Afford Anything - A Candid Conversation with Mr. Money Mustache & Paula Pant

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

#349: A frank and candid conversation about life, dead-lifting, and enjoying the hell out of doing meaningful work. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode349 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, disclaimer before we get into today's show. What you're about to hear is a no-holds-barred conversation between myself and Mr. Money Mustache. If you're new to the community and you haven't heard of him, Mr. Money Mustache is the best-known financial independence writer. And when I say best known, here's an example that will just encapsulate how wide-ranging of a reputation he has. Not only has he been on Tim Ferriss's podcast, he was the most requested guest on. Tim Ferriss's podcast. So he is arguably the modern father of the financial independence movement. I mean, Vicki Robbins started it back in the 1900s, but he is arguably the person who revived it in the last decade. So anyway, what you're about to hear is an unfiltered, no-holds-barred,

completely candid conversation between the two of us, and we cuss a lot. So, If you're driving right now and you've got kids in the car and you don't want your kids to hear a bunch of bad words, don't play this episode around them. There's going to be a lot of profanity. All right, that's your warning. Enjoy. You can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to any limited resource that you need to manage, like your time, your focus, your energy, your attention. Saying yes to something implicitly means that you're saying no to all other. opportunities, and that opens up two questions. First, what actually matters?

What matters most? Second, how do you align your decision-making around that which matters most? Answering these two questions is a lifetime practice, and that's what this podcast is here to explore and facilitate. My name is Paula Pant. I'm the host of the Afford Anything podcast, and today, Mr. Money Mustache joins me to talk about whatever the hell we're going to talk about. Okay, so Mr. Money Mustache.

I'm really struggling hard. Hi, hi, I'm struggling hard not to call him by his actual first name and to remember that he's a character. Okay. It's not really, it's really just me. Oh, you're not a character anymore? It's always just been Pete the whole time, but all right. Moustache is just a fun superhero name. All right. So Pete is a good friend of mine. We've known each other. How long? I don't know. Somewhere in the five to ten years range. Yeah. I think we met in like 2013-ish, 2020. 2012, 2013? Sometimes in other countries. Yeah. Yeah, we've gone to Ecuador together at least twice to the Shihok was. Yeah, and are you at liberty to share where we are right now? Oh, yeah. You want to?

We're in downtown Cincinnati right across from the university for a super random but glorious event that our friend Diana just ran. That's called Economy, which is like a conference of personal finance and getting ahead in life. where people just happen to amount to 400 attendees this year. So it's turned out to be quite magic. And we just decided to also do some talks and interviews. And there's been some documentary filmmakers here that sucked us all in for like unscheduled interviews. And Paula was one of them.

And yeah, it's just a very fun and kind of random example of what retired people do or five people do when they're not stuck in the office. So behind the scenes, I asked Pete if he, wanted to come be on the podcast, he was like, yeah, but let's not actually schedule anything because if it's scheduled, then it's going to feel a lot like work. So let's just figure it out when we get there. And so I texted him today. I like sent him a picture of a bunch of personal finance, financial independence people who are all just partying in the lobby of the hotel. And so that's what we've been doing for the past few hours. And so Pete, that actually opens up,

that it leads to really my opener question to you. You've been retired now. since you were, what, since you were 30? Yeah, so it's about 16, maybe even 17 years, because I just turned 47. Happy birthday? Thank you. Okay, so you've been retired for 16 or 17 years, and you have this policy of not accepting obligations, not doing things that feel like work. On the surface, that sounds compelling, like from the perspective of a person

who is too rigidly adhered to their schedule, that may sound compelling. Does it actually give you satisfaction, or do you feel unmoored? Let me just open this beverage before I answer that question. So it doesn't interrupt our talking. So it's really up. It definitely sounds like I'm a super lazy hippie. But really, this is a compensating strategy that I had to develop just because of my own personality type. And it wouldn't work for everybody.

For some people, it might have feel unmoored. But I'm an ADD person, like attention deficit disorder, which just means that when too many things are booked into my future, they kind of buzz, like, you know, a noisy, not literally, but figuratively, they buzz like insects in my head. I'm like, I'm worried about these future things. And am I going to want to do that when the time comes? And I spend a lot of time thinking about stuff that I've planned for the future.

And sometimes that's a negative effect on my present. So I decided to just not schedule a lot of stuff in the future, and I just decide every day after breakfast what to do that day. So my calendar is literally empty whenever possible. And that doesn't mean I don't do anything. I actually am pretty busy every day, and I love working hard. But I just don't like a lot of meetings and appointments and obligations because it turns out life works just fine without those for me. So it's just me. And for some people, that sounds great. For other people, that sounds great for other people would be hell. Some people love to have things planned and they need to have things planned in order to feel that their life is going smoothly and that they look forward to these things.

And so that's great, but I'm just doing me the way it is. And so far, you know, I've been living this way for a long time and I still get plenty done. And mainly I'm keeping the time free to be with my son. Like when I have my son with me, I love to not have to disappear. You're like, oh, I'm sorry, buddy, I've got a meeting. Like, I'll got to leave you. I know it's a great time to go play Frisbee, but daddy has to work. You know, I never want to be that guy. So living it free for our time together is great as well. So that's a secondary benefit.

How old is he now? He's pretty big. He's 15 and a half, which means 2.5 years until he's an adult, legal adult. And I've kind of been counting down the years because I really like the idea of raising an independent, self-sufficient human. And that's kind of the goal as a parent is making somebody who is really happy and content and producing their own value in the world and making their own way. So I'm really proud and happy for both of us and his mom for getting through all this, and he seems to be really doing quite well.

You talked about wanting to make sure that your son is contributing to the world. How do you feel your current contribution comes in? In what ways do you feel that as somebody who's been retired in the traditional sense of the word for 16 or 17 years, where do you feel that your current value to society comes from? Pete, what are you good for? Yeah, well, first of all, I don't think of it as a game or an obligation. You know, I wasn't, I don't think of myself like, oh, I have to do a certain thing in order to be a good human.

But just objectively, if I think, I mean, I love to work on a lot of things. And some of them are useless to anybody except me. like my homemade hot tub heater that's powered by a campfire, probably like only me and my neighbors who share the hot tub care about that. But other things, like I do build a fair amount of houses and renovate houses and I run a co-working space and a community in Longmont that has about 200 members. And so you could consider it valuable that those people are having fun and events together. And I also write my blog, which still reaches even in its old,

days still like a few million people every year. So yeah, I'm just trying to share useful ideas that help other people live their lives better based on my own experiences and my own reading and meeting people. So yeah, I guess writer, carpenter, and dad is the main, the most important thing to me. And I don't care what other people's judgments are. That's good enough for me. You mentioned that your website still reaches a few million people a year. Do you ever feel imposter syndrome around that? Like, do you ever wonder, why me? Well, the quick answer is yes, but that was a long time ago because I've been doing this for about 10 years, and you can kind of get used to anything after it just keeps happening and happening for a long time. Yeah. So now I just

think it's normal that I type shit into the computer and a whole bunch of people read it, and then it shows up in newspaper articles and other things like that. But at the same time, I also realize that's really unusual and cool. So I've come up with a particular, 10 theory that I actually died 10 years ago and I just live in man heaven. Because the actual reality seems preposterous to me that people would care about your ideas and you'd meet great friends all the time and you'd have all the leisure time in the world and of course your health is always perfect and you can meet the perfect partner anytime you want just by randomly walking downtown.

So anyway, it's too good to be true, but I'm certainly not complaining, but it's, It's also possible that I might be dead in man heaven. You're living in a simulation? Yeah. So what I just heard in the answer that you gave is a lot of optimism. Do you have to work to maintain your optimism, or does that come naturally? Yeah, definitely not working. It's just way more fun to be optimistic.

In fact, one time I wrote a blog article based on this, because I felt this way for a long time, and it's called the practical benefits of outrageous optimism. And I still think it's the best thing I've ever written, even though most people don't find it that interesting. For me, it's like, yeah, this is great. And so the basic idea is that if you learn to be optimistic about outcomes and expecting good things, it makes them happen more often, not because of magic, woo-woo, universe shit, but because you will more likely to take concrete steps to make these things happen

if you believe that they can happen. So that's number one order effect. But then the second order of magic is that other people around you, like it's so rare to be optimistic, that when you do it in front of other people, they're like, holy shit, this person must have superpowers. I'd better listen to them. So they start doing and following your ideas as if they are real already. And of course, they take steps that make those things come true. And they really do become real. So it's really, really practical and amazing. And most of the people who have created great changes in the world where people who are just almost naively optimistic, optimistic, but also a

little bit convincing and you need to have a seed of truth to your optimism. And it's very self-fulfilling. Like a pessimistic person will create a lot of bad situations, both for themselves and for others. And an optimistic person can create a lot of good. So why not do it? I mean, it's also a lot more fun because you're excited all the time and happy. And it's like, yeah, it's definitely a win-win strategy. And it's far too rare. More people need to get into this. The general public seems to think that financial independence, early retirement is your quote-unquote like life philosophy. But from what you've just said and also from knowing you for almost 10 years, I know that optimism, which we've just discussed, is part of your life philosophy. What are some other, I know stoicism is another staple of it, a DIY ethos, a anti-consumer ethos, pro-environment ethos, is.

a big staple of it. What are some other core components of what you believe? So I think the stuff that everything that I do ends up stemming from a lifelong quest to optimize. I'm kind of like this born engineer. And it just really means you want to get the best out of every situation. So I like to say that I'm optimizing life for fun to have, because I know we all have a limited time alive on earth. So why not optimize your life so you can get the most enjoyment and fulfillment and satisfaction in the deepest possible way out of your life? So I always think about that every day and I'm sure I make lots of mistakes and everything, but that's kind of my main quest and it includes both me and everybody else in the world. Like, why can't we all have

the most fun possible? So I just kind of work at that little problem, which is a great one because You can never solve it. You can always just chip away at it, but it's very satisfying to do it. So I think about, so money is one thing because money allows you to have free time and options. But then I think about health a lot because that allows you to have more energy and a longer lifespan and a happier lifespan. And then I think about the bigger picture of Earth and its various problems, like environmental issues. Like we don't want to mess up our only planet, you know. Only planet so far.

Yeah, exactly. Like, we have a eventually, if you're an optimist, you think that humans will eventually span the galaxy. But for now. Become multi-planetary. Yeah, right. Move to Mars. Yeah. But Mars is pretty shitty. Like nobody even lives in Antarctica, and Antarctica is much nicer than Mars. So I think that's a bit of a sign that we shouldn't be super excited about moving to Mars. So meanwhile, we have this super beautiful, steamy, jungle, tropical, sexy Earth with lots of options, as long as we don't mess that up. So why not be at least somewhat reasonable about that? So that's what my writing on Mr. Money Mustache is secretly about is getting rich people excited about living a lower consumption lifestyle, which means Earth will last longer, and we'll have a lot more fun while we're at it. And yeah, those are the things I've thought of to optimize so far, but I still have about 60 years of retirement left. So I'm sure I will think of some more things in the meantime and hopefully work on those too. Since you bring up the less consumerism, getting rich people to be less, you know, to not have such a high consumerist lifestyle, this might sound like it's coming out of left field, but this is something that I've actually wondered for years. Oftentimes in personal finance media, we see men talk about investing. We see women talk about consumption spending frugality. That's, of course, a broad generalization and it's changing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But those.

tend to be the historic tracks that we've seen. You know, we see the quote-unquote mommy bloggers who talk about chipping away at your grocery bill, and then we see male bloggers who talk about growing your wealth. With that established, do you think Ms. Money Mustache would have been as successful, or do you think that her message of anti-consumerism would have been dismissed, as just another woman talking about cutting back on your bills. Wow. Well, that's a neat question because I didn't even know that I've been a mommy blogger

this whole time. Because, yeah, I do focus on consumption rather than earning more. And that's probably my bias because I've always earned a fair amount in my career, like when I was working and then even afterwards I found like the earning part was easier. And then I found I was surrounded by people who earned an equal or greater amount of money and still were just fucking broke all the time because it's easy to spend any amount of money. It's easy to just be broke regardless. Like there are people who make a hundred million dollars a year who manage to end up bankrupt at some point. And that's really true. It's hard to

imagine. So that's why I focused on it because income is not the problem for most people. And especially if you're focusing on saving the earth like from a natural resources perspective, rich people are the problem. So that's who I'm targeting. But, you know, do I think that women would be, like, if I were a female blogger, trying to advocate the same stuff? I'm not sure if it would have been any worse. I think, I mean, there might have been certain advantages because I get a lot of, oh, this is a white male, like a rich white tech worker, bro. In fact, I might have been the founder of the stereotypical rich white worker tech bro financial blogger, you know, with no, health problems so of course I can advocate bicycling and all this other stuff.

So in a way, like being a minority, it might be an advantage because people will listen to you and not dismiss you as much. But it depends on your tone, right? Like you can't be like super penny pinchy, like, oh, I stack 50 coupons in order to get paid to buy rice and beans so that I could feed my family for two years for negative $25, right? Like you can't be really extreme. But I think like a successful, you know, like a female engineer, for example, who wrote about similar stuff to me, that might catch on even more because it would be more novel and it would be super impressive and rare and people like novelty. So I don't know. I mean, that's just my theory. I could totally be wrong about it. But at the same time, I know that I fall into a very stereotypical group,

like just because of my demographic, and that gives me a bit less credibility. because white males are thought of as a privileged group. And, like, societally, we're privileged. But at the same time, I also didn't have, like, any money coming from my family. I come from a non-wealthy family. So I had to pay for my own stuff, you know, starting at 14 years old. So at least I didn't have that kind of privilege. But I do acknowledge that, you know, being born with a super great mom who read me all the

J.R. Tolkien books by the time I was six years old, you know, and she just educated me so well, that's like a really giant form of privilege that a lot of kids don't have, and I didn't have racial bias or gender bias against me. I don't know. But the real answer here is that there's a thousand or more other fire bloggers and YouTubers and podcasters out there who aren't me, and they're able to share a much bigger perspective than I can share now. And I'm really, really thankful for this because I'm not up to the job of covering all of it. I'm just sharing my own little segment of ideas. So yeah, I'm just happy that it's out there now and other people are working on it as well.

You mentioned that you may have been the inception of the stereotype that the fire community consists of white male tech bros. Do you ever feel as though that criticism against you is unfair or that it invalidates your message or that it misses the point? Well, of course, I'm biased. So yes, I think it's invalid. because people might not understand my point. My point is not like, hey, everybody should make a lot of money in software engineering and then quit so easy.

My point is that, hey, if you are lucky enough right now to be making a lot of money, you should probably think about your spending. And there's probably some ways you can do better in order to consume less. And that's going to help everybody. But it's also going to help you and your family because you're going to have a lot more financial freedom. and you'll have the option to scale back on or quit work or work on something that you care about more than, you know, working for fucking Mark Zuckerberg making more Facebook ads. So that's what I'm really getting at.

You know, it's not about privilege. It's about spending less. And the ability to spend less is an advantage that everybody benefits from. So I'm just trying to teach people how to have equally or more fun lives by spending less money. It's not about how much you can earn. It's not about your privilege in terms of who's going to hire you or whatever. It's about optimizing your spending, really, and optimizing your daily activities so you can be healthier and spend more time with your friends and family. But how does it make you feel?

It makes me feel sad when people criticize me, but I've also learned that the Internet is full of lots of love and essentially. small amount of hate and haters are going to hate, as they say. And you have to learn, like, if you're going to be out there in public with your ideas, you're going to get criticized. So I've definitely, like, thicken my skin a little bit more. And I kind of focus on overall, like, am I proud of the stuff I'm trying to share or not? And I'm going to get really, like, angry, you know, sort of right-wing criticism. Like, oh, go back to Canada, you libt hard. then I just, I screenshot those and I share them with my friends and we have a chuckle and that helps me feel better about, you know, like you get emotional support. And I'm sure, like, especially as a woman, I've heard you get more crazy people writing to you than I do as like less of a targeted individual.

And you have to take the shit if you're willing to share your ideas in public and you have to learn to not take it publicly personally. but there's a lot of benefits that come from having your ideas out there. So it's still worth it. You talk about not taking it personally, but you're also humans. So how do you build that wall? You have to be open about it. And like you talk about it. If you have friends to share, like what I said earlier is totally, in fact, you and I should do this.

You take your worst comments and criticisms and you screenshot them and send them to me. And I'll send mine to you. and then we can laugh about them. And maybe we can even start like a secret worst complaints special podcast like once a year. Oh, like mean tweets like Jimmy Kimmel. Oh, yeah, you're right. He's already beat us to that. But at the same time, like it would be fun thing,

just publish it on Halloween or some other scary night. And it helps to lighten the mood and it makes everybody feel better about understanding that on the internet or like just, you know, out of the whole human society, there's always going to be some people who have some issues and they deal with them by just being fucking mean to everybody. And that doesn't mean that we are terrible people. You can judge yourself without relying on the worst of humanity to judge you and, you know, decide for yourself if you're being a good person.

And just don't take it personally because it's all about numbers. Like if you have a room of two people, it's probably most people are going to be pretty nice. If you have a room of a thousand people, there might be a pretty disturbed person in there. And if you have a room, the equivalent of a blog where like 227 million people are there, there's going to be some extreme fringes of, like, humanity in there. And often the most disturbed people are the most vocal, which is why when you go to the comment section of like a Yahoo News or a Fox News article, it's just the most bad shit crazy people are posting stuff that just makes no sense at all.

all and not even any grammar and they can't use the right form of your or there. And as soon as you get your yours wrong, you've got zero credibility no matter what. That's okay. Like, you're just learning, that's actually just a math lesson rather than a personality lesson, you know, rather than a personal value lesson, math lesson is in any distribution of anything, including humans, there's going to be a wide variety of situations that happen. We'll come back to the show in just a second, but first. Fifth Third Bank's commercial payments are fast and efficient, but they're not just fast and efficient.

They're also powered by the latest in payments technology, built to evolve with your business. Fifth Third Bank has the big bank muscle to handle payments for businesses of any size. But they also have the fintech hustle that got them named one of America's most innovative companies by Fortune magazine. That's what being a fifth third better is all about. It's about not being just one thing, but many things for our customers. Big Bank Muscle, FinTech Hustle. That's your commercial payments, a fifth-third better. The holidays are right around the corner, and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared.

Maybe you need bedding, sheets, linens, maybe you need servware and cookware. And, of course, holiday decor, all the stuff to make your home a great place to host during the holidays. You can get up to 70% off during Wayfair's Black Friday sale. Wayfair has Can't Miss Black Friday deals all month long. I use Wayfair to get lots of storage type of items for my home, so I got tons of shelving that's in the entryway, in the bathroom, very space-saving. I have a daybed from them that's multi-purpose. You can use it as a couch, but you can sleep on it as a bed.

It's got shelving. It's got drawers underneath for storage. But you can get whatever it is you want, no matter your style, no matter your budget. Wayfair has something for everyone. Plus, they have a loyalty program, 5% back on every. item across Wayfair's family of brands. Free shipping, members-only sales, and more terms apply. Don't miss out on early Black Friday deals.

Head to Wayfair.com now to shop Wayfair's Black Friday deals for up to 70% off. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Sale ends December 7th. You mentioned lessons. What are some of the most important lessons that you've learned in the last decade? Okay. The last decade has been, for me, one of already been retired. I'm going through the age of my son, going from age five to 15 where he is right now.

And I also had, for this whole decade, I had the weird situation of being a financial independence blogger, which means my life was a little bit public and I had lots of feedback. So my lessons from that were in parenting is that every kid is different and you can't judge yourself as a parent based on what your kids do because the kids are unique individual humans pretty much from the time they're born and they're vastly different sometimes even among siblings so your job as a parent is to do the best thing you can and always try but also not beat yourself up if your kid is different than other kids and my child is super different but he's also a wonderful young man now and he's a lot more advanced than me in so many areas and even though he's different than me I'm really

happy for him for his flourishing, right? And I'm not judging him or me for, you know, making different choices. His choices are super intelligent, but he's growing up in a different era than I did. So it's good. You know, just try to be, not beat yourself up as parenting. And the other lesson from being a public writer is, I think I learned to be more gentle because I was, I'm very, you know, I'm kind of like spirited. And I often, would assume that my own ideas were super right for everybody because they felt so right for me, but it wasn't until they started reaching a lot of people, and then I would get feedback on, like, from really nice people about how different their values are from mine.

And then I realized, yeah, you know what? I really have to temper some of this writing, saying, like, this is what's right for me, other things are right for you. Personality types vary so widely, and it's helped me by meeting a lot more people. and hearing back, different lifestyle tricks are different for different people. So it really helps to be more gentle when you're a bossy personal finance advisor. Not to interrupt, but Pete, to be completely transparent, there were a couple of years where I just did not like you. And you know what? That was before I met you. Mr. Money Mustache was so like my way or the highway that I found that to be a be a huge turnoff. And then I actually met you. And I was like, oh my goodness, I love Pete Adeny.

I hate Mr. Money Mustache. Yeah. There's actually a section in the comments of my blog, like way back in a certain article where Paula shows up. Oh my God. No. And I wrote, oh, I brought this on myself, didn't I? Yeah. I'm the one who was at fault. So like I wrote, but I was also being a bit of a character because I didn't know how big the blog was going to get it at the time. So I wrote an article called like, cure yourself of tiny detailed exaggeration syndrome. I am so humiliated. T-des for short. And then one of the examples I used is like, oh, I lived in Boulder, Colorado and people in that town make a bunch of, they make a big stink about like, oh, you're way out in the suburbs or your way in downtown, which is way better. And the whole, like, the difference is 2.5 miles

between being at the very edge of the town and being at the center of the town. And to me, I'd come from a really shitty place compared to Boulder. So all of Boulder, like even the very most far-flung, so-called suburb, was like amazing, gorgeous, super rich. You can ride your bike downtown in like 10 minutes. So I thought I was in heaven. And then Paula shows up. I never met her.

And she's like, well, actually, it's a big deal to live in the suburbs for some reason. And then I was like, oh, who is this? And I took on my fake Arnold voice in comments. They're like, tiny baby, must have a case of T-des, thinks it's 2.5 miles is a big deal. And Paula's like, hey, don't. Oh, tell me I have T-Daz and we had this big... And we were both playing up our characters of like a fake battle. This is mortifying.

I'm mortified he's telling the story. She didn't do anything wrong. And like at the time I was just being silly because I didn't know that a lot of people were going to read this. And then later we met in real life and I was like, oh, Paul, I'm sorry that we had an argument over T-D-D-S and she was like, yeah, I'm sorry too. But she already revealed that she didn't like me. So this is valid.

This is a valid criticism. But I also... learned. Like, I'm trying to persuade people to change their lifestyle, right? So it's helpful for them to not hate me. So I really need to learn how to share the ideas in a way that's like, hopefully funny and a little bit edgy, but you don't want someone to totally hate you because they're just going to close their mind.

And this is the whole problem with U.S. politics right now is everybody's just fucking insulting the other person, which immediately closes the other side's mind, which means no one's going to listen to each other's ideas. So I don't want to fall into that trap even. if I'm having fun and I personally think that I'm being funny about it. Yeah, I reveal that transparency about how we first met and all of that to really to illustrate the point that like, there's sometimes, in communication, there's a sender and the receiver and there's that gap between intent and impact and what, you know, what you think you say

versus what somebody else hears. So for me, there were many years where when I read Mr. Money Mustache, which was and is like the biggest financial independence website out there in the English language, at least. It had a certain tone to it that didn't resonate. And then when I met you in person, I was like, this guy is fucking awesome. Can you please say that again? I'm just kidding. I'll make a T-shirt of it instead. Oh, Jesus. I bet you will, actually.

Dash, Paula Pan. You know what? Let's make that shirt and give the proceeds to charity. Yeah. What charity do you want to give the proceeds to? Oh, well, I'm a big fan of Give Well, which I kind of pimped at a conference we were just in, which is like a world health charity that happens to be the most effective that I'm aware of per dollar spent. So yeah, if we make a funny T-shirt joint effort and sell it, then sounds good to me.

All right, let's do, this guy is fucking awesome, quote Paula Pan. All proceeds go to give well. That would be great. And we can put a logo, both of our logos in some way, making a cartoonist to make it like a super fun. Oh, yeah. Combo? Sweet.

All right, let's do it. All right, we'll see if it happens. But we have accountability of this microphone now. Yeah. Christmas, you have to have it out for the holiday shopping season. Okay, deal. All right, got a new project. I'm on it, Monday morning.

See, this is what you do when you don't have a job. Yeah, but I mean, often it's just talking about silly ideas, so it would be great if it happens. Some things happen, though. Some things really happen. So, yeah, I really like your thoughts about the messenger and considering the audience when you make your message. And I've already said how I'm super thankful for other writers and bloggers

bringing out the message that I can't always express because I only have my one quirky voice. And to be honest, I'm not a normal human. And it's okay. It's okay to be different, but I'm like an engineer and I don't pick up on social cues quite as well as other people, which means I do my own shit. Sometimes that's great.

Sometimes it's a huge advantage. Other times people get angry at me because I unintentionally disregarded their cost. cultural beliefs or whatever, and they think that I'm being insensitive. And like, I never want to hurt anybody, but just by not understanding stuff, sometimes it happens, especially if you multiply it by enough people. So just understand that Mr. Morning Moustache is trying to be nice, but if you still don't like them, just fucking read somebody else's shit, and you'll probably like that better. So the lead-in was lessons that you've learned in the last decade. So you've talked about

adopting a more gentle tone slash being more wide lens. Diplomatic as well. You talked about parenting lessons. Any other lessons from the past decade? Well, the other stuff is just more personal, like I've learned by going through a divorce and relationship stuff since then about how, you know, I was kind of a beginner in human relationships, both friendships and romantic relationships. And it's a good, a lot of good hard lessons come from the fit, not exactly failures, but, you know, the endings of these things and

learning how to behave properly and what other people want and what I want as well. And not not starting relationships, if you know they're not going to go anywhere to begin with. That's all stuff that's a true, it's a true privilege to get to good. through that stuff and get better at it because not everybody gets the chance. And yeah, not ever, you know, it applies to a lot of people, even though it's nothing I would write about on my blog because it's out of the scope of it. But I guess the main lesson is if you think of everything as an experiment in your life and allow yourself to have a success or a failure, and a failure is still a win because it's

going to be a learning experience, then you won't beat yourself. up about it so much and you'll kind of be thankful for everything. So as I said in another interview recently, like I'm, I try to think of myself as Doc Brown on, um, back to the future, like just super crazy, wild-haired scientist. And everything I do is like a quirky experiment. And sometimes it's great, like starting Mr. Money Mustache as a blogging thing. You know, that could have gone nowhere, but instead it turned into something super interesting and fun for 10 years. You could call that a successful experiment and then other things I've done have gone nowhere but they weren't failures they were just like really interesting learning experiences too and if you think of it that way it encourages

you um whatever you're afraid of doing and it makes you more willing to try these things and then if it succeeds you laugh and pat yourself on the back if it fails you laugh and pat yourself on the back for learning something and then you try the next thing a lot of people are so afraid of failure that they don't do anything, whether it is they stay in a relationship they should not be in, or they stay in a job that they've been in way too long because they're afraid of the consequences, the fear of the change. And yeah, just make more changes in your life, moving to a new house, moving to a new town, allowing your kids to switch schools, even if it seems like a big deal. And overall, the more changes you make, the more likely you are to learn and have a fun and wise

and fulfilling life. I think that's kind of the making. the main thing that comes out, the further I go through life is like, just try new stuff. Try new stuff until you find what you like and then start keeping the stuff that you really like. So what are the things that you like the most? What brings you the most joy? What sparks joy, Pete? Yeah, well, it's surprisingly simple now. So my life has become quite stable recently over the last few years, and it turns out I really like walking on my back door into the fields and forests that are right behind there and just walking along the creek and seeing nature every day,

checking out what the geese and ducks are doing, seeing what the leaves are doing, and the river, is it up or down today? And like I swim in the river every day or like as much of the year as I can. So just a bunch of really simple old man nature-based stuff. Very simple, but I do it every day, you know, maybe an hour a day. And I love keeping up with my friends and working with them. I love working in a collaborative sense. So that's something I've been doing for a lot of years now that brings me a lot of happiness. So it's going to keep going. So that includes like starting little businesses with friends like Carl and I run the co-working space together and another couple friends. And, you know, other stuff, some friends and I are thinking of starting a little

sort of mountain resort on a random piece of land in the mountains with some tiny houses and some cabins on it. Cool. And it's going to be effort. You know, it's going to be work and organization and hosting, but I think it'll bring a lot of joy as well. So simple things. So I guess it just boils down to getting out of the house, doing fun things and solving

problems with your friends. And for me, because I have a kid, spending lots of time with it. and working on things with him too, because we also bond based on work that we do together. That's pretty much it. Those are my core values that I think are going to keep me happy for the next 60-plus years. What are your regrets? Probably none now because I've learned to think of mistakes and regrets as just lessons. So, I mean, obviously I got divorced. after 14 plus years of marriage.

And you could think of that as like, oh, failure, regret and stuff. Or you could think of it as like, hey, this person and I had a really long, super long, nice partnership, and we created a wonderful child together and we're still friends. That's like a pretty good outcome, even if you're not still married anymore. And even if we weren't still close, we would have learned a lot from the experience that's going to make us better people for our future relationships. So, like, there's no losing. Even in divorce, there's no losing if you have the right attitude towards it. And, you know, like another example is I started a super, first thing I did when I retired is I started

the most stupid business ever, which is like a high stress construction company where we were building entire custom houses from scratch, which turned out to be more stressful by far than my engineering job. Of course, I wouldn't repeat that activity if I were going back to the year of 2005. but at the same time I learned a whole bunch from the experience and I learned what I don't like and I also learned a lot about house building and carpentry that I still use to this day. And I survived it and I have a lot of gratitude just from not having that terrible business anymore. So if you think of things as lessons and getting through them, then it's pretty hard to have regrets. Because like you have right now, like the only existence, the only moment.

that really exists is this current moment that you're living. So what's the point of regretting the past instead of saying, oh, these things that happened in the past that were painful, I'm through them now. And now I have this super great present and future to enjoy and look forward to. So where's the bummer in that? Where's the bummer in that? That could be our second T-shirt. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Where's the bummer in that? Done. All right. We've got the logo for two shirts.

I'm such a marketing genius when I'm slightly drunk. Full disclosure, we throughout this recording, we've been pounding black cherry bourbon barrel. It's tea beer. It's gluten-free. It's from the Wild Ohio brew. This is not an ad, by the way. But it's 9% alcohol by volume, and we've been pounding this as we've been recording. Yeah, the downside of this beverage is that it tastes like it's too. percent alcohol. The upside is that it's actually a performance enhancing beverage and it doesn't lead to any hangarice. And like you can go lift weights right after drinking two of them. So what do you deadlift? I don't actually know. I do know because I recently set a lifetime

record. Yeah? Even as a 47 year old man and it was 335 times six. Oh wow. And I have a video. You deadlift 335 at six reps? That sounds like a lot. But actually for people who are railway at lefters, they're like, oh, come on, that's not very much. But for me, it's the most of it done. I weigh 180 pounds right now. Okay, so that's like double your body weight. Yeah, I mean, 360 would be double. Almost double your body weight.

Yeah. And for me, like, it was really heavy. When you watched this video, which I'll even share with you, it's like super hard. Like, I barely got off the ground the first time, which is the hardest. And then you kind of are like, you had the momentum. So that's actually a good thing. This is delving back into fitness. Yeah.

Is you can get stronger and stronger your whole life, as long as you're not like an Olympic athlete when you're 20, because then it's all downhill from there. But if you're immediate, like I've always been interested in fitness. But if you just keep working at it, you never really have to age. And, you know, you get slightly wrinklier. But overall, you can remain fit. I'll still run up like 20 flights of stairs, super fast without getting out of shape. And I really want everybody to do this.

That's why I talk about it so much because it makes your life a lot better. Don't let age be an excuse. and I happen to think weight training is a very efficient way to be very fit with a minimal time commitment for that part of it. So everybody should deadlift, even if you are a grandmother of 27 grandchildren. So Pete and I were talking about this right before we started recording

because I was telling him that I'd like dabbled going to the gym for many years, but about two and a half months ago, three months ago, I like started taking strength training really seriously and I was showing him the calluses on my. hands. I've got some pretty gnarly calluses. They're better than mine right now. Well, thank you. Thank you. You know, but I've only been taking it really seriously for less than three months. So at this point, I can deadlift my body weight, but I can't deadlift double my body weight. I think it's going to take me another year to get there. Oh, well, that's great. That's a very short timeline.

Just to be fair, like I started weight training at maybe 14 years old, so that means I've been lifting weights for 33 years and really not it's not like I've been going up the whole time it's just kind of been like a long plateau but the important part is to just keep at it and because it's good for you the whole time yeah but I was inspired originally by like muscle man movies like Arnold movies and stuff because they're like oh that guy is so powerful and strong and confident I want to be like that because I'm a shy child and that's a good enough reason as any to get into this sport which is actually very healthy and good for you I love that this is the second Arnold reference that you've made in this interview.

Oh, yeah. It's hard for me not to talk about Arnold just because he has this. It's so hilarious to issue, like, quotes. And it's so simple. It's like simple motivation for, at least for young men who are looking for that. Nowadays, like, Jocko Willink might be the new Arnold just because he's so extreme. Like, get after it, 4.30 a.m. No excuses.

Discipline. So I read Jocko. I read his book on The Flight to and from FinCon, and I made an internal PowerPoint for like an internal slide deck for my team because I wanted to present like some ideas to my team. And it just had the air of Jocko infused in it so much that I had to dial it back. Yeah, too much testosterone. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it doesn't work for everybody. You know, I'm a typical, I'm a very typical guy.

So I'm emmix inspired by hyper masculinity. So Jocko Willink has like this jaw, the size of like a dishwasher. And his face is like if you were to make a cartoon character of like, you know, in a video game of the most badass soldier, they would look less masculine than Jocco. And like to me that's perfect because that just makes, it just simplifies all the, gets rid of all the excuses. And you're like, yeah, just fucking put as much weight on the bar. as you can lift or just do it or get up and ride your bike through two feet of snow, pulling like a trailer full of logs or whatever it is.

And I always feel good when I do that. Like when I stop the excuses and do hard stuff, it makes me feel good. This is why I really wonder what you would be like if you were a woman. Or like, what would you be like? So men have, on average, seven times greater testosterone than women. What would you be like if you just stripped away, all of the testosterone. I don't know. I don't know what you would be like. I don't know how you would be received. I'd probably be like my sisters who are super amazing badass chicks as well. I mean,

maybe they have a lot of testosterone too, even though they're beautiful 50-year-old women. But they're really, really like great attitudes and they have this super open minds and they just solve the shit out of all these problems and they invent all these things. Both my sisters are like engineers and like PhD mathematicians and stuff and like beekeeper and cross-country ski champions and dog trainers and stuff back in Canada. So I take a lot of inspiration for them, even though they're totally not masculine, they're totally not Jocko Willink. So what I really respect is just people who have a lot of initiative and self-discipline and they just try a lot of stuff even if it's quirky without worrying about judgment of being unusual.

And they're also really kick-ass musicians as well. Like they play fiddles and flutes and guitars and sing like angels and show up on the public radio station in Canada doing duets and makes me cry a whole bunch. So yeah, if you have people like that in your family, it's naturally very inspiring. What else makes you cry? I think anybody who sings really well makes me cry, like when I watch musicals and stuff, And also just really touching gestures, like, between parents and children, or someone who really cares and does, like, caring gestures to another person.

I'm definitely a bit... This is the non-jaco side of me. I'm definitely very sentimental about the stuff. And, like, dads, someone who's a really good dad is, like, oh, look at it. I just can't even stop. You know, I have to hide when I see, like, really inspiring parenthood. Moments. Because it's just so cool.

We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. I feel very lucky to be able to call you a friend. And to know you and to have known you as a friend for so long. You've been part of my life since, I mean, we met in what, 2012 or 2013. And I think our first Ecuador trip together was maybe 2015-ish or so. So you've been, you've influenced many, many people online. but I got to be one of the lucky few that really learned from you in person. Aw.

This is actually, I'm sure, familiar to everybody. I communicate with Paula mostly by text messaging. And our text messaging string is always funny because, like, it'll be like a long conversation. It's like 100 messages. And then it'll stop. And then it'll resume six months later, like as if it had never stopped. And that happened even recently because I was trying to message. message Paula to set up this interview. And I was looking at back at the last stuff we talked about,

which is some random month earlier in 2021. And we were talking about totally different stuff. And it's good. It's like I think the real test of a friendship is if you can just, if nobody gets pissed off if you don't talk to them for six months. Because everyone has different lives. And, you know, some friendships are every day, like a partner, a romantic partner, you would be pissed off if they didn't talk for two for six months. But, you know, you're real. friends, you can pick up and down depending on where things happen and people live in different parts of the country. That's kind of part of the five early retirement world is too, is you end up with friends who are scattered around because five people can travel more easily and it's okay

if you don't see your friends all the time, but they're always there. What do you look for in friendship? Well, I guess the first thing is if they don't get pissed off at me for being a little bit flaky. I mean, when my friends who live close to me, we see each other really frequently, and my next-door neighbors are really good friends with me. So we see every day, and we collaborate and build stuff together.

Friends from further away will be really close when we're hanging out, and then everyone's got their kids or their partners or their business or travels. So, like, we don't judge each other just because they're not, like, checking in all time. Like, I don't care if somebody knows my birthday. for example, and sends me a card. But I do care if they are willing to respond to a message or a question at a random time,

if it's something we're both interested in. And, yeah, it's really nice to just let things flow and understand each other's life situations. And, like, for me, like, I like friends who are quirky and appreciate, like, a bizarre sense of humor, and you could just forward random shit back and forth. And, yeah, and I love friends who, like, work. on stuff together, like shared, shared goals, shared projects. That's a really good way to bond with somebody. It doesn't just have to be like a coffee meeting where you talk about small talk.

It's great to help each other with your stuff. Yeah. I think in our friendship, one of the, I think one of our friending incidents was when I sent you the YouTube video of Rasputein. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And now every time I hear that song, I think of you. Is there going to be a show notes where you can share that link?

Heck yeah. Okay, good. Heck yeah. That's definitely a life-enhancing song and video. That is life-enhancing. Yeah. Okay, so is there an overall theme for this episode? Like what's useful for listeners?

Jeez, I don't know. I mean, so I wanted this to be organic and natural, which it has been. Because my thinking was if you and I are having a great time chatting with each other, then the people who are listening to this are also going to enjoy that. One of my favorite podcasts is the All In Podcasts, with, um, that there's actually, there are several podcasts that have that name, but specifically the one that I like, has these four guys on it, David Sacks, David Friedberg, Chimoth Polyhapatia, and Jason Kalakhanis. You can tell every episode, you really can hear the friendship between these four guys.

And so part of my thinking, when approaching you about a, doing this episode together, I was like, look, we've been friends for a decade. Let's just, let's just shoot this shit and turn a microphone on while we do it. And I think that's going to come across, and I think it's going to be informative and educational, but also enjoyable. We can hope, at least for super fans who just like hearing us talking about random shit. But I am thankful, at least to have the opportunity. And I'm, um, I'm I hope that other people are, they kind of feel the same way about their long-term friendships. And yeah, I think people should cherish them and, you know, reach out to your longtime friends and

have a super long conversation with them and maybe even start something new with them, like make three T-shirts with your best friends. Right. That's the takeaway. Find three T-shirts to make with your best, long, last friend. And then send it to your other random friends and see if they get the joke. Well, okay, let me turn that question on you then. Are there any particular lessons, messages, anything that you think is really important to, like, you know, you're speaking to like 50,000 people right now.

What do you want to tell them? Hmm. I think I would love to sort of repeat the message of Alan Donagan, who's like, have you hung out with these people, the rebel business? school people from England. All right. So the message, which we've kind of talked about in some of our conversations, so Alan likes to say, everything that you want that you don't already have is separated from you by a wall of fear.

Otherwise, you'd already have it. So basically his idea is find the things that you're afraid of and focus on them and do them because that is the part of your life that you haven't already achieved. It's the stuff that you're afraid to do. So maybe just, like, do some journaling and some, like, random scribbling down of stuff that you are afraid to do, but you would love to do if you knew you couldn't fail. And try it and just think of it as Doc Brown science experiment. And it might be quitting a job that you're afraid of quitting or getting out of a toxic relationship that you're afraid of getting out of

or applying for a new job or even, like, moving to a new place that would be better for you. you and you're afraid of moving because your kids are in a certain school or whatever. And just work towards jumping through these fear canyons to do the stuff you're afraid of doing and making bigger changes. And that is probably the best thing you could do. Like regardless of money or affording anything or early retirement, like those are probably the changes that you can make in your life that are going to make the best difference. And you're going to be so proud of yourself 10 years from now from having, them. Yeah. And like as a fearful person, I can vouch for this. It's like anything you do to get

over your fear is going to be the best thing you can do for leading a better life in the coming 10 to 100 years. So yeah, just go for it. Take some experiments. Okay. So that brings me to the last question. When you think about the next 10 years, what are you afraid of? Well, it's going to sound strange, but I'm not afraid of anything now because I have gone through those fear canyons and made the jumps and I'm just really, really excited about the next 10 years because I feel like almost religiously certain that there's just going to be more and more of these amazing like friendships and adventures and travels and ventures of, you know, like experiments and businesses together that's just going to lead to more and more fun.

And like, sure, stuff could go wrong. like the stuff that I'm not afraid of, but I know could happen. It's like, what if something happens to my son or what if something happens to me? Like I'm suddenly catastrophically ill or whatever, right? But it's pointless to think about that. That's not going to help you to worry about those things. All you can do is take the most reasonable steps you can to increase the probability of these better outcomes.

So like I'm taking care of my health. I'm taking care of my son. I'm not throwing us into any stupidly risky situations. And that's the best you can do. and then you just don't worry about the rest. So because of that, I'm super optimistic about both my future and the immediate future, the next 10 years of like the entire Earth. It's going to be an excellent decade.

So I'm sure that we will reconvene 10 more years and celebrate how great a decade it's been. Wow. I can't wait for that. The 10-year reunion of this interview. Yeah. We're going to be these like spiky, saucy old people. You'll be 57.

Yeah. Yeah, and I'm going to look much younger than I do now, but I'm going to be wearing a futuristic silver suit because everything in the future is going to be like glowing LED, silver hover cars and stuff. And afford anything is going to be bigger than ever. Mr. Money Mustache is going to have like three new articles in the next 10 years, but it's still going to be thought of as a cultural icon

despite my lack of content creation. And that sounds like a great decade to me. All right. Well, cheers to that. Cheers to that. Thank you so much, Pete. What key takeaway did we get from this conversation? I'll tell you what I've learned.

Pete genuinely enjoys the present moment. He lives by the philosophy of do good, have fun, be happy. And so this interview, he did it because he enjoyed doing it. and because he knew it would create some good for the world. He could share a philosophy and a framework on living that he hoped would motivate and inspire this community. And so it's do good, have fun. This very interview for Pete was an example of him living that philosophy.

Do meaningful work and enjoy the hell out of it. Form long-lasting friendships that are both, silly and deep, experiment, try new things, change things up, keep what you like. I've thought for years about what I would want to interview Pete about. Because when I first started this podcast five years ago, a lot of people were like, oh, could you interview Mr. Money Mustache? And I didn't want to conduct the same old boring interview that everybody else does. Everybody else asks him about like what you.

story. How did you save? How did you retire? They ask for his biographical story. And then they ask all of the standard stock boilerplate questions about financial independence and early retirement. Oh, can you opine on the difference? What a snoozer. Pete has done thousands of those interviews. It's unoriginal. It's boring. It's formulaic. It's templated. Not his answer just those interviews, those questions. And I knew that I did not want to do that. So I sent him a text and I was like, I sent this earlier in the day because he was talking about the documentary filmmakers.

You know, he was like, oh yeah, I'm meeting with these, he and I both met with these documentary filmmakers, these Canadian filmmakers. And so Pete was like, do you want to sit in on that interview and maybe you can cross-purpose some of it? And I was like, no, no way, because they're going to ask you about your story. and I wrote this to him in a text, I was like, I don't give a shit about your story, because your story is a single anecdotal case study that's been told thousands of times across thousands of platforms.

And that's not valuable in any way to repurpose or repeat here. I want to ask you the questions that no one else asks you. What is your core life philosophy? Not just about money, about the way you live. your life. Are you genuinely this optimistic or do you have to work for it? Do you actually enjoy your days or do you feel unmoored? What have you learned? What do you regret? What are you afraid of? What makes you cry? Who inspires you? I mean, he talked about everyone from Jocko Wilnik to his sisters. We talked about deadlifting and I called him a mommy blogger. And that's how you have a conversation

that's meaningful and good and valuable, you have it because it's real and it's fun, and it's how you do good while also having a great time along the way. That's what the philosophy of financial independence is about. It's about doing meaningful work and enjoying the hell out of it. And Pete lives that every day. He works hard, but he doesn't let his work get too worky. and he does that by making sure that he's always, always having fun,

that he's enjoying the work that he does. And by virtue of doing that, the work turns out better. The impact is greater. And even more lives ultimately end up getting changed. That excessive optimism and that dedication to the present moment that's better for you, it's better for society, it's better for the planet. It's how you create a happier world. And so that is my keytimore.

away from spending this time with Pete, it's to enjoy the hell out of the work that you're doing. It's to live in the present and enjoy every day, while also making changes, taking risks, working on projects that drive some kind of value, real value, because that's the recipe for a meaningful life. So I am recording this, by the way. So, you know, we recorded that interview at the Economy conference, which was in Cincinnati. And after that, conference, I drove down to Texarkana, Texas, which is where my buddy, former financial planner Joe Saul Seahy, the guy who joins me on every other episode to answer questions from you all, this is where he lives. So I am recording this from his at-home recording studio. I'm recording

this on his microphone. I got in yesterday, and we've been having a great time. We went out to dinner, we played some board games. We're doing recording today. And so I was stressing, out a little bit earlier, I was like, oh, the show notes aren't ready yet. I promised everybody that I would put the link for the YouTube video for Rasputin in there. I want to make sure I make these T-shirts because that's like fun shirts and it's such a cool charitable fundraiser. I was like, oh man, when am I going to find the time to do this while also recording with Joe while also playing board games? You know, and then I caught myself feeling stressed and I was like, hey, hey, remember what you learned from Pete. Chill out. It'll all happen. You know, do it. You do it.

it in your own time. But the most important thing is that you make sure that you're in the present moment and that you're enjoying that present moment. So yeah, I gave myself a little pep talk this morning based on these key takeaways that I've learned from Pete, because that's how you stay in it for the long haul. Like, that's how you make it sustainable. That's how you stay consistent in doing really meaningful good work. You know, that's how you stay consistent in it for 60 years. That consistency comes from staying present and enjoying it. So, sign up for the show notes, and when they're ready, you'll get them. The show notes are, you can sign up afford anything.com slash show notes,

and I'll send them to you when they're ready. And we're going to make these t-shirts, and all of the proceeds will go to charity. All proceeds are going to go to give well. So afford anything.com slash show notes. And if you have an idea for a slogan on a third shirt, hit me up. let me know. Just subscribe to the show notes and then hit reply to any of the emails. Well, thanks for tuning in. And thanks for being part of this community and part of this journey. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode,

please make sure that you hit follow in whatever app you're using to listen to this show. Just open up that app, hit the follow button, whether it's Apple Podcast, Spotify, Pandora, whatever you're using to listen. And subscribe to the show notes, Afford Anything.com, slash show notes. Again, thanks for being part of the Afford Anything community. Thanks for joining us on this journey. And I'll catch you in the next episode. Better take some more wild Ohio to compensate for that emotional moment. There's one can left. Should we crack it? No, because, um, I mean, we need to wrap up in like the next 10 minutes. Yeah. I feel like the rest of my social plans for this evening would be sullied if I drank any more of the stuff.

Oh, you can have it if you want, because you probably have big plans for tonight. In fact, there's an event at two hours from now. Yeah, there's a brewery that we're supposed to go to in two hours. Yeah. I'll crack it if you help me drink it. I can only open it for you. You're going to have to get another guy in here to help drink it. We should look for a sponsorship from Wild Ohio after this.

Yeah, seriously. And a third t-shirt. A third t-shirt. We need a third t-shirt. What's our third t-shirt going to be? Well, it'll come naturally. Yeah, if it doesn't come to us, it will come in the feedback. Oh, yeah.

To this podcast. Yeah, it will. I can imagine the feedback. Everyone's going to be like, did you guys get buzzed and then you announced on the podcast that you never actually liked him for a couple of years? So I never disliked you. I just didn't know you until those Ecuador trips. And then I immediately thought it was a great, great friendship.

Yeah.