Recently Mark & I hosted an episode of "The Geek Rant" podcast together, and we had a chance to cover regaining control over one's financial life. You can listen to Episode 344 here if you are interested (it will be published on Wednesday, November 28th 2018).
I've been a co-host on The Geek Rant for over 100 episodes now. Although the show's focus isn't just about financial planning and dabbles more into general "geekery" I relish the opportunity to speak about my story and how I arrived at where I am today. No quest worth doing is easy, and struggle brings out the best in all of us. I think I got a chance to talk to this in detail on this episode.
There are so many global and "meta" level factors that will play out in 2019 and most of us will feel the impact of those things directly on our lives. Yet one can only be responsible for what we have control over - ourselves. We control how we react to these things, not the things themselves. What we have control over are the localized events and what we do with our lives. This is core to my belief system - if you act locally and do good things, it ripples out. If you spend all of your time focusing on the larger, more news worthy, topics, you can't affect change and the reactive impact that they have to us just feels worse than it truly is.
I like to go out and see things with my own eyes, and trusting in my 50+ years of life experience, I make judgments that I use to change my own behavior. Because my story is atypical of most, and probably because I am a father of a 21 year old daughter, I find myself participating in "Dad talks" where it isn't appropriate. Yet people constantly ask me for my advice or my perspective on things, so it gets to be something where broadcasting to a much larger audience makes sense. The Geek Rant has a massive audience, so it is a great place to start. I'm likely to begin doing the "BeUnconstrained Podcast" in 2019, and I hope that those that read this blog may wish to devote some of your valuable time to listening to me broadcasting in whatever form that takes then.
Some key take aways from this episode
We all have different life stories. That is what makes the world such an interesting place. I don't believe in selling my time by the hour and that makes me atypical. I'd prefer to create a product and let it generate a smaller, but steady passive income stream. I've done that with real estate for over 20 years now. I like technology and I see opportunities to use automation and robotics to generate wealth for people. Hence I invested into buying large server footprints and data centers over 15 years ago, which generate a significant monthly cashflow stream for me. I control the eco-system there rather than giving that control to Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc. That was a critical part of me being able to have control over the platforms that my software runs on.
My point in this episode is that if you invest your time early in the creation of passive income streams, by purchasing or building assets that do this, 20 years later you are financially independent. I call that "financial sustainability".
You can't live life by looking in the rear view mirror
Some of us didn't have the same experiences 20+ years ago. Hell, some of us weren't even born then. But it would be pretty safe to say that the vast majority of us will have a future 20 years from now. So what you do today, will create your future. Whatever you choose that to be, start it now. Don't wait for January 1st of each year to make quantum changes to your life. Make that change today. Plan and research for it. If you do that, you create the future you want. If you don't, you become victim to the future you don't want. It is that simple.
Selling your time by the hour to one customer is just plain stupid, IMHO. But that is MY perspective. There are many that don't agree, and clearly they are the employee workforce of the world. I can't influence the billions that fall into that demographic, but what I can say is that if you are not happy with a dead-end job, you want to regain control of your life, you want to regain your freedom and you want to have a future you will be happy with, continuing that practice isn't going to give you what you want.
We were told that giving your one sacred life to an employer who will treat you right and look after you, is the strategy for success. Bullshit. It doesn't work. Stop fooling yourself into thinking it does. It is a mutual contract between you (the seller of your time & energy) and the employer (the buyer of your time & energy). Customers are fickle and they change their interests. Short attention spans is the nature of the beast in the post-Internet age and to think that employers don't have short attention span syndrome is foolish. You are only worth them investing in if you have time to sell and skills that meet their needs. You stop being able to sell that time (due to illness, family issues, desire, etc.) and you are dead to them. They can cancel the contract with little downside risk on their part and you are left out in the cold.
When this happens, we look back at the past with depression and realize the fear and anxiety of the current and future. What do we do then? We panic and go looking for another suitor that will pay for our time (a new job). You can hope that there are plenty of them out there, but there may not be. You might have some money put aside for savings for emergencies, but either you don't or you didn't have enough and we are all one pay check from homelessness.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
Making money by not working is smart - not lazy
If you chose to live frugally, invested your savings into dividend producing assets (ie. real estate, vending machines, stocks that pay dividends, etc.) then you would be making money when you sleep. If you felt sick one day, no big deal - the money keeps coming in. If you decide you want to spend 12 months traveling the world, no problem. The money keeps coming in. If you lost your job, no big deal. The money keeps coming in.
What part of this is not desirable? Yet the vast majority of people invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a permission slip (bachelors degree from college) so that they can go into the world and sell their time for money to an employer. I'm here to say we must stop this insanity now and realize that time is more valuable to you than it is to sell it.
Think like a HODLer. Just as those bought and held Bitcoin in the 2016 period because they knew it would be worth more in the future, you should be a HODLer of your precious time. You only live once. You need to respect each minute of the day and HODL it. Don't trade it for money unless you have no alternative. Better to look at why you need the money in the first place, and get frugal. Learn to live on less and keep more. Learn to get your time back and stop selling it out for a McMansion, shiny car, and the latest iPhone. This fallacy is ruining people, countries and economies.
It's time to get selfish and focus on YOU
Buy income producing assets and tend to your assets. Make them generate the most income possible so you don't have to work. Don't speculate on things that are not guarantees in life, and be open eyed to any opportunity that presents itself, yet not so focused on a belief system that it blinds you from reality. Be willing to admit mistakes, and be flexible that you can pivot or adjust on higher risk endeavors when you see them not living up to what you thought was going to be the case.
That is what we simply call "maturity". You are in control of your own destiny - not anyone else and you have to take control of that, and follow a path you create for yourself. Your employer doesn't control that path. I don't control it. Government and media doesn't control it. You control it.
Create the environment that you can think clearly for yourself. You might be surprised just want you come up with. An invention, a creation, great art, great content... Who knows. That's your job. That's how great things get invented.
But you are not going to find the answers in a cubicle. And not if someone has purchased all your waking hours, and you have no choice other than to sell it to them because you mortgaged your future for things that don't produce income, don't make you happy and are pure liabilities in life.
2019 is going to be a great year
The message in Episode 344 of the Geek Rant podcast is simple. Don't let others control your priorities and choices. Gain control for yourself and create your future. But do it today. Don't spend all of your time debating with others about whether your choices are good or bad. You own them. You take responsibility for them. By all means, ask others for advice. But if they give you advice you don't want to hear, then accept that and move forward. Don't sit there wasting more and more of your valuable time trying to change the very advice that you asked for in the first place. Accept it and move on. Use it to learn and determine if you want to keep it or not.
But be 100% aware that your time is the most important thing you have to reclaim and that means understanding how economics work for you, and that frugality gives you the freedom to reclaim your time better than anything else. And it is something you can control immediately. Not spending money on that flat screen TV was probably the best purchase decision you ever made.