Afford Anything - Ask Paula -- What Paintbrush Did Michelangelo Use? (said no one ever)

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

#334: In today’s episode, we answer three questions from a college senior named Rafael. He asks about productivity tools and tactics, student debt, Robinhood and market investing, and how to establish yourself as an expert in a given domain. We answer his questions by widening the lens. People often ask about productivity tools. “Do you use Asana or Trello?” But nobody asked Michelangelo what paintbrush he used to paint the Sistine Chapel. The discussion around tools misses the point, which is to master the craft. Sure, we answer his direct, overt questions. But we also dive deeper, refining these topics and exploring the questions *behind* his questions. This is an episode in which we peel layers off the onion. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode334 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 your time, your focus, your energy, your attention, anything in your life that's a scarce or limited resource. And that opens up two questions. First, what matters most? Second, how do you align your decision-making around that which matters most? Answering those two questions is a lifetime practice.

and that is what this podcast is here to explore and facilitate. My name is Paula Pant. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. Every other episode, we answer questions from you, the community. And my buddy, former financial planner Joe Saul Seahai, joins me to answer these questions. What's up, Joe? I am here. I've fastened the seatbelt, and I am ready to go, Paula.

In this episode, we answer a trilogy of questions. one caller, three questions, very different topics. The caller's first question is tactical. It's about productivity. The second question is financial. And the third question is around how to be seen as a leader in a given domain. He asks about being a thought leader, but the question could apply to any career or any entrepreneurial venture. We're going to work through all three of these questions. So let's hear him ask it. The question comes from a caller named Raphael, who goes by Raff. Hey, Paula, my name is Raff. I'm 22 years old, and I live in Washington State in the Pacific Northwest. Thanks to you and Joe for the advice on the July 7th episode. If you

were curious, that job was a traveling door-to-door solar company, which I have since left for issues with compensation. Mouridanya. For your wealth of comedic knowledge, I'm back again with even bigger moves this time, and if you're willing, I've got a trilogy of questions for you. Number one, I'm very into planners, journaling and organization, mostly analog, and I'm fairly certain that you're primarily digital. How do you break down and catalog all of your endeavors? Do you have a command center where they all meet? Shout out to Laura Vandercam for also time tracking on a daily basis. Number two, I'm going to be graduating in the spring of 22 with a BS in biochemistry, and I can expect to be earning between $50,000 to $70,000 a year.

I'm really fortunate to have no student debt so far, same Q's sweat equity, summer breaks, and scholarships. And my big problem is that my net worth keeps bouncing off of zero as I pay for school. I'd like to buy my first rental property within the next three to five years. And my current plan is to use my existing Robin Hood account to invest in R.A.I.T.'s and earmarks at for my final lump sum payment, since I expect to be able to save up a down payment relatively fast after graduating. Is this a good plan or should I focus on staying debt-free?

Amma always taught me that saving is good and owing people money is bad, but it's kind of hard to find a good balance when my earning potential is so low. COVID and complications with my legal status really put a damper on my GPA and finding scholarships I'm eligible for as a DACA student, aka resident alien. Before that was hard enough. Do you have any input or guidance? And finally, number three, do you have any advice for aspiring thought leaders? I really admire your contributions and critical. analysis of personal finance and aspire to do similar work. I want to help guide myself depreciating generation to a place of gentle, unencumbered self-love so that we can more readily

stand within our power, in our circle of influence, and leave the world a better place. Thank you for your time, focus, energy, and attention, and I'm absurdly grateful to have found such a graceful role model I can identify with as the first-generation immigrant. I hope you, Jeffrey, and your kitties have a marvelous day. Thank you. Rath, thank you so much for those questions. We'll take them one at a time, starting with your first question. You said you love journaling, planning, organizing. You primarily do this on analog paper, not digital paper.

And you want to know how we do it. What strikes me about your question is that your question is tactical. What specific tools do we use? What apps do we use? I'd be happy to answer that at face value, and I'm sure we'll do that in a couple of minutes. But honestly, my first inclination is, who cares? Because, and Joe, I'm going to quote you, as you've always said, no one ever goes to Michelangelo and says, hey, what paintbrush did you use when you painted the ceiling of

the Sistine Chapel? So if someone is good at capturing thoughts, capturing ideas, brainstorming, having vision, having leadership, which is different than management, Joe, I'm quoting you again. It's my lucky day. Apparently, I'm brilliant. Behind the scenes here, Joe and I just had a great conversation for 45 minutes before we hit record. So that's where a lot of this is coming from. So anyway, if a person that you look up to, whether it's me or Joe, or whether it's someone that you know in real life, no matter who it is, if there's a person who you think is a great leader, a great visionary, a great organizer, I think the more pertinent question.

is not what tools or what apps do you use, but rather what frameworks or what mental models do you organize your brain around? Not to get too esoteric. I'm not saying I'll never answer a tactical question, but strategy matters so much more than tactics. And strategy comes from an assessment of the various mental models of the various frameworks through which you could look at a situation. And a story to illustrate that. back from my financial planning days, I had a client who I was recommending changes to their portfolio to make their portfolio more efficient to get on what we call the efficient frontier. And I was recommending that he dropped this fund that was a fund that invested in companies in

Japan. It was the Japanese index. And I recommended that he drop it. And he was resistant to do that because it was the number one ETF of Japanese companies. Yet his asset allocation didn't call for any Japanese companies in his don't get me wrong.

All of Asia, yes. Japan specific. No, thank you. So he has the best thing in the wrong arena. And if you don't start with strategy first, you can have the best

tactics that have nothing to do with what the bigger battle is. So I think widening the argument, which is what we do a lot of times on this show, right? We widen the discussion. Widening the discussion asking, what are you actually trying to achieve first is the big question. So let's say that Raff, in terms of what he's trying to achieve, we know that he's 22, he's a year away from graduating from college. He ultimately wants to start his first post-collegiate job, buy a home, buy a rental property, build his net worth. From that starting point, from the perspective of someone like him who is starting literally

at zero, he's told us that he has a net worth of zero, which is better than negative, if what he's trying to achieve is, let's say, his first 100,000 in net worth, what can we give him as it pertains to this question that is better than just the face value answer of, oh, I use the Notion app. Well, I'll say this. Journaling by itself, I think is great. I don't do it. And I know that I should have.

So it is a weakness that I have that I haven't journaled. What I really like about journaling that I get, frankly, from coaching every Monday morning I open up my week with a session with a coach, Mary Lou. And the first thing she wants to talk about is my week. So in a way, I journal, I just do it out loud, right? where we go through. And we always, by the way, start with the positive focus. We start with my wins. But what that does is, I think there's two places you should learn from. Raff mentioned people like Laura Vandercom. Learning from other people is fantastic. But you can also learn from what

you've done previously. I mean, how many of us know people that are making the same mistake over and over and over and everybody seems to see it except that person, right? I don't want to be that person. I want to fail. I want to fail fast, and I want to learn from it and move on to the next step. So journaling your progress, I think, is an important part of whatever the journey is, whether you do it out loud with a coach like I do or if you write down your thoughts and what went well and what didn't go so well. So Joe, follow-up question for you, when you journal or talk to a coach, how do you distinguish between effective processes? I don't even know that I try to distinguish it at the time. I think the act of vocalizing or the act, the tactile act of writing, when I make to-do lists, I use, by the way, an app called To-Doist to answer the tactical question.

However, I'm not as effective with To-Doist as I am with a handwritten note with my scribble on it. And by the way, what's funny about this, Paula, I will scribble it. down and I will rarely look at it. Because I found actually just the tactile idea of getting it on paper somehow inside my brain makes it much more real and I go and I get it. And I can't tell you the number of times that I've written things on a piece of paper. I find the piece of paper four months later and there are these big thoughts that I had and I've accomplished all of them even though I never looked at it since the time that I wrote

it down. So I don't know that I tried to distinguish. I think I just try to, as one great writer said that they do with their first draft of their novels, I just try to puk it out. Pretty disgusting. Was that Anne Lamont, bird by bird? Was she the one who said it? I don't think I got it from Anne Lamont, but I think Anne Lamont has a very similar phrase. Similar philosophy, yeah.

Yeah. I think I actually got it from a science fiction writer named Gail Carriger, who has another cool thing that I like to do, which is when I wrote my book, write 2,000 words. A day? A day. Jesus. And don't distinguish whether they're good or bad, but sit until you finish 2,000 words. And by the way, there's going to be days where you're flying and you think you're a genius. And there's other days where it's horrible, but you just have to, using the phrase again, puke it out, right?

Right. And then what she said, and it was totally true for me, when you go back and look at those 2,000 words, the ones that were phenomenal where I was a genius, I wasn't as big a genius as I thought I was. I wasn't nearly as brilliant as I felt like I was in the moment. And those words that I thought were horrible, nowhere near as bad. The standard deviation, to put it in money nerd terms, between great writing and horrible writing was far less than I thought it was. But that allowed me to write a good chunk of my book in a six-week period. Speaking of which, to go back to the tactical, there is a particular app for anyone who's interested in writing or journaling. It's called FlowState.

It's a paid app. It's not much. I think it's maybe $10 or $12, something like that. But the way that it works is that you set a certain timer, five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and you have to continuously write for that period of time. And if at any point you stop, everything that you've just written automatically gets deleted. Oh, God, no. Yeah.

And so it forces you, I mean, when I'm using it, literally there are times when I am just clacking the keyboard. It's, it looks like a cat ran across the keyboard. Just so you can fake. Yeah, yeah. I'm just like literally, it's like fingers pounding the keyboard, like just pressing random letters, like, like, da, da, da, da, you know, over and over. But if you do that long enough, eventually your fingers start getting tired of mimicking a bird pecking a worm-scented keyboard and start actually forming words. And those words over time turn into sentences. I found the same thing when I had to write 2,000 words a day. Those words got easier every day.

Once I committed to the fact that it was going to be 2,000 words, the first three or four days were horrible. The next five, four or five days were okay. The next four or five days were much, much, I won't say easier, but my body was in tune with it, much like when I start working out, right? The first couple days you're excited. Then the excitement goes away and the donuts look good. But if you stick with it and you power through,

by the second, third, fourth week, the workout, your body starts craving it. And I'll never say that I craved writing 2,000 words a day. But it did become an enjoyable part of my day that I look forward to. Raff, to go back to the tactical elements of your question, toggle is a fantastic time-tracking app. Asana is theoretically what I use to manage tasks, or at least it's what my team uses and they want me to be using. but I'm really bad at checking it because I, Joe, like you, I tend to keep the most urgent stuff in my brain. And then when it gets too overwhelming from my brain, I scribble it down on a piece of paper. And then I never look at the paper again because that scribbling is a release

and then I know what to do next. And I'm never thinking that far beyond what's most urgent slash most immediate, at least in terms of the stuff in my brain that gets scribbled. The slow burning, important but not urgent, that tends to belong in the digital realm more, whereas the analog realm is what's pressing. In terms of other apps and tools that I use, and we'll link to a bunch of these in the show notes, you can subscribe to the show notes for free at afford anything.com slash show notes. But other apps and tools that I use include the Notes app, Evernote. frankly, I mean, you know, I can give you this laundry list, but frankly, it doesn't really matter.

I think what matters is that you pick each tool for a specific compartmentalized purpose. So I use the Notes app for a very different purpose than I use Byword, and I use Byword for a different purpose than I use Evernote. And I use all of those for a different purpose than I use Google Docs. You know, each type of tool has its own compartmentalized topic and purpose so that I know that if I'm collecting recipes or a list of movies that I one day hope to see, I know that that's going to go in Evernote. Versus if I'm collecting a brief moment of insight that could be turned into an Instagram caption or the spark for an article, that's going to go in. into notes. And so that compartmentalization, in the same way that you compartmentalize your money, you've got different buckets that do different things, having different buckets for your ideas, that's what matters. The specific construct of the bucket, who cares? In the same way that,

you know, if you're putting your money in credit union number one versus credit union number two versus online bank number three versus online bank number four, I don't really care, as long as they're good enough as long as they're satisfactory, it doesn't matter. What matters is what you, the contributions that you make into that bank account or into that tool or app, not the institution itself. The way I get things done is I start from a high level. What am I trying to accomplish during my week, which is why I wanted to make sure that my session with my coach was at the beginning in my week. I also found, and Laura Vandercam point specifically to this, that if I look at my calendar on a Sunday night of what's coming up during the work week, that I'm much more

effective out of the gate on Monday morning versus if I wait until Monday morning to look. I know me. I know that I have ADD. And so as someone with ADD, I need to be hooked to my calendar. and I need to make sure that my calendar is in charge of my thinking because if I let my brain think about things, I'm never going to get there. So I start with what's important, which means I need to schedule my workout times and make sure I hold to those because my brain will come up with 50 things that I need to do. But the calendar is what rules my day. I schedule my community time, time with and when I say community time I mean the time where I'm grateful for being a part of the community I live in and I give back and I help out my community because I work on social media as an example whether I want to or not as part of what we do and so I do social media for some charities around town which is way better than writing a hundred dollar check for them and helps me be a part of what they do so I call that my gratitude time I put that right in the calendar and then I think about four or my brand, what are the big things that need to happen this week to get where I want to go?

And I make sure that I schedule time for those things. And then I schedule time with my people to make sure that I don't skip those meetings because I will skip those meetings. Because the second that I look at my email, there's going to be fires burning. You look at your email? That's great. That's crazy. So I schedule things in my calendar. and I'm very, very visual that way.

Normally, I'm an audio learner, but I'm a visual tasker. So if I can set my Google calendar at the weekly view and I give my team access to my calendar and then we work off the calendar. I used to-doist, like I said, I'm not graded at to-doist. I use a piece of paper for, you know, okay, notes for this meeting I need to do these four things. After the meeting, if it's really important, I automatically put it on the calendar of when going to do that. Because if I don't put it on the calendar, it won't get done. Yeah, I've tried to use

my calendar as a task manager, but then I just infinitely defer anything that isn't an actual meeting. So I've learned that my calendar can't be my task manager. But that's where storing ideas for tasks in places like Asana or Trello allows me to clear my brain of all of the someday maybes. and naturally the ones that I want to pursue the most, the new projects that I want to pursue the most, bubble to the top. So I might have a dozen ideas about cool things that we want to do as a brand as a company, but like hosting a live event, that one bubbled to the top. Launching software, which stay tuned for an announcement about that coming in 2022.

too, like that bubbled to the top. And so as long as I've got a place to brain dump, the stuff that ignites me naturally rises to the surface. Another resource that I really like, David Allen's getting things done approach, two concepts from that book that have been crucial for me. Number one is he talks about the Eastern philosophy of being like water. and if my brain is full with the things I need to get at the grocery store, who's taking care of my cat, what's going on with this ongoing project, I can't be like water. I have to be still so that I can flow where the water's flowing, and I have to get it out of my head. And to do that, David Allen has an entire system, but part of that system also is if I don't do it correctly right now,

and I set it aside, when am I going to do it? And I found myself, when you talk about the ongoing someday routine, that I would do that with everything. I do that with the laundry. I'm like, okay, I'm going to put the laundry in the washing machine. Then it never gets folded. But if I'm not going to fold the laundry now, when am I going to fold it? And if I don't fold it now, then I have to run it through the dryer again or do something

to get all these wrinkles out. So if I do it right now, it's going to be done better and it is done. So I have to ask myself that question all the time when I set a task aside. If I'm not going to take care of this correctly at this moment, when will I do it? And my brain also, and I think a lot of our brains, according to David Allen, when we set tasks aside, they stay in your head. And your brain reminds you at the worst time. Right. Your brain reminds you when you can't do anything about it.

you know your brain doesn't remind you that you need deodorant when you're at the store your brain reminds you with that when you're in the middle of dinner right you go oh yeah I got to remember deodorant if I don't write it down right now then it stays in that loop or if I don't do something with it so yeah I think the takeaway you and I are both coming back to is that your brain is a terrible storage device it's rotten never use your brain as a storage device So it doesn't really matter what app or tool or notebook. It doesn't matter what type of tool you're using in order to capture ideas. I think it does matter.

I think it does matter. Oh, but so long as... So long as you capture the idea. Well, and I think so long as you capture it in a way that is best for you. Because for me, the only way I'm going to do it is if it's on my calendar. And I've tried Asana. I've tried Trello. I've tried all kinds of different things.

To-doist barely keeps up with me. It works, but not that great. The thing that works is, what do I got to do next? I look at my calendar and my calendar says, oh, I have to work on the company financials now. So for the next hour, I'm going to work on the company financials. That quiets my brain and keeps me task-oriented, except those times. There are times in my calendar when my job is to set out the week and set out what I'm going to do that week.

When am I going to do my thinking? When am I going to do my writing? when I'm going to be creative and look at the big picture, all of that goes on my calendar. See, and that illustrates how the quote-unquote correct solution will be different for each person because as I alluded to earlier, I have low calendar compliance. So if a meeting, if something that involves another person, if that's on the calendar, I will 100% be there. But if it's something that's just me without any other humans involved, I will take a look at that. I will look at the entry in the calendar that says, oh, I'm supposed to be working on the company financials

now, and I will do whatever I'm in the mood to do rather than whatever I've scheduled out. And that's why I think at Raff's age, it's a good idea to experiment, right? Sure. No, I do. But Joe, shouldn't we be talking about his question? Well, I think this is the answer to his question. What tools? I think because you and I use different tools, but I think the tools that we use are more suited to the type of person that we are and what we know that we will blow off, right? And if you're an achievement focused person, like I think you are and I am. And not for other people. I feel like it's much more self-actualized than that. For me, I feel like as long as I'm here, I might as well show up. Right. So if I'm that type of person, then I need to find tools that are going to, to make this race car go. And especially knowing that it's going to be a marathon and not a sprint, right?

I feel people use sprint tools. And don't get me wrong, I think that for some people that that strategy of life is the short sprints, I kind of like that. I get into that. And watching companies launch product as sprints, okay, I get that. But those sprints are tactical with a much bigger race that it's organized around. You know, one other thing just occurred to me. sometimes the solution isn't the tool, it's the people.

So the example that I just outlined about having low calendar compliance, you know, I'm, if there's a meeting, if the other people are involved, I'm there. If it's just me, I blow it off. And I do, I'll still work, but I'll do the type of work that I'm more in the mood to do rather than the type of work that I've pre-scheduled for myself. And that goes back to Gretchen Rubin, who's a previous guest on the podcast. She talks about the four tendencies. I am a rebel tilting towards obligor, which means that I really don't like abiding by parameters.

But if I ever do, it will be because I feel obliged to others. And I want to stay accountable to others. And so knowing that that's my tendency, the solution that would work for a personality type like me, and I've watched my friend Caitlin do this, she has a zoo. call once a week with another person, and during that Zoom call, they each quietly and individually just write. They work on their own projects. They're silently on Zoom with one another.

So it's treated like a meeting because it is a meeting. It is a Zoom meeting. But they're not actually discussing anything during the meeting. They're both just on Zoom, which is effectively. the equivalent of them being in the same room, and then during that allotted period of time, they work on, in this case, they're writing, but you know, you could find a Zoom buddy for anything. If you want to work on your financials, find someone who will just sit there quietly on Zoom with you while you work on your financials.

Actually, Aaron, who is the CEO of Afford Anything, she's done that with me on a number of calls where we'll be on Zoom together, and that's the time in which, I'm editing a piece or I'm updating a spreadsheet or I'm doing something. And, you know, Aaron and I have had calls where you will talk at the beginning or at the end of the call, but we've had calls where for 20 minutes neither of us are talking. We're just doing the thing. And that for a person like me is very effective. So, Raf, that's a long answer to a short question, but it goes to show that sometimes it's not specifically just the tool or the app that's effective.

sometimes it's the people that you're around. Which is why earlier my career and still to some degree today, masterminds make a ton of sense. Having other people that you can bounce ideas off of, but even more than that, other people around you to hold you accountable. And I found with me, I pay too much money for coaching, Paula. I pay way too much money, but I know me and I know that I will show up if I'm being held accountable by somebody else, even if the goal is completely mine, which is ridiculous, right? If you think about that, this is an important goal to me. But if I have a trainer at the gym,

I will show up at the gym. If I'm going to work out on the machine by myself at the gym, I will not go. I hired a weight loss coach about two months ago to get rid of my pandemic weight because I gained 17 pounds over the pandemic. What was funny was that for basically all of 2021, I was trying to muscle through it on my own. And no matter how much effort I thought that I was putting in, I kept gaining about a pound a month, even despite my best efforts. And in the two months that I've been working with this coach, I've finally lost the first three pounds. Turned in the corner. Yeah, exactly. I went from gaining to losing. And it was a daily check-in phone call with a coach. I mean, it's a 10-minute phone call, but that's what made all the difference.

And I don't want people out there starting out going, oh, well, I need to pay a bunch of coaches. But the importance of having somebody hold you accountable, I think, cannot be underestimated. And do it for each other, you know, hold somebody else accountable and they hold you accountable. I love that idea of having this meeting where neither person says anything. You're just both writing. You're both showing up for the meeting because the other person showed up so you've got to show up too. Exactly. Exactly. So you've got to show up for the meeting. And the task at hand during the meeting is to shut the F up and balance your checkbook. It's so cool. Right? Yeah, that is that is so cool. You mentioned earlier, by the way, the flow state app. I would also just recommend as a philosophy book, the book Flow is fantastic.

Oh, by Mikhail Chiksenk Mejai. Yes, excellent book and a great philosophy. On that note, you ready to go to a second question? Yeah. I suppose at this point we should take a break for a word from our sponsors. And at that point, we will turn to one of Raff's other two questions. Stick around. Fifth Third Bank's commercial payments are fast and efficient, but they're not just fast and efficient.

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But Paula, what are you drinking? I am drinking a... Come on. Carbonated water with a hint of grapefruit juice, orange juice, lemon juice, and hybiscis for color. And it's called? It's called a carbonated water, but it does have a brand name associated with it. It is unsweetened. It is served in a 12-fluid ounce can, also known as 355 milliliters.

I think anyone that's listened to previous episodes of you and I together knows exactly where I'm headed with this. And it's not advertising. It's just damn good. So, yes, I am currently drinking a spindrift. There it is. for the win people, for the win. To prove to you that even, that product placement, even when it is not an ad, is effective. Even when it's on your own show, right?

Joe, for people who are wondering who missed this backstory a few weeks ago, Joe came on the show and did this completely unsolicited, unpaid product placement for spin drift. I didn't even mean to. I just said, hey, I got my spin drift. I'm ready to go. And Paul was like, oh, product placement. I'm like, I didn't even think of it as product placement, but this stuff is good. And the more Paula protested, the more I realized I had to pour salt in that wound.

And power of suggestion, within a couple of days, what did I do? I went out and bought two cases of spin drift. I'm just doing God's work. So hopefully the ads that you just heard were as effective. That's right. But anyway, let's get to Raf. Let's get to one of his two other questions. So he had a financial question and then more of an esoteric, how do you become a thought leader question?

I'm thinking we should probably get to – this can be a life sandwich with finance in the middle. So that first question of his that we answered for the first 30 minutes of the show, that was more of a life question. You know, what tools do you use in order to journal and plan and track your time? That really opened up into a wider lens question. and his third question, the one about being a thought leader, I think is also going to open to a wider lens. So for this middle part of the show, let's go narrow lens. I guess the show would be like an hourglass in that case, hourglass shape. Right.

So let's narrow for the middle of the show. Wait, would that be hourglass? Would it be inverted hourglass? Oh, boy. Would it be? What if we just... What's the thing? What if we just answer it?

You know, the thing that's filled with sand and you turn it over. That's an hourglass, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is an hourglass. Why do both ends narrow in the middle? Yeah, no, I'm correct. I am correct. So this show is going to take the shape of an hourglass.

Oh, boy. A very long hourglass. Thanks for spending an hour just explaining that. I think we'd call it an hour to an hour and a half class. Okay. I crack myself up with that one. Oh, boy. Okay, so Rath, two, you're more narrowly focused.

finance question. The crux of your question was essentially as follows. You currently are a college student. You are going to graduate in less than a year in spring 2022 with a degree in biochemistry. So you'll be making a good income up to $70,000 per year after you graduate. You have no student debt, which is fantastic. And you have a net worth of zero because you are are actively paying for school. As a student, it is awesome to have a net worth of zero. Most students have negative net worth. So the fact that yours is zero is amazing news and already puts you ahead of the game, particularly given that there are fewer scholarships that you're able to apply for, given your resident alien status. And so your question is, should you take the money that you currently have

and invest it, and you suggested reits as a potential investment, so that down the road, you can pull out those investments and pull out that growth that theoretically you would have accumulated and use it to make a final lump sum payment, or should you not? That's one element of your question. The other element of your question is that you want to buy a rental property in the next three to five years. You hope that once you graduate, you'll be able to save a down payment fairly quickly. Do we have any commentary on that? And could those two questions be interlinked? Rath? Short answer. Don't invest that money. Use it to pay cash for school. Graduate in spring

2022 debt-free. Spring 2020 is not that far away. We're talking less than a year. So number one, you don't want to invest anything if your timeline to withdraw is less than a year, because there's going to be a bunch of volatility in that shortened time frame. Number two, even in a perfect world where you did make some money on that investment, how much are you going to make relative to the risk that you would be adopting? Not worth it. The risk-adjusted return, even if you did make returns, would be way out of whack because you're taking on too much risk relative to the level of return that you could make. And I'm 100% on board with that Paula for a completely different reason, which is whichever one that he decided to go with, his money's in the wrong place anyway. Because having

money that he wants for either a down payment or to pay off his school in the short term in a Robin Hood account where I'm guessing if he's, you know, making himself more rich through Robin Hood it means that money's not invested in cash, right? Which if it's for a short-term goal, that's where it should be. So when he talks about putting it into a re-a-a-reed is a phenomenal place for a 10-year goal. It's a horrible place for money that you're going to want for a down payment in a year or two for a house.

So no matter what he uses that money for, that money needs to go to a high-interest savings account. Yep, exactly. And do it now. Don't think about the market, get it out. Things have been great for a long time. So lock that in and get out of school debt-free. Exactly. And, Raf, you are so close to graduating debt-free. That's going to be a huge accomplishment. When you walk that graduation stage, knowing that you don't have a dime of debt to pay back, your whole life is in front of you. Nothing's going to top that.

And that is a, you know, you talked about how small will that return be on that investment anyway? That is a huge return in two ways. Number one is no debt that you got to look back and pay later on. But number two, you can start up. your own podcast where you talked about how you did not get into debt during college. Raff, the fact that you expect to earn between $50,000 to $70,000 straight out of school, your first year out of undergrad, that's huge. That is an amazing starting salary. You're coming out of the gate strong, and there's a high likelihood that that means your salary is only going to continue to increase over the next 10, 15, 20 years for how however long you choose to be in that field, you choose to work.

And so if you can maintain the lifestyle that you have now, if you can live like you're a college student while making between $50,000 to $70,000 plus in the years to come, the gap between those two, that gap between what you earn and what you spend is going to be massive. And then you can just shovel all of that into investments. Not only are you going to save that down payment, that first down payment relatively quickly, you're then going to get the flywheel spinning. You're going to save the second and the third and the fourth, like however many rental properties you want to buy.

I'm confident that with your high salary, so long as you have a commitment to continuing to live like a college student for as long as you can stand it, that is a powerful combination that accelerates your investment contribution rate. and contributions are the single biggest determinant of investment success. I think that's it. I don't think there's anything else to say is my point. Ready for part three? We are ready for part three, but guess what?

We got sponsors. And we need a hear from them. Yeah, you want to? Absolutely. Bring it. Do you have guesses on who the next ones will be? No, but I double dog dare you to do sponsors right now. Ooh, okay, you're on.

We're going to take a break for. One final word from our sponsors. We're going to answer the final piece of Raff's question, which is about how to be known for your ideas in any field. And we'll talk about that regardless of whether you are running your own business, working for a company, or generally want to be recognized for your ideas among your peers in any community or workplace setting. That's coming up next.

It's week two of Canadian tires early Black Friday sale. These prices won't go lower this year. So you're lying on the floor? Save up the 50% November 13th to 20th. Conditions apply, details online. All right, we are back with Rath's third question. And the third question, he asks, do you have any advice for aspiring thought leaders

on how to break into a space and find your voice? I admire your contributions and critical analysis of personal finance. And I'd like to do similar work in the self-care space. First of all, thank you. Just as a little behind the scenes, the reason we decided to go with Rath's three-part question as our sole question for this episode, as well, it's actually twofold. One is the other questions that are currently in our queue relate to investment real estate, and it seemed like too much of a non-sequitur to transition from Raff's questions,

which are much more life planning focused, to the other questions that are currently in the queue, which are much more tactical real estate questions. So that's one of the reasons we made the decision. The other reason that we made this decision is because, Joe, you and I both talked about how this is a broad enough question that there's a lot to unpack. Yeah, there's a ton here. And I don't think it even has to be around thought leadership. I think that even if you're working for someone else and you're asking your boss to consider giving you more money, that you need to learn how to have a position and how to tell the story.

If you're with friends of yours and you're trying to tell them a story about something that happened to you that day and you're just having fun, like being good at telling that story is good. You know, there's this sports guy, Jim Rome, who when people call into the job, Jim Rome show. Jim says, have a take and don't suck. And I think that while that's crude, I think that a lot of thought leadership, my basic feeling is that is I had to figure out what my opinions were and where my, where my, the kind of stakes in the ground are, which is hard, by the way, because one of my

stakes in the ground, Paula, became that I have to have a growth mentality, which means that I don't have that many stakes in the ground. I am willing to be persuaded to have something else come along. And that actually is part of what I consider my thought leadership is that I don't know a ton of stuff. You have strong opinions held weekly. Yeah. And it's much better to have what I believe is a prototype mentality, right? Where I'm constantly trying it out and seeing if it works.

And oh, guess what? That didn't work. And the more things I try, the more I find out that I, I don't know a lot. Like, you know, there's that famous phrase. The more I know, the less I know. Right. Because I realize the depth of knowledge is far, far deeper than what I thought that it was. Right. The more you know, the more you realize how little you know. Same thing, by the way, when it comes to traveling, the more you travel, the more you realize how little you've traveled. You know what? The more I travel, the more I meet people and talk to people from different cultures

and different backgrounds. Also, the more grace and forgiveness I have around other points. of you because I realize just how myopic, this guy who grew up in a little farm town in West Michigan was. That guy being you. Yeah. Thank you. Half the people listening are like, who is this? Who?

Sounds awful. I'm podcasting with Sherlock Holmes here who figured that out. But I think that for any thought leader, I think you have to look at the world and you see these wide range of viewpoints, but you'll notice that much like a kaleidoscope will have all these different colors, but in the center they all come together, that you begin to hear these different voices say some messages that are the same. And then you start building these truths, right? What are the truth in life? And then you work to help spread those truths if you're doing the job that Paula and I do, or you live by those truths.

You know, and one truth that I've had for a long time that I say a lot, and I learn from Stephen Covey is begin with the end of mind, has treated me very, very well. And whenever I think, well, where am I going next? I think, well, where do you want to go? And then begin with that and then build my assets around that position. So I don't know, Paula, how much that varies from what you think. So to me, the keywords in his question, he mentioned critical analysis. Critical analysis must be present in any type of thought leadership.

And again, it doesn't matter if you're a podcaster, an author, if you want to be recognized as an expert at your office or at your school or in any organization that you're involved in. if you want to be seen as a leader who is respected for their ideas, you need to have some pretty damn good ideas. And that means that you can't mimic what everyone else is saying and doing, nor can you be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. So oftentimes I see people who want to become what I will kind of put in air quotes, social. media influencers or internet influencers in the personal finance space, they start websites or they start podcasts or YouTube channels, but they have nothing original to say.

Their message is exactly the same echo chamber message that everyone else is rehashing. The few who can pull that off are the ones who get by on their personality. they can say it in a way that's funny, and that in and of itself is a massive skill. I mean, you've got to be effing smart to be funny. So I have total respect for that. But unless there is something, some combination of personality and skill, such as humor, unless there is something that distinguishes you, you're never going to stand out if all you're doing is rehashing the same unoriginal, cliche aphorisms that everyone else is saying.

And likewise, if you're being contrarian just for its own sake, people will quickly see through that, and they will see through the fact that you cannot support or defend your ideas, and they will leave. And so in order to win in the marketplace of ideas, you need to develop original ideas. And that comes from a lot of reading, a lot of listening, and a lot of interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary thinking.

Some of the best ideas in the world of personal finance or in the world of self-care or in any given genre come from in part adjacent genres and in part completely disparate ones. So if you can draw parallels between finance and the worlds of evolutionary biology, or dating in relationships, or military history, you know, you don't necessarily need to make those connections explicit when you talk to your audience because you don't want to distract people by taking them down this rabbit hole of providing loads and loads of context that distracts from a given insight.

But if you yourself can generate a unique insight into your field by virtue of, number one, knowing your own field very well, and number two, then reading and thinking and interacting broadly with disparate fields, that very much is where original ideas come from. And by the way, for further reading, Adam Grant, who is a professor at Wharton, has a book called Originals, which talks very much about this concept, about how some of the most creative thinkers in fields like science, engineering, technology, develop their insight from activities like guitar or improv. Sure. It's funny because we get inspiration from different places. I'm very much connected to the world of arts and entertainment and artist meets business person,

Austin Cleon, has a very similar discussion where he talks about stealing like an artist and about the fact that the greatest artists are built on the backs of other thoughts. The difference is you have to know enough about your marketplace where you're competing and enough about other areas that you can build a fusion between those two disciplines. But I think there's also another piece to this, which a lot of fresh voices, not only have they studied, but I think it also is looking inward. I think that when you look outward, you have to be able to find the crevices that people aren't talking about yet, where you can add a new voice.

but I think that those are sometimes very narrow crevices that you're working in. I think that when you're a thought leader and you look internally at your own struggle and what's going on with you, that is a fresh blue ocean where you're not copying anybody. Nobody else can get there. It is a wide open world. And I found that when I first entered the financial space. I thought I was going to be the next great person giving tips on the internet to people. And that goes over like a resounding thud.

And it does with me. And it should because it was just, wow, Roth IRA. That's a new thing. Right. Ooh, high yield savings account. Tell me more. Yeah. But when I talk about in the mid-1990s,

when I'm on the side of the road going through the seat cushions to, find 85 cents or some money that I can put in my pocket so I can walk a mile to fill my car full of gas because I'm out of money. I'm out of resources. And oh, by the way, I was coaching other people on how to handle their money at that time. And I'm doing a crappy job. Nobody can steal that story. That story is mine. That is my journey. By the way, you don't want that story. Joe, I'm going to challenge you on that a little bit. It is true that that story is yours and it adds some character, it adds humanity to the voice that we hear in our earbuds when we listen to this podcast. But if that story was all you had and you couldn't then expand from that into

nuance, insight, original ideas, then you would be nothing more than, at best, one of those self-proclaimed gurus who your story is your brand and then you're like a rah-rah motivational speaker, but you don't really have a whole lot of substance behind you. And by the way, I'm not knocking on motivational speakers. The good ones are amazing. I'm talking about the ones without substance. If all you have are some anecdotes, great, you've got character, but your character development hasn't gotten anywhere beyond the backstory. No, I think there's a fusion there, but I do think that there's a second half of this, which you can't be a thought leader if you can't communicate, if you can't share those thoughts. So I don't think it's all just critical thinking skills. I think that there's a for people that have watched this show, this is a fantastic show. The Marvelist Mrs. Maisel is a great show about this woman in the 50s or 60s who decides to become a professional comedian. And her comedy gets better. as she practices it.

And part of it is saying things out loud. It's seeing what people respond to and what they don't. And there's a whole communication aspect, I think, that also has to be acknowledged that Adam Grant and Austin Cleon to talk about those two people, Bernay Brown, Tiffany Aliche, are people who are great at their message because they've learned how to tell that story as well. They have a story, but they also know how to tell that story. And I think the story is an important piece. But you're right.

It has to be a story that connects to critical thinking. In the world of journalism and newspaper reporting, the structure of a story, a newspaper story, is you start with an anecdotal introduction, where the introductory paragraph is a single anecdote. And then you expand to talk about how that one example is illustrative of a bigger concept. So, for example, you might say, when Jennifer Campbell, Anseo graduated from college. She did what society expected of her. She took a job as an accountant, which was befitting her degree in accounting. But something wasn't right. She didn't feel happy, and so she decided to make this dramatic switch. You talk a little bit about her story, and then you expand that into, she is part of a growing trend of people who are opting to take

career detours or are choosing jobs in fields that are wildly different than what they've trained for. And then you go into the research, you go into facts, figures, stats, quotes from researchers. And then at the end of the piece, to provide it with some symmetry, you then close out with a final mention of that same anecdotal intro character. I say that to illustrate, I think, what you've done really well, Joe, where your anecdotal intro might be, yeah, I was the guy who was scrounging for change under the floor mats of my car. so that I could fill up on gas, right? You've got that anecdote. You've got those stories. But then you read the Apple podcast reviews, absolutely no one's talking about your story. They're talking about all of the insight that you bring to every question. Even I quoted you twice at the beginning of this episode. And you're sitting right here. Which is amazing. But like, what was the

first thing that I did at the beginning of this episode? I was like, actually, I'm going to quote Joe. And then I quoted your Michelangelo. No one asks him what paintbrush he? uses. Yeah. Right? I learned that from you. Yeah. I think that comes with practice. So back to Jim Rome, have a take and don't suck, I think is two parts of this, which are have an opinion, have an opinion is grounded in research and facts and a depth of knowledge that also realizes that maybe you don't know everything, but you certainly know enough to have an opinion and to see where the crevice is. But I think for me, the don't suck part is be able to tell that story then in a way, be able to wrap those facts in a story

so that you can communicate. I mean, communication 101. And the thing that we all struggle with is in any message, there is a sender and there's a receiver. And what is, there's noise in the middle, right? So if we can get rid of the noise through effective storytelling, you will get the facts much more succinctly than if I, you know, just bore you with statistics. And it's, As everybody knows, 86.3% of statistics are made up on the spot. Steve, can we get a butem ch? Actually, you know what? I think that deserves a want-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w.

It was right there. I couldn't help it. It was right there. Yes. So, Raff, thank you for your trilogy of questions. Best of luck with your final year of college, with your upcoming graduation, with the fact that you'll be graduating debt-free. That's huge.

Steve, can we get a round of applause for around. It's such a great place to be. Yeah, absolutely. So huge congratulations for all of that. Joe, where can people find you if they would like to hear more about you? Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I do a podcast called The Stacking Benjamin Show, and on Fridays. Paula joins us for some of our hilarity.

I say hilarity, but we have some fantastic guest on. We have some great discussions. Sometimes they're very light. Sometimes they're very deep. You don't know what you're getting, which is. is why we call the show the greatest money show on earth because it is a circus. So every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at stacking benjamins.com. Excellent. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Paula Pantt podcasting with Joe Saul C-Hi. This is the Afford Anything podcast. Please leave us a review

in whatever app you're using to listen to this. And while you're there, make sure that you hit the follow button so you don't miss any of our amazing upcoming episodes. You can find me on Instagram at Paula Pant, P-A-U-L-A, P-A-N-T, and make sure that you share this episode with a friend or a family member if you enjoyed it or if you learned something from it. Thanks so much for being part of this community, and I will catch you in the next episode. Here is an important disclaimer. There's a distinction between financial media and financial advice. Financial media includes everything that you read on the internet, hear on a podcast, see on social media that relates to finance, all of this is financial media. That includes the Afford Anything podcast, this podcast, as well as everything Afford Anything produces. And financial media is not a regulated industry. There are

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