598 | Deep Dive Hot Seat with Brad and Ginger

24:59Ginger:And it makes me actually feel grateful for my job. And it makes me think about the things we talk about, about when you're on this side and you're just thinking, I can't wait to retire. I can't wait to retire. Gosh, right now I take a lot of pride in knowing that, hey, the things I do during my workday support my family. like influence our lives and allow us to do things that even when it's hard and it's not going well, it's still meaningful to me to go forward in that work that I'm doing. When I said, I think I know your answer, like choose FI, I know is very mission driven for you in that way.

25:39Ginger:It's a job. And so I don't think you probably struggle with meaning. Maybe you do a, I want to know if you do. And B, I want to know if this is something you have seen or that you have talked about in your circles? Yeah, this is another deeply layered question, Ginger. I'm going to try to do it justice. I guess for me, certainly the meaning is choose-ify, without a doubt. So I know I'm very fortunate in that case. As I've said over the years, while it is this incredible thing that I could have never envisioned that this lightning bolt would happen to me in my life, it's not stress-free. Again, I don't necessarily think of that as like a bug in the system.

26:23It's just part of how life works. Even in our five lives, like we are going to have stress. Anybody who thinks that five is somehow a panacea for all that ails us just doesn't understand the human condition. And you obviously know this deeply as a, as a counselor, like there's nothing that's a panacea for the human condition. So I think if you go into five thinking that you're going to be disappointed, I think it's just really important to know, like, yeah, it's wonderful to be fi and to have financial resources and to have time resources, but it does not mean every day is going to be unicorns and rainbows.

27:00It just doesn't work that way. We're humans, right? Like we wake up on the wrong side of the bed or you have a bad day or you get in an argument or whatever it may be like that kind of stuff happens. It's almost similar when we do the work ahead of time and we understand what reality is like with an investor policy statement we've always talked about, right? It's like you have something written down for when things go bad, right? It's like you're doing the work ahead of time because you understand that in this moment, you're probably going to freak out. Like if something happened, some exogenous shock happened and the market went down 30%, like you're going to freak out and want to sell everything.

27:33I think on some levels, like understanding that FI isn't a cure-all is going to help you in those moments when you're just having a down day or you're having a down week or month and like, that's okay. So I think it's also important to say like, FI is not about running away from a job and it's not about retiring per se. I think the lack of meaning, the lack of doing anything at its worst, at the caricature level, that's not a fulfilling life, right? Like who wants to live that life? And I'm curious before I keep going. So, you know, your job as a counselor, and I'm putting words in your mouth and just guessing, like I imagine it is both deeply stressful and deeply rewarding just from the actual job.

28:16And then you talked about the rewards of supporting your family and supporting your path to fi and all these amazing things you get to do. I'm curious, once the need for more money is solved, do you think the intrinsic rewards of the job itself are enough to keep you doing it?

28:37Ginger:Not with the amount of hours that I put in now. Okay. But I get what you're saying about when we talk about purpose, it is multilayered. And what I was saying was like, when that other part isn't there, when it's like, oh, this just feels really hard and it doesn't feel satisfying. At the end of the day, I can still feel like the meaning of like, oh, well, this was hard, but it's helping my kid go to summer camp. And so it's great when we have those things that are within themselves are satisfying and provide meaning, right? But in the example of this gal I know it's sort of like when that's not there if there's not even that other piece of like well at least I'm you know paying off my bills or whatever no I get that and so right two things first at the hours I'm working was your response which is and my natural response to that is nothing says when you reach five that you have to work the same number of hours you currently do.

29:38Like if you genuinely love being a counselor, like, and you want to do it for, I'm putting words in your mouth again of like, if this even possible, but I imagine it would be if you wanted to work for eight hours a week and you got fulfillment out of that, then great. If you found 16 hours or 12 or whatever it is, I think when we remove, just like you were saying, thinking big for the die was zero. Like, I think we need to remove constraints and think big on what our five life looks like. Because I think it's easy to just fall into ruts of like, it's zero or one. It's either exactly how it is or I'm out.

30:14And that is just not the case. I think there's so many opportunities for people to keep doing work that they find rewarding and productive in some way, but do it on their own terms and where they add unique value. So I think That's almost an aside, but I think it's a really important aside. As far as this woman that you know, that's tough, Ginger. I think if we're honest with ourselves, she's just dabbling in hobbies and she doesn't have a mission. So I think it's probably more, and I don't know her and I'm taking wild stab at this, but I suspect it's much more that she's just kind of playing around.

30:53She found her thing and she's just not doing it because she doesn't need money. I think when you find your thing, yeah, I spend a lot of time on choose a buy a lot of time. Like, is it easy every second? No, it's not. But like, I think it's really valuable. I'd like to believe I'm going to look back when I'm 80 or 90 and say like, damn, that really made a mark, you know? And even just something like this health app that I talked about in passing, like neither Aaron nor I need money at this time, but like, so we're not doing it to make money, but like we found something that we want to create in the world and it's really fun.

31:26We're having a blast just putting this thing together. And naturally she, she's the computer coder. She's, she's doing most of the work on it, but it's just fun to dream. It's fun. And we're spending, and she's certainly spending a whole bullload of time on it. And I think when you find the thing, I don't know that money necessarily, at least for me, money doesn't have to be the driver. I think that's just what we're so used to. And I think that's why a lot of people get caught up with the like, oh, I can't imagine not working anymore when I reach fire, like, or non-fi people, like, how could you retire early?

31:59What, aren't you going to be bored? And it's like, it's such a lack of imagination. Like you're telling me out of like the tens of billions of things you could do with your 112 waking hours a week that like that job that you've done for the last 30 years is the highest use of your life. Like, I just find that so preposterously unlikely. Like, it's a lack of imagination. It's just a cop out. It's kind of pathetic, frankly, because we're viewed as the irresponsible ones when you only get one life and when you're wasting it doing something that just because you happen to have done it for the last 10, 20, 30 years, like, I'm kind of sick and tired of that line of reasoning.

32:37I just, I find it ridiculous.

32:38Ginger:I love this because you have talked about this framing before. Hey, you want to keep working. Is it literally the best thing that you can imagine doing? That always stuck with me because I think you're right. I think there's wisdom in that. That makes me think about one of my questions I had for you, but maybe that is the answer. And that is, what is something you believe about FI that makes people uncomfortable? Or what if you said it? And I think this is one of those. It doesn't seem that controversial. But when you hear other people talk about retirement, they're very careful to say, if you want to keep working at your job, then that is okay.

33:19Ginger:And of course it is okay. But it is the thing that I think people talk about in this very conservative way. And so it really struck me when you were like, you can't think of one thing better to do than go to your job. What do you think of that question? What do you believe about five that makes people uncomfortable? The cool thing about this particular episode is I think this is going to be one where people want to comment. The nice thing is now we have comments available on our new platform for all of these episodes. So easiest way. So you're listening to this. Just go to choose a by.com slash and then the episode number.

33:55There's a reasonable likelihood. This one might be like five 96, 97, 98, something like that. So choosify.com slash 596, and it'll take you directly to the page where you can make comments. If you haven't signed up for one of your local groups yet, you just create an account in like 30 seconds and then you can comment. So Ginger, what would be cool is if people literally answered each one of your questions. I suspect there's going to be dozens or hundreds of comments on this, but that's definitely one of them. So it's frustrating, right? Because like, I do believe with the answer that I've said hundreds of times, which is if you want to stay in your job, you can.

34:33But if you want to stand on your head, you can. If you want to walk backwards through Iowa, you can. You can do anything you want. I don't have an issue. I'm never going to sit here as some guru telling you what you can and can't do. But yeah, if you ask me in my heart of hearts, is it plausible that a significant percentage of any community or the world has just by sheer happenstance fallen backwards into the highest use of their lives by when they found a job at 24 or they picked a college major at 19. Like, do I think it's plausible? I don't. I think it's preposterous. If you ask me gun to my head, should most people stay in their job in some way after they reach FI?

35:23My answer is absolutely no. the undercurrent of your question was be a little bit saucy here. And yeah, like I'm certainly going to be a little saucy. Like, let's be honest with ourselves. Like you could do anything in the world. You have money, you have freedom, and you're telling me you're going to do the same thing you've done for the last 30 years. Come on, give me a break. You get one life and you're going to waste it doing something. Like there is not a person who has reached FI. Essentially, we can round to zero. I'm sure you could find a person, but we can round to zero on the number of people who reach FI and are like, oh, I'm bored.

35:58I'm going to go back to work. We look at each other, Aaron and I look at each other and friends of mine who have reached FI look at each other and are like, how did I ever work? I can't even imagine. I don't have enough time in the day as it is. And I have 112 waking hours to do whatever I want. Every single one of those hours is under my control, Ginger. And I run out of hours. I mean, they're fantastic hours, let's be clear. But like, I've got all these things I want to do to imagine that I would do some job just because I did it previously or even that I was good at it. Like, I don't want to do that anymore.

36:32With the tens of billions of options, like the counterfactual thing, right? Like you have every other option in the world. The chance of you having picked the one is zero, right? You round to zero.

36:42Ginger:Okay, I'll add a little complexity to this because the truth is when you really look at why people do this, the scenario isn't I'll keep working at my job. I'll just go part time, except now I'll do it for free. We have to maybe think about how part of that equation is I'll go part time and that will open up stuff in my life and I'll still get a paycheck. I'll be able to pad my... But why do you need it? Well, sure. But that is part of it. Like, oh, then I could do more. I could make sure I get the Airbnb with the nice bed. Or just the feelings of safety. And I know that we've talked about that a lot.

37:25Ginger:I do think that's part of it, right? Like people aren't saying, yeah, I'm going to stay at my job and now I'm going to do it for free. Right? Because there are other things you could do for free that would be better. It's if I do this and I'm so good at sacrificing, I've been doing it my whole life, then I do get this little prize, right? Alongside it, that feels good. Yeah. I mean, we're hardwired for scarcity and to be scared, to run from scarcity and to be scared and conservative. So I get it. Obviously, it's deeply human, right? We both know that. But maybe if we say it enough times, and if I do it in a kind of sarcastic, saucy way, like maybe it'll get through to people.

38:07If you've run your numbers right, and most likely you're already being conservative, because that's just kind of the way it is. Because again, scarcity and scared, you're going to be okay. And if you're not, you're not going to run like a lemming off a hill into zero dollars and eating cat food. There's no world where your future is eating cat food. It's just not.

38:33Ginger:End of the episode. Perfect title of the episode. I like it. All right. Well, I'll add something to it. Yeah, I love it. I was going to ask you, of course. I like the comfort of just this person I respect saying, you're not going to eat cat food. Great. I will add something else to this conversation in case it's helpful to someone else. So I just got back from economy and one of the breakout sessions, which unfortunately, I don't think those are recorded. So I'll tell you what happened in it because you won't be able to find it online. But it was Frank Vasquez talking about this idea of forecasting.

39:08Ginger:The way he put it that I thought was so useful is he said, okay, we're piling on conservative upon conservative assumption in here. And you think that by doing that, you are protecting yourself and you are getting like a conservative safer number. And he said, what you're actually getting is a really inaccurate number. And that really hit me, right? And then he sort of showed with these numbers, like how off, how wildly off you can be when you are like fudging 1 % here and you're saying, oh, and I'll make sure my withdrawal is just a tiny bit lower, right? And when you do these things sort of compounded or added together, they are wildly inaccurate.

39:50Ginger:And so thinking that makes you take stock a little in terms of, oh, I'm not just being safe, but I'm being like incorrect. And that's, I think, one way to kind of think logically through that thing you're talking about. Yeah, I like that. And I think it was Aubrey Williams who said that 100 % success rate when we run our numbers in Projection Lab or something like means actually it's 100 % that you over saved. That's just again, like maybe if we say these things often enough, it drills into people's heads like your numbers are almost certainly already too conservative. So the likelihood of your fine number failing, again, barring some crazy zombie apocalypse, which we can't account for anyway, it's just so slim.

40:35You're doing it because you're scared. We have to grow up and understand that, again, we are human. I'm just without a doubt. But on some level, we have to grow up, Ginger. And how many things are we going to do with our one precious life and not do because we're scared? You know, this was my whole issue. And, you know, you asked me that question five minutes ago of like, what are the things that I disagree with? And like, you know, I went ballistic about this nonsense middle class trap thing that Scott and Mindy have been talking about over at Bigger Pockets Money for a while. And like, it's the same thing.

41:08It's like it's feeding into people's fears. I think the antidote to that is talking about having people like Frank and Aubrey and hopefully me on a less technical level, like you're going to be fine. The likelihood that you have screwed this up is so slim because again, we've seen thousands of people, tens of thousands of people be overly conservative. You have Frank, who's a genius. He's the smartest person I've ever met. Say you can have a 5 % withdrawal rate, most likely if you have the right assortment of different investments and such. But ultimately, this middle-class trap thing was just feeding into people's scarcity and being scared.

41:48And that because they, in one YouTube poll, basically said they wouldn't be able to pull money out of their retirement accounts or their accounts, period, when they reach FI, because they would find it uncomfortable. You're grasping defeat from the jaws of victory. You have won. When you reach FI, you have won. You've won the game. You've won the game of life. You have absolutely won. And you're telling me because you're going to be uncomfortable for 60 seconds when you log into Fidelity and click sell$5 ,000 to cover your expenses that month or$4 ,000 or whatever it is, because you think you're going to be uncomfortable for 60 seconds that FI doesn't work or somehow this is a bill of goods or somehow you need some magical other form of income when your forebearers in the FI community have vetted this.

42:42They've thought about it. They've done it themselves and they've proven to you that it works. Because you're going to be uncomfortable, you think it doesn't work. It's so ridiculous. I mean, Ginger, humans have to do hard things. Like you can't live in 72 degree hermetically sealed bubbles, eating sugary, fatty foods all the time and sitting on a couch watching TV for 16 hours a day. Like that's an easy life. There's no hardship, but does that lead to a successful life? No, it doesn't. I'm building like a kind of ridiculous thing, but like, it's going to be uncomfortable the first time you log in and you sell, but you get over it because you're an adult and you've won.

43:20You have to do hard things. Like, I don't know how to say it. Like who gets contentment from just doing easy things all the time? Sometimes you have to lean into discomfort. It's like, it's part of life. It's part of succeeding at life.

43:32Ginger:This makes me think of what I was saying at the beginning about how I didn't know what was going to happen. And I didn't know when I, when I asked Brad, like what uncomfortable thing do you believe about Fi that Brad was going to say, like, grow up y 'all. Interesting. You did not think that, right? I did not think that. No, No, how could you? Okay, I want to transition into more of a personal question. And then you can say, knock it off if you don't want to answer it. Okay. But something you have been semi-open about on the podcast is that you have struggled with anxiety. And I wonder how you would feel about telling us sort of where you're at with that now.

44:16Ginger:and if that's still something that is a part of your life, what things you do to mitigate those symptoms? Yeah. Okay. That's a great question. And I am happy to talk about it. So just to be clear, I've never been diagnosed with anything. It's just an internal sense. I think certainly over the years I have stressed about, and I even talked about this recently with Alan and Katie Donegan, where the disastrous, I guess, real estate speculation, which is what it ultimately was that I did, caused me to lose sleep for 10 plus years. You know, I have this internal narrative of, you know, how could you be so stupid?

44:58How could you do something like, you know, like all these things. And I would say I'm in a much better place now, but this very month, and you couldn't have known this, I'm feeling dramatically better than I ever have before. I'm just trying to do a lot of self-care things. And for me, that looks a lot like not overtaxing myself. It's like when I feel that agitated internal state coming on, it'll be, all right, it's time to lie down. I actually have this acupressure mat, the Nioia acupressure mat. This thing costs like, I think it's like$40 now. And Tim Ferriss sent this out in his Five Bullet Friday like 10 years ago, and I bought this thing.

45:39And it looked kind of preposterous at the time, but it's almost like thousands of these tiny little plastic needles, if you will. It's almost like acupuncture, but it's just acupressure because you basically just lie on it. And I found that when I lie on this thing for 20, 30 plus minutes, I just have this nervous system calmness. And especially when I pair that with some type of meditation. So I've been doing yoga nidra. So it's like Andrew Huberman has reframed this as non-sleep deep rest. He calls it NSDR, but you can just Google yoga Nidra meditation and then 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

46:16And there's a bunch of really good YouTube videos. And when I pair that with those two things together, it's just this nervous system reset. So every morning now, when I wake up, I lay on this mat for sometimes like an hour. I'll listen to podcasts. I'm learning Japanese again. So I'll listen to my Pimsleur Japanese while laying on this thing. It just really helps. And I think another thing that I've found, and these are kind of tactical answers, but I think they're probably applicable to a lot of people is like being outside has helped me dramatically down to the sun. So just this week alone, we live in a four story townhome in this walkable community.

46:56So our fourth floor is basically like just a rooftop patio almost or rooftop deck. I don't know what you'd call it. We'll call it a rooftop. And we have some lounge chairs up there. So I've been spending 30 to 60 minutes easy just out there reading the last handful of days. And interestingly, I've noticed I just feel so much better mentally than I felt in a really long time. And I look for triggers. And again, this is kind of almost getting into maybe a little a little bit too deep, but my own anxiety triggers and like I can feel it sometimes coming on, like I get a feeling in my chest. So I know when I feel that I start ruminating, like I was driving with my daughter, Molly a couple of days ago and like, I'm a pretty good driver.

47:43I very rarely make mistakes. And I, I just made one silly mistake. There was nothing. Luckily it was no danger, but like, I had a sense this was going to be something that was going to lead to like me berating myself. When I got home, I'm like, you know what? I told Aaron, I'm like, I just had this thing happen. I'm going to go lay down on my mat and do a meditation. And I did. I felt great afterwards. And I, of course, again, counterfactual, you never know what would have happened had I not, I might've just been fine, but it was just knowing the trigger and just trying to get ahead of it. So I think the short answer is I'm in a pretty good place right now.

48:18Ginger:Yeah. Hearing you say, okay, I'm doing a lot better now. And then my question was like, okay, well, what are you actively doing to try to work on those symptoms? And you said so many of the things that are the things that help, right? And so I think it is really powerful to hear you say, it doesn't matter that you don't have a anxiety diagnosis, right? That you are able to kind of do that work of saying, hey, I looked at what those things are that make me feel this way. I recognize how that felt in my body. When that happens, I have a plan. And then you consistently do those activities that we know help with people's anxiety, right?

48:57Ginger:Like getting outside, getting exercise, getting different kinds of exercise. I know you're really good too about connecting with other people. That's useful for people to hear. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that. And yeah, of course I left out the exercise. I think I'm doing a lot of easily three times a week of strength training, which I think it just clears your mind. The neurochemicals that it promotes are really good for you. So I think it's just about doing the work and also doing the personal work of what you think will help you. It does come back to the basics. Sleep is really important.

49:30It's hard to have a great day when you don't sleep well. It just is. Eating well and exercise. Getting out in the sun or taking walks. We take two 30-minute walks a day. That's fantastic. We're moving our bodies. We're getting some sun. Or frankly, on days when it's not nice, We're out there too. It's 20 degrees in January. We're throwing on some extra clothes and taking a walk. Don't just sit inside. It all has kind of added up to something pretty great. I mean, honestly, thank you for asking. That's not something I would normally talk about or feel comfortable talking about. But yeah, you made that easy.

50:01Ginger:Speaking of exercise, do you remember many months ago when I said I might do a Spartan race? Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm doing it. Awesome. Tell me about it. I am signed up for the Boise Spartan Sprint in August. It's going to be hot. Yeah. And so I'm changing my exercise now a little bit to sort of help meet those goals. Tell everybody what a Spartan race is. Yeah. A Spartan race is an obstacle course for adults, basically. So you don't know exactly what the obstacles are going to be. I think there's 20. There's around 20. And so it's things like carrying this really heavy ball this distance or climbing this wall.

50:44Ginger:I did one other one and those were the ones that were really hard for me because I'm a little bit scared of heights and that you had to go quite high. Or doing different things that require a lot of hand grip. That's something I need to work on because I don't have great hand grip. But it's just like this wild, very hard, adult, fun race. That sounds cool. I wanted to bring it up because I wanted to end on maybe kind of a fun question, which is just, what are you looking forward to? I'm looking forward to summer. Yeah, sometimes it can just be little, right? The cool things about having the sun out this last handful of days, it's been glorious here in Richmond.

51:22So again, we're recording this towards the end of March. So this is like March 20th or thereabouts to today is the 25th. I've just been outside a ton. I just can't wait to lay outside and then go in the pool. Swimming is one of my absolute favorite things to do in the whole world. Just the thought of having our community pool open and where we live now, there's a big pool, which is great. Yeah, just getting out there, relaxing, enjoying the pool, enjoying the sun, basking in it. And I think it's always like the easy answer is to talk about trips. And I can definitely do that. As we're recording this, I'm getting sad two weeks from today we're going to japan so aaron and i are going for three weeks and we're going to see eddie vetter from pearl jam in concert in kyoto which should be amazing and we're going to do some of the uh kumano koto you are yeah yeah yeah oh my gosh i can't wait to hear about it yeah so we're going to do that walk and you know between villages and so it's going to be fantastic and just a whole bunch of little inns, the ryokans and little villages.

52:28So we're not going to spend a ton of time in Kyoto or Tokyo, but it should just be a really great trip. And then I haven't done a rollercoaster trip with my daughter, Anna, for a couple of years now, which is actually hard to believe. It's the last couple of years have flown by. And we're thinking about, we're almost certainly going to do one in May, right before her high school graduation. So, you know, seasons of life also, right? She's going to college in August. Yeah, not that this is the last time we can ever do a roller coaster trip, because certainly she'll get vacations and holidays and summer, etc.

53:00But you know, it's kind of one last hurrah with her as a kid. So yeah, that should be really fun. Yeah. What are you looking forward to? I suspect it's going to be trip related. But more broadly, are there any things non trip related that jump out to you that you're super excited about?

53:16Ginger:Well, I'm also really excited for summer. And at the end of every summer, I'm like so overwhelmed by my garden. I can't wait for this to be done. But then by the time spring comes, I can't wait to go get my seeds and get going. And so Spokane is lovely in the summer. It's wonderful. And so just that change of season will be great. That sounds pretty lovely. I like it. All right. Well, let's go ahead and wrap this up and let's end on that reminder that you can post your own answers to these questions in the app. What are we calling it on the platform? Yeah, Jonathan and I are struggling with this.

53:56There's an app, but you don't have to use the app. You can just log in at the website on your regular browser. Just go to choosavet.com slash log in, and you can create an account there really easily. Or again, another shortcut way for this particular episode, just go to choosavet.com slash, and then the three-digit episode number. So it's probably something like 596. It's really obvious right there at the bottom for comments, and hopefully you're going to see dozens or hundreds of these comments of people chiming in. And Ginger, you and I will be in there for sure answering things. I might be in Japan when this goes live, but I promise I'll hop in when we get back.

54:36And the other fun thing, again, because it's a living document, is you and I can also think a little more about our answers. I suspect there are going to be a couple that I'm going to kick myself that I want to add to. So don't be surprised to see my answers get updated there as well.

54:51Ginger:There you go. Well, thank you, Brad, for being so willing to engage with this experiment and to share your real answers with us. I really appreciate it. And thank you all for listening and we'll catch you next time.