It's just these little nagging injuries when I, and this is not CrossFit's fault by any means, but like when I went to CrossFit, like I just would always be hurting myself in little ways. And that's more on me and my body not working properly than CrossFit being there's something wrong with it. But I'm not experiencing that anymore. And I think it's really the conjunction of this new fitness and this DNS and a lot of other little things.

31:38I could come up with a laundry list of 50 things I've done differently that have just made my life better from sleep to nutrition to walking more and being outside more, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, man, I think I'm passing your test here. I think you crushed the show. And also So listening to the tone of your voice as you're saying that and the excitement, that's the value. I mean, you're excited about your health. You're apparently stronger and healthier on all the metrics. And even if you weren't and you just are this excited about it and you feel good about it, like that's a win. Yeah, take it.

32:07Yeah, agreed. So what about you? Can I turn that right back around on you? Sure. Well, I'm not going to do health. I guess I'll say I value, you've mentioned this in a recent podcast, like peaks of a journey and ending well or something like that. So I like peaks and I like pointing to certain events. So in the past, for instance, if I was mountain climbing or hiking a mountain, mountain climbing, geez, just like a backpack and hiking up, I always like to hit peaks. So I wanted to, and I always call it Mount Everest. I know every time I tell my friends, it was not Everest. It was Mount Whitney in California, but we did that.

32:42And then we were in New Mexico and we were doing peaks. And I remember saying like, hey guys, we're here and we're going to leave tomorrow morning. But if we just drive two more hours and then spend the night at the base of that mountain, we can get one more peak tomorrow. And my friend's like, what are you doing? I was like, because it's one more. We're really close. So I always like that because then you can talk about it like it's a thing. And does it really matter? Could you climb the other mountain 100 yards away and been 500 feet in lower elevation? Sure. But I'm like, I want the bigger one.

33:07So I like that kind of stuff. It's like maybe it's my own pathologic brain, but whatever. So one of those things is I have wanted to and more recently wanted to climb Mount Fuji. And so I'm casting a wide net and trying to get people to go do that with me. And to the point where I've basically got some dates down and I'm motivated enough to open a new credit card to get the points, to make the flight free, to do this. And then to just start telling people because it's like one of those, you know, you project it out there, it will happen. So I want to climb Mount Fuji. I want to spend some time in Japan.

33:41And I want people to want to do it with me. And that's a thing. I want it to happen. And I don't know why it's Mount Fuji, but it is. So that's a thing. Okay, that is crazy. I know you do listen to the show, but I don't know if you heard when I mentioned this. But that is literally number one on my bucket list in life. No joke. Did you say it in a show? I think I may have. Or have you guys texted about it? We may have texted about it. No, because you said you're a Japanophile, right? I am, yeah. I studied abroad there. Okay, I've listened to most of your shows. So maybe I heard that. But also I went to Japan for my brother-in-law's 50th and it was absolutely amazing.

34:14We all flew for free. We showed up and it was amazing. I did not know such a Western modern country could be so darn affordable and the food so good. Absolutely amazing. It is a remarkable, remarkable place. Yeah. You went to Hokkaido, the northernmost of the main islands and yeah, I went skiing and it just sounded amazing. I've only been to, I guess, the main island, Honshu. And yeah, I'd love to explore. So I don't know what your dates are, but I'm in. I'm definitely in. So we're making this happen. Unlike going to Japan, which can be a big thing. However, you can do it for, you know, you do your chase points and you can fly for free.

34:51And there's ways to do it. Yeah, I want to hear more about that. Maybe that'll be round two. But to me, probably even more meaningful are like the little mini adventures with my kids. So I just have a go bag ready. I don't have a rooftop tent or anything like that. But man, that's just a crazy fad that I still think is going to pass. But everyone should have a tent by this time. And if not, you put a mattress in the back of your truck. And my kids say, we want to sleep outside and get in your truck and you drive. And they talk about that stuff for weeks or months about sleeping outside. And my son will say, Daddy, can we go back to that hotel that had all that land?

35:22And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, we slept in the truck and the hotel. I was like, oh, you literally like we drove out into the wilderness and that was all yours. And it's like, he's like, yeah, all that, all that land. And it's crazy because he's five and it's like, they just, when they get outside and they see it and it's just such a big deal, at least for my kids, like getting outside spending the night is a huge thing. And, you know, they're only going to be seven, five and two once. So we might as well do the stuff that seven, five and two year olds like. And going to Japan is a modicum better for them, but driving five miles away into the wilderness is a huge win and it can happen on the spur of the moment.

36:00Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And really, I've found that meeting your kids where their interests lie. I think this is, to me, one of the biggest things. And, you know, again, I've mentioned these amusement parks so many times now. And I do have an interesting kind of second generation fi story here. So if you'll indulge me for a handful of minutes here. Well, first, yeah, I mean, this has just become part of the fabric of our lives at this point. So my daughter, both my daughters love rides. But my older one, again, is this roller coaster enthusiast. So we have an amusement park called King's Dominion here about 30 minutes from us.

36:34It's a Cedar Fair park. So Cedar Fair, the famous Cedar Point amusement park, which is probably the best one in the world in Sandusky, Ohio. And I guess Cedar Fair owns 11 different parks. So now we're going to go to a bunch of them now, Bo. So we have season passes to our local one, but we're going to get, I guess, their like platinum pass, which gets us access to all the parks. And it's actually a pretty bi-frugal thing. I think we paid just a little over$100 for this gold pass, which was the annual pass to King's Dominion. And we probably legitimately go 20 times a year or more at this point.

37:08It's wild because it's so close. And I think this to me, again, another mindset thing is I always think about the people who go to Disney World and come back and they look like they've been to hell and back, right? Like it looks like the worst week of their entire lives. And it's because what in my estimation did they do wrong is they tried to maximize. They tried to maximize every minute. They tried to maximize, we're going to see 100 % of everything. You got to slow travel instead, right? Exactly. And it's like, what is a successful Disney trip is you get there when the park opens, because that's the best time to get on rides.

37:44You go for a couple hours. And then in the middle of the day, you go home, you go back to your hotel or your Airbnb, and you go in the pool and you stay in the shade and you relax and then you go back in the evening and you rinse and repeat every day you're there. I guarantee you that's like the 80-20 analysis, right? Like you're going to maybe see 80 % of everything, but goodness, you're going to have such a better trip. So I think we've now taken this tactic with our local amusement park, which is, okay, Anna's favorite ride is this crazy ride called Intimidator 305. It's literally - 305? Is that the area code?

38:18No, so it's actually 305 feet. So I think that's the drop. It might be 300 feet. She's going to kill me for getting this wrong, but I think it's either 305 feet tall or 305 foot drop. But anyway, it's the most intense roller coaster in the world, like literally the number one most intense. So to the point where people gray out at the bottom of the first turn. All right. I want to do this. Where is it? Dude, it's wild. Yeah, it's in Doswell, Virginia, just north of Virginia. Doswell. I don't know how to spell Doswell. Yeah, it's funny. So anyway, my kind of interesting story here is how I'm trying to, and people ask me when I was at Camp Fi, we had a conversation about how do you teach your kids about money?

38:58And there was this incredible woman named Chantel who had just this wild story of just like super detailed, okay, like this is what we're doing. And I was just so impressed. And it was funny. Like then they asked me like, oh, Brad, what do you do? I'm like, oh, I can't follow that. That's impossible. But what I try to do is I try to meet my kids where they are. And I try to build, I call it like life lessons. It sounds boring, but like lessons and strategies into everyday talk, but again, making it appropriate for them. So obviously my daughter loves amusement parks. She's a 14 year old kid. She's interested in money and compounding and all this stuff, but she's not going to sit there and let me regale her of stories of stock buybacks and EBITDA and all this other boring stuff, right?

39:44But if I build the lessons around amusement parks, okay, maybe we've got something. So we were sitting there and just chatting about, okay, like what makes a park and what makes it worth it to pay admission for? If there was one ride, would you pay$100 a day to go there? No, it wouldn't be an amusement park. You would pay per time you went on the ride. Well, what about two rides? What if they were five, 10? And painting this picture, And then we started talking about, okay, if you were in charge of the park, how would you make more money? Because when we go, we just show up, we go on our rides and we go home essentially.

40:21But how could you come up with strategies to maybe earn more money from every visitor? And again, all of these things. But interestingly, we found out that this company Cedar Fair is publicly traded. Okay. So they are a public company. And again, this ride Intimidator 305 is her favorite in the whole world. And she's like, okay, you could actually become a tiny little owner of this park that you love so much. And she bought a stock? And she loved that. Yeah. So we actually, she had some extra money lying around. She actually sold a little bit of VTSAX, a little bit, which I don't advocate for most people.

40:55But for the learning lesson here, this was awesome. So she became a shareholder. So your daughter has sold more VTSAX in her life than I have. Yes. Literally just a one-way street for me. That's amazing. that is absolutely amazing i'm gonna text you and have her show me how to sell it when i need to do it like i know you've done this before could you walk me through the sell button help me know you can do it i know you can do it that's awesome so then this was really the cool thing i was especially proud of like how this all kind of worked out and it was really just one of those like magical things that has happened to her in her entire life which was okay so her favorite ride was closed for the winter and now she was desperately curious again she is a roller coaster enthusiast.

41:37She thinks of roller coasters probably five hours a day. This is not like a normal obsession. This is like, you know, excessive level obsession, but it's wonderful. And she's like, daddy, I just, I need to know when is it opening? How can we find out? And like, then it was, okay, this is not the nuts and bolts of money, but how do you find things out? Okay. So I walked her through my process. Like there were all these Facebook groups. So we went in there and we, we asked experts and nobody really knew there were no, no insider tips. Please tell me she goes like a shareholder meeting and asks. It's even better.

42:08Oh my God. I'm so excited. All right. So we're like, is there anybody at King's Dominion we could get in touch with? Maybe. Is there somebody that we know? Is there somebody we could reach out to? Maybe you could find out. And she had a whole bunch of other questions. She's just this really inquisitive girl. She was super curious of just about the park. She had a million questions. But in her mind, first and foremost was, when does this ride open? But again, now getting in touch with people is another really important skill in life, right? Like finding connections, finding a way to get maybe a warm introduction, right?

42:43To, okay, you just can't email a stranger off the street with, hey, when is Intimidator 305 opening, right? Like if she wrote that email, it would get tossed in all likelihood. But what we did was we tried to find, okay, is there somebody who's pretty high up at King's Dominion who we can maybe get in touch with? And I said, realistically, we're probably not going to get an email back, but you never know. This could be a fun experiment of getting in touch with someone. So in Anna doing a bunch of research, she found out that actually the general manager, who's ultimately the CEO of King's Dominion, is a woman who just took over the job a couple years ago.

43:20And what's interesting is this general manager, whose name is Bridget Bywater, basically was Anna when Anna was a little girl, right? Like she, her first job was at an amusement park. She's worked at Cedar Fair Parks for, I think, somewhere close to 30 years or something like that. And I just said to myself, oh, man, this is extraordinary, right? Because maybe my daughter, who, again, Beau, is a 14-year-old rollercoaster enthusiast, could have the thought of, how can I turn this unbelievable passion of mine into a career someday? And again, you meet your kids where they are, right? And you lean in.

43:55You try to, you talk to them. I've spent hundreds of hours. I mean, Bo, no joke. Like I am not a rollercoaster enthusiast because I don't love the rides that give me headaches, but I am the most knowledgeable. Yeah, I have grade out. I want to see that. It's crazy, man. You gotta, yeah, you gotta come out here and go on it. But I'm probably the most knowledgeable non-enthusiast in the whole world because I've had - You refuse to carry the card, but you're like, no, what the card means. But I'm in, but I'm in. So anyway, so going back to the story is, okay, let's try to reach out to her and see if you can make a connection.

44:26And I, again, I tried to teach her, okay, the first and most obvious way is can we get an introduction from somebody we already know? That's called a warm intro. And I tried to teach her, okay, how would I go about doing this? I would go on LinkedIn. I would see, do I have any common connections? No. Can I go on Facebook? We couldn't find her on Facebook. So, okay, there was no warm intro possibility. So I'm like, all right, and now the degree of difficulty has just gone up a thousand fold because you need to send what's now known as a cold email, no warm introduction, but a cold email to someone who's really important, who's one of the most important business leaders in the state of Virginia, just out of the blue.

45:05So now you've got to make this really interesting, right? Like you've got to write a super interesting subject line. You have to get her to open the email, read it and be interesting enough for her to respond. I mean, like that is like an inside straight in poker. I mean, that's, it's harder than an inside Street. But again, Anna was legitimately a Cedar Fair stockholder and a rollercoaster enthusiast. I actually wrote this email to Ms. Bywater from me, just as a dad, introducing her to my 14-year-old daughter. The subject line was, 14-year-old Cedar Fair stockholder, parentheses, and rollercoaster enthusiast.

45:40I'm like, that's awesome. That's spot on. I told her a thousand people out of a thousand are going to open that email. But again, it's still an inside street that she's very important and busy. She's got to read this thing and respond. And, you know, I just introduced her to my daughter who, again, I'm sure she probably saw herself in this young girl who is trying to learn about money, is trying to learn about business, loves rides, loves amusement parks. And, and amazingly, she wrote us back that evening, wrote Anna back that evening and said she'd love to answer all her questions. And we actually met up with her a couple of weeks later, which was just so amazing.

46:16And I said again to Anna, okay, listen, you know, this is a Friday night. She's spending a couple, a little bit of her time on a Friday evening, not with her family, but with you, maybe you're going to get 10 or 15 minutes. And incredibly, she spent 90 minutes with Anna, but it was 90 minutes. Just, it was so amazing. She toured Anna around the whole park. Like I was surplus to requirements. I essentially wasn't even there, which was so great. It was like, Like I almost started like crying, just watching like my daughter, just having this amazing interaction. I'm sure she just lit up and she'll remember that forever.

46:49So your daughter now can contact CEOs of companies and forever. And it's true because, you know, maybe nine out of 10 won't respond, but that's such a powerful thing to know. And it was because of the email and it was because of it being special, but also it's just because she wrote it. The email could have worked had it just said, I'm 14 and I have questions about your park. It could have worked. And if she sends a hundred of those emails, she's going to get some really excited people to respond back. That's huge. Good for you. Good daddy. Wow. Good job. Yeah, it was amazing. And yeah, this is obviously all on all thanks to Miss Bywater, who is just a remarkable, remarkable person.

47:28And she just makes Anna feel so special. And I can see why she's risen to where she is in her life and career. It is just an amazing thing. And it's really like the single most important thing that has like happened to my daughter. And now she has this correspondence with her when, when she has questions and Anna's bought a little bit more Cedar Fair stock. And I mean, this is, this is a real thing. Yeah. Foster that relationship. That's so cool. That is such a cool thing to have at 14. Yeah. It's so, so cool. So yeah, that's, uh, I've mentioned these, this, uh, amusement park story for a while now and I'm glad I got to tell it.

48:02And it was just, uh, it's just a really cool thing. And again, because my daughter sees herself in this amazingly successful woman, it's just given her a new outlook on like, oh, wow, this could be something I do with my life. And it's just really incredible. That's super cool. A couple of things you said remind me of, and it might be from comedy, but it's like this thing when you see comedy sketches with just more than one comedian and it's like improv is the yes and. You can't stop when someone says something, even if you don't want to go there, you go, yes and. And it's, I try to take that with my kids.

48:35Whenever they say something like, daddy, can I go outside in the mud kitchen and make blah, blah, blah. And I go, yes. And, and like, you just feed it, feed it, feed it. So anytime they say something, I almost never, I sound like I never say no. Like I say, no, stop trying to break stuff, but whatever. But when it's a game and they're trying to do it, you just say yes, and, and see where they go. It's like so wonderful that you did that. Like seriously, great parenting. That's amazing that you set all that up. And as you were saying that, it's funny. It reminded me of when I was a kid, and I don't remember exactly what it was.

49:03It could have been Skittles, but I think it was M &M's. We bought a bag of M &M's, and it said 25 % more. And I bought the original bag, and then I bought the 25 % more bag, and it cost like 10 % more money. And I remember this, and I counted the M &M's, and it was like 18 % more, not 25%. And I was like, Mom, what? Like, that's a lie. And she goes, you know, essentially, like, I probably learned it from my mom and dad. So what? And I was like, well, that's not right. And she goes, what do you want to do? I was like, I don't know. She goes, do you want to write a letter to the M &M Corporation?

49:32I was like, yeah. And I did. And they sent me a box of M &Ms, a whole box. And they said, thank you. They made this whole thing about, we're going to check QY and make sure that we count them. This is so wonderful. I was like eight years old and I like, oh, cool. And I remember that as a little seed in my brain, like, yeah, just do it. Like, just try. If you had the question, and I've carried that my entire life. Like if I have a question for the CEO, I email the CEO of my hospital. And if I have a question about this, I just go to that person. I don't worry about like, well, what if I'm overstepping my bounds or what if they're too important and too big of a mucky muck for me?

50:08You just go for it. Yeah. And that you can affect change on the world. I mean, you learn that as an eight-year-old, which is just an amazing thing. And I think it's just a really critical skill. I've been reading a book called Learned Optimism by Dr. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania. And just part of what he talked about is how can we not get to a point of helplessness? And I'm paraphrasing terribly here, but it's that ability to affect change on your life and circumstances. And I think that is one of the best mental ways to have a positive outlook. And I think to maybe if you're in a point where you feel like nothing can get better is just having these little wins.

50:51That frankly is why we come back to those 1 % wins is, okay, I did X and Y happened. Something good happened as opposed to, oh, throwing up my hands, nothing I could ever do. And of course they do all these psychological experiments on animals and humans to show this learned helplessness where if even no matter what you're doing, nothing good comes, then you learn very quickly, okay, why am I gonna try, right? So yeah, that was an interesting thing. I think that's huge. and I think that's like an important life lesson is that you've got to figure out an internal locus of control. So you've got to realize that, you know, pick yourself up by the bootstraps type thing, like you can.

51:29And I know there's extenuating circumstances and certain times you couldn't theoretically. Okay, fine. But for the most part, you can. And people really should learn that it comes from within. You've got to be able to do that, which is why it's so exciting how you dealt with your older daughter is that it was her thing, her idea. She did it. And all of a sudden, this 14-year-old girl, not this dad who's a podcaster with, I don't know, millions of downloads, got her an interview or anything. It's like she did it. And that woman, Bridget Bywater, is close to your daughter. She might not know who Brad is, but she certainly knows who your daughter is.

52:01And your daughter knows that. Your daughter knows that she was the star of the show. And she was the reason why. And now your daughter's like 14. And it's like, I can do all these things. And I think everyone needs to remind themselves, you can do it. You can totally do it. You just pick up the phone. You make it happen. If you have something you want to do, just go do it. because it usually works. I mean, things usually work out. People want to support, people want success. If you've got something in mind, just do it. I really believe in that. Yeah, I love it. I think that is probably the perfect place to wrap up.

52:28I have a whole laundry list of things that I thought we were going to talk about. We touched on maybe 5 % of them, so we'll have to do around two through 10 at some point. But yeah, that is exactly it. I know there's the doom and gloom of putting the news on and just thinking the world's crumbling, but man, do that, as I call it, the look outside test. You look outside and the world is pretty darn good. And man, if you could pick any time to be born, any time in world history, you would pick right now. And like you said, the world is pretty great out there. And people are generally, 98 % of people in my anecdotal experience are looking to help you.

53:06Obviously, there's always a 2 % of crazy people who are just jerks and you can't account for that. But man, I'll take 98 to two any day of the week, right? And people, you're well-meaning, you're positive, you're kind, you do the right thing. Good things are going to come back to you. It's not like pie in the sky. It sounds naive when you say it, but man, it's true. It's not naive at all. It's just the way the world works. And I think the sooner we all realize that and we stop grumbling and mumbling about just all the bad things and you actually look for the good things, you're really going to find them pretty darn quickly.

53:36Totally agree. All right, my friend, thank you again, and Bo for coming on. And yeah, literally until next time, which will be very soon. I appreciate it. Take care. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player and just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to chooseify.com slash subscribe.

54:08And it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there. And I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsource personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have choose a by local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to chooseify.com slash local and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world.

54:43And if you're just getting started with FI or you have a family member or a friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways. Chooseify episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community. And even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence? What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life? And then Choose a Vi created a Financial Independence 101 course. That's entirely free.

55:17Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.

55:31Thank you.