488 | The Courage to Take Action | EconoMe LIVE with Doc G

27:13And I think I still want to do that. But I think that coming to this conference has changed probably the way that I want to do that. I don't necessarily think that our community needs more people talking about budgeting and spreadsheets and a lot of the things that have been covered to the nth degree in this community. I think our community needs more people that talk about their background and their stories and have vulnerability and take the chance to say, I don't necessarily know what's next, but I'm okay with being part of a community and figuring that out in the context of this community.

27:46And that's what I'd like to try to do. Yeah, I love that. And I think that's the nice part about our community is there is a space for for people who are interested in the new voices. Like, I absolutely love that. And I'm curious, like on a personal level, what's up next? You know, to steal from my good friend Jordan here, like what does life look like for you now? I'm assuming you're at FI, but that's just an assumption. Talk to me, like where are you in life? Where do you go from here? So I hit FI in 2020, but I continued to work for a few more years and I have been outside of my job for almost a year now.

28:23and I am still figuring that out. You guys caught me at the pivotal moment. I'm a marathon runner. I am a musician. I'm a minimalist. I'm into Phi, but I still am looking for that next thing. So it's a little bit scary to say that I don't know. And I think that part of the reason to come to a conference like this is to get some seeds to maybe figure that out. Yeah, I hope to find that answer. I never imagined being at a place in life where I didn't have the structure that I had as a child and in my work life and to be able to have the option to even consider something like this. And while part of me is elated, part of me is absolutely terrified.

29:05Please, everybody, if you're interested in supporting Allison and being less terrified and taking action in the next steps of her life, will you stand up and give her a round of applause? Thanks, guys.

29:25Well, Allison and Roger, I really wanted to thank you for being on the show today. The reason why I wanted to highlight your stories is I don't want to make light of things. This is not easy. The decisions you make even to pursue financial independence are not easy. But even getting past that, you still have to take action in your life. I had to go to Camp Fi to take action in my life. Brad even recently had to go back to our common friend Jillian Johnsrud and get part of her mastermind and her coaching to take action in his life. When you look at the people sitting around you, these are the people who are going to help you do what you need to do now and in the future.

30:15Thanks for listening to Choose a Fi and for all your support of our mission here. The absolute best way to support Chooseify is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at chooseify.com slash cards. I keep this page constantly updated, so it should always be the top resource for you. Thanks for being part of our community and for your support. All right. As the after show, we are going to do a question and answer. William McVeigh is going to carry around a mic, and you guys are going to get a chance to ask us, either Brad or I, any question about Fi, podcasting, or whatever have you.

30:53All that I ask is that you tell us your name and tell us who you want to answer the question, and this will become the after show. Unfortunately, we can't record your voices because that external mic he's carrying around doesn't record, so we are going to repeat each question, and then we're going to answer it. Please raise your hand if you have questions for either Brad or I. So, yeah, Andy asked essentially, what does my week look like? How many hours am I spending on this? And just like a general framework, kind of getting at the heart of what is the overwhelm, in essence, as I'm hearing it.

31:30I guess, you know, for me, it's funny because I just like you guys, I know all the right things to do, but sometimes it's hard to actually do them. So I've listened to every productivity expert take a diary of what you do every week and yada, yada, yada. You just do all this stuff, right? I don't do any of it. I know I should. So I think for me, Andy, it's more of a it's just a mental overwhelm because I think if I'm actually honest with myself, I'm not actually working more than 15 to 20 hours a week. but it's more the, what is it? Parkinson's law, right? It's like the work swells to fit the time you have allotted.

32:15And when you sit in front of a computer for X number of hours, you kind of conflate that with working. And I think I need to truly be more intentional. So, I mean, listen, it's funny because when I actually look objectively at my life and my week, it's fantastic. Like, I mean, absolutely fantastic. I'm going to the gym eight hours a week. I get to spend time with my family. I go to the sauna a couple of times. My life is amazing. But yet that's like objectively, but the internal sense a lot of times is overwhelmed. So that is my lived experience. And I think it's because I've allowed it to backslide to that point where maybe I try to take on too much.

33:01And it's funny because like, as I hear myself saying that, it's like, oh, poor me. You have too many people writing you to say, oh, you changed my life. Like, oh, poor me. You know, like, give me a break. But I feel this compulsion to write, like people pour their hearts out to me. And it's really legitimately hard to respond to all these things. And like, I wish I had a better way to do it. And I don't. And it honestly, it like eats me up inside. And I think at some point I just need to come to the conclusion that I just, I can't do it. I can't possibly do it because it's causing an imbalance in my life.

33:36And I think you need to find areas that light you up. And for me, this podcast, all my self-deprecating, ridiculous jokes aside, I love podcasting. I love it. Like there's something about this that just energizes me. I get to sit here and talk to super interesting people and ask questions. Like, I mean, it's like my dream. It's amazing. But I let all the other stuff overwhelm me. And I think, again, part of a community is finding people that can that can put it in perspective, that can give you advice that maybe they've been there. There are a couple of steps ahead, no matter who you are, right?

34:12Like Jordan said, just because we're at Phi doesn't mean our lives are unicorns and rainbows all the time. It's just not. I mean, that is literally, it's not the human experience. And this is really important for every single person here to understand. Like, just because you reach a number on a screen does not mean your life is unicorns and rainbows. I mean, it can be fantastic, obviously. And it's so much better than if you hadn't pursued Phi. Nobody's arguing that. But you really need to be intentional. And just the way, I don't know, entropy maybe, like, you know, there's a state of disorder that comes when you're not intentional.

34:47And I think I've allowed that to happen for too long. And I kind of mentioned in passing before that my plan is to take a mini retirement towards the end of this year, which is really two or three months where I just take a step away. And I'm just really super excited about that. So, yeah, that's kind of where I am. Thank you for that wonderful question. So the question is, FI is evolving and move from austerity towards lifestyle design. And your question to us is, where do we think it's going? I most definitely think we are moving away from the basic original FI principles. And this is what happens with movements.

35:29You start with the original hardcore beliefs, and then young people come in and iterate. And it's cleansing, it's natural, And what should happen is continuously new content producers, thought leaders will come in and they'll bring new ideas and they will build and take a concept that was good and make it better and eventually great. And that is exactly what happened with FI. I mean, the old version of financial independence, front-loading the sacrifice, grinding it out and retiring as fast as possible from a job you didn't love and then finding yourself has really changed to a story where we're starting to look at what does our best life look like today and building a financial framework around it.

36:12And I see the conversation really moving to the point, and none of you are going to believe this, where money starts becoming less relevant. Because financial independence, A, is a state of mind. And B, there's lots of ways to get to financial independence. Only the first way is to front load the sacrifice and get to that net worth number. But doing the passion play and going for what you love doing and making a living doing that for the next 50 years may be your path to financial independence. Or working on those side hustles and passive income and working very part time for the next 30 or 40, 50 years, maybe someone else's version of what a good life looks like.

36:51So we're really moving to a place where we're talking about things like purpose and identity and we're talking about building these communities. And that becomes the FI, not the number and not the net worth. Yeah. Yet again, I'm not sure I can top that, but it's beautiful. Like how he talks like that. It's astonishing. Yeah, I mean, for me, I think clearly front-loading the sacrifice is dead. I think fire, the RE, is an absolute distraction. And that's why we have been very intentional at Choose a Vive for seven years now, that the retire early is ridiculous. us. I mean, I can count on one hand the number of people who have retired early and sat on a beach and done nothing, right?

37:37Because if you have the wherewithal to reach financial independence decades early, you're not going to sit around and be unproductive. So I think moving away from like, oh, the fire movement is bad. Like every time I see that, I want to strangle someone in essence. Like it's so it's it's a caricature. It's preposterous. Like, is there any world where you are worse off having pursued financial independence? There is no world. So any of these bozos who want to talk about this in the media, like, oh, the fire movement is terrible. Like, it's because you're focusing on the wrong thing. You're focusing on this preposterous retire early.

38:19That is a caricature and always has been because nobody does that. Right. So like we have tried to choose a five for a very long time to make this something that is approachable for everybody. And I think that's why, you know, we moved away from the extremism to you find financial independence where it fits in your life. And I think, frankly, frugality will always have a place. If anything, I feel like I've moved too far away from the messaging of frugality because it is very important at the beginning of your journey. Because honestly, for most people, if they are coming into this community or world living paycheck to paycheck, they have to make changes, right?

39:01Like we have to be honest with ourselves. And sometimes that means, I think it means smarter choices. But frugality is part of that. And then as Alan Donaghan, who's sitting here in the front row, and when we had the pillars of FI and we left out entrepreneurship and earning more money and salary negotiations, you layer all of this stuff on top, right? But it starts with getting the fundamentals right and building a life based on spending on what you value. And I think that is a universally applicable message for everybody. And I think you ask, where do we go from here? I think, honestly, this event is a perfect example, right?

39:42Like community is where we go because this means something to all of you. That's why you're here, right? You took four days, five days out of your life to come to this conference that you can't even explain to people. What the hell are we doing here, right? Like and spend a good bit of money traveling. But it's because it means something to you, right? And how do we bring that home to our local communities? companies and you know we've tried for a very long time to create these choose if i local groups and you know yet again i'm hard on myself but you know like we haven't done the greatest job from like choose if i to to help those succeed but that's something that like i really want to help and and i i ask all of you to help to help build the communities that you want to see this doesn't just have to be three or four days on one weekend you can build this in your community and i see people like Kristen here sitting in the front row who's doing this, right?

40:34Like I see Vanessa who's done this in New York City. And like, it's remarkable. People just step up. You have to be that change that you want to see in your local community. You have to step up. We have, I mean, Diana, who literally runs this conference, has basically revolutionized, and the Cincinnati group, frankly, has revolutionized what we have going on in local groups with the case studies. And now I know we have our local admin, Emily, sitting here. Like we've had three case studies in Richmond, people who were brave enough to stand up and talk about their personal finances in front of their friends and neighbors.

41:11And the second person who did that literally, as I understand it, realized, oh, wow, I'm at FI and I'm stepping away from my job. I mean, how cool is that? Right. Like, and you can do that. We can make that change happen. So I get a little long winded, obviously, as you can tell, but community and we can do that. So thank you. So the question is, and thank you very much for that thoughtful question, is how do I as a physician reconcile the fact that society paid a certain amount to get me to allow me a medical education and to co-practice and also how I step away from that identity of being a physician?

41:49So let's talk about the price of becoming a doctor. It is true. Our society does pay a certain amount of taxes that go to Medicare that support residency programs, etc. I worked 80 to 90 hours a week for three years. I took care of patients who died in my hands and felt guilty and sad and afraid and lonely and lost. I became the shell of a person I was. I lost my sense of humor. I lost my sense of patience. I carried each and every patient with me for all those years. There is no price that society paid that was worth doing that. I did it because I had the drive and interest and empathy to do it.

42:37But when I was done, there was no amount of money society could have paid to train me that would have been a fair exchange for what that felt like. I have no regrets about leaving medicine. I have no sense of feeling that I owe society something. I gave my heart and soul and almost every moment of my day for 20 years. I took phone calls at three and four in the morning. I worked on almost every major holiday. I worried about each and every patient and I will never sleep comfortably knowing that I could have done better for some of these patients and I didn't. So am I guilty about that? No, but I also feel like I don't owe society anything.

43:17I gave it my best. When it comes to identity, it's a little easier for me because the identity of being a physician never really sat well with me. And so I was kind of ashamed and embarrassed of being a doctor, which should have really told me that it wasn't the right identity for me. But I've been thinking a lot about our concept as people of enough. And I think we all cling to these external identities that don't fit us because we're so struggling to feel enough in life. And the problem is doing something that doesn't fill your soul and doesn't fit you will never make you feel enough. Like that's something that has to come from the inside.

43:55And it certainly doesn't come from doing things that stress you out or feel make you feel anxious or things that you are embarrassed or too shy to tell people you do. And so for me, yes, there was some walking away from status and certainly some walking away from income. On the other hand, waking up every day and not carrying that burden anymore has relieved me of some of that fear of loss of status. And thankfully, when I was able to embrace things that felt more intentional and authentic to me, I have a whole different sort of identity and status that actually feel a lot better. Like I was saying the other day, and I've said this a few times in the podcast, when I Google my name and the descriptor comes up writer, I feel more pride than I've ever felt in being a doctor.

44:43It actually lights me up. And I never had that up until this point in my life. And so I would make that exchange every day. without a doubt and without regret. That's a great question. So to kind of summarize, the question is generally about charitable giving and I guess both in our personal lives, but the FI community generally. And it's funny because we're recording this at Economy and when this goes live in our podcast, it'll be after the fact, obviously. But this coming Monday, so literally, I guess, 28 hours from now, We have an episode going live precisely on this. So you couldn't have time this better if you possibly.

45:24And it's actually, it's wonderful. It's on effective giving. And I think it's really going to resonate with the FI community specifically, because obviously a lot of us are analytical. And I thoroughly enjoyed recording this episode. And it made me rethink charitable giving. And, you know, honestly, I don't have a perfect answer for you right now on what charitable giving looks like for me going forward. But I think it clearly looks different after this episode. And I suspect a lot of you in the audience and in the larger audience will have a similar, I guess, impact based on this episode. So we had two people come on, actually one of our local group admins in, I think, Ogden, Utah, Rebecca, and a gentleman named Jack, who was an executive director, I think of One for the World.

46:20It's essentially effective altruism, effective giving organization. And I think for me, our giving has always been very haphazard. And it's, hey, a friend has some type of charity. We'll give 50, 100,$200. Or, oh, we love clean up the James River in Virginia. So we're going to give to that and we'll give to our universities a little bit, whatever. But again, it was just very, very haphazard. And it didn't feel and it frankly hasn't felt like it was making any type of difference. And I mean, to be perfectly honest, I've always felt a little guilty that we haven't given more, but not to repeat myself endlessly.

46:59But I think this episode made me realize that there is a better way to have a conceptual framework around charitable giving. And for the first time, I'm actually excited about, OK, I can do some research on this. I can find these organizations that almost like how JL Collins has helped me figure out investing. Like these organizations help me figure out giving. And, you know, that's my personal takeaway. way, I don't suspect. And that's not to say, obviously, that all local giving is bad. I'm not arguing that in any way, shape or form. But I think having some type of framework will be useful. So long story short, just listen to the episode on Monday.

47:39I think it's going to be good. I'll actually start and then I think Brad will chime in. So I believe the question was, when we encounter someone maybe outside of the financial independence community or we're interacting with them and maybe telling them about this, how do we help them be introduced to the community and understand that there's both a math and a psychology part and help integrate that in such a way that we can have a productive conversation? I guess I look at it, I hate to say it, I look at it this very similar the way I look at dealing with hospice patients. And so we have a saying in hospice is you have to meet people where they are.

48:14And so a lot of what I found about dealing with people who don't understand financial independence, but yet they're talking to us about financial pain and we clearly see an answer, but we know they're not there yet, is you really have to see where they are. And so some people innately will understand the psychology and not the numbers. So if you meet them where they are and work first on the psychology, you may have an in to eventually work on the numbers. On the other hand, if you meet someone and they're much more the numbers and not the psychology, then you meet them where they are and get deep into the numbers and then move towards the psychology.

48:47Unfortunately, often we meet people who aren't about the numbers or the psychology, but they're under stress. And this is where I think we have to not give up. This is where we have to make ourselves available and open and say, hey, we've discovered this thing. You might not be ready to hear about it now, but I think it'll be helpful. And they might not be ready for it today or tomorrow, but maybe when their pain gets more, or maybe when they're open-minded, they'll remember that you had a solution and could help them. And they might come to you when they're more ready. And then you can meet them where they are again then.

49:18And hopefully they're at a different place where they might be ready to start talking about these things. Yeah. I think as a lot of us have determined, there's no easy answer for this. And we just, we do the best we can. And I think by being open and I look for like little clues of people talking about random things, like even simple things like, I don't know, 401k or I clip coupons or yeah, that's kind of antiquated, but But anybody talking about some way of optimizing, like, okay, this might be someone who's open to this now. I'm not trying to change people's mind. And I think when we start standing up on soapboxes and trying to pontificate about how amazing we are, I mean, come on.

49:59Like, who wants to do that, right? And people don't want to listen. That's not what we're doing here. We're not trying to convert people. But I think we can help people by providing an example and being there for people. I've had people kind of, obviously, it's a little different, right? People know I have this podcast. But I mean, people have asked me for help when I don't think they would have felt comfortable. And it's been really gratifying to help people in my own friend circle. I mean, unfortunately, a lot of people wait until the last, the very last minute when they're like at this point of terrible stress.

50:35But nevertheless, to your question, it's a little bit of everything. I would almost even, I knew you were talking about like maybe scoffing at, oh, it's just the big three. But I would even say sometimes the little things are the big things when it comes to making habit changes, right? Like you don't start selling your house and moving a thousand miles away, right? Like you can start by, hey, if your cell phone costs a hundred dollars a month, hey, I just changed to whatever Mint Mobile and it's$20 a month. And oh, there's no downside to this. I'm saving$80 a month. And you see, okay, I can start making these changes.

51:14It's fun. And wow, my bank balance is going up every month. Oh, what else can I look for? I think like, to me, it's like that little change. And as we know, getting into the numbers, right? Like every$100 per month that you cut out of your budget is literally$30 ,000 less you need in your financial independence number. That sounds crazy, right? But super simple,$100 a month times 12, $1 ,200 a year times 25 is$30 ,000, right? So, I mean, the little things can be the big things. If you have somebody, a friend, or even you who has, I hate to harp on the cell phone thing, but like two expensive cell phones, move them somewhere, right?

51:55And like, if you did that for a couple, it could be a$200 savings. That's$60 ,000 less you need in your fine number. So the little things can be the big things, both in terms of the numbers and the psychology. So I think for me, it starts with those little changes and then it goes from there. All right. Jordan's being kind and giving this to me for some reason. So yeah, the question I guess is, how does it feel to be a little celebrity in this community? yeah it is uh bizarre it's wonderful and weird all at once so i've jokingly said i'm gonna go home on monday i'm gonna roll into town at uh three o 'clock and literally no one on earth will care that i'm alive in essence like nobody my you know family will say hello to me real quick and that'll be that but yet when i come here i literally have hundreds of people i have like a line of people waiting to talk to me sometimes.

52:57It's obviously kind of bizarre. But it's amazing to think what a difference this crazy podcast that we decided to start in a spare office in Richmond, Virginia, what an impact on the world that's had in seven years. And sometimes it almost feels like it's like the aw shucks moment. But it's just, it is bizarre. It is hard to wrap my mind around. And I don't think you guys will ever know how much I appreciate when you come up and tell me what a difference has made because coming to economy last year really reinvigorated me because, you know, the COVID era and the impact that it had kind of on behind the scenes on our business and, you know, Jonathan leaving the podcast, even though everything's wonderful and And he's, you know, we're still great friends.

53:50I mean, those were big changes. And, you know, there was a very easy out for me at that point. Right. And coming here and seeing that not only did people find ChooseFI back in the, you know, in my mind, the glory days of 2018, 2019, I've just arbitrarily made that up. But but that people are still finding it today. And it's really making a difference. And it's, I mean, it's really something special.

54:25So I don't feel like a celebrity sitting next to this guy over here. I would sum it in literally one sentence. It is a privilege to speak and be heard. Thank you, everybody.

54:49Thank 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 choosefi.com slash subscribe. And 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.

55:25So 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 choosefi 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. And 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 of 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 if i created a financial independence 101 course that's entirely free just head to choose if i.com slash fi 101 and again thanks for listening

56:34Thank you.